The Athlete Development Journal🥇

Train your mind. Build your body. Fuel your soul

Mind. 3 things on the new era of recruiting

The recruiting landscape doesn’t even remotely resemble the process I went through 10 years ago. Man, it doesn’t even resemble the process from just 3 years ago.

NIL and the transfer portal have forced college athletics into a metamorphosis. The problem, though, is that it’s still in the cocoon. Everything is changing day to day, minute to minute.

The current system isn’t sustainable. In the next few years everything will get smoothed out and we’ll have a system that’s stable. But, in the meantime, you need to be well-informed so you can play the recruiting game the right way.

​This​ is a must-listen podcast for anyone who has interest in playing at the collegiate level. It’s specifically about baseball, but the concepts apply broadly to all sports.

Here are my biggest takeaways:

1) You’re going to get recruited by smaller schools than you would have previously.

College coaches get paid to win games now. They don’t get paid to win games 5 years from now.

As a result, they don’t need athletes that can help them win 5 years from now. They need athletes who can help them win tomorrow.

You’re no longer just competing with other high school kids for scholarships and roster spots. You’re competing with full grown adults.

If a BIG 10 school needs a player to fill a hole in their roster, they can look to the portal and find a 22-year-old athlete from a mid-major who has proven themselves against good competition.

The 22-year-old already knows how to conduct themselves like a professional, takes care of their grades, shows up for practice on time, has developed their physical engine, has honed in their technique, and understands advanced tactical concepts.

If a coach needs to win tomorrow, it’s a no-brainer to take the proven grown adult versus the potential developmental project high school kid.

This doesn’t just apply to the highest levels, though. It has a trickle down effect. The BIG 10 school steals a mid-major player, the mid-major snags a D2 stud, that D2 school then snatches a proven D3 baller.

The higher level schools are going to prioritize filling their rosters with portal athletes, so the spots that are going to be available are more commonly going to be at the lower levels.

So, what should you do about this?

Be grateful for every opportunity you are given. Don’t close off any doors because you think you’re “too good for D3 ball.”

Find a school that’s a great culture fit, academic fit, and opportunity fit. Be where your feet are. Don’t go in there with the intention of transferring out somewhere bigger, but understand that if you ball out, there’s the opportunity for you to end up somewhere bigger.

2) You’re going to get recruited later in your high school career than previously.

With everything said above, the transfer portal increases the sheer number of athletes who are available and need to be evaluated.

Schools are going to prioritize evaluating portal athletes and high school athletes that are towards the end of their high school career.

So, what should you do about this?

Be patient. Double down on developing your physical engine, technical skill, and tactical knowledge instead of venturing out to useless combines, camps, and showcases.

I’ll sum this up with my favorite quote from the entire episode:

Eric: “Is a showcase before the age of 16 a complete waste of money?”

Walter: “Emphatic, YES! You are basically just taking money, lighting it on fire, and watching it burn.”

3) There’s so much more money available than there used to be.

This doesn’t just apply to NIL money, but scholarships as well.

My last playing season was 8 years ago. I wrote this super in-depth ​article​ on scholarship value and availability just last year.

None of it is relevant anymore.

There used to be an 85 scholarship cap for D1-FBS football teams. There are now schools offering 105 scholarships.

Baseball used to have a total of 11.7 scholarships available to divvy up between the team at the Division 1 level. It was a huge rarity for a player to have a full scholarship for baseball. There are now schools who offer 34 baseball scholarships, which allows for plenty of full ride opportunities.

Plus, now each school now has a revenue-sharing pool to be able to directly pay athletes.

Obviously not every school is going to be able to take advantage of the rule changes. Mid-majors aren’t going to be able to scrounge up the revenue sharing cap of $20.5 million or offer a full 105 scholarships, but the grand total of money available as a collective whole is undoubtedly increasing.

So, what should you do about this?

Find some joy! This whole article has been pretty negative so far. We’ve talked a lot about how much more challenging the recruiting landscape is now versus a few years ago, but this is a huge positive.

There are more scholarships available than ever before and there’s the opportunity to make money off of your sport, which was never possible before. (We couldn’t even get paid to give lessons when I was in college.)

Body. 4 steps to change your body comp.

Everyone and their mother knows that nutrition is important for optimizing your athletic performance…. BUT NO ONE DOES ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

It’s perpetually mind boggling to me. People will spend thousands on fancy new equipment, private lessons, and obscure supplements that have little to no effect on game day performance. Yet, they won’t buy a food scale and consistently track their food for 2 weeks.

If you take your time to craft this beautiful V12 engine and place it in both a Rolls-Royce Ghost and a Chrysler Pacifica (minivan), the Ghost is going to blow it out of the water. The bigger body of the minivan is going to slow it down, regardless of the inside being the same.

Translating that to the athletic development world; you can train your tail off in the weight room, but if you’re operating in a body that has too much or too little mass, you’re not going to maximize your God-given athletic potential.

Before we get into the actionables, here are a few things I just want to get off my chest:

1. Everyone knows that body composition is important, but no one does anything about it. That’s a window of opportunity for you to get an edge over your competition.
2. Girls are more negatively affected by weight gain during and after puberty than boys are. It’s biologically unfair, but the amount of girls I’ve seen become stagnant from a speed perspective as a result of disproportionate bodyweight to strength gains makes this more of a fact than an anecdote. Still, we need to be careful about how we have bodyweight conversations with our female athletes.*
3. Adolescent athletes tend to gain weight during the summer when they’re free and available to snack all day. It’s quite common for me to see an athlete gain weight over the summer, then slim down in the fall when school starts back up. This is concerning for their future relationship with food. What are they going to do when they have more autonomy as an adult? Probably snack mindlessly.
4. I work with athletes who want to sprint faster and jump higher. Both of those require a high degree of relative strength.
   • Relative strength = how strong you are vs how much you weigh.
   • So, if you want to get faster and jump higher, you can manipulate either end of the equation.
     • If you get stronger and stay the same bodyweight, you’ll sprint faster.
     • If you stay the same strength, but decrease your bodyweight, you’ll sprint faster.

Despite being so clearly helpful, there’s a good reason most people fall short on nutrition and body comp… it’s hard. It takes a level of commitment, thoughtfulness, and persistence that most people simply do not have.

If you’re willing to bite the bullet and commit to the mundane, here’s a straightforward process for you to follow.

1) Establish a baseline

• Step on the scale.*
• Take body composition measurements or pictures. A simple front, back, and side shot will do.
• Track EVERYTHING you eat for 1 week. DO THIS RIGHT. Most people butcher this step, so let me highlight some common faults:
  • Buy a food scale and measuring cups. (Make sure you know how to actually use the food scale, too.)
  • Measure everything that you eat or drink. That means everything. The oils that you throw in to cook with, the spices you add on top, the creamer you add to your coffee, etc.
  • Log everything in a high-quality calorie counter app. We use Cronometer, but MyFitnessPal is a popular one that works great. I also really like Carbon for those who are going about this without a coach.

2) Develop your plan

• Clearly state what your goals are long-term and in this current season of your athletic calendar.
  • For example, if you’re a high school basketball player who wants to jump higher, be faster, and be stronger, we’ll probably have seasonality to your body composition goals. From late summer to mid-fall, we’ll be in armor-building season. We’ll try to add a bunch of muscle mass, which might come with a bit more body fat than ideal. However, once late fall hits, our new goal is to get lean and maximize our relative strength.
• Plug in your baseline numbers and your current goals to calculate your target calories and macronutrients (grams of protein, fats, and carbs).
  • This should be straightforward if you’re using Cronometer, MyFitnessPal, or Carbon. Their algorithms will take your baseline and goals, then spit out your targets.
  • If, however, you want to DIY this, the Mifflin-St. Jeor Equation (with the activity factor included) is a highly reputable way to calculate your daily total calories for maintenance. From there, you just add 500 calories per day to add 1 lb per week, or subtract 500 calories per day to lose 1 lb per week.
  • When building your plan, you should only aim to gain or lose 1-2 lbs per week. If you put on weight too fast, you’re probably adding excessive body fat. If you lose weight too fast, you’re probably losing excessive muscle mass.

3) Execute your plan, consistently

• Measure and track everything.
• The world is conspiring against you. Our society isn’t designed for unintentional healthy eating. If you don’t plan in advance for how you’re going to hit your numbers, your odds off success plummet atronomically.
  • The week is won at the grocery store. Skip past the junk foods and only fill your cart with the foods on your plan for the week. If there’s junk food or unnecessary snacks in the house, you will eat it. Your willpower will not win.
  • Meal prep breakfast and lunch for the week on Sunday.
  • Bring snacks from home to eat before and after practice.
  • Find a meal at Chipotle and Chick-Fil-A that hits your macros for when you’re going to be traveling.

4) Re-assess and Adjust

• Step back on the scale once per week, at the same time every week. No more, no less.
• If you’re making the changes that you want to make, then keep rolling with the process. Don’t fix what isn’t broken.
• If you aren’t making the changes you want to make, then change your numbers. If you’re trying to gain weight by eating 3,000 calories per day, but it isn’t working, go to 3,500 calories per day.

*A special note on disordered eating: If you’re someone who might be prone to disordered eating habits, ignore all of this and seek help from a registered dietician.

Soul. I don’t want Belichick molding my son.

With the professionalization and de-personalization of college athletics, we need to be wary of who we let mold our kids.

College is the American coming-of-age ritual. You enter as a kid and leave as an adult. It’s where many of us learn what it is to be a man or woman. You have new experiences, you find new role models, you develop your own definition of what success looks like, and you create the vision of the life you want to lead.

College coaches can play a huge role in shaping that coming-of-age ritual for college athletes. With it being so de-personalized and transactional at so many places, I’m afraid of the negative ramifications that will tag along.

Bill Belichick is a phenomenal football coach. His track record in winning football games is indisputable.

However, if I have a son who’s being recruited to play high level college football, I don’t want him being molded to think that a romantic relationship between a 73-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman is normal, natural, healthy, or appropriate.

I don’t want him thinking that you choose a partner based off of surface level appearances.

Or, if he truly does have a truly deep intellectual and emotional connection with her, I don’t want my son to think that it would be natural for a 73-year-old man’s view on the world to be so stagnant that it aligns smoothly with a 24-year-old woman’s.

(Seriously, I’m only 30-years-old now, but I had some incredibly dumb and naive viewpoints at 24. My emotional, logical, and intellectual development from 24 to 30 has been massive, should that not be exponential over the next 40 years of my life?)

I urge you to be careful to not let the short-term possibility of maximizing market value outweigh the long-term certainty of developing into a happy, healthy, and mature member of society.

A couple important things…

1. This newsletter is completely free. I spend many hours each week researching, writing, and illustrating. The best way you can support it and allow it to continue is to share it with people you know. You can just send them to​ gtperformance.co/newsletter​ and they can subscribe there!
2. Everything in these newsletters and on our website is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as medical advice for you or your athlete. Consult directly with a healthcare professional.
3. We’re recording another “Ask Me Anything” episode this week. If you have any athlete development, sports performance, rehab, or life questions for me, send them ​here!​ (Or just email me back if you find that easier.)

Thanks so much for your help in spreading the word about athlete development!

Be >,

Zach

Dr. Zach Guiser, PT, DPT, CSCS