The Adaptable Athlete Podcast

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What happens when a strength coach spends nine years unlearning everything she was taught about "correct" technique?
Molly Binetti is the Women's Basketball Sports Performance coach at the University of South Carolina, where she's built a program around a really high player availability rate and a training philosophy that runs counter to how most strength coaches are taught to operate. She brings a variability-driven, athlete-centered approach to a field that still leans heavily on uniform technique and control, and the conversation goes deep on movement, motivation, and the limits of data.
Topics covered:
Why "pretty" isn't the goal — the case against cookie cutter technique cues and what actually happens when athletes are allowed to move differently
Rebuilding her coaching philosophy — what changed after her first year at South Carolina and why the dictator coaching model didn't work
Self-determination theory — the three psychological needs behind real athlete buy-in, and why most coaching problems are human, not technical
Variability as injury prevention — how training in a wider range of positions plays into her program's track record on player health
A contrarian take on tech — why she's skeptical of force plates, GPS, and the broader data obsession in strength and conditioning
If you coach in a setting where "the way we've always done it" gets treated as fact, this conversation is worth your time.
Find Molly on Instagram @mbinetti22.
Don't forget to join us in Arizona for the Skill Acquisition Retreat!
If you want to go deeper on skill acquisition, check out the Certified Skill Acquisition Specialist certification over at emergentmvmt.com.
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What does it actually mean to train a boxer to be adaptable when the most representative practice, hard sparring, also causes permanent damage?
Adam Haniver is a boxing coach and England Boxing DISE program lead who's spent years working through exactly that tension. He brings an ecological dynamics lens to a sport that has historically treated tradition as gospel, and the conversation goes deep on skill acquisition, affordances, and what most boxing training gets fundamentally wrong.
Topics covered:
"Anything but the thing" — why most boxing training is unopposed, decomposed, and doesn't transfer to competition
Perceive to act AND act to perceive — how the best boxers generate opportunities rather than wait for them
The GAP framework (Great, Average, Poor) as a tool for athlete-directed intention before sparring
Teaching boxers to punch versus teaching them to land — why these are two completely different things
Naseem Hamed and Brendan Ingle as examples of what freedom in movement actually produces
Play sparring, head trauma, and how to build representativeness without increasing injury risk
If you coach in any combat or contact sport and you're thinking through how to square representative practice with athlete safety, this conversation is worth your time.
Find Adam at www.theboxgathering.com and on the Box Gathering Podcast on all platforms. England Boxing DISE program: @dice_boxing_brighton on socials.
Don't forget to join us in Arizona for the Skill Acquisition Retreat!
If you want to go deeper on skill acquisition, check out the Certified Skill Acquisition Specialist certification over at emergentmvmt.com.
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Nine years in, and the "room" for SMSC keeps getting smarter every year. This one landed three genuinely different debates, a set of award winners worth knowing, and a founder's-eye view of what the conference has become.
Coach Jav starts us off with some quick takeaways from a busy month of June traveling across the country, presenting at various conferences and events, before turning to his main reflection on SMSC 2026. Then Shawn Myszka, founder of the Sport Movement Skill Conference, gives his own take on this year's event and what's ahead for 2027.
Altis and the NHL: Where capacities fit in athlete development, and what a full day with 30-plus NHL and AHL coaches revealed about translating skill acquisition into a pro environment
Questioning industry claims: Why the industry needs to audit ideas it treats as settled, using the SMSC debate stage as the case study
SMSC 2026 debates: What came out of this year's public debates, where they landed, and where they didn't
Award winners: This year's Lifetime Achievement, Researcher of the Year, and Practitioner of the Year recipients
The challenge point: This year's conference theme, and what it actually means to get pushed to the edge and stay there
Shawn Myszka's reflection: Nine years in, what's changed, and a first look at where SMSC is headed for 2027
For coaches and practitioners trying to figure out where skill acquisition actually fits inside a performance organization, not just in theory.
🎟 The next CSAS testing is November 7 in Chandler, Arizona. Learn more and apply.
Shawn Myszka | Instagram | Twitter
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The Adaptable Athlete
Coach Jav on Instagram
Emergence
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Credits: Song- "Starstruck" by Freebeats.io

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You can't talk a fighter into confidence. And if you've been trying, Andy Grahn has been quietly building it the right way for 30 years.
Andy Grahn is a martial arts coach at The Academy MN in Minneapolis, a co-author of the 2024 ecological dynamics MMA paper in Sports Coaching Review, and one of a small group of combat sports coaches actively applying motor learning science to what happens on the mat. This conversation covers how he got there and what it actually looks like in practice.
Competence before confidence: Why telling athletes to "just be more confident" doesn't work, and what the ecological approach says about how confidence actually develops
Alive training in combat sports: What representative practice looks like in an MMA gym, how Andy navigates the line between safety and specificity, and why sparring is still the anchor
The partner probability paradox: How to design practice when you don't have the right training partner, and what constraints-led coaching looks like when the pairing isn't ideal
JKD to ecological dynamics: The philosophical thread connecting Bruce Lee's framework to Gibson's ecological psychology, and how Andy's background primed him for the shift
Writing the paper: What it was like to co-author peer-reviewed research as a practitioner alongside Keith Davids and the rest of the team
For coaches in any sport trying to build real skill, not just clean-looking technique.
🎟 Listeners of the podcast receive 10% off the Sport Movement Skill Conference (June 5–6 in St. Paul, Minnesota) using code JAVI26 at registration.
Andy Grahn | The Academy MN
The Academy MN
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Applying an Ecological Dynamics Approach to Mixed Martial Arts
Resources
The Adaptable Athlete
Coach Jav on Instagram
Emergence
Free Modern Coach's Checklist
Credits: Song- "Starstruck" by Freebeats.io

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The best pass rusher in NFL history didn't break the sack record because he's fast. He broke it while being double or triple-teamed on more than half his snaps.
Shawn Myszka returns for the annual Mover of the Year episode. This year's pick: Myles Garrett of the Cleveland Browns. But this conversation isn't about stats. It's about what Garrett's movement actually tells us about dexterity, practice design, and how athletes solve problems under pressure.
Dexterity vs. athleticism: Why raw physical tools don't explain Garrett's dominance, and what Bernstein's framework reveals about how he actually moves
Abundance precedes adaptability: How having a wide range of movement strategies, not one elite technique, is what separates Garrett from every other pass rusher
Perceiving to and through: How elite performers take in multiple information sources simultaneously, with examples from football, basketball, and combat sports
Adversity as a teacher: What Barry Sanders and Adrian Peterson tell us about how constraint-rich environments shape movement skill over time
What Movement Miyagi would do: Three specific practice design ideas for developing Garrett's perceptual and movement capabilities even further
For coaches working at any level, in any sport.
Listeners of the podcast can receive 10% off the upcoming Sport Movement Skill Conference (June 5–6 in St. Paul, Minnesota) using the code Javi26 when registering.
Shawn Myszka | Movement Miyagi
Football Beyond the Stats Blog
2025 Mover of the Year: Myles Garrett
Enhancing Skill in American Football
X | Instagram
Resources
The Adaptable Athlete
Emergence
Free Modern Coach's Checklist 

Credits: Song- "Starstruck" by Freebeats.io

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Twitter: @thecoachjav
IG: @thecoachjav