Today’s episode features the first in-person recording of the Just Fly Performance podcast with Stanford University basketball strength coach, Cory Schlesinger.  

Cory’s combination of creativity and intuition makes him one of the most unique strength coaches I know, and his passion for the proper physical development of his players shines through in the many podcasts he has been on in the past.  He has a decade of experience as a strength coach, and is in his third year as the sports performance coach for the Stanford University’s Men’s Basketball team.  He also works with NBA and NFL players along with currently preparing athletes for the 2020 Olympic Games.  

I’ve known Cory for a little while now, and have wanted to have him on the show for a while, but I felt it would do the most justice to be able to actually sit down in person and record a show, so this marks the first in-person recorded episode of the Just Fly Performance Podcast.  

Cory’s methodology in the weightroom resembles, to me, the art of a master craftsman, who has a myriad of tools for a variety of purposes.  Where some coaches only have a hammer, Cory has the whole set of hammers and then some. The way Cory creatively and intuitively can determine what his athletes need in the gym, instead of what he himself as a coach wants to see is what sets Cory apart in this field.

Today on the show Cory and I talk about how to make a true athlete driven training system, and then what it really means to be an athlete and train for it.  This episode is also packed with common sense ideas that the modern strength coach can use to better serve athletes.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.  



View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.






Key Points

How Cory sees the creation of an athletic qualities in the weightroom
How Cory structures each workout for his basketball players
How the strength coach fits in a true “high performance” sport mastery system
How to manage athletic performance in light of moving well/absorbing and releasing force/etc.
The importance of understanding martial arts in context of coaching athletes
How to “athletically” build an NBA body in context of good human movement patterns
Cody’s advice on honing creativity in coaching





“Our training program is athlete driven, I give the the power of choice”

“I give them the category; their needs and their preferences are what drives the results”

“Guys are PR’ing in all of their lifts as we go through season, because I’m not putting an emphasis on it and our frequency is so high”

“Once you’ve adapted to those adaptable things (college practice schedule, introducing games, being in college for the first time) then let’s start adding volume in the weightroom"

“At the end of the day, it’s about the athletes, if they got the gold, it doesn’t matter what training program they are on, they got the gold”

“If you are just going to be the weightroom guy, don’t be talking about salaries…. because that doesn’t determine success… you gotta find value in other ways”

“I have to give (my tall players living in a short world) their childhood development back”

“If you are talking about building better athletes, make them better humans first, and then they’ll be better athletes because they’ll be able to express”

“What do you think chronic, heavy lifting is going to do, it’s all braking! Just imagine how good strength coaches would be if they took what the body already came with, and just make that better!”

“(Regarding muscle hypertrophy) If you take a weak athlete and you introduce them to general movement patterns and then you generally load it, mass comes”

“How I sneak in a lot of volume is… chins and dips.  A lot of these guys can get great hypertrophy through bodyweight movements”