The Adaptable Athlete Podcast

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Adaptable Athlete Podcast , Javi sits down with performance coach Sean Smith , who shares lessons from a unique career that’s spanned elite collegiate volleyball and the high-octane world of IndyCar racing. They dive into what it takes to support athletes across vastly different sports, why curiosity and communication are non-negotiables for great coaching,...

Send us Fan Mail In this Six Minutes of Skill episode, Coach Jav explores the concept of the Challenge Point —both for athletes and coaches. He breaks down how finding the right level of difficulty in training can accelerate skill acquisition, improve decision-making, and better prepare athletes for real-game situations. Key Topics Discussed: ✅ Understanding the Challenge Point and its role in le...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Javi sits down with Jim Haverstrom to explore a fresh approach to youth hockey coaching. Jim explains how his game-based, small-area practices transform the way young players develop skills and decision-making. Rather than isolating techniques, his methods use purposeful, in-game scenarios to build hockey IQ and foster creativity on the ice. He also shares strateg...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Javi sits down with Marianne Davies to explore a fascinating blend of topics, from adventure sports and ecological coaching to the power of language and learning. They dive into how language shapes perception, the unique relationship between teaching and learning, and the role of affordance perception in high-risk environments. Marianne shares her experiences in e...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we dive deep into the transcendent movement skill of Lamar Jackson with special guest Shawn Myszka! In addition to having partnered with 139 NFL athletes and many pro bowlers, Shawn also has been deeply investigating and writing about movement on his website Football Beyond The Stats for over a decade.  Every year Shawn names "Mover of the Year", and thi...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to today's show! Today I'm joined by Brian Neff of US Ski and Snowboard! Brian is an athletic development coach for US Ski and snowboard and specifically works with US Paralympic, Alpine and snowboard athletes. Prior to his current position, Brian has had roles in athletic medicine, strength and conditioning, and sports science across many different universities...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to today's show! Today we are going to be doing another installment of our "6 Minutes of Skill" series.  A series where we dive into a topic related to skill acquisition, in under 6 minutes.  To catch the last installment of this series, click here. Today, we are going to be discussing information. Specifically, what information is present in your training e...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to today’s episode! My guest today is Brian Gilliam Brian works in hockey and has been working in player development for 39 years. He's the owner of Brian Gillum Hockey, which specializes in player and coach development. He is a Hockey Canada skills coach, coach development coordinator with Hockey Eastern Ontario and a Hockey Canada coach developer. n addition to that...

Send us Fan Mail On this episode I'm joined by Dr. Rob Gray! Rob is a multi-time guest on this podcast and is always a fan favorite.  He is truly a giant in the movement community and one of the most knowledgable people around. In this convo, we discuss his latest book Learning to Be an Ecological Coach and what readers can expect to get out of it.  He also answers several  your questions fro...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to today's episode! Today we are kicking off a brand new segment called, "6 minutes of skill" where we dive into a skill related topic in under 6 minutes. These are meant to be very practically driven  This constraint serves 2 purposes:  To challenge me to be concise yet descriptive in my language, and to give you (the listener) a quick and actionable episod...

Send us Fan Mail On this episode, I'll and we answer your skill acquisition questions! We asked you  on social media  to post any burning questions you had and you delivered!  Today, we answer those questions.  Some of the topics we covered include: Affordances - Can 2 athletes need unique solutions to solve the same problem? What about the phrase "let the environment speak first" -...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to today's show! On this episode, we announce our Movement & Skill Acquisition Award Winner!  This is something, we started last year, where we get to honor the best and brightest on the skill acquisition community.  We have categories:  Lifetime achievement award,  practitioner of the year award, and researcher of the year award.   Last year Kieth Davids, Alex Sa...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to today's episode!...My guest today is Stuart Armstrong! Stu is speaker, coach developer, and host of of our favorite podcast, the talent equation Stu has worked as a head of coaching for sport England and , the player development manager for rugby football union and is one of the top experts on skill acquisition. As you could expect with Stu and I, today’s conversat...

Send us Fan Mail On this episode, my guest is Shawn Myszca! Shawn has appeared on this podcast a number of  times and I’ll there will be a link to some of his previous appearances so you can catch up with his work! In my humble opinion, this episode tops all of Shawn’s other appearances! Today, we dive into a recap of Shawn’s work with his NFL athletes. Shawn has been an innovator of using an ecol...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to today's show!..Today, I'm joined by Shawn Myszka! Shawn is the founder of the Sport Movement Skill Conference, which is very relevant for today's topic.  Today we are previewing the 2024 SMSC and telling you why  we are so excited about this year's theme "Show you work"! Mark you calendar for October 4th and 5th and get your tickets here! I...

Send us Fan Mail Today we are going to be taking a deep dive into the importance of the athlete environment relationship and why it's so important in training! In order to do this, we will be revisiting some clips from some of the best clips from previous podcast guests. Today, you will hear clips from the following: Dr. Carl Woods  Dr. Rob Gray Scott Sievwright  In addition to their wisdom,...

Send us Fan Mail On this week's episode, Coach Jav is joined again by Yuji Suzuki!  Yuji joined us during our last episode and in this one, they dive into the topic of deceleration training! The skill of deceleration is an important one for athletes, but it is traditionally trained in a very decontextualized way.  Which is devoid of many of the elements that help skills transfer to the game....

Send us Fan Mail My Guest today is Yuji Suzuki! Yuji works as a chiropractor and a remote coach to help people of all backgrounds overcome obstacles related to their health and fitness. Over the years, his education has shifted his views on how he can be most helpful to someone dealing with pain and injuries, particularly being informed by the updated models of pain and the ecological dynamics fra...

Send us Fan Mail Hey everyone, welcome to today's show! On this episode, we are going to be doing a deep dive on practice design! This is a topic many of you are very interested in and passionate about so I figured we would shine a light on it. To do this, I've compiled some clips from some of my amazing guests that will give you their insights on practice design. In addition to that, I...

Send us Fan Mail My guest for  today’s episode is Dr. Martina Navarro. Martina is a native of Brazil and a senior lecture at the university of Portsmouth in the UK. She received her undergrad from the university of São Paulo in Brazil and her PhD from São Paulo and the university of Amsterdam in Netherlands. Her PhD focused on effects of strategies and high levels of stress and anxiety and human c...

Send us Fan Mail Hey, what’s up everybody welcome to adaptable podcast powered by emergence. I’m your host Coach Jav and thank you so much for joining me today.  My guess today is Ben Franks Ben Franks is a lecturer in applied coaching science at Oxford Brookes University in the UK. Primarily his work is focused on the visual control of movement in sport during interceptive actions. Ben has also c...

Send us Fan Mail My guest today is Jason Watson . Who is Jason? Jason is the head  women’s volleyball coach at  the university  Arkansas women’s volleyball. Prior to that he had successful head coaching stance at my alma mater Arizona State and BYU. What’s unique about Jason is that he is a program builder. He took over a program in Arkansas. That is a major conference in the SEC and had not had a...

Send us Fan Mail My guest for today's episode is Tom Parry! Tom is the head of the kinesiology department at Butler University and received his PhD from Indiana University. His research interests are centered on the application of kinesiology theory and concepts to practitioner-based settings such as therapy, coaching and strength & conditioning. His expertise is in skill acquisition, spo...

Send us Fan Mail On today’s episode, I’m joined by Alex Sarama! Alex  is a 2x guest on the show and appeared on the podcast way back in Episode 33! Since that episode, Alex’s life has changed quite a bit. he found it a company called Transforming Basketball , which is seeking to change the way that basketball is coached. He is also the Director of methodology with London Lyons in England, and also...

Send us Fan Mail On this episode, I'm joined by my guy Tyler Yearby and we answer your skill acquisition questions! We asked you  on social media  to post any burning questions you had heading into the new year and you delivered!  Today, we answer those questions.  Some of the topics we covered include: How Important is it for a coach to have experience playing the sport that they want to coa...