Performance Driven Athlete

Welcome to the Performance Driven Athlete Podcast, where you can join us as we talk about subjects that wil help you unlock your personal human and athletic potential. Our aim is to educate you the listener on everything from living healhty to landing personal bests in the sport of your choice and everything in between. We discuss how to reduce stress, to improving movement quality, to setting PR's to what it takes to look better naked. We have years and years of health and fitness knowledge through personal experience of reaching and changing lives on a daily basis. We broadcast every Thursday from Thunder Valley Fitness in East Tennessee, look us up, come check us out and send us topics and ideas that you would like us to share!

On today's episode Ben and Matt discuss the upcoming 2022 Crossfit Open, including their least  and most favorite workouts. 
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This week Ben and Matt discuss the Hierarchy of Development, particularly sports, and how important it is to fitness. 
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This week Ben and Matt discuss the Ebbs and Flows of fitness, how to stay consistent, and whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas movie. 
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This week Ben and Matt discuss the importance of setting fitness goals and finding motivation for success. 
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This week Ben and Matt discuss their journeys as coaches. They reflect on some of their influences that go into their coaching methods, and how to become a better coach. 
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Ben and Matt discuss the importance of the GPP workout. They talk about improving your athletic ability and increasing your overall strength. 
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On today's episode, Ben and Matt talk gymnastics in its most simple form, which is "moving your body". They discuss gymnastics as it relates to Crossfit, and give you some ideas to help you in your training. 
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The PDA boys interview Greg Taylor about his upcoming adventure where he will bike 11,500 miles which takes him all the way across this great United States of America. Check out all of his links with all the social media for USA Cancer Cycle and be ready for when his journey starts on February 20, 2021. 

Talking about breathing seems counter intuitive, but the reality of it is, there is probably so many of us out there that breath incorrectly. With proper breathing strategies we can improve our fitness, strength and performance and through breathwork we can improve the other end of the spectrum of recovery and speeding up the injury healing process.

The guys talk about in greater detail some of the latest research on what it takes to build muscle and how we are all a little bit different and the old school standard approach of 3 sets per exercise at 8-12 reps might not always be the best approach for stimulating our muscles. 

Just because they are simple, doesn't mean they are easy. The guys from PDA this week talk about small details that you can practice on your own that will help you improve your fitness. They hit a few details when it comes to some weightlifitng movements, focus on the highlights of gymnastics movements for the sport of fitness, and how to learn more about the concept 2 monitor and how that can help your performance. 

If you are looking for a coach or an online training platform to follow. What are some things that you should look for and prioritize in your coach or program. The guys breakdown what they feel are priorities in choosing what or who is a right fit for you. 

Chris and Ben talk about some good strategies when returning to training after injuries or this thing that everyone keeps talking about. The biggest take away is to be patient and do not rush back into high volume high intensity training. 

Tyler is back to join the boys to answer all sorts of questions regarding how to maxmize and optimize your health and fitness during our current life situation. Questions range from immune system, what are you doing with your extra time, calorie intake for different stages of life, eating while pregnant, bcaa's, and even thoughts on the Tiger King.

When we see what our workout of the day is, a series of thoughts will go thorugh our mind, ranging from; my tweak or injury won't allow this, I'm pretty sure I'm unable to complete the task at hand, I can't do that Rx weight or movement, or that looks dumb or boring or I really just don't like any of those movements. These are all natural reactions and we won't to take this approach of how you can still get the best out of your workout if any of these thoughts manifest them self in your mind. 

Episode 17 (or 18?????)
Chris & Ben discuss all of the various options for getting your fitness on while you are traveling. Whether you are traveling for work or pleasure and you feel you must get a workout in, but don't want to find the local gym, box or don't feel like going out for a run, The PDA coaches have a plan of attack for you. There are quick and easy tips you can do without equipment or even some small pieces of equipment that can easily fit in a suitcase or travel bag. 

And to finish off the POD Chris & Ben bring home some topics of conversation on protein strategies. They found an article that made an argument about protein pre-workout and the boys break down why they would go protein after and what strategies you can take before a workout and ratios of protein post workout. 

Burnout can set training back for an undetermined time period. It can be caused by a multitude of reason, but with a little self awareness and understanding of your body and the stress that plays a role in life and in training, you can fight off burnout. But it won't be easy. We outline some of the action oriented steps in order to get back to training, or making sure you don't suffer from burnout during your current training regimen. 

There are a ton of different nutritional philosophies out there, as well as fad diets, and other plans and strategies. Each of them have their own pros and cons, followed up with a lot of misleading information. Each one of these strategies should match with your lifestyle and match with your training, as well as have some sustainablity. Tyler helps filter through much of the misinformation with a lot of the top nutrtion trends. There is no one size fits all in fitness or nutrition, leading us to try and find the best fit for us, our goals and our needs. 

Chris & Ben discuss all the reasons why you should prioritize your warm up. And how to approach a warm up if you are short on time or have some extra time. They lay out a guideline for what should be included in your warm up and how to best maximize the time based on what you need and how to make the warm up task specific.