Stop Guessing Your Work:Rest Ratio's For Conditioning w/ Skyler Smutek (SSOF Ep 203)

James de Lacey2:53

You had hip problems from conditioning tests they did.

Skyler Smutek2:56

It was a lot of stuff. I don't want to speak too poorly about programs or whatever, especially when they're 15 years ago. But yeah, it was. We did a lot of stuff that a lot of the people that I started working with afterwards after the injuries, that's not what we did. There's a lot of max squatting and a lot of running.

And it's kind of just like this one time the track coach at Yukon saw us. He's like, "What are you guys doing?" And we're like, conditioning. And he was like, "Shouldn't you be doing that on the ice?" And we were like, "Hey, can you go tell our coach that? Because we're just doing what we're told." And so yeah, definitely, we ran a lot and we squatted probably way too more than I'd like to. But there was a lot of other things with that that came into it. I'm not completely blaming them obviously.

But yeah, couple hip surgeries there, but unfortunately that didn't really do all that much for me. And then I was in a rollover accident not too long after that. And so then I had another hip surgery from that and that one actually kind of finally helped. And so I had four almost five years off where I didn't play at all.

And as you can imagine, everyone's like, "Hey, you need to shut it down. Shut it down." And my coach mentor Brian Kak, he was my coach in junior and started us on the breathing stuff with the Spiro Tiger and all that. And so once I had these surgeries, I called him up. I'm like, "Hey man, I never planned on buying one of those because they were expensive, but I was like, yeah, I need one." Bought it and just kind of kept going because in my mind I was maybe a little bit crazy and I'm like, I'm not going to let this get in the way, right?

And so that's what helped me kind of make a comeback there. And then I started playing. I didn't play my first pro game till I was 27, 28. Yeah, 27. And so that's pretty, as you can imagine in hockey, that's pretty unheard of. And then so then it was only two years after that that COVID shut us down.

And same thing, my mentor Brian, he reached out to me actually this time and had new stuff. And right away he's like, "I got this thing that tells you how long to go, how many times, everything you need to know for training." And for me I'm like, "Oh my dude, perfect. Let's go. Let me get this." And so yeah, he fired that up for me. And over COVID I'd meet him every Wednesday to kind of, this is what we do now and this is the program and how I operate and how we do things. And he took me through the whole Moxy spiel, right?

And so that's where I learned all of that. And then I finished up with him in 2021. And before that I was sixth, seventh defenseman, which is single A pro in hockey. And then under a year of using the Moxies, I was up into the double A, which was a team that was affiliated with the Washington Capitals.

And so I think some people are like, "Oh, you always had the skill and drive and all this." I'm like, "No, man." If I didn't use the Moxy monitors, that it just never would have happened, right? Because it just, as you know and can imagine, it taught me a lot of things that not necessarily that I was doing wrong, but I just wasn't doing it in the best way possible for what I needed, right?

And so that's why I love it so much because I'm like, "Wow, yeah, I've realized how many times even with kids that I train now, I'm like, man, you don't really know what's going on unless we get that peak inside and take a look, right?"

James de Lacey6:45

Yeah, let's go down that path. Let's start there with the NIRS and the Moxy. And you mentioned a ton of things there. So we can just maybe start wherever makes sense for you in terms of what you learned from the Moxy. And then or maybe just for anyone who's not familiar, maybe just quickly describe what it is as well.

Skyler Smutek7:01

Yeah. So for me, and I stole this from Brian too, is it tracks muscle oxygen at the location that you put it in. You can tape it anywhere, right? But I try to stay away from that when I'm explaining it to somebody that maybe doesn't understand as much. And we just talk about energy now.

And what he always says is, what's the one thing that you can't go 3 minutes without in your life? And most people will take a second, but the answer is oxygen, right? It's the only thing. And so from that, we can kind of infer that it's the most important thing in our lives and in training. And so it tracks, that's what it tracks, and it's kind of your gasoline obviously as we know. But the way I talk about it now is just energy, right? This is literally your energy system.

And it shows us all those questions that most people that want to get better are asking all the time. How hard should I go? How many times? How long? When should I stop for the day? I certainly fell into the trap, and that's why I'm not blaming any place. I fell into the trap as most people do, just hard as you can, million miles an hour all the time. Which is great. We love that. It's not like you're not going to be asked to work hard. It's just using that old adage of let's do it smart, too.

James de Lacey8:31

So how are you using it then to decide how hard, how long, etc., etc.? So what are you seeing from that data and I guess how are you getting that data as well? Because obviously there's multiple different activities you can do with it.

And obviously you need context, all that kind of stuff. So what are you doing to get that data? Like, maybe it's like some kind of standardized test or movements, and then what are you seeing to be able to decipher, hey, how long, how, whatever it is, intensity, all that kind of stuff?

Skyler Smutek9:02

For sure, yeah. So for me when I was training, and it's the same for everyone, but just for me, there's lots of different applications. Number one would be warm-up. We've always heard about how important that is, but how long of a warm-up do you actually need? And so we'll say, let's say I come into the gym and I tape on the Moxy monitors and I'm at like 65% SMO2.

I watch and see it climb and go up to what I would figure out after a few times using them. 80 plus would be my range where it's like, okay, now we're operating at Ferrari time. I walked in as a Toyota Corolla and now we got the Ferrari going now with the premium gasoline. And so then I figured out, too, to get to that a little bit quicker, cuz in a game or with a bus showing up late or something, you got to expedite this a little bit. I don't have all day like most people do.

And so I figured out that I would need about six hard, maybe 10-second sprints with full recovery to get my SMO2 completely where I needed it to be. So that would be warm-up. And then the way I was taught to use it and the way they talk about on their website and stuff is following the trends.

And so once I'm up there at 80, I work as hard as I possibly can to drop it as much as I can. And let's say it drops like 30. And then you wait till it gets back up to whatever you started at, your trend, and then you just go again. And the way I was taught, same thing with it, to know when you're done with that, is at some point you're going to do the same exact thing and either one of two things is going to happen.

It's either not going to drop all the way to what you have been doing, the baseline before, or it's not going to raise up to what your baseline is. And that's kind of telling you, hey man, you're good today. You did enough for today. We don't need to burn it out anymore. Especially cuz most people want to go every single day.

And it's not saying that we wouldn't do a day where we would go super, super hard and kind of try to lean in and break that trend. But when we would do that, we want to make sure we have two days off afterwards. Like we want to make sure that you're taking it easy after that.

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Is that the main application then for most of your athletes? Is there a way, is there a time where you would look to maybe not do that more intense work and maybe look at more like other, I guess, intensity domains based on what you're seeing from it?

Skyler Smutek12:34

For sure, yeah. So hockey is a lot of short sprints, as you can imagine, and most of the shifts are supposed to be 45 seconds. And so we really try to train for that. But yeah, definitely on our Wednesdays usually, or midweek day, we would try to take it easy. And we would use it—I don't like to say zone two, but that's kind of what we would be aiming for. And it was ride the bike as fast as you can while still being able to keep a conversation and see how high we can get this thing to spike.

Because if you wake up and you put it on and it's like I said, it's at 65 or something like that, that's not necessarily optimal for your recovery for that day. And so you get it up in the morning, get it up to 85, and then it's usually going to stay there at 85 the rest of the day. So that would be another way to do it, just your recovery with that. And yeah, it's mostly just like, how intense do you need to go that day at that time?

Like, I got caught up in the just I want to be Brady or Kobe or any of these guys, Jerry Rice if you're a little bit older. And that's great and everything, but these guys are super freaks. We can't all do that. And if we want to, we got to build up to it. And it's just that old adage of working smarter, not harder.

James de Lacey12:34

So are you then collecting data for certain athletes over time, like through different baseline assessments or anything like that, just to see changes and what you're going to do? Like, what does that look like? So you mentioned obviously warm-ups and then some of the training, but is there something that precedes that in terms of maybe seeing where they're at and maybe what you want to do over the next weeks?

Skyler Smutek14:25

Yeah, so you can't ask anyone to buy Moxy monitors. They're like 800 a piece. And that's not saying anything negative about Moxy because they're so important. But I can't—you can't ask somebody that you're training online maybe to do that, or even that you see every once in a while. But it still gives them an idea of how to guess a lot better than they were beforehand.

Like, I can say, okay, today if you were feeling really good, which it kind of says that we know that, this is how many times we did the sprint today, and this is for how long you went, and this is how long you needed to recover in between each set.

And so this is kind of a good baseline for you to follow. It still falls under that sort of guesswork that we have to do. But if you don't have them, that's better than just, I don't know, I'm just going to go as hard as I can today. Like, I hear a lot of people talking about, oh, I'm just really in tune with my body and I just, I feel really good. I'm like, hey, I'm not doubting that at all. But the amount of times that I have been wrong with myself and then training other kids, getting the monitors on them, has been crazy.

Like, the best example I can give with that is I always try—I put it on a kid that I'm working with and I always ask, what did you do today? What's going on? "Oh, nothing." Okay, what's the week been like? "Nothing crazy." And I'm looking at the data. I'm going, what did you do today? And then it's like, "Oh, actually I walked around at the gym or at the zoo for six hours." And I'm like, "Yeah, dude, you're not ready to go like you were yesterday or whatever it was."

And so then we know it transitions into more of like a skill day after that. We don't need to push him that day cuz he's just not ready for it. And a lot of people are like, "That's soft or this and that." And it's like, no, man, we're just trying to be as smart as we can about it.

Well, so another way that I've seen that is kids get labeled lazy quite often because of this. And I struggle with that, cuz like I said, there's been so many times where I put it on the kid and maybe he's not warmed up fully, or I've had some kids that don't truly understand the definition of fully exerting themselves.

And then another good example of that would be, I have two monitors, and so I can test you side to side, which leg you're using more, which for me was really important coming back from the hip stuff. All my hip pain and the surgeries were mostly on one side. And as you know, everyone kind of favors one side, and it's even worse in hockey when you're skating. Like, I just did everything—

I just did everything with my left leg and that was my powerhouse. And so using these I was able to sort of catch up the right side where the left leg didn't need a lot of that. And so then same thing, two kids side by side. Kid A is tiny, hasn't grown a lot yet. B is huge and he just had a massive growth spurt. I hear from mom and so I have them doing the same sprints, right?

And the perception would be, well, kid A, he's just buzzing going back and forth just fine, right? Oh, he works hard. He wants it. He's in shape and all that. Maybe that's all true. Kid B that just had a growth spurt, he is slow and he's not keeping up. And then even the mom was like, come on, man. What are you doing? You're being lazy, you know?

And I'm like, listen, the data on the Moxy monitor show us that he's actually working harder than the other kid. So we have to adjust the training now. This kid is ready for this. This kid needs something different. And it's wild, man. I see it happen a lot. And that's what I mean by the guesswork. I would fall into that trap like, well, this kid must just not care. And we just know that's not true, man. They just need to do something a little different.

James de Lacey18:55

Where are you placing the Moxys for hockey?

Skyler Smutek18:58

Good question. And we do it on the quad, right on the VL there. That's where Moxy suggests and then obviously that's the main skating muscle. But then for my own training, I started to realize that, because you can put them anywhere. I see people like runners will put them on the calf. And then we did stuff where we'd put on the deltoid too.

And so for me too I started to operate and go to the calf more as well because I realized and did the replay of my own training my whole life and that's what a lot of hockey players fall into the trap of: my quads burn the most when I skate so I'm just going to pound my quads into submission. And then as you can imagine, most every single hockey player, their glutes and their hammies, we got to catch those things up and I'm certainly no different there.

And so I started to put them on the hamstrings and then on the calf as well, just to kind of see what was going on. I realized how often we're wrong when we're just going off a feel or whatever it is. And so it just gives you that information of, okay, this is, I know now this is exactly what I need. It completely eliminates that guesswork, right?

James de Lacey20:17

I've got a ton of questions here. Basically, I'm going to start with work to rest ratio stuff because you mentioned obviously you have guys doing sprints, desaturating and then you're waiting for it to come all the way back up. Two questions there. First one is waiting to come back up that can take different lengths of time, different obviously different steepnesses of those slopes, et cetera. Does that play a role then into when you stop?

And the second one is do you ever then or when do you look to employ non-complete recovery in that aspect, like not letting it come all the way out?

Skyler Smutek20:57

That second one is a great question. What was the first one? I missed it.

James de Lacey21:02

First one was about because you mentioned how you kind of stop those intervals where maybe you don't get that same desat or resaturation. But you can get the same resaturation, I guess number, this arbitrary number, but it can be at different rates. It could take you one minute, it could take you two minutes, it could be a different kind of slope. So does that play into it as well?

Skyler Smutek21:22

Yeah, definitely. Almost every person that I've trained on this and myself too and I see it all the time, they're kind of overestimating how hard they have to work and then they're underestimating how much they should rest, you know? It's how it is, man. Well, I'm not, I don't feel like I'm working hard and people are watching me and so I want this perception that I'm Jerry Rice, man. I'm getting after it. And it's like that's great, man. But we want to do what's best for you, right?

And then same thing, man. Every single kid is usually bored during the rest, the recovery periods, because sometimes it takes a little bit longer and so we have them stick handle with a puck. All right, dude, I get it. You're bored. Or I'll ask them about school, just try to get to learn a little bit more about them because they're, how these kids are, man. They got their phones all the time and so they want to get after it right now. And so totally understand that and try to work around that or whatever.

And then so the second question would be usually we started implementing half recovery. We would only let them get up to half of their baseline and then have them go again. And I only do that for people that really are like, we could have them sprint if we followed the normal protocol and it would never change. And now we're an hour into the session and we've never seen that the saturation not go down or not come back up again. So, okay, he's proven now that he needs more, he or she, right?

And so then now it's like, okay, yeah, dude, we got to push you a little bit harder. Drop it all the way down, right? And then we're only going to wait till it comes up half and then you're going again. And then obviously you can imagine then it gets a little bit harder for them, right?

And what I try to get people to understand is the way that I was taught and Moxy, I think, will agree with this is we want you dropping it to that as low as you can every single time. And so most people, if you don't wait till your full recovery to get back up, you won't touch your low baseline again.

Or at least that's kind of what we've seen. And so that's the point, man. I get it. It's a little bit boring. And you want to get after it. I understand that. But if you don't wait all the way, you're not going to drop it as much as you did the first time, right?

And so that's what I see guys doing all the time, especially in hockey. And we've talked about the long endurance saying all that's good and everything, but most of the time you're not going to drop that SMO2 to these levels that we sort of know will help you get a lot better. And so yeah, dude, we want to make sure they're recovering all the way up because you just won't get there, right?

James de Lacey21:22

So what are you looking to change or what are the adaptations you're looking for, physiologically, with these particular, I guess, configurations or sprints you're doing here or even other intensities and looking to Moxy? Are there certain things you're specifically looking to target?

So what are the things you're looking to specifically target in terms of adaptations with these different methods? So you mentioned obviously doing sprints, getting that full desat. So is there something specific you're looking at there versus maybe the half recovery versus maybe I don't know long intervals or whatever it is or what are those things you're looking to potentially change?

Skyler Smutek25:01

The main thing too for us is just shift length and shift intensity, right? We want these kids to just feel better on the ice. Feel like they're not as out of breath. And then as you can imagine that leads to better and quicker decisions when they don't feel. And then it just, the way that I've understood it and kind of seen it too is then this helps you, this makes you actually recover faster in between those shifts too, right?

And so that's what everyone wants in hockey. There's usually four forward lines, three defenseman lines, but usually only three lines play and two pairs of D play. And so you want to be one of those guys that's double shifting, if you will, right? And so how do we do that? Yeah, man. We got to make sure that we're following this protocol. And everyone that I've done this with, hockey-wise, most of the time they come back, how you been feeling lately? Really good, man. And I feel the same thing too.

When we broke for COVID, we would do this thing called morning skate before games and it would be only 20 minutes long, right? And I realized then I wasn't warmed up because that was the other thing. I talk to everyone all the time, you ever get on the ice you're just doing everything and you're like, man I'm out of shape, what's going on here? What we've seen most of the time from Moxy is you just haven't saturated enough yet, man. You're not out of shape, you're just not operating at the level that we know that we've seen you at before.

And then so when I came back after that it was completely different. Practices were what I remembered them to be before the all the hip surgeries and all the time off. It was like, oh okay, yeah, this is actually kind of fun again because I'm not absolutely dying out here and I can breathe and I'm making better decisions out there.

And so for sure that's the way I try to sell it to people too and how my mentor sold it to me, man. More intense shifts. That's the game, is aggressive, fast. And that's one thing that the parents thought we want, more aggressive, more aggressive. Yeah, dude. That's exactly what we're looking to get after here. And what I've seen is it's very challenging to do that when you're doing these long 45 second sprints where you're truthfully not at full intensity or whatever, right?

And that's the trap that a lot of hockey players fall into. I can't remember if I said this, but usually the shift is 45 seconds and then you get about two minutes rest in between your shift while you're waiting for the other two lines to go. And so then I fell into that same trap. Okay, well I got to simulate the game and make practice just as hard as the game.

So I need to sprint for these 45 seconds and then rest for two minutes. And it's not that it's bad, it's just not necessarily getting you to exactly where you want to be in the best way possible, right? And then same thing in hockey. Usually you're

You're sprint, sprint, sprint, glide, glide, glide. So yeah, it's 45 seconds, but man, there's no, you're not sprinting for that long, right?

James de Lacey28:19

And it's about distorting the game. So you're having to, in that 45-second shift, you need, you're essentially looking to increase the speed of play in that 45 seconds. And whatever it is in your conditioning stuff, you got to exceed whatever's happening there and you can do it over and over.

So how are you then building these kind of sprint regimens then to target these adaptations that you want? Is are you, do you have a certain work, work time and a certain rest time you typically, rest time based on that Moxy but certain work time, then is that based on Moxy or based on I know certain numbers that you're trying to do?

Skyler Smutek28:52

Yeah, it's a good question. This is how I'm circling back around to everyone that I played with, anyone that coaches. And I ask them, how are you determining your work to rest ratios? Where are you getting these numbers? And would you mind sharing the justification for how you're getting these? And most people, I don't want to say most people, a lot of people that I've talked to, they don't really know. They read it somewhere that this is good, but they can't really explain why they're doing it. And it's fine. I was the same way. And it's not like it's bad, right?

But yeah, we follow the Moxy to a tee, whatever it says that person needs. And especially if I have them on it over and over and over again. We don't go by one day, we go by a day that they're feeling, we know they're feeling pretty good, and we see that on the data. And it's, what is, when does this thing tell you how hard to go for how long?

And my mentor described it to me. And I, it's, I don't want to say I didn't believe him because I trust this guy a lot, but I understand why people don't believe it because it's not something that was really cemented in my mind until I saw it over and over and over again on the Moxy. And that was, nobody can go truthfully over 100% intensity for over 15 seconds. I really haven't seen it yet. Maybe 20, but that's your super freak, been doing this for a long time.

At some point, your intensity isn't going to, or isn't the same as 100. And so it's just not, it's not as beneficial, right? And so yeah, just about everyone is in that 5 to 15 second range of all out. And so we've seen that if we follow that true 100% intensity and then wait till you're back up and go again, that's where the true adaptation happens.

Just because, I was kind of taught, and Moxy goes by, it's we want to get this number as low as possible. The desaturation, that's really where you start to get the changes that you're looking for. And the long distance stuff, really when you do long distance, a lot of times it's going up or staying the same, and so it's just not desaturating. And I think a lot of, I haven't really done this much because it's not hockey related, but I think a lot of long distance runners will use that to make sure it is decreasing a little bit as they're running, right?

But that's just not something that we focus on in hockey. It's just all short bursts, right, like we were saying.

James de Lacey31:41

So is there more stuff that kind of changed your frame on conditioning and things when you started using Moxy? For example, that kind of low intensity aerobic work, it serves a purpose, but if we're looking to, as you mentioned, recover between these hard efforts, is it going to do anything for you when you don't see that same, when that same muscle stress as something that's higher intensity? So we just need to kind of go down that road of what kind of ideas changed in your mind and then what are you seeing now, I guess, within the conditioning landscape in terms of information around that?

Skyler Smutek32:17

Yeah, definitely. For us in hockey, we really only do the low intensity as a recovery thing to spike that SMO2 and get yourself fully oxygenated. And not saying it doesn't have its purpose, but the way that I was kind of explaining it too is that if you're doing all this other training and the high intensity stuff and it lasts for a long time too, you're kind of scratching that itch, if you will, too.

You know what I'm saying? That long distance stuff. And yeah, not saying it doesn't have a place, but I continually see that over and over again and talk to my mentor about it a lot.

And I'll see a kid or a coach and they're all saying, 'Well, we got to get him in better shape, and so he's doing these.' So, I don't, you've seen the movie Miracle?

James de Lacey33:03

No.

Skyler Smutek33:07

So it's a really popular movie about the 1980 US Olympic team.

And the coach, he pushed him really, really hard, right? And so, I fell into this trap too. The movie came out when I was around 14. And so it was like, 'Yeah, dude, we got to work as hard as these guys because that's the only way you're going to beat the Russians, right?'

And so, but when you do, when you go that hard for that long on the sort of classic on-ice conditioning thing that people do, your intensity level is nowhere near 100 by the end of the sprint. And so, it's not really doing, we just don't see those adaptations that you're talking about as much as we see the sprint and get it all the way down, wait till it gets all the way back up, right?

And so I see it everywhere, man. It's the notion of we just want the perception of we're working harder than somebody else. And I've had people even go as far as saying it's soft to worry about overtraining. And, it is what it is. They can have their opinions and I don't try to argue with them.

But for us it's not about overtraining, man. It's about under-recovering, right? You're not giving yourself a chance to recover. Because, like I said, we want to get this thing all the way down. And that's why we go to the half recovery stuff, because when you do that, you're just not going to last as long.

So if you truly want to get in and swing the hammer every single day, then yeah, it's better to follow this protocol than it would be to just absolutely kill yourself. And then you're going to feel that. That's why when we do do that, we know there's a place for it. And my mentor calls it survival training. And it's not like we don't ever do that, but he was very adamant. You need to make sure that you're having two recovery days after that where your intensity is nowhere near, right?

And I have heard some coaches at the higher levels talk about this. It's not like it's completely foreign. One time when I was like about to get called up one time, the coach was like, 'Well, make sure you don't have any too many shifts over a minute 30 out there.' And I'm like, 'Wow, okay. Yeah, I want to play for this guy because he gets it, right?'

And that often happens for, I play defense, and it can happen for the guys that kill penalties. I don't know if you're super aware of hockey, but you take a penalty, you're five on four now.

And so then it's very easy for the other team to hold the puck in your zone for way longer than your Moxy data would like you to be. And I played with teammates, man, they're hilarious. They're like, 'Smootzoots, I can't wait till you try to tell the coach, oh yeah, I'm not recovered on my Moxy. I need...' It's like, man, this is a game. This is not training. We're here to win, and so I'm ready to die on this PK if I have to, right?

But this is I'm talking about training, man. Not, right? And so, that movie Miracle was great, but it cemented a lot of views in my opinion on just you just got to kill yourself all the time in training, otherwise you're soft or not working hard or whatever. And I would love to agree with that, but then my hips started to say, 'Hey, man, we don't like this. So you got to dial it back and let's do this a little bit smarter now.'

James de Lacey36:41

I'm sure Rocky did the same thing.

But do you see different physiological profiles or physiological responses based on position in hockey?

Skyler Smutek36:56

Yeah, for sure. I haven't, that's a good question. I haven't, it's going to make me want to go and look back and kind of classify everyone on that. A lot of the kids that I've done are at an age where you don't necessarily want to pigeonhole them, I guess, in a position because they might change at some point.

But early on I asked my mentor about goalies because they don't do the shift change and they are out there standing in their crease for the entire time. So maybe the longer distance stuff might help them a little more than a player like us that's going to sit on the bench, coming out, going to sit on the bench. Sure, I can get behind that, but at the same time, it's still, you're still a human, right?

And you're still, when we follow the sprint stuff, we still see that's where you get the quicker recovery, the higher intensity and all that stuff. So I asked him about that. Hey, would you be doing anything differently for goalies? And it's like, not really, man. The sprint is where you really can do a lot of good. And so follow the data of what it says. Doesn't really matter what position they are. It's really just on what that player needs.

And I think this is where a lot of coaches didn't love this kind of stuff because they feel, it's a team practice, man. So they can't be super focused on what each individual, they're thinking about the team only. And I understand that, that's important, right?

But if we're at the end of the practice and we're doing this back and forth and everyone is doing the exact same thing, you can't make judgments on somebody until you really know what's going on inside their body, right? So, it was really easy to fall into that trap if you have never seen any of this stuff. And it's not that I didn't believe it. I just really was, I'm surprised all the time like, oh, wow. This is just not what I would have expected to see right now.

And I can tell, I remember what it was like. And I see a kid and I would have, remember, I without knowing I would be like, 'What are you doing, man? Why aren't you working harder? Let's go. Come on.' Right. And now I just know like, hey, hold on a sec. Maybe we need to tape this kid up to these things and take a look and see what's going on, right? And so, that was the other...

James de Lacey36:56

So does the train reds, do they track hemoglobin?

Skyler Smutek39:42

Yeah, but it's done through like a it takes into account everything around the muscle, too. So, it's a different reading. So you can't compare the two pieces of data basically. And so the only the only reason over time, right?

The only reason I asked that too is because it made me think of another thing that we've seen on the Moxy a lot. My it was one of the first tests that we did with my mentor and he ships his old Moxy monitors to me. I bought them off him and we're doing exactly what we're doing. And he says, "Okay, you know, this isn't a Moxy, but he's like, just put it on your arm, you know, right here. I just want to show you something." And so he does that and it's, as you know, it's the SMO2 and it's hemoglobin on there.

And so he's like, "Okay, think about somebody you hate right now." And I'm like, "What? Like, what are you talking about?" He said, "Close your eyes and think about somebody you hate." And so I do and I open up and the hemoglobin is just going like this down it goes. And so I'm like oh my goodness we've always been taught think positive think positive. You know the brain is super powerful. What does that actually mean?

Most kids don't and I did it to my dad too. I'm like hey look at this. This is incredible. Think about somebody you hate. Down it goes. And so that was one of the other notes that I made that I wanted to be sure we touched on today is some kids and I can relate to this. All right, man.

Hey, we're going to work really hard right now. And they don't know that they're going to get full rest recovery. And so they start thinking in their head, oh my gosh, this guy's going to he's going to make he's going to get me close to puking right now.

And so I'm like I'm counting down. And I'm like, "Okay, you're you're fully saturated. We're going to go in five. All right. Five. Four." And he he hasn't even started moving yet. And we already see his numbers going down like this.

And then so then I stop right away and I go over. I'm like, "Hey, what were you just what were you just thinking there?" And he was like, "Yeah, I was really" Well, he he didn't want to he didn't want to say right away. I had to do a little digging to make sure that I wasn't like interrogating him or you know, I'm like, "Hey, you just you're good. You're good, dude. I just what were you thinking?"

And he was like, "Yeah, man. I was I was thinking about the reps before I was doing them." And I'm like, and then I show them. I'm like, "Hey, listen. This is look at this. This is look at this. You want to be really conscious of what's going on up there." And we've just seen that happen like a ton. It can be influenced by the mind and so not necessarily your SMO2 that's just the hemoglobin but as we know that's what carries the oxygen to the muscles.

So we don't we don't want anything going down if you're just sitting still man. And so that is where then we start to lean into the mental training that everyone knows is really important and most often times that's around the breathing. If we can get that to settle down, you're going to have a better oxygen and fuel system because of it. So that was one thing I wrote down because it's it's crazy, man.

And that happens all the time. And then I start doing it with kids all the time. And then another funny story with that that I just thought of, too. There was one kid, I'm sitting there with his mom, I don't really care if the parents are there, if you can listen and if you learn some of this stuff, then you'll be able to help him train better.

And so I'm sitting there and the mom's there and I'm like, you know, think about somebody you hate. Moxy and the hemoglobin isn't going anywhere. And so I'm kind of looking and then the mom's like, he doesn't really hate anyone. Like he's he's just a kid. And I'm like, "All right." And but the mom kind of she's smart and she is a teacher and she kind of knows what I'm trying to do.

And so she's like, "Hey, uh, you know, it doesn't matter. Hey Ashton, what uh you remember that time you lost 20 bucks?" It just down. And so, she knew that we just wanted to give him an idea. He was a little bit younger. But she knew what I was trying to do and and what we were trying to accomplish. And man, it's crazy. It goes right down.

And so, I think it helps me. I think it really helps people understand the importance of, we've all heard think positive and the brain is powerful, but man, this is this is why.

That's always been really huge for me. Like that's great that we're doing this, but can you tell me exactly why we're doing this because then I won't care if it's how hard it is or whatever it is, but I need to know that there's an actual reason.

And I found that to be interesting here because, that's why he was trying to sell me on his program and the Moxy monitors. I'm like, "Dude, you don't say less. I don't I don't know what I'm doing. I think I'm Rocky and and my hips are not okay with this anymore."

Oh, and then not only that, I was in at an age where, everyone does, you start to see the end of your career and you're like you haven't accomplished some of the goals that you want to. And so it's like, all right, what's going on here? Like I got to figure out why are we doing this and why am I not getting better?

And so that was another thing I wrote down, too, is a lot of people, they overestimate how much energy a kid has. It's like, oh, he's a he's a kid. He they have abundance of energy. True, but that doesn't mean if you pound him into submission with conditioning all the time, oh, he seems to be handling it fine. Oh, and then I always they survived. I'm like, that's that's not necessarily the goal here. We want them to get better and I can show you quantitative data of we're getting them better by this method.

Yeah, it's wild, man.

James de Lacey46:11

Yeah, parents parents love to push their kids into I guess for scholarships, you know.

Skyler Smutek46:18

Yeah, definitely. And I and I completely understand that because my parents were the same way and they wanted me to work hard and and do all that but it's something that a lot of people I was forced to take a look at it because of the injury stuff. And so if you don't have any reason to be forced into that you're not going to you're just going to unfortunately here in America that's sort of the the trend.

Just you just work and work and work and work and if well if you haven't reached your goals, you must not have been working hard enough. And that's literally, it's pounded into everyone.

James de Lacey46:56

If you didn't get Tommy John surgery, you didn't

Skyler Smutek46:59

There you go, man. It's it's every single sport. And it's funny, too, because I had another parent, too, that was just like that session wasn't hard enough. And I'm like, look, I okay, I hear you. We're going to but here's the thing. It's not that I'm not asking you to take it easy, man. When it when it's time to desaturate, I'm sure other people out the rank are like, "This guy's crazy." Because I'm trying to I'm trying to get it out of them.

I'm like, "Let's go, go, go." Yo, this is the time where it is time to be Rocky and all that. And I love it.

But then while you're resting, we got to just chill out and let's talk about school and let's do this because I want to make sure that you and it's been fun too because some of the kids they everyone loves video games. I'm no different. And so they get a real life video game and I love it because some kids they it's a hey listen you you got to beat 35 data now. You got down to 35 you got to beat it man.

And then I'm like, "Hey, and and hey what? Guess what? You're probably not going to beat it unless you rest all the way up until, you're you're back up to where you were when we walked in today, or got you fully warmed up, I should say." So that's been another thing that's been fun to see because this is the same thing for me. All right, I got to try to beat it today. I want to see if I can get up to into the 90s and I want to see if I can get into the 15s of DSAT.

And so for kids that grew up with iPads and even tech tech here is very popular in Seattle. So obviously a lot of parents like to see that, okay, this is, we know what's going on. But unfortunately, what I ran into too is I think a lot of people think it's snake oil, if you will.

They don't. How could this possibly be telling you what's going on inside the body, right? And I get that. There's a lot of—for the people that don't know, it uses infrared like boats do to look underwater, right? It's the same technology. And so, trust me, I'm—then for me, all it did was a few quick studies or I listened to a bunch of the Moxy—they have like seminars.

Yeah. Summit. There you go. And my mentor was a speaker at that a couple years ago, so I obviously tuned in and watched that. And we got doctors and stuff using these in their studies, man. So I always say these people are more than likely a lot smarter than me. So, and then that's another thing that people think that I have like stock in Moxy or whatever. I'm like, listen, like I'm sure it sounds like that, but for me really, no, it just helped me a ton and it helped form and shaped my views on training that I thought were true, and they just weren't.

And so it's like, that's—I think that's part of the "it's a gimmick" or "he's just trying to make money," and it's like, well, yeah, man, I got to eat. But also like what you're doing right now, like, how sure are you that you're actually getting better or you're actually getting that kid better? Like, can you say that with 100% certainty?

And how can you say that with 100% certainty? And so it's tough. It's—I recently called my mentor to kind of ask him for advice on not necessarily selling this, but just hey, are you running into this? And he was basically just like, "Get used to it, man.

Buckle up. Like, this is well ingrained, as you know, into the culture and it's going to take a little while as things do to kind of educate, I guess." But it's confusing to me, man, because like I said, it helped me so much and then I just—there's all these people that are using them. And so, like I said, it just goes against the narrative of work as hard as you possibly can at all times. And so I can see where even when I was younger, I would have been like, "I'm not doing that."

James de Lacey51:22

Yeah, and if I was trying to get rich, I would not be investing in sports tech companies. That is—there's one place that's one place I would not put my money.

Skyler Smutek51:32

That's such a good point, man. Yeah. Like I promise you this is not a get-rich venture for us right now. And, you know, so I think they think I work for Moxy too, and maybe I should and maybe they should be paying me for this a little bit, but I don't really care. I truthfully don't about that because, you know, what's most important for—so my parents had no clue what to do when I was a kid.

They wanted to—they wanted to give every resource possible they have, but they had no idea and I didn't either. And so when I see kids that really, really want it but they don't really know what they're doing, I'm—that's why I do this. I have a degree in communication. I could easily go get a job anywhere else. Like all these—all my friends are, for the most part, in corporate and, you know, I get offered to join their stuff sometimes.

But it's like I see myself in a lot of these kids and, you know, that's—it's a common thing. We evolve into what we needed as kids. And I—it's also easy for me to look back at the few mentors that I had that really got me there and it's like, man, I would have been lost without these guys. So, it's, you know, that's what it is for me.

James de Lacey52:58

Nice. You mentioned as well with asymmetries. How are you addressing asymmetries that you see from maybe like left and right leg when using Moxy? Are you—anything special conditioning or strength training?

Skyler Smutek53:05

Yeah, it's a good question. So, like for me, I haven't done that a ton with my younger guys just because since it is a little bit expensive, obviously you can imagine like I have the two monitors so it's often times two different kids splitting the cost. And then usually in the kids when they're younger, I've trained older people too and older kids, but for the most part they're going to be pretty symmetrical. That stuff doesn't happen until you've really been in your sport for a long time.

So I can only speak on that for my experience. And yeah, 100%. My left leg was doing all the work, like all of it. So then I started to be like, "Oh my gosh." Like, so then I tested it. I put both of them on in the same spot and I'm doing single leg extensions, right? And man, my—like I was told in rehab and by some of the people that work for this—left leg is a powerhouse, my right leg is tiny. And especially after the surgeries and the rehab, they a lot for a long time they couldn't figure out what was going on with me.

And so it was just rehab your left side like crazy. Rehab, rehab, rehab. Because of that, it was visible in the mirror that my right quad was tiny compared to my left one. So then for a lot of days in a row, I would—and I remember asking this too before, I'm like, man, like how do I know how much clamshells to do on each side? Like how do I know that? And I'd be asking these questions that, as you know, are pretty hard to answer unless you take a look and see what's going on.

And so I spent a lot of time literally not even training my left quad because it was humongous already and just trying to catch the right one up. I would just put the Moxy on that and just bag myself on the leg extension or whatever it was. And then so then it's a good question too because then the other way I started doing that was following the Moxy data, placing it on my weaker leg.

And so that's another—if I have a kid and we only want to put a Moxy on one leg and I don't know what side is, I have them do a little test where they stand up on one leg, like sit down and stand up on one leg, because I want to know which one is the weaker leg. And we're going to follow the Moxy protocol for that side for that day. And this is if I don't have time to do the symmetry for them because we—if we follow the left side, your right leg might not be—that it might be too much for that.

But if we follow the weaker side, we know we can infer, right, that the strong side is going to be okay and we're not going to be like doing too much for it, per se, or not letting it recover enough.

And so for me, when I realized there was that huge asymmetry and I didn't want to put both of them on for the day, I'd put it on the right side, the weaker one, and follow that data to make sure that I was catching that side up. And then now I'm a lot more—I actually just did a test the other day at somewhere else, and it was pretty symmetrical.

And so that's because I spent a lot of time catching it up. Just okay, the Moxy says this. Because yeah, use it for conditioning too but when—the way I was taught when we put on the deltoid here is you obviously can use it for strength too. It's not like you can't.

James de Lacey56:48

Yeah, I was going to say how—what were you looking at then when you're doing say the right leg extensions? Were you just trying to—were you just looking for that desaturation kind of bottom out, stop the set, wait for it to come back?

Skyler Smutek56:57

100%. It's the same protocol that you would follow. The only difference is I was kind of taught to—you might go a little bit more for strength training because it's just at the location. It's not entire body, right? And so you might push it a little bit more. But I saw one of your posts the other day too that I like just about like—because everyone's obsessed with going to failure.

And it's like, yeah, dude, for sure. Like, I get that. But same thing, if we follow this Moxy data—I was taught failure, from my mentor, was kind of like when you lose the intensity of the rep. And that's because when we see that on Moxy, that's when it really tells you that you should be done. You know how it is. People just want to—I got to go to failure and if I'm not shaking like this, I'm not getting it. Yeah, dude. I fell for that trap, too.

But truthfully, the time when I had the best bench, I was only benching once a week. Like, and so it's not—not saying I wasn't doing other chest stuff that week or whatever, but it—what I keep seeing over and over again is the overestimation of how hard you have to work. And then I explain people to what the Moxies do and they're kind of scared. They think that the—number one, they think, well, it's not going to look good, the data. And I'm like, whoa, hold on a sec. There's no good or bad. It just is.

James de Lacey58:33

That's a big one. There's no good or bad. People need...

Skyler Smutek58:37

That's just is what it is right now and then we're going to work to make it better. There's literally no bad. And so then I think that's the other thing too. They realize that there's no hiding or there won't be any hiding. And yeah, for sure I've taught some kids that clearly didn't understand what it was to fully exert themselves. I think I mentioned that earlier. I can show them now. You're kind of leaving some on the table and you go a little bit harder.

But then the one kid that was super worried about it, he didn't understand. Maybe I forgot to tell him or he didn't understand how much rest he was going to get. Dude, yeah, it's going to be tough when we're trying to get that SMO2 down and it's going to suck for a second, but then man, you're not going again until your breath is back to normal. And so that would be the protocol that I follow if I'm not using it or I was and teach people to follow.

Not everyone's going to have this Moxy monitor, but we always see that your saturation is back up to your trend when your breath is back to normal. And so people are, they want to if you're not out of breath, you're not working hard. And it's just kind of...

James de Lacey59:51

That can be true during your work set, but we just don't want you to go again until you're fully ready to go again. And then that's what we see on the data too, when we do those half recoveries, like I was saying, they don't last for the whole hour. So, if you do that with somebody that's not ready, it's not going to improve them as much as if they waited all the way up, right?

So final question for you on Moxy and hockey is do you see any differences in maybe upper and lower, upper body and lower body data that you... I don't know if you've taken any lower body data maybe on the ice or sorry upper body data on the ice and maybe if certain... I'm assuming there's a lot of upper body involvement when you're skating, sprinting for me especially when holding a stick too. So I don't know if there's any insight there.

Skyler Smutek59:51

Definitely. That's a good question and this is one of the things that I was frustrated about some of the programs that I was with earlier. And when I was younger and people are still on this they really want to turn you into a linebacker in a way and that's awesome because, as you know, there's fighting and having a stronger upper body will make you have a harder shot. And you got to push people around in the corner when there's a loose puck in front of the net, the D-men are taught to not care about the puck anymore. It's lift their stick and literally...

And that's where I'm like, "Oh, really? I just get to go ham now then. Oh, dude, you say less, right?" And so, yeah, we want you to be strong up top. But then for me, there was at times where I got a little bit too bulky up top. And then you can imagine what that did to my Moxy data and how easy it was for me to fly around the ice for 60 minutes, 30 minutes a game or whatever it was, right? It way more challenging.

So, and a game has changed now. When I was younger, it was if you weren't over 6'1, you weren't playing D at a high level. And we got guys that are 5'6, 5'7, 5'8, dominating the NHL now.

James de Lacey1:02:07

And I should have gotten into hockey.

Skyler Smutek1:02:11

It was, it's always sort of been the last sport for the middle-sized guy. It really has been. And so, yeah, I trust me, man. I want a harder shot and I want to be able to push people around and stuff, but it's a very fine line because well, it also depends on what role you're playing, right?

So for D-man in particular, there's usually three archetypes. Offensive defenseman, two-way defenseman, defensive defenseman. Your offensive guy, he's expected to contribute in all three zones. That was what I was more associated with more often than not. And so if I get too big up top, man, my offense is gone now. Okay, great. I won't shoot as hard. But then now we got a defensive defenseman who's 6'5. Yeah, dude. We don't really care if you can skate around the whole game. We need to make sure that you're a physical presence. Nobody's getting around you. Yeah. Then we might train him a little bit differently.

James de Lacey1:03:13

Nice. Now, I appreciate you coming on this podcast, Skyler, and sharing everything you're doing, but where can people find and follow you, keep up with everything you're up to?

Skyler Smutek1:03:21

Yeah, definitely. So, my personal... Thanks for having me on, man. It was a good time. Love chatting with you all the time. Always like getting these connections.

And so my personal page is my last name, SMUTEK14, and then my business page is Smooch, which would be SMUT. I really wanted to make sure to confuse everyone with that. Hey, but for me it was the, I grew up a Batman guy and he's always got the Wayne tech and all the gadgets and stuff like that and so that's why I wanted to lean into that.

And yeah, it's what it is, right? And that's the Moxy monitors helped me sort of get into that, right? It's the tech. So that would be where I'm at, man. Mostly my own page though of just my name, my true name here. So, but yeah, man. Appreciate you having me on for sure.

James de Lacey1:04:10

Thank you. I'll link that up in the description if anyone wants to check out some stuff and I think you're going to start posting more stuff on conditioning and all sorts. So...

Skyler Smutek1:04:18

Yeah. So, I had a traumatic brain injury that I went through unfortunately, hit my head on the ice in 2021. And so, honestly, now is the first time I've started to feel really, really good in there. I spent a lot of time where I was just done training and I didn't want to do this at all.

And then now I'm realizing that this stuff isn't mainstream at all. And it is kind of hard to get people to understand. And so now that I'm sort of out of shape, I'm going to kind of train myself again while using the Moxy monitors and trying to document all of it, because the first time I was very, it was my personal career. And so now I'm going to try to lean into filming, this is how we do it and just explaining things better. Because it is, it's simple but...

It can be like the guy that he taught it was, he taught it took a long time to teach me all this stuff.

And I kind of was underestimating how much time we spent going through it and if you don't necessarily have the background it can be a little bit confusing and I can understand that now. So doing my best to break that down for sure. So look for that definitely.

James de Lacey1:05:22

Yeah, perfect. Perfect. I'll link all that up. Everyone can check it out. But I appreciate you coming on, Skyler.

Skyler Smutek1:05:39

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, buddy. Good to see you.