Million Dollar Advice for Ultimate Players

Imagine someone agreed to pay me a million bucks IF I trained them through a season completely injury-free…

Here are 7 things I’d tell them:

1. Nothing is guaranteed.

No matter what, you can’t fully prevent pain or injuries, but you can give yourself a great chance at feeling good and reducing the likelihood or severity.

2. You don’t need the perfect plan, perfect habits, or perfect adherence.

You don’t need the perfect anything. Long-term imperfect consistency and progression is what you need.

That means you can miss days, make mistakes, eat things and do things that aren’t “optimal,” and still make amazing progress.

Yes, more often than not, you’ve gotta be following the plan. But there will be good and bad days, weeks, and months. We make peace with that now, so it doesn’t throw us off the rails later.

3. Some pain is expected and doesn’t necessarily mean injury or disaster.

Pain is very complicated and rarely has a single cause. It can be influenced by our experience, our beliefs, stress levels, environment, and more.

When we sound the alarms anytime pain pops up, we often make it worse and are more likely to become frustrated and demotivated – rather than doing something that could help.

4. The more high-intensity playing/training you do, the more lower intensity training/movement you need to add in.

Think of it like a pyramid with low-intensity at the bottom and high-intensity at the top. We need a big lower foundation so we can handle—and recover from—the upper stuff.

Many players struggle with stiffness and pain in the winter because such a large proportion of their overall movement is at high-intensity.

5. Prioritize focused mobility training at least as much (time and effort) as you prioritize lifting.

Mobility is what builds the foundation of smooth movement, joint & tendon health. If we treat it as most do—an afterthought—our bodies are much more likely to break down.

I’m constantly frustrated by how many players struggle with pain, stiffness, and injuries but refuse to prioritize mobility (except for like 2 week bouts after every injury pops up).

A few stretches here and there in warm-ups isn’t doing shit. Better than nothing, but not by much.

6. Warm-up and Cool-down before and after every intense workout, practice, or game (tournaments are a bit different).

I know it’s hard. I know you’re busy and it takes time. Do you have ANY idea how many messages I’ve gotten from players who rushed their warm-up and then pulled a muscle?

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Doing them seamlessly builds extra movement and mobility into your routine.

7. Limit your alcohol intake

One of the simplest ways to improve your health and performance is by limiting alcohol.

It impairs sleep (which means it basically affects EVERYTHING), mood, recovery, and more.

If it's important to you and your life, that's totally fine. But understand the costs - especially if you've struggled with pain, injuries, and recovering from playing/training.

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Honestly I'd probably be even more blunt and forceful in my messaging if that kinda money was on the line 😂 But you get the picture

These are all things I want my clients to know and understand, to give us the best chance at feeling good and doing something we're proud of :)

PS - I'm opening up TWO 1:1 training spots in my schedule (for way less than 1 million). You can apply there 👉 1-on-1 Application 👈