The Sam Portland Podcast

Why Your Conditioning Is Ruining Your Speed | Conditioning for Rugby, Football and Team Sports. If your conditioning program is making athletes slower, reducing acceleration, and hurting sprint performance, this video explains why conditioning and speed training often conflict in rugby, football, and team sports. Most coaches think:More fatigue = more fitness. But that’s often the exact reason ath...

Speed Training for Team Sports starts by understanding Speed Age. In this video, I explain why athletes should NOT all sprint the same way and how to build better speed training programs using the Sports Speed System. Most coaches progress strength training correctly…But when sprint training starts:Everyone gets the same sledsEveryone runs fastEveryone gets the same drillsAnd eventually progress s...

Dean Faithful went from playing football around the world to becoming a professional American football kicker in his mid-30s. In this episode, we talk about his journey from soccer to American football, learning to kick during lockdown, getting a scholarship in the US, being drafted into the CFL, and hitting a game-winning kick in front of 35,000 fans. We also get into the mindset behind late-care...

This off-season, many rugby players make common errors in their preparation. This video addresses why typical off-season programs fail, often relying on general fitness instead of targeted rugby speed and speed and power development. We break down the critical mistakes and offer solutions to help you run faster where it counts, ensuring effective rugby strength training and conditioning for the up...

Coaching business success starts when you stop selling sessions and start selling outcomes. In this video, I break down why selling sessions keeps coaches underpaid, how to build a coaching business, and how to create structured offers that scale beyond time for money. Most coaches are stuck because they charge per session instead of building a system. 0:00 Why selling sessions keeps coaches stuck...

Coaching business architecture starts by fixing the mistake that keeps great coaches underpaid. In this video, I break down coaching business, coach education, and career structure so coaches can stop selling time, build better offers, and create a real career instead of just another job. Most coaches are not underpaid because they are bad at coaching. They are underpaid because they built a job i...

Coach education for strength and conditioning coaches starts with better questions, better motor learning, and better transfer of training. In this podcast, Jeff Moyer and I break down play, neurology, athletic development, and why modern S&C often takes itself too seriously. This is a coach-to-coach conversation on: • Why play still matters in high-performance sport • What most strength coach...

Most private coaches do not plateau because they are lazy. They plateau because the business model they inherited was built with a ceiling. In this Sports Speed Insider training, I break down exactly why so many competent coaches stay stuck between £2K and £4K months — even when they are smart, hardworking, and genuinely great at coaching. This is not a knowledge problem. It is not a motivation pr...

Most coaches use the same lifts, the same drills, and the same sprint work… yet their athletes still fail to develop real, transferable speed. The problem isn’t effort. It’s a lack of exercise classification for sprinting. In this Sports Speed Insider session, Sam breaks down why most speed programs stall, how adaptive reserve dictates what athletes can tolerate, and why learning to sprint must co...

Most coaches want to help female athletes… but a lot of the advice being pushed right now is fear-based, trendy, and honestly… backwards. In this episode, I sit down with Erica (Fit Soccer Queen) to talk about what actually matters in female athlete development: high performance first, real strength & plyometric progressions, smarter youth training, and why “training around the menstrual cycle...

Most coaches don’t fail because they lack knowledge. They fail because they’re stuck trading time for money. In this episode of the Sam Portland Podcast, I break down why so many coaches stay overworked, underpaid, and burned out — even when they’re great at their job — and how to build systems that scale without working more hours. I share: • The exact mistakes coaches make with time, systems, an...

Most coaches have been told that overspeed training is dangerous, advanced, or something you should avoid at all costs. That belief is wrong. In this episode, Sam Portland breaks down overspeed training from first principles and shows you how to use it safely, progressively, and effectively inside a real team sport speed system. You’ll learn: • Why overspeed sprinting has been misunderstood for ye...

Strength and conditioning coaching in high-performance sport isn’t what most people think. In this episode, we break down coaching careers, burnout, player welfare, and what it really takes to survive in professional sport. This conversation is for coaches who feel stuck, frustrated, or conflicted inside the system — and want a better way forward. We cover: • The reality of strength and conditioni...

Why do pro footballers work with coaches outside their club… and what are they actually paying for? In this episode, we unpack how remote performance coaching works in the real world: trust, individualisation, load management, and the data that actually drives decisions. If you’ve ever wondered how coaches support players across different clubs, countries, and fixture schedules, this is the behind...

Welcome back to the Sam Portland Podcast, where we go beyond surface-level programming and break down how speed is actually developed. In this episode, we build on last week’s discussion around adaptation and intensity and introduce a critical (and often misunderstood) concept: Conjugate Sequencing. Most coaches struggle with one core problem: 👉 How do you progress intensity without destroying at...

Welcome back to another solo podcast where we strip away the noise and get to the truth about adaptation, intensity, and real speed development . In today’s episode, we unpack one of the BIGGEST reasons athletes fail to get faster: 👉 Trying to engineer specific outcomes with non-specific training. Coaches everywhere fall into the trap of: Over-analysing general strength work Over-emphasising exer...

In this episode, Sam sits down with elite speed coach and former US Army Ranger Jud Linhard for one of the most raw, insightful conversations ever recorded on speed training, coaching, coiling, athletic development and the realities of performance. From inappropriate posters in rugby gyms to elite military preparation, biomechanics, rotational forces, coiling, speed skill development, and the trut...

Confused coaches create confused clients — and confused clients don’t buy. This episode breaks down EXACTLY how to build a coaching business that is clear, scalable and flexible in the new 2025 landscape. Strength & Conditioning has changed forever. Gym culture has exploded, performance training is mainstream, and more S&C coaches are stepping into business, consulting, remote coaching and...

In today’s episode, Sam sits down with Dorothy Hummel, one of the most advanced human performance practitioners in the world — specialising in neurogenetics, biochemistry, neurochemistry, behaviour, and brain-body performance integration. Most coaches focus on strength, conditioning, marginal gains, recovery tools, or mental skills — but Dorothy reveals why none of it works optimally unless you un...

In this explosive episode, Sam Portland sits down with Chris Mattice — performance coach, neuroscientist, mentor and business strategist — to unpack the real reasons coaches stay stuck, broke, burnt out, or doubting themselves. This is not another “programming chat.” This is the truth behind your identity as a coach , how your brain actually works, and the invisible patterns that run your career,...

In this Sports Speed Insider, we go inside the drill stack and show you how to coach transfer , not just exercises. You’ll learn how to identify key movements (à la Verkhoshansky), link them to body links and movement patterns , and apply Learn–Load–Execute so skill actually survives complexity . What you’ll learn How to pick the segment closest to the centre of mass (hip extension first). Turning...

From the Pro12 to personal training to becoming one of the biggest rugby creators online — this is the story of how Ben John turned retirement into a movement. In this episode of The Sound Important Podcast , Sam Portland sits down with Ben John (The Rugby Trainer) to break down how he went from professional rugby player to building one of the most influential skill coaching brands in sport. Ben s...

Most coaches charge too little. And it’s killing you — your business, your energy, your confidence. In this episode, Sam Portland lays out the brutal truth about money, pricing, and self-worth in the strength & conditioning industry. If you’ve ever been told “you’re not in it for the money,” or if you feel guilty raising your rates — this is the episode that will free you. Sam shares how he we...

How do you fit world-class speed training into a chaotic team sport schedule? In this Sport Speed Insider episode, Sam Portland breaks down the daily dosing strategy for applying The Sports Speed System inside real-world team environments — whether you’re part-time with two field sessions a week or working full-time in pro sport. Learn how to use motor control, power output, and tactical integrati...

Most people fear change. Former rugby player and fitness entrepreneur Dave Birtwistle has made it his life’s habit. From the pitch to Too Hot To Handle on Netflix to studying an MBA at Imperial College London, Dave shares the unfiltered truth about reinvention, ego death, and sustainable growth — in sport, business, and life. We talk about: 🔥 The ego death that comes with leaving pro sport 🔥 The...