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. Enjoy the episode!

This week Ben and Matt discuss the Hierarchy of Development, particularly sports, and how important it is to fitness. Enjoy the episode!

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. Enjoy the episode!

This week Ben and Matt discuss the importance of setting fitness goals and finding motivation for success. If you enjoyed the episode please drop a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts!Thanks, and enjoy the episode!

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. Enjoy the Episode

Ben and Matt discuss the importance of the GPP workout. They talk about improving your athletic ability and increasing your overall strength. Enjoy the episode!

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. Enjoy the episode!

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.

As soon as you walk into the gym to you go straight for the PVC pipe, foam roller or lacrosse ball? For you, that might be the last thng you need. The workout and your movement quality should dictate if you go that route or not. And being sore isn't the best indicator to grab for those tools either. Blood flow and muscle activation or 2 of the most important components of a warm up, and even though the good old SMR might feel good, it might be the last thing that you need to properly prepare yourself. Learn the ins and outs of what goes into a workout and what the proper warm up protocol for yourself might be.

Chris & Ben talk about the mental side of training/competing before, during, and after workout sessions. When is it time to go, when is it time to pace. It's about writing your own personal training or competing narrative about what to acheive from your session.

Chris talks about his own experiences and experiements with intermittent fasting and the health benefits. Chris also discuess who it might benefit and how to approach the different ways of fasting. Ben discusses some of the minor differences in what elite CrossFit athletes and the average athlete pursuing general fitness and health improvements in their workouts.

Chris & Ben dive into the concept of pain, and how pain can be a good thing. Pain is normally perceived as a bad thing, but when using some self awareness and understanding the process to return to regular training, we can speed the process up of getting back to a regular program with no modifications.

Today Chris and Ben answer some questions of the listeners that cover jump ropes for CrossFit, use of belts, knee sleeves, gymnastics grips and competition game day nutrition

Chris & Ben dive into the negatives of sleep debt and deprivation and give some sleep rituals that can improve the quality of your sleep. They even get into some lifestyle approaches and habits that have the possibility of improving your sleeping habits. Call them hacks, call them habits, but there are some things you can do right now to improve your fitness, body composition all through some sleep rituals. These start at your daily routines and lead into you sleep sanctuary and how to capitalize on your money time.

There's a lot of talk about nutrition out there, and a lot of us are mislead but the vast array of nutrtion information. Tyler Minton joins Performance Driven Athlete to talk about his career in the field of health and fitness and breakdown his stance on nutrition as he uses food to help the average joe and the elite of the UFC to acheive their own personal goals. He filters through the difference of eating for performance, aesthetics and health.

Chris and Ben dive into the ideas of body composition, how it is relatvie to the individual, what is seen as healthy and ideal in the industry and country, and proper ways to look at body composition changes through fitness. Nutrition plays a key role in the purusit of health and body changes, but we will save that for another episode.

FOMOS - fear of missing out on success. We have our own persoanl expectations that often are not realistic or attainable and how we manage our emotions after these expectations is crucial in our development as a human being not just as an athlete. We want to use some tools that cognitive behavioral therapists use in order to overcome these personal roadblocks in order to have a better definition of success. Currently most of us have the ability to define our failures much better than we can define our successes.