☕️ S&C Daily — It's About the Money

October 7, 2026

A new Athletic story looks at why many MLB players remain skeptical of meditation, even as teams expand their mental performance staffs. Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole does it every day of the season, 10 minutes or more of trying to focus only on his breathing. Dodgers ace Tarik Skubal uses daily breathwork to clear his mind and work through negative thoughts. Weight training met the same kind of skepticism in prior generations.

Traci Statler, a mental performance coordinator in the Phillies system, said “the value is off the charts,” but anything that feels soft gets degraded. Mariners mental performance coach Adam Bernero avoids the word meditation and asks players for five or 10 minutes alone each day with no phone. He said players can’t quantify what it does, so they would rather get an extra rep, because they can feel that.

Harvey Martin joined the Giants in 2021 as a breathing specialist. After his title changed to human performance coach in 2022, he noticed barriers started coming down. He said the stigma had more to do with the title than the practice. By the time he left after the 2024 season, his group sessions drew close to 15 players.

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A new meta-analysis in Frontiers in Physiology compared flywheel training with traditional resistance training in basketball players. It pooled seven studies and 119 players. Flywheel training improved jump and change-of-direction performance more than traditional training did. The sprint result also favored flywheel training but was not statistically significant.

The flywheel programs ran four to eight weeks, one or two sessions a week, and were built mostly around squats or half squats. The authors said coaches may consider flywheel training as a complement to traditional resistance training for jump and change-of-direction performance, not a replacement for it.

David Akao is a college head athletic performance coach who got into college coaching on a contract he proposed himself. When an assistant strength coach job opened, he pitched a 1099 contract through his private training business instead of a traditional position. He invoiced the university a set amount each month to coach four teams and spent roughly 10 hours a week or less on campus.

Akao argues that a lack of money is one of the biggest reasons strength coaches leave the profession, and that learning business can be just as valuable as learning programming. Before he buys equipment, he asks whether multiple teams will use it consistently. When a sport coach questions weight room time, he brings the conversation back to performance and availability. And when a school can’t pay more, he says coaches should look at the entire opportunity, like a schedule that allows private clients or funding for continuing education.

Texas A&M safety Tawfiq Byard credited strength and conditioning coach Tommy Moffitt with getting players in shape, bigger and ready for the season. Byard said strength and conditioning was up and down in his past couple of years but has been steady at Texas A&M.

Lakers coach JJ Redick said Luka Dončić came into camp in fantastic shape after a summer with less live basketball than usual, by design. Redick said Dončić “actually did like sprints and stuff.” He scored 21 points in 16 minutes in Monday’s preseason win over the Kings.

MLS side Sporting Kansas City is adding Kevin Geary, the head of athletic performance at rugby’s Bristol Bears, where he spent eight years.

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