Today’s podcast features USA Football senior manager of education and training, Andy Ryland.  Andy has been with USA Football since 2010, has consulted with programs at every level of competition, and is widely recognized as a foremost expert on developing the fundamentals necessary for a successful shoulder tackle, as well as the developmental, and skill building process for athletes. He previously appeared on episode 170 speaking on a “humans first”, “athletes second”, “specialists third” approach to athlete development.

In the process of developing athletes, it is easy to compartmentalize training components, ultimately to a fault in the overall process.  If we are working in a sport or skill building capacity with athletes, we should have a basic understanding of their physical capacities and capabilities, as well as how training adaptation and specificity work.  If we are working on strength and more base level movement components with athletes, we should have a handle on their needed skills and tactics on the field.  Ultimately, the more situations we can coach in, the more ages, and sports we work with, the better our overall intuition gets on the process of teaching skills, and guiding athletes to their highest potential.

Andy Ryland has a deep understanding the developmental process that players need to succeed in their sport.  On today’s episode, Andy digs into key points on the art of athletic skill building.  A primary part of this is how he runs the “whole-part-whole” system, which can be adapted to more global, or strength based skills.  Andy discussing how to integrate “prescriptive extra’s”, or “work-on’s”, as well as micro skill development in sport and S&C.  He also covers key aspects of improving agility, teaching concepts in athletics, creativity in coaching,

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Timestamps and Main Points
3:54 – The original “failed” games in American Gladiators, and the evolution of “powerball” into what it eventually became

8:57 – Andy’s take on practice plans, creativity, intuition and thoughts on changing the practice plan

17:53 – Thoughts on mixing in various micro-doses of skill and movement into gym-based training

28:06 – Alternating between working the “outer game” of more external strategizing, or outputs, and the “inner game” of the subtle nuance of skill performance, in training

34:53 – The integration of roughhousing into youth football

43:29 – How to use a game-based iterations of a drill, to better prepare for the actual skill execution

48:09 – The need for constant 1 on 1s, tracking and evasion-based work in sport, and how it’s not typically trained enough in sport

52:58 – The role of the “instant activity”, or “welcome game” in a sport practice or training situation

58:10 – The maximal “line length” Andy sees being viable in sport/skill practice



Andy Ryland Quotes
“I’m a huge whole-part-whole guy.  I’ll be the first to tell you, the part aspect is never scripted”

“If our arms are terrible, if our legs are terrible, if our strike accuracy is terrible, that’s going to be our “part” (in whole-part-whole)”

“If I’m doing a good job, my coaching intervention “part” aspect is not going to be some super stereotyped, copy and paste drill that’s been done since the dawn of time.  It’s who are my athletes, what are they struggling, what is the situation where they struggle, and how can I replicate that before going back into the whole thing”

“My mentor Richie Grays, worked in professional international rugby for ages,