Just Fly Performance Podcast

In this solo episode, Joel Smith explores the principles of programming for speed and power training. Drawing from his own evolution as an athlete and coach, he discusses early influences like high-volume jump programs, Soviet-inspired plyometrics, and classic periodization models. Joel outlines five key programming systems: high-low structure, potentiation sequencing, weekly changeovers, factorization, and autoregulation, while highlighting common mistakes such as excessive volume, overemphasis on one training variable, and over-programming. He emphasizes balancing speed, strength, and capacity, keeping systems simple, and using tools like AI as a thinking partner rather than a replacement for coaching intuition.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Hammer Strength.

Use the code “justfly20” for 20% off any Lila Exogen wearable resistance training, including the popular Exogen Calf Sleeves. For this offer, head to Lilateam.com

Use code “justfly10” for 10% off the Vert Trainer



View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. (https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-home/)



Timestamps
3:30 – Early Training Influences
18:50 – The Big Three: Speed, Strength, Capacity
22:25 – System 1: The High-Low System
31:14 – System 2: Potentiation-Based Training
33:38 – System 3: Australian Jumps & Factorization
38:53 – System 4: Bondarchuk’s Pyramid of Abilities
43:24 – System 5: Triphasic & Wave Loading
49:00 – Programming Mistakes
57:25 – Principles that Work
1:06:31 – Using AI as a Programming Sparring Partner



Joel Smith Quotes
"We have to zoom out and look at that more slow-cooked, patient, or planned process to get the big picture of things."

"Training is not just going out and doing skills; it is doing a set structure over a set of time."

"We should understand what it's like to have that high-end training day and how long it takes to recover from it because a lot of training setups don't really account for that."

"How do you know which of those stakeholders is really, if we look to the 80-20 principle, 20% of the program being 80% of the neural stimulus? How do we know how that thing is contributing?"

"To maximally simplify any training process, we want to achieve a polarization."

"Doing those easy days really well is one of the pieces of the art of coaching that's not talked about so much."

"The system of an athlete is an amazing thing; it can adapt to the simplest thing. That's actually what makes humans and training and adaptability pretty cool, we don't need that much complexity to adapt."

"Do simple better. It's an important place to start and remind ourselves."

"With aggressive programs, use them strategically, not permanently."

"Don't live inside one system. I think it's valuable to have a few tools in the toolkit with the systems you're familiar with, so you know when and how to use them."

"Make [AI] a sparring partner, challenge your thinking. If you can use it as play and challenge, don't let it do your thinking for you."



About Joel Smith
Joel Smith is the founder of Just Fly Sports and host of the Just Fly Performance Podcast, one of the leading podcasts in strength and conditioning and track and field coaching. A former collegiate strength and track coach, Joel has spent over a decade studying speed, power, and human movement. He is the author of multiple books and online courses on sprinting, jumping, and elastic training, and works with athletes and coaches around the world to develop more powerful and creative approaches to training.

Tyler Franklin is a strength and conditioning coach and physical education instructor based in Murray, Kentucky. He works with athletes to develop strength, speed, and resilient movement through practical training methods. Tyler is also the founder of Feed the Dogs, a platform dedicated to sharing ideas on athletic development and performance.

On today’s episode, Tyler discusses building speed, intent, and athleticism through creative training environments. He shares how chase games, partner drills, and simple tools can drive higher effort and engagement than traditional drills alone. The conversation also explores balancing “fun and boring” training elements, teaching discipline through conditioning, and the philosophy behind Tyler’s Feed the Dogs approach; training athletes to be both fast and well-prepared for life beyond sport.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Hammer Strength.

Use the code “justfly20” for 20% off any Lila Exogen wearable resistance training, including the popular Exogen Calf Sleeves. For this offer, head to Lilateam.com

Use code “justfly10” for 10% off the Vert Trainer





View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. (https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-home/)



Timestamps
0:28 – Journey in Physical Education
3:29 – The Music Connection
10:28 – The Art of Intent
14:12 – The Spectrum of Training
21:27 – Competitive Spirits in Class
26:36 – Embracing Fatigue as a Teacher
48:08 – The Art of Boring Workouts
50:20 – Feed the Dogs Philosophy
58:17 – Mixing Conditioning with Fun



Tyler Franklin Quotes
"Don't be a molded strawberry... let's meet the standard, let's infect others with good vibes, and don't bring someone down to your level."

"I finally had come to terms with I am a physical education teacher and I need to start incorporating some of this stuff because kids love it."

"The warmups for our sprints, it doesn't have to be so rigid and it's a perfect time to explore with some of the stuff we're doing."

"We still time all that stuff to just reinforce that what we're doing is working. You've gained weight. You're running the same speed, but you've gained 20 pounds. Those are all PRs in my mind."

"Don't ever stop doing athletic things. Don't stop sprinting, jumping. Because if you do, it's going to be a bugaboo to get back."

"I'm all about doing hard things... you're going to do it and you're going to compete and it's going to be fun and then you'll realize it wasn't that bad."

"Once you put the work in, I think that's a big factor of it is you got to kind of disassociate and just go out there and perform... The amount of hours that those guys put in, I think that's a huge thing is just go perform. Don't be the gold medal guy, just go do it."



About Tyler Franklin
Tyler Franklin is a strength and conditioning coach and physical education instructor based in Murray, Kentucky. Through his work with athletes and students, he focuses on building strength, speed, work capacity and resilient movement patterns that support long-term athletic development. Tyler blends foundational strength training with athletic skill work, emphasizing quality movement and practical methods that translate directly to sport. He is also the founder of Feed the Dogs, working a balance of important qualities in athletes.

Today’s guest is Vern Gambetta. Vern is a world-renowned sports performance coach with over 50 years of experience across Olympic, professional, and collegiate sport. A pioneer in modern athletic development, he’s known for blending movement skill, strength, and long-term athlete development into a practical, coach-driven system.

The more coaching and training leans into data points, KPI’s, rigid standards and an overly specialized model, the more true athleticism, movement and skill development gets choked out. By understanding all aspects of the athletic movement equation, we can give athletes a better total experience in their sport and movement practices.

In this episode, Vern leans into his wisdom for a wide-ranging conversation on movement, skill, and the art of coaching. With over 50 years of experience across Olympic and professional sport, Vern shares insights on functional training, sport specificity, plyometrics, rhythm, and why skill expression, not rigid technical models, drives true performance. From jump rope to the dot drill to developing movement “signatures,” this episode is a masterclass in coaching the athlete in front of you.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Hammer Strength and the Just Fly Sports Online Courses

Use code “justfly10” for 10% off the Vert Trainer

Use code “justfly20” for 20% off of LILA Exogen Wearable resistance gear at www.lilateam.com



View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. (https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-home/)



Timestamps
3:00 – The Birth of Functional Training
10:39 – The Nature of Fascia
15:33 – Training Spectrum
28:16 – General vs. Specific Movements
38:00 – The Art of Movement
49:31 – Rhythm and Movement
55:15 – Plyometric Training Perspectives
59:50 – The Role of Technology
1:13:16 – Sketching Athletic Sequences



About Vern Gambetta
Vern Gambetta is a pioneering sports performance coach, educator, and author widely recognized as one of the foundational voices in modern athletic development. With more than five decades of coaching experience, Gambetta has worked across track & field, baseball, swimming, cricket, soccer, basketball, and rugby at youth, collegiate, professional, and Olympic levels.

A former track and field coach and longtime advocate for holistic athlete development, Gambetta helped popularize the concept of “functional training” in the 1980s, while consistently emphasizing that training must serve the demands of sport, not marketing trends. His work integrates biomechanics, skill acquisition, rhythm and movement literacy, strength training, and long-term athletic development into a unified system.

Gambetta has coached at the Olympic level, worked in Major League Baseball, and served as a consultant to professional teams worldwide. He is the author of multiple books, including Athletic Development and Building the Complete Athlete, and is a sought-after international speaker known for blending science, experience, and practical coaching wisdom.

Above all, Gambetta advocates coaching the athlete in front of you, prioritizing movement quality, adaptability, and lifelong development over rigid systems or trends.

Today’s guest is Dan Cleather. Dan Cleather is a sport scientist, author, and lecturer specializing in biomechanics and strength training. He has worked across elite sport and higher education, helping coaches apply research to real-world performance. Dan is the author of The Little Black Book of Training Wisdom and The Little Blue Book of Training Wisdom, known for challenging conventional ideas and promoting evidence-informed coaching.

If you search the internet for training methods and advice, you’ll invariably get a “do this, not that” mentality woven in your brain. The mark of true progress over time, and reaching athletic potential, is more about principles and management than it is picking all the “S-Tier” exercises. Being able to balance paradoxes, hone belief, refine movement and hone the dance of capacity and output defines the training of elite athletes and Olympians.

In this episode, Dan discusses everything from developing exercise devices for astronauts in microgravity to the deeper philosophy of how performance truly evolves. We discuss Easy Strength, capacity versus skill development, fatigue as a motor learning constraint, and why adaptation is something we cultivate rather than force. The conversation weaves biomechanics, Tai Chi, Olympic lifting, and the yin-yang rhythm of training into a broader theme: great coaching isn’t about imposing perfection, but creating environments where flow, resilience, and high performance can naturally emerge.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Hammer Strength.

Use the code “justfly20” for 20% off any Lila Exogen wearable resistance training, including the popular Exogen Calf Sleeves. For this offer, head to Lilateam.com

Use code “justfly10” for 10% off the Vert Trainer



View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. (https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-home/)



Timestamps
0:00 – Researching Exercise Countermeasures for Microgravity
2:51 – Recent Publications and the Learning Process of Writing
8:01 – The Science of Change and the Hierarchy of Coaching Skills
12:39 – Lessons Learned from Applying the Easy Strength Method
22:06 – Balancing Skill Building and Capacity Building in Strength Training
32:28 – The Benefits of Traditional Tai Chi Conditioning and Static Holds
45:22 – Historical Wisdom and Experiential Learning in Performance
1:02:15 – Leveraging Fatigue and Constraints for Relaxation and Flow
1:13:59 – The Yin and Yang of Accumulation and Intensification in Training
1:21:06 – Viewing Training as a Sustained Conversation with the Body



About Dan Cleather
Dan Cleather is a sport scientist, author, and lecturer specializing in biomechanics, strength and conditioning, and performance analysis. With a background in both applied coaching and academic research, Dan has worked extensively in elite sport and higher education, bridging the gap between theory and practice. He is the author of The Little Black Book of Training Wisdom and The Little Blue Book of Training Wisdom, where he challenges conventional thinking and promotes evidence-informed coaching. Dan is known for his clear, analytical approach to training science and his ability to translate complex biomechanics into practical strategies for coaches and athletes. Zac currently treats clients and consults internationally, while continuing to produce educational resources aimed at elevating the standard of movement practice in both clinical and performance settings.

Today’s guest is Zac Cupples, PT, DPT, OCS, CSCS, a physical therapist and strength coach known for bridging rehabilitation and performance. He’s the founder of ZacCupples.com and is respected for translating complex concepts around respiration and movement mechanics into practical tools coaches and clinicians can immediately apply to improve efficiency, reduce pain, and enhance performance.

The bridge between sports performance rehab is an important one. In the midst of movement mechanics that drive good rehab, and high intensity lifting, lies the knowledge that can help athletes make continual gains while staying robust and healthy for their sport.

On today’s show, Zac explores how an athlete’s structure influences movement, strength training, and even injury risk. He shares his track background and how it shaped his coaching, then unpacks concepts like narrow vs. wide “ISA” builds, why some athletes struggle to feel their hamstrings in traditional lifts, and how tools like front loading, box squats, machines, and sprinting can solve it. He also digs into long-duration isometrics, mobility vs. flexibility, and finishes with a fun lightning round.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Hammer Strength.

Use the code “justfly20” for 20% off any Lila Exogen wearable resistance training, including the popular Exogen Calf Sleeves. For this offer, head to Lilateam.com

Use code “justfly10” for 10% off the Vert Trainer



View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. (https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-home/)



Timestamps
1:23 – Early Athletic Experiences
5:36 – Muscle Activation Challenges
11:22 – Structural Constraints and Movement
25:17 – Rethinking Traditional Strength Training
29:17 – The Role of Machines in Training
36:54 – Weight Shifts and Mechanics
40:45 – Long Hold Activities in Rehab
53:21 – Internal vs. External Rotation
59:27 – Flexibility vs. Mobility
1:07:06 – Lightning Round Questions
1:14:04 – Future Plans and Coaching Focus



Zac Cupples Quotes
"You got to preserve moving fast because that's how you catch yourself from falling."

"It assumes everyone has the same body but no two people are going to perform both of those movements the same way, and it's not going to load the same way."

"I start the majority of people with a box squat, because the way I think about a hinge is it's different from a squat because the hips are going to be moving more along that horizontal path."

"It's way more useful to think, am I moving up and down? Am I moving side to side? And then just pick exercises within what a person has available."

"If someone can't produce certain rotations, and I know that you need those rotations to do this movement, you probably got to find something else to train that pattern within their constraints."

"You just have to find the hinge variation that they can execute. And if they don't have much to do that, you have to create constraints."



About Zac Cupples
Zac Cupples, PT, DPT, OCS, CSCS is a physical therapist, strength coach, and educator specializing in human movement, respiration, and performance optimization. He is the founder of ZacCupples.com and has become widely known for translating complex biomechanical and neurophysiological concepts into practical strategies that clinicians and coaches can immediately apply.

Zac earned his Doctorate in Physical Therapy from Marquette University and is board certified as an Orthopedic Clinical Specialist. He has completed extensive post-graduate education through the Postural Restoration Institute (PRI) and integrates principles of respiration, pelvic mechanics, thoracic positioning, and neuromuscular control into both rehabilitation and performance training.

Through his online courses, seminars, and educational content, Zac has influenced thousands of clinicians and coaches worldwide. His work bridges the gap between rehab and high performance, helping athletes move more efficiently, reduce pain, and unlock higher levels of strength and speed through better positional awareness and strategic breathing.

Zac currently treats clients and consults internationally, while continuing to produce educational resources aimed at elevating the standard of movement practice in both clinical and performance settings.