218: Matt Cooper on Fascial Systems, Proprioception and the Human Performance Engine | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

Today’s episode features performance coach and nutritionist, Matt Cooper.  Matt has been a multi-time podcast guest and writer on Just Fly Sports, and trains athletes and individuals out of his gym in Los Angeles, California.  Matt is a bright young coach who has encapsulated many of the training concepts from top coaches, nutritionists, and human performance specialists, into his own system which keeps the athlete operating in proper neurological and fascial harmony. One of the things I’ve really enjoyed observing in the work that Matt is doing is his incorporation of the work pioneered by Marv Marinovich and Jay Schroeder, into his own training design.  The combination of proprioception, reaction, and neurological emphasis is something that creates explosive and adaptive athletes, with a priority on the function of the body, rather than a priority on lifting a barbell max at all costs (and when you respect the nervous system in training, you tend to get improved lifting numbers without the neurological cost that comes from hammering away at bilateral sagittal plane lifts). Recently, a few arenas of training that Matt has been working through that I found particularly intriguing, were his thoughts on training the fascial system, as well as a recent article of his defending proprioceptive training, when we define its role in the training process correctly.  For today’s podcast, Matt talks about the role of the fascial system in human movement, as well as its importance in regards to training in light of exercise selection.  Matt also talks about proprioceptive training, its role in light of the greater training process, and practical exercises for training both the proprioceptive and fascial systems. 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. Timestamps and Main Points 6:15 What training the fascial system means to Matt 16:15 Methods to engage the fascial system appropriately in training 24:45 Reasons that barbell squatting can cause neurological irritants to high-performance athletics over time 37:35 Training movements that can improve tensegrity in the body and fascial function 46:15 How Matt programs Olympic lifting and Keiser/Supercat machines, in respect to the feet and fascial dynamics 53:15 The value of proprioceptive and dynamic balance work in training and performance Podcast Transcripts Email Download New Tab Joel Smith: Welcome to another episode terms like the fascial system and proprioception, I think have a bit of a mystique to them. Training those entities is probably not as directly measurable as doing a 12 week bicep/ tricep arm training program and measuring how much bigger your arm got, or even doing a 12 week squat program and seeing how much your squat run up, or a plyometric program and seeing how much your vertical jump went up. But nonetheless, these are components that feed into a good training program and addressing these elements will allow athletes to see improved outputs. Particularly if we're talking fascial training and proprioception, seeing it in dynamic output. Sprinting, jumping, athletic movement, explosive athletic movement. And I get asked every now and then, what's a good resource for these things. And I think the fact is that there's not a whole lot of solid, readily available material linking these concepts and entities to training. Joel Smith: And so that brings in our guests for the day, which is performance coach and nutritionist, Matt Cooper. Matt's been a multi-time guest on this podcast. He's written a lot of great articles for Just Fly Sports. And Matt is a coach who every time I talk to,