Warm ups and cool downs; maximising our impact as coaches with Rett Larson (Strength & Conditioning Coach at German Women’s Volleyball Team)

This week’s guest on the Pacey Performance Podcast is Rett Larson, strength and conditioning coach for the German women’s national volleyball team. He’s previously coached the Dutch and Chinese women’s volleyball teams, and worked for EXOS Athlete Performance for seven years. Prior to that, he learned his trade coaching younger athletes in strength training between the ages of 8 and 18 in Southern California.

Rett’s here to talk about warming up, cooling down, and why it can pay to coach younger athletes before moving on to adult-aged coaching. As well as the benefits of experience, coaches can really see how to engage with a group and notice the smaller performance details. With warming up, Rett is an expert in this field gives key advice on how to design effective warm ups, structure sessions, and why keeping things ‘messy’ can be more beneficial.

Rett also discusses cool downs, again discussing how to structure such sessions, keep the coach’s own ego in check relating to athletes’ attitude towards them, and how to maintain attention once the main training session is over. He also provides some bonus advice on percussive therapy devices, and the ones he uses. To learn all this and much more, hit the play button now.

This week’s topics:

• The benefits of coaching younger athletes before moving on to adults
• How Rett became the ‘warm-up’ guy
• The key to coaching effective warm-ups
• Why we need to warm-up
• Why coaches can keep warm-ups ‘messy’ rather than robotic
• How to structure warm-up sessions
• Ensuring flexibility through effective stretching
• Were stretching bands and activation exercises just a fad?
• Rett’s advice on cool-downs
• Percussive therapy devices, and the ones Rett uses