Alan Selby - Strength Coach - Calgary Flames

This is episode 102 of the Empowered Athlete Podcast. Hey everyone. Today we're excited to introduce you to Alan Selby. Allen is a strength coach with the Calgary Flames in the National Hockey League. And of course, Kari and Alan are going to geek out on all kinds of strength and conditioning stuff. But what's really exciting and interesting to hear are his experiences working in the trenches in NHL, the behind the scenes stuff that no one knows about going on behind the bright lights on the ice. We hope you love this interview with Alan. And don't forget, check the show notes for the Team Canada volleyball jersey giveaway we have going on to celebrate our.

Hundredth episode of this podcast.

Thanks for tuning in, enjoying the show and we will see you soon.

Welcome to the Empowered Athlete Podcast, created to support athletes in their pursuit of excellence and inspire others toward their best lives. Hosted by Kari Schneider, coach to top performers in sport and life, and Paul Durden, former national and professional volleyball player.

Hey everybody. Welcome to the Empowered Athlete Podcast. We are extremely excited to introduce the you to Alan Selby, coming to us.

Virtually from across the country. Alan, thank you for making the time to have a chat today and we're excited to dig into this. Maybe Kari more than me, because you guys are kind of the same cloth. You're strength conditioning specialists, massive expertise and we're just thrilled that you can make time to come on the show. So thank you very much.

Well, thanks for having me. I'm happy to be on the show. I'm looking forward to it.

So I was lucky enough to be on your podcast that you're doing for Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology. So clearly if you're going to take the extra time to do some side work like that, then you are passionate about what you do. So how did you derive this passion for. You're now the assistant strength coach for the Calgary Flames. The head strength coach is Ryan Van Astin. No.

Yeah.

So back in the day when I first started doing some things with the Women's Hockey Canada group, he was exiting to head to LA and so just got to know him just a tiny bit before he left. But you certainly are, you know, in this great position to be able to work with Ryan and be with a pro hockey team. And clearly your passion is there. So what, what brought you into strength and conditioning as a career? What made you, what sparked that passion? What was there for you? Did you start in sport?

Yeah, I think like a lot of strength coaches, I always wanted to be a professional athlete, but was never good enough to. I was kind of like a jack of all trades, master and non athlete. So you know, in high school I played on volleyball team, hockey, bunch of teams. So it was like I was good enough to make high school teams for these and like hockey is probably my main sport. I was pretty good cross country as well, but not, I didn't excel at any one sport. So hockey was always my passion, my favorite sport growing up and so I knew I wanted to do something in the realm of hockey. I think when I first went to university the thought was maybe be a sports med doctor or something like that. Um, however, just didn't really have the passion to be a doctor. Like I was more just interested in sports side of things and was doing a little bit of personal training in university on the side, you know, just to help pay for school and everything and really enjoyed it. I'm like, oh, it'd be great if I could like do this for athletes. Not really knowing at the time what strength and conditioning coach was. This is like probably 2006. And then yeah, kind of just through some mentors at the university, Steve Lidstone, Maureen McDonald, they kind of introduced the field of strength and conditioning to me and I was like, okay, I want to do that. So ended up pursuing a master's in exercise physiology and after that got into the field pretty much right away and was working with, you know, NHL hockey players almost right away at a private facility. It was probably too soon for me myself. I was, you know, fresh out of school. I had a lot of that base knowledge but didn't really have a ton of experience. So really got my feet wet those first few years doing internships, learning everything I could and just kind of learning.

On the job and maybe, maybe for the listeners. When I started with the national team in Calgary back in 93, we did a lot of work out of the Dr. Smith there. Yeah, lab. And he's really a pioneer for Dr. Death.

Dr. Death, what I used to hear everyone called him, but he was really.

I don't know if he's an early pioneer, but he was definitely well, well respected in the field and really was just looked at as one of the big guys in the field. Just can you maybe explain for the listeners a little bit about that facility and the kinds of athletes that go through there and why just. Yep, the atmosphere is like there in Calgary at the, at the center.

Yeah, I mean I've never worked directly at the Canadian Sport Institute here in Calgary. However, we did run our off season program for the Flames out of there for a couple years. So I kind of hung around the atmosphere. Doc Smith was one of my professors when I did my master's at ufc and he was awesome. Like just his knowledge base, his lectures were great. They were like, you want to take a million notes a minute, but you also just want to listen and like, because he had some amazing stories. But yeah, so the atmosphere, I mean, at the Canadian Sport Institute is it's great. Like we would train our NHL players there and we still have the development camp there in the summers and you know, you see the bobsledders and wrestlers coming through and we have 18 year old kids there at a development camp who weigh 140 pounds soaking wet. And all of a sudden they see, you know, a female wrestler squatting 400 pounds or something like that and they're like, whoa. So I think, you know, just seeing other athletes around and what they're doing kind of raises the bar. You kind of get that Roger Bannister effect where you see one person doing it and you're like, oh, that's possible. So I think that's huge, is just being surrounded by other great athletes. Just the knowledge base there. Like, I know a lot of the strength coaches who operate out of there. Matt Jordan is, you know, kind of the head there and just his mind for this stuff is unbelievable. They're constantly experimenting. They have so much research that just isn't published that they kind of keep, as, you know, trade secrets because, you know, it's. There's still. You want that competitive advantage over other nations. So it's a cool spot. I do try to spend some time there and hang out and pick the coaches brains every time we're up there. But yeah, I think, you know, just any high performance atmosphere, it's kind of like an iron sharpens iron type of situation where you have really good athletes pushing, you know, send the bar high and pushing the other athletes.

Yeah, that's amazing. Speaking of, you know what, I consider that in that iron, iron sharpens iron is that positive rivalry that, you know, you want to be around the people who are pushing themselves harder and working harder and trying to make that next level. What do you think the pandemic has? What effect has the pandemic had on that kind of mentality or that kind of feel for athletes or coaches? Is it. Do people feel a bit lost? Are they still just as competitive? So being behind the scenes in a, with a pro team, what's the effect that Covid has had?

So my personal experience with this whole Covid thing is when this started, injured players were still allowed to come to the dome to train. So we only had one injured player at the time. And he got so rejuvenated by it all because he said in his mind, everyone else was sitting at home on the couch getting fat, not skating. And he's in the gym. He was training hard in the gym, like almost two hours a day in the gym, plus another. It was supposed to be an hour on the ice and he would stay out like an extra hour. This kid was so motivated. But I think, you know, character really comes into play in this pandemic. There are going to be athletes who probably did not do much of anything and took it. You know, for some of them, maybe with some good needed rest time, you know, mentally if they're feeling burnt out in their sport, whether it be an Olympic sport or professional sport. But for others, I think, you know, they really put their foot on their gas pedal and saw it as an opportunity to kind of pull ahead of their peers. You know, being in professional sport, you're constantly competing for jobs, right? So I think for the guys who may be in a contract year, this is a great opportunity for them. If they put the pedal to the metal over the past few months and actually trained hard and you know, when they were able to get ice where we're skating hard because, you know, as we go into this abbreviated playoffs coming up, someone could really earn a job, earn a paycheck for next year in this setting. You know, I don't work in Olympic sport, but it's very interesting for them because they're supposed to be going to compete in about a month and obviously that got pushed back another year. And in Olympic sport you typically plan in a quadrennial, so you're planning for four years to peak at the time of the Olympics. So I think for a lot of them it's going to be, you know, painful to go through another year of just training and probably not much competing for a long while. And the ones who are really motivated and have that kind of intrinsic motivation to do that and not just go through the motions, here are the ones who could really, this could be a good opportunity for them to pull ahead of some there peers.

We've spoken with a few athletes who have qualified for the Olympics and there's a few of them who were dealing with long term injuries or had a recent injury, who this is perfect for. Their scenario gives them that edge. They were that dark horse in qualifying for the Olympics. And Canada maybe in their field, whether it was pentathlon or or fencing or whatever. This can give them that extra bit of training. And then there's others who wanted to retire on this Olympics and it's that question of do they delay their life or prolong their life. And then of course, as you're pointing to, there's the periodization for a quadrennial. It's not a thing that you just when you're trying to peak over the course of four years and you're. You've got two or three major peaks because it's a quadrennial and it happens to be to qualify and it happens to be to perform at the Olympics, then it really messes with the overall training plan and everything for that kind of top level performance. So, yeah, that's a tough thing if you came from a jack of all trades kind of scenario. I felt like I was that way. I could pick up a lot of different sports, figure it out. He had a lot of sports before he specialized into volleyball. But you know, if you take a look at all of that now that you're coaching young athletes coming through, do you feel that they are getting as much of that range or that breadth of trying different sports? Or are you seeing like I've been seeing that there's a lot of one sport and not a lot of a bunch of other sports?

Yeah, I mean, we just talked about that book range on our podcast, how you're reading that. And I read that a while ago and then that got me kind of interested. So I remember like informally polling some of our players and you know, this is the elite of the elite. So these are the guys who made it. And it was interesting to hear. Like I was talking to Sean Monahan and he was thing in summers, he played a lot of lacrosse, you know, didn't play hockey year round. He put his bag away. And there's other guys who did kind of specialize from a really early age. I think, you know, you could kind of do it either route. You see people who specialize early and burn out and then there's others who become a lead in their field. I think it's really, if you're trying to prove a point, it's easy to find the anecdotes to support that point. Personally, I like the idea of getting a wide athletic base, finding out what sports you really are interested in too, and then specializing, then not trying to. You know, I don't have kids yet, but I'm not going to try to push them into any one sport too early. I want them to sample a lot of sports, figure out what they're good at, what they enjoy and then if they, I think to be great at a sport, need to be intrinsically motivated, can't come from outside. So I can't be me pushing them to get in hockey because I love hockey. If they choose that, that's gotta be on them and I think they'll, in the long run they'll benefit them and that they'll work harder to get to college or the pros because it's something they truly love and not something they were pushed into. Then again, you see, you know, Andre Agassi, good example of someone who was an early specializer, got pushed into it and made it to the elite level, but hated tennis for it and had a tough relationship with his dad. So there's two sides to every coin. I don't think we'll ever have one right or wrong way of doing it. And I think it's really context dependent. But yeah, in terms of my experience, I've seen a mix in terms of pro hockey players.

The other thing too is that versatility can create a scenario of having, having a fallback. So for instance, having a mental or physical or diversion that's different, that isn't the same thing all the time. And, and the, you know, there's a couple things that you say that, that I laughed at when I, when I read in your forums because I've said them so many times too is the, is the talent only takes you so far. Another one that I would say that, that I want to get your feedback on. I used to say a lot, you can't coach desire. And that to me speaks to the intrinsic motivation versus the extrinsic reward that if the, if the athlete or the person's always looking for the outside reward, then it's only gonna last so long, they're not gonna stay driven and stay going waiting for someone else to be, to be patting them on the back. So what is your intrinsic desire? What keeps you going in a field that can be largely unrewarded and can be, you know, it can be very demanding and can be draining at times depending on what the scenarios are. But what's what really keeps you sparked and keeps you going?

That's a tough one. But I'm going to say just the fact that I actually enjoy coming to work is a big one. And you know, I know there's a thousand other people who take my job in a job of a hat and you know, you have to kind of stay on top of your field to not Lose your job. Right. Same way the players have to. You know, they're competing for jobs every year, so. So are we as strength coaches in this field. Right? Everyone wants to work in pro sports and it is great. Obviously, you know, there are times that are not as, as glorious, let's say, like when you're moving bags at 2am but it's all worth it in the end. And I actually do enjoy coming to work. Like there's never a case of the Mondays, which, you know, in past jobs I have had or when I was in university to pay for it, I was doing construction in the summers and you know, great way to earn a living, but it's tough. I couldn't do it day in, day out. Like it just, yeah, it wasn't very, it's not very mentally stimulating. You know, I was just a laborer, like picking up trash on construction sites. And it was always a good reminder to work hard in school to get to where I wanted to be because I knew that wasn't what I wanted to do with the rest of my life personally. But yeah, so I think, you know, just enjoyment and going to work. I have so many friends who make great livings. They do random things, but they live for the weekend really, or for vacation, you know, and they just kind of get through the week. Whereas I actually enjoy the however many, you know, in season, it's 60, 70 hours at work. Actually enjoying that is huge. Right. So I think that's a big part of it for me.

And what is it like, what is it that you're enjoying the most? Because you know, in order to put in a 60, 70 hour a week and keep doing that week in and week out, is it that you, is it that you love hockey? Is it that you love working with the athletes? What's the, what is it about that your job that you enjoy that really keeps you looking forward to the next day?

Yeah, I mean, I think you touched on two things that are very true. I love hockey, right? So the fact that I'm kind of behind the scenes for an NHL game is still surreal to me. And I think sometimes I just need to remind myself and be grateful for that. That, you know, 10 year old me would look at what I'm doing now and like I could just picture 10 year old me if I was in the gym hanging out with hockey players since they're about to go on the ice, like just hearing the conversations that go on, seeing how they psych themselves up, like I would be, you know, over the moon. So I Just got to take notice of the fact that that's my life every day now and not take that for granted. And then, you know, seeing them between periods, like coming off the ice, what they're saying on what, on what happened on the ice there, like, it's. It's really cool to be inside that and kind of see it from this side of things. So there's that side. And then even just the guys I work with, my co workers, but also the players too, are just awesome. You know, you can ask hang around better people. Like these guys are great people. Just, you know, the amount they do for the community and just the way they treat each other and protect each other and they're just funny and fun to hang around with. It's like, you know, you ever hear comedians say they have the best job in the world, all their friends are comedians. It's kind of like that. Like these guys are just fun dudes to hang around with and get to hang with them all day. So that's a big part of it too, I think. And then there's also the competitive side. I know friends, for example, are in sales. I'm sure they have kind of internal competitiveness with themselves trying to hit numbers and stuff. But, you know, for us it's trying to win a championship. And that's what we're all here for at the end of the day. And I would love that's like a major goal. Mine is just I want to win a Stanley cup at some point in my career or be part of a team that's. That wins a Stanley Cup. So I think, you know, that's motivating too, in terms of me trying to get better all the time and maximize what I do to help the players. So yeah, I think all that kind of plays into it. It's no one thing, it's factor many things.

And on the flip side, what are the hardest parts of the job? Executing the job or mentally or what have you?

Yeah, I touched on like the inglorious side of like moving bags at 2:00am you know, we were expected to help the equipment guys with some of their duties like that. So when we get into a city late at night, we're helping unpack bags and hang jocks and stuff like that. So that would be probably my least favorite part of the job. But again, comes with the territory. And it's kind of. It's one of those things like at the time you're doing it, you don't enjoy it. But then afterwards you're like, I don't know, it's like pulling an all nighter in school and then you reflect on it and you're like, oh, that wasn't so bad. That was actually kind of fun. So that's definitely a less glorious part of the job. I think one of the harder things for me has been the fact that you kind of got to go where the job takes you. So I'm in Calgary now. All my friends and family are from back in Toronto. I've had many friends get married over the past four years that I've been in pro hockey and haven't been able to attend their weddings. You know, nieces and nephews born, stuff like that that I'm not around for. So I think that's probably been the hardest part for me is just not being around for special events between friends and family and not having that flexibility that other jobs would afford. That being said, I'm fortunate. My wife's a teacher, so we both have summers off. Not this summer because of COVID but that's unusual circumstances. But, you know, not that I'm off in the summer, we are training guys all summer, but I'm able to take a week here and there and travel with the wife. So that's. That's really important. That's good.

That's cool. That's really cool. So you alluded to some of the things that are crappy about the job, but on a personal level, maybe it's strength and conditioning as well. Was there something major, a struggle that you had to overcome in order to maybe get to where you are in your career or something that you've had to overcome personally in your career? What's been one of the biggest struggles?

I think one thing I've had to overcome personally, and you kind of touched on this too in our podcast. When you're talking about being a female strength coach and petite is something that's like, you have to walk the walk and talk the talk. For myself, I'm a shorter guy and I'm a smaller guy, so, you know, I'm working with athletes. I've had guys who are six eight, six nine and just like 250 pounds and jacked. And you're like, okay, so this guy's like double my size and I gotta tell him what to do and show him how to lift. Like so, you know, there's a bit of the insecurity there sometimes. So I think overcoming that, but not in a way that comes off as. I don't want to come off like having a Napoleon complex or anything, but you want to be confident and, you know, show that you can help the players and help them get better and show that you know your stuff. So I think that's been a bit of a challenge. Maybe it's more in my head than it actually is because, you know, I've worked with these guys who are six' eight, six' nine. Never have I gotten the sense from them that they're like, what's this guy know? You know. So I find hockey players are pretty respectful that way. But yeah, I think internally at least that's been kind of a challenge for me. I think another major challenge in this profession too is just the insecure, like no security when it comes to job security. Right. So my, I'm in my fourth year with this organization right now, going to my fifth and I'll be on my fifth one year contract next year. And just, you know, it's just the way things are in pro sports sometimes. So, you know, I'm fortunate they like me enough to keep having me back. But there's a never sure where I'll be the following year. Right. Being on one year contract, whether that's, you know, moving up and getting a head job somewhere or if that's again here. And you know, kind of our goal is hopefully to increase the role, Ryan's role to more of like a. What would you call it? Kind of like a. Sorry, athletic. Yeah, physiologist or like athletic director type role. And then me move time to head strength coach. I mean that would be ideal. That's our goal situation. But you never know. And then with COVID too, I was scared there'd be cutbacks and maybe they would just eliminate the assistant position altogether. So not a lot of job security, not just in pro sports. But you know, I have friends at the Canadian Sport Institute who just recently got left go let go because of COVID And you know how it is there just based on metals dictates funding. So you could not have a job in one quadrennial because they decide not to fund the sport that you work with. So a lot of insecurity when it comes to that. And then, you know, just in terms of future planning, like the wife and I obviously want to start family at some point and retire someday. And so there's just not a lot of security with that. So you just have to either, you know, know either A, have some sort of backup plan or side hustle and B, just invest wisely and be smart with money so that if you do fall in hard times here, you're all right.

Do you, do you take on private clients? Do you have something that is a site or are you allowed to do that in your contract with Calgary? I don't know if that.

The wording's a little vague in the contract, but essentially if I were to do something on the side, I guess I'd have to get permission. I have not chosen to do anything on the side just because, you know, I've only been up here a couple years and I like to try to a. In season there's not really any time and when you do have downtime, I try to use it to. For professional development, whether it be webinars or reading or whatever. And then in the off season there is time. But part of you is like, I worked really long hours all in season. I kind of want to enjoy these short hours. Like we'll train guys in the morning for a few hours and then I'm off the rest of the day. So part of me is like, I should enjoy this downtime. Part of me is like, okay, let's work on getting better as a strength coach and read and do webinars and stuff. And then part of me is like, okay, should I, you know, maybe try to pick up some private clients or something like that? But it's tough because you don't want to have to leave them once the season starts. Right. So and so I haven't really done anything on the side that way in terms of any side hustles. Right now my goal is just kind of build up my career, get to head position and yeah, hopefully make a big enough name for myself that I never really have to worry that if I were to get let go if there's a coaching change, whatever, that I would be okay and in high demand as a strength coach and wanted somewhere else. Right.

I know what it used to be about five years ago. But nowadays what would be the high and the low end ranges of pay for a head strength coach in the NHL? Because our listeners are they're people who are athlete, they're fans, they're athletes, they're coaches. That would be a point of curiosity. So nowadays what would be the low end and the high end of the salary for a head strength coach in the NHL?

For a head strength coach in the NHL, the low end is probably around 75American. I would say the top guys who are still labeled strength coaches are probably around 200 in terms of athletic director or whatever it's called so many different things nowadays. Performance director, head of sports science, whatever that could range A lot. Anywhere from probably the low one hundreds to the low five hundreds, depending on the organization. In the NHL, I'm sure, you know, football probably could be three quarters of a mil or more. So there's a wide range. It really depends on the organization you're with and your years experience and your title because, you know, there's a wide range. For example, Ryan's our head strength coach, but he serves as. He really serves as like a performance director. Right. There's a lot more than what just a strength coach does. He's not making shakes. He's overlooking all our sports science and stuff like that too.

So empiricizing and going deeper in terms of what the, what the demands of the physiology is specifically for the athletes. Yeah, yeah.

I think one thing people don't realize too is just like how much work strength coaches put in. That isn't formally part of our work. Right. So, you know, whether it be researching some sort of like load management thing, whatever, it's part of our work, but it isn't, you know, it's kind of expected. You do that and you get that knowledge if you want to be good at what you do, but you're not getting any credit for doing that. Right. It's something you just have to do as part of the job. And you have to always be looking to get better if you want to, you know, keep that competitive edge. I look at strength coaches who have been in the league like, you know, 20 years maybe, and to them, if they didn't stay on top of it with like all the technology that's so prevalent now, like catapults and force plates, like you can't keep up, you know, they're going to hire younger strength coaches who know how to do that. So I look at the guys who have been around that long and they're really the guys who are able to adapt and are always looking to get better. And I'll do these, you know, there's a lot of zoom webinars going on right now because of COVID And I'll go on and see these guys who are in their 40s and have been in the NHL for years and years. And I'm like, that's what it takes, right? You have to constantly be looking to get better. You can't just think, I've been doing this 25 years. I know what I'm doing. It's not going to change.

Easy on the people who are in their 40s, eh?

I'm not an ageist.

So on that note, on the Technology on the pivoting, on the adapting for our listeners. Do you have some, you know, some key tips on some of the favorite things you like to use right now? Whether it's, you know, an oura ring or a whoop or a force platform. What are some of the things that you're just kind of excited about when it comes to technology or tracking or whatever that's been working well for you and the Flames and the athletes.

So the main two pieces of technology we use on a daily basis, we do force plate testing every week on the guys. So that's been a big learning curve for me because I've never used force plates prior to coming here. And so learning how to use them, learning how to interpret it, what's important, you know, really trying to figure out how we could use this information to benefit us. Right? Are we just taking data for the sake of taking data? Are we going to use it? So that's been a big thing for me and I think that's been a big learning curve over the past couple years. Catapult is another major piece of technology we use, and that's a load monitoring device they wear either on their shoulder pads or like in a bra on their back. So that's another one that again, haven't had access to. That's like 50k a year to use. So, you know, you have to be privileged enough to either be with like a pro sports team or maybe a college with lots of money, like football, Division 1 football team would probably have it as well. So that's been. I've been fortunate to be exposed to that and get to learn how to use that and interpret it in terms of like aura. And we haven't used that that much on individual levels. You know, we have certain guys who have used it. You know, I love the idea of getting objective data to help measuring your progress and readiness and all that. But you also have to weigh it with, you know, how many bullets you have in the chamber. You can't have guys doing a million things. And you got to choose what's most important to you and what you can use to actually enact change. And one thing I've been really kind of focusing on during COVID is looking at both internal and external load monitoring and how they relate. So we look at catapult, which is an external load monitor, shows the work they do on the ice. And then we get some of these guys wearing heart rate monitors as well, so we can see their internal load, so their reaction to that external load and see if that changes over time. And our hypothesis is that as a player becomes more fit, they would have a lower internal load to any given external load. Again, I'm kind of looking at that, getting some mixed data there, so questioning how valid it is as a tool. But that's where you have to kind of approach these things without bias. Right. Because I would love it if this would be a great tool for monitoring fitness in season. But if the numbers aren't making sense and it's not showing that, then you can't just put a square peg in a round hole. Right. You have to kind of look at the data objectively and try not to be biased. So I mean, yeah, there's so much out there, but that's what we're using right now. So that's what I've really been focusing on.

Yeah, And I was just going to say, plus it's so individual. You can have an external load on some athletes who are very anaerobic, lactic and fiber types and then they're just seeing a high load on an internal load monitoring, whereas the next guy is more of a slow twitch fiber and you know, maybe having a different response either way.

Yeah. So I try not to compare between athletes for that reason, but more longitudinally for one athlete because I agree 100% like different athletes. Maybe, you know, for example, a younger guy is going to have a higher max heart rate, therefore his trim, his training impulse, just like his internal load will look higher based on the form formula, but as a percentage of his max it may not be right. So he may be fitter than an older guy, for example, but it's appearing like he had a much higher internal workload for an external workload. So to parse that out, we just look between individuals, we keep it all just looking at any one individual and how it changes throughout the week and based on external workloads, if that's affecting, you know, maybe if they're fatigued their internal loads much higher on a given day. So seeing if there's any validity there. Been looking through all the research on that and you know, it's promising but still a lot of work to be done before I could use those numbers.

I'm glad we went down this rabbit hole just a little bit because I think that for our listeners who think of a strength and conditioning specialist or strength coach as dumbbells in the gym and that's it. And they don't quite necessarily see what is fully involved, whether it's the energy system work or just trying to figure out especially at the highest level that you're at, trying to figure out what. It's going to take all the nuances for that individual to perform their best. And it gives people some of the insight as to, you know, what you're currently working with right now, but also the breadth of all the parameters that you have to look at in order to see what's going to help this athlete perform the best, especially when it comes to recovery as well and workload.

Do you have any.

On a, on a fun note, do you have any behind the scenes stories that you can keep names anonymous but you know, you're working in the NHL, there's lots of people who are just missing their hockey season throughout Covid. Like what? Do you have any little behind the scenes stories that can entertain anyone that keeping names out of the picture and anonymity?

Have you been pranked by the team?

Oh, that has to happen all those.

Hours on the road.

Oh, yeah. Road trip.

I. Let me. Hold on, let me. Thank you. The first thing comes to mind for like, funny story. I can't tell because there's no way of telling the story without revealing who the player was. I don't know, it just, it was kind of funny this season, I think, being behind the scenes of seeing everything, you know, that's being said in our locker room with the whole Matthew Tkachuk and Zach Cassian feud. And I'm also friends with the Edmonton strength coaches and just, they'll, they'll text me and chirp me and stuff and so just funny. Like obviously you're biased for, you know, for, for us. I'm obviously going to take Matthew side in that whole feud and obviously Edmonton, they're going to take Zach side. Right. So it's been funny just seeing the, that and how the players will react to situations like that in terms of being pranked, trying to think. I feel like I get chirped like constantly. Like they try to push you to the edge of suicide type chirping.

Nothing's off limits type chirping.

Nothing's off limits. But I can't think of like any specific prank that's been done on me. Yeah. And off the top of my head, sorry, I'm bad at coming up with thinking of stories on the fly like that. But yeah, sorry, not great stories on the fly.

How about on the road though? Like, let's, let's just wrap up with a few personal, fun questions. On the road. What's your favorite time passing activity? Like do you, you know, do you have a certain video game do you read certain books? Pass podcast, like what, how do you pass the time when there's travel logging that has to happen? I know like you put a lot, a lot of hours on the road if it were a regular season, obviously, but what, what's there for you that way?

So yeah, I don't travel a lot with the team. Like I'm normally back when teams on the road and I'm working with any injured players we may have, they stay back. I have been on some road trips though, and for me, plain asleep, sleeping time. I'm getting sleepy on planes and they're so comfy in this league. So. So that's sleeping time in terms of downtime, like if we have any. So say we have a day off in a city and we don't need to go to the rink, try to get out and see the city because we go some cool places. Right. So we had a day off in Anaheim and we went to like Huntington beach that day and just, you know, try to enjoy the fact that hey, we're in a different city, it's middle of winter In Calgary, it's minus 30 and we're out on a patio in plus 35, like you know, having a pint with my co workers and stuff and just enjoying that. So that's one thing I try to do is enjoy the city if we can, if we have time for it. Yeah, we went to Nashville this year. That was a lot of fun being on Broadway there and just seeing. Or is that the name of the street, the main street in Nashville, whatever it's called. So I think that's, that's a big thing. I don't find there's a lot of downtime though, unless we have an off day. So generally a game day, you know, we're at the rink in the morning, we come back to the hotel, get in a workout and go right back to the rink pretty much. And then you know, right after the game you're traveling to the next city. Yeah, so what was a lot of fun this year though is we went to Regina for the Winter Classic or not Winter Classic, sorry, Heritage Classic. So that was fun. We were up in a hotel there and just. That was a little bit more downtime to hang out with co workers and the team and stuff and that was a lot of fun. That was a long. We had like a 11 day road trip there between that and the following cities. So yeah, sometimes, you know, you're playing tennis on the road. I haven't golfed on the road. I would love to do that in the middle of the winter. That'd be nice.

Cool, Cool. Do you have a favorite workout to do yourself or to coach or deliver right now or in the past, doesn't matter when. But do you have a favorite kind of training session, body part, whatever it is, but just favorite workout for yourself to do or could be for you to coach?

Yeah, actually I've been really into boxing lately. I joined a gym almost a year ago now and been training hard at that. And it's actually been awesome for Covid because, you know, when you have limited access to equipment, if I'm working at home, it's like just shadowbox for an hour and you're gassed. It's great workout. So for me, that's been my biggest like passion in terms of working out. I find it really hard at 33, like to be motivated to work out sometimes. You know, like I feel good when I do, so I hate not working out. But for me it's like tend to want to go through the motions at this point sometimes. So I think boxing has given me something kind to train for a little bit more. And honestly I've been doing it. I'll shadow box or do focus pads with my buddy. I'm actually going there right after this, like at least five times a week now. So that's been my biggest thing. It's the only workout I really get excited about. I'll still train in the gym and stuff, but you know, it's tough, like putting your body through heavy strength training. And I'll train for pertrophy here and there, but never really dedicate myself to any one form of training again. Like I kind of have ADD when it comes to training, but I think it's good because then I get to sample. You know, I'll do some Olympic lifting, I'll do some, some powerlifting, I'll do some bodybuilding type training. So I get to sample all that. But I think the only thing I really excited about when it comes to training now is boxing. So nice.

Yeah, that's exciting. We have a heavy bag, but we gotta get that put up. Yeah, take a bit of time to get that back up. So any messages or any key piece of advice that you'd give a young athlete or strength coach or someone looking in the field, what would you say in them getting started?

One thing I think is a problem in this industry I see a lot of is like a lot of practices that aren't necessarily evidence based. It's like a lot of pseudoscience or they learn something from Instagram. I think it's important to have that knowledge of, you know, the evidence that's out there, whether it be from a nutritional standpoint or training and being able to think critically. I'll give one example and I'm sure I'll offend a couple of my friends here because. But that rpr, I don't know if you've heard of it, I forget what it stands for. It's basically like pressure points they'll like poke behind the jaw and there's something, I don't think there's any, or a lot of data to back that. And you know, I've had it done on me and see no, like no difference. But they'll try to sell it, like, okay, I'm going to rub you behind your jaw, see how much stronger you feel or see how much better you feel. Doesn't your glute feel like it's. It's very leading. So I just found like, that's one thing people easily get sucked into and there's a million others. That's just one example. So I think being able to think critically and just because you see a famous strength coach post something doesn't mean it's necessarily good. You have to actually think critically. You could try it out yourself, but I think there's too much pseudoscience going around or people quick to hop on certain trends. Probably most commonly with stuff like, you know, nutrition documentary comes out on Netflix and everyone hops on that. And I see that more from an athlete standpoint. But you see coaches, personal trainers as well hop right on those trends. So I think you need to be able to think critically, identify biases because everyone's going to have an agenda. We're all biased. And you have to not just identify biases in others, but try to identify your own bias. And I've caught myself being biased on many subjects before and just trying to look at it with an objective point of view. So I think, you know, if you're able to do that, you. Yeah, I think there's a bit of like rebellion against science based nutrition and training, which I don't understand because it's our best tool for finding out the truth. Right? You know, it's the most objective looks, it's not perfect by any means. There's obviously there's bad science and cherry pick science and all that and science will contradict previous science, but that's what it is. It's constantly learning. And I think when you say, oh, I did this and it worked for Me. Anecdote's tricky because you're rarely controlling all the other variables. And typically if someone switches something in their training or nutrition, there's a heavy placebo effect as well. Right. So I'm a big, like, evidence based guy. So I, I don't like seeing people, you know, try to say, like, oh, I went keto, so everyone should do keto. You know, I think you need to find what works for that person. I think there's a lot of individuality and training as well, and nutrition. So, yeah, just trying to take an objective look and think critically.

Yeah. It's even, even trying to teach our kids. Question everything.

Yeah.

It doesn't even, Even if even every piece of science out there needs to be questioned, you know, that's validating something that's already been researched. So, yeah, question everything. And it's like you said, it's what works for one person doesn't mean it's gonna work for the next person. So you're gonna have to figure some things out on your own as it is, what's already been validated. So. Yeah.

Yeah. And you, you had mentioned on our podcast, you know, you're looking a lot into the psychology of change and all that. So, yeah, keto may be great for one person, but it's not the only. There's a thousand ways to skin a cat. Right. So you gotta find what works for you and will work into your lifestyle. Exactly. What will work in your lifestyle. So, you know, again, I'm picking on keto here. It's great because it's worked for some people, but it's nothing magic, nor is intermittent fasting, nor is, you know, Olympic lifting. Like, they're all good tools and they're all just. You need to have a lot of tools in your tool belt, but you need to find what works for you in your context. Right.

Yeah. And it's all. They're all tools. They're exactly that.

So, yeah, this is weird for me because I'm hearing Kari's philosophies in a male's voice.

Yeah.

You guys speak the same exact language. And it's so true that the red flags come up when you're getting training advice or nutritional advice that is the only way to do it or that.

It works for everybody because it's absolutely. It's.

You both present that, you know, methodology in the way you train somebody of. I've got a hundred tools I can use here. What's going to get the best result fastest in this case? For this.

Yeah.

It's Gonna be something completely different for the guy next to him.

Yeah.

So I think bang on, but just saying, think critically, try things out on yourself and. But be a scientist about it. Test, you know, don't just try something for a week. Control as many variables as you can and see how you feel. And yeah, to have that approach. And I think that's how you're more successful, actually.

So great point on that. So remember saying I do force plate testing, so I do it on myself every week before I test the guys, I'll jump on the force plate. And from January till, like March, I was doing more kind of hypertrophy style training. And my jumps, like, my peak power and takeoff velocity went up way more than it has during any strength or power phase I've done, which is, you know, counterintuitive to what you would believe to be true. But again, that's why it's important to experiment on yourself and see what works. And again, I'm not going to jump on that and say everyone should do hypertrophy because I got more explosive doing it. I know there's probably other factors at play as well, and I'm one individual, but you got to, like you said, you got experience ment on yourself and see what works, right? Totally.

And to that point, this is just, I mean, these are just. They could be outliers. Who knows what. I put a. I put a football player on a hypertrophy cycle in his customized programming and specifically to create more resilience, some more, you know, fiber, breadth, all of those things that you want out of a hypertrophy cycle. And his communication back to me was, I love this cycle. I got so much. He didn't necessarily gain size. He's a small guy. He's like, I got so much stronger. I feel so much more powerful on the field. I'm like, that wasn't even the purpose of this cycle, but yay, like, glad we let that happen for you. It's not always going to be exactly what it's supposed to be or what you think it's going to be.

Yeah.

So to even guarantee or to think that it's always going to be just like this. It doesn't make any sense, but yeah, absolutely, I agree. Well, this has been a blast. On a final note here, do you have any books that you recommend? Well, we want to know books you recommend, favorite movies and podcasts that you would recommend right now.

Well, I recommend your podcast.

Podcast. Right.

But your listeners obviously know about that already, so I find. Actually, I know it's Kind of cliche, but I really enjoy the Joe Rogan experience. Especially like just his ability to keep up a conversation, a three hour conversation with everything from a comedian or MMA athlete to like a university professor of, you know, brain neurology, whatever. Right. So I enjoy that. Just kind of get out of the sphere. Although he does do a lot on kind of nutrition and stuff like that. But to get out of the sphere of strength conditioning. In terms of strength and conditioning, specific podcasts, one I've been listening to a lot lately is the Mark Bubs podcast. He has a great book, so I'll use that as my segue into recommended reading. So my professional recommended reading, I did enjoy his book Peak. So that was Mark Bubs peak. One of my favorite books of all time, I'D say, is what's it called? Michael Shermer, the Believing Brain. I think that's really good. I really enjoy Michael Shermer stuff. Again, it's nothing to do with strength and conditioning and everything to do with strength and conditioning at the same time and performance. So I really enjoyed that podcast book. Oh, and movies. The Departed and Shawshank are tied for my top two favorite movies all time. But if I'm going comedies, I gotta go Dumb and Dumber and Superbad probably is tied for the top two.

Yeah, good choices.

I'm writing these down. Dumb and Dumber is such a classic. I swear, such a.

It never gets old. It ages like a fine wine.

So you're saying there's a chance.

Yeah.

And Superbad is so awesome.

That has come up so many times.

On this Dumb and Dumber. I know we have so many Dumb and Dumber fans. Maybe that's too many hockey players on here.

Maybe it just. It's a classic. But I never like saying a comedy is my favorite movie of all time. Like my favorite movie is probably the Departed. Shawshank was, but I think I'd just seen it too many times, you know, so.

Yeah, exactly. And do you have any charities you want to mention? And how can people creep you or reach you or where are you hanging out?

So recently we've been doing this thing called the Trick Shot for Snowy Challenge on Instagram or Twitter, and that's to raise money for ALS and awareness. So kind of like the Ice Bucket Challenge. Our gm, Chris, Assistant GM Chris Snow has als and he was diagnosed just over a year ago and was given eight to 12 months to live, but was put in an experimental trial. That's worked great so far, so he's doing awesome. And so we started The Calgary Flame started that Snowy Foundation. Snowy Strong. So I believe that's calgaryflames.com Snowy Strong if you want to support that. Obviously with everything going on in the states right now, you know, any Black Lives Matter cause is really important. My wife's black and you know, when I have kids someday they'll be half black as well. So that's important to me as well. So I want to shout out those two charities and then in terms of getting in contact with me, I don't have Twitter. I use Instagram frequently. So coachselbi17 on Instagram or you can email me@acelbcalgaryflames.com Amazing.

Amazing. So thank you for your insight and just, you know, this is the behind the scenes look that I think gives people this real insight to what it really, what really has to happen in order to get the best out of the athletes that they watch on tv, the athletes that they revere and they there's so much more behind the scenes than just practice and just on ice work. So thank you for giving that sneak peek and thank you for just being so authentic and sharing your belief systems and what's meaningful for you. So thanks for being on Alan, and hopefully we will catch up sooner than later.

Yeah, thanks. I had a blast. This was awesome. Thank you for having me.

No problem.

Hey everyone, thank you so much for listening. If you're wanting to connect with Kari and I for online training, public speaking events or more, simply send your request to infompowerconditioning.com and hey, we need your help to keep growing this show. So please share it with coaches, athletes, trainers, parents, anyone who you think might be interesting interested, get them to smash that subscribe button and follow the Empowered Athlete podcast. We can't do it without you. Thanks again for listening.