Welcome to Brazos Matters.

I'm Jay Socol.

So listeners and viewers of this show know that we partner with Texas A&M Department of Journalism to have a journalism student to help produce the show.

And that means coming up with ideas for topics and guests and preparing us for these in-studio discussions.

This semester, Brazos Matters student content contributor is Victoria Taylor.

Hey, Victoria.

Hello.

How are you?

I'm good.

I'm glad you're here.

I'm glad we got to today.

We've been looking forward to this.

Right.

Yes.

So, we'd love for you to tell us where you're from, how you got to Texas A&M, and also about your athletics career.

Okay, I'm Victoria Taylor.

I'm a senior here at A&M.

I'm originally from Richmond, Kentucky, and I decided to come to A&M almost four years ago now for the swim program, which I just completed my swim career last weekend.

But I've really enjoyed this for years, just being at this school on the swim team and just the school overall is amazing.

So I know I made the right choice to come to A&M.

So what were some of the universities you were considering before you chose A&M?

It was kind of during Covid, so I wasn't able to talk to an extreme amount or go on official visits anywhere, but I was between A&M and the University of Miami in Florida.

Okay, I'm glad I picked here.

We're kind of the Miami of Texas, I think.

Yeah, definitely.

Okay, so, tell us about today's topic and why you thought it was a good idea for us to address it.

So today we're talking about strength and conditioning training topic.

And I thought that this was important because as an athlete, it's definitely I've been in the world to know lots of information about strength training, but I think that the general population definitely could hear a lot more about it and be interested in it.

I think that's right.

So you you made that compelling pitch to me, about multiple aspects of the coaching that you have received along the way.

And also, like you said, ways that, these coaches can share some things that the rest of us, the mere mortals, can use in our lives to make make our lives better.

So we're kind of working on a three part series.

So parts two and three are coming.

But today's guest is Ashley Jackson, who is assistant director for strength and conditioning for Texas A&M Athletics.

Ashley, thanks for being here.

Thanks so much.

Thanks for having me.

You bet.

All right, Victoria tell you.

Okay.

Ashley, can you tell us kind of just about your background with strength training and how you eventually got to A&M?

Sure.

I think initially I wanted to just be around sports for as much.

And as long as I could.

And then I thought initially it was physical therapy was my route to kind of stick within that avenue.

But then I started to be able to shadow and go out to PT clinics and see what that look like.

And it was it was a little slower than I would have liked.

I have a good amount of energy that I need to get rid of through the day.

So people allow me back home and, being around sports within strength and conditioning, within athletics, and within, like the higher education piece, there was like a moment of how can I be influential in this space?

How can I use my energy and my passion, and my desire to help and lead others?

And kind of found this route, took a lot of school, took a lot of certifications and studying, a lot of hours, in the books, and a lot of hours on my feet.

There's a big practical piece to what it takes to become a strength conditioning coach, especially at the highest level, for NCAA and for professional sports.

So putting all of those together, I was able to kind of start a career within NCAA strength and conditioning.

Went to grad school, did a lot of internships in Texas.

And then I started to branch out a little bit.

I knew that I couldn't, leave my feet in the Texas soil if I wanted to go out and seek the best opportunities for growth, and education for myself.

So I wanted to put my put myself around the best coaches out there, the best opportunities, the best schools.

So I ended up going to the University of Michigan.

I spent, far more time there in the cold than I would have liked initially.

But it was a great opportunity for myself to grow as a young coach, be around great mentors, be around other great sport coaches, and some really, really good athletes at the school, high, high level, of training there.

And, I was there for ten years.

And then I got the opportunity to come back and work at Texas A&M, with a former colleague of mine.

And then he was my boss here at A&M for about four years.

Bo Sandoval so big reason.

Yeah, I came back here to A&M was to be with him and to be around him, you know, his energy and and the culture that he wanted to create here.

So I'm still here, worked with a multitude of sports here, lots of different coaching staffs, lots of different athletes, and have thoroughly enjoyed my time so far.

Okay.

Awesome.

And you grew up an athlete, right?

So do you think doing that strength and conditioning training growing up, did you ever see yourself maybe wanting to coach the next generation of athletes coming up?

Or did you strictly think physical therapy at first?

No, I, I was probably on the opposite side of the path of getting good strength conditioning, exposure.

I got some exposure, but it probably wasn't the best.

But it still, kind of clicked as an interest for my mind how to influence my ability to play whatever sport it was.

And the season I played, everything, but I really kind of noticed as training went along and as I had dedicated more time and space to it, it really started to affect, my ability to play sports at a high, at the higher level.

And so I found that the expertise and the guidance that I was getting was not correct.

And so that just led me to seek out things for myself.

And kind of just, like fit into that interest, and that, yeah, it was really exciting at first because when you're a young athlete, anything that you do helps, very, very malleable in that way.

And so it was nice to be able to start and see immediate, feedback from my body and from the training and from the nutrition.

And I just it was just very, very, I always wanted more.

And so I had to keep seeking it out.

Okay.

So here at A&M you work with a lot of different athletes, both men and women and all the the differences that come with that.

But how do you specifically tailor training to that many individual athletes?

You know, so I see myself as an expert generalist, and something that we do at the very beginning of when we start working with a new team or a new athlete, is an in-depth needs analysis.

So we take the athlete and we assess them kind of from tip to tail.

We look at, you know, what the qualities are of a high level athlete within that sport.

So we'll take swimming.

As an example to, to tell.

We'll look at quality.

So go all the way from like anthropometric.

What are their body, what should their bodies look like go for like Dexa information.

How much lean muscle mass does, like a high level swimmer have?

What are qualities athletically that they need to possess?

Should they be able to jump high, jump far?

Should they be able to, lift a lot of a lot of weight relative to their body weight?

Should they be, have a lot of absolute strength, be able to lift heavy, heavy loads regardless of body weight?

What kind of muscular endurance do they need for their event?

And that there's a big spectrum and talked about with swimming all the way from 50 to a mile.

So there are different attacks and, like practices that go into getting better at those specific events, just like their strength and conditioning.

So we'll focus on different qualities and approaches with those athletes.

We'll go through and look at, We'll go through and look at, we'll also use some sport science approach.

So we'll look at, what their jumps look like, a counter movement jump, how they're able to produce force, how quickly they're able to produce force, how they land.

Is everything, symmetrical from side to side, top to bottom.

So we'll look at force.

They're able to produce with the right shoulder, left shoulder.

We'll look at force able to produce a left leg.

Right leg.

There's a multitude of tests.

It's very detail oriented.

So when we get all that data back, I'm able to formulate a plan, as a holistic approach to the athletes.

So in general, I know that this group of swimmers or this team of swimmers needs to have these general qualities to start with.

And then from there I can tailor off per event group and per athlete, what they need and what's going to help them kind of bridge the gap between where they're at and where the coaches think that they're going to be at their best.

that they're going to be at their best.

So in terms of numbers, how many of you are in your portfolio of athletes at any one year, any one season close to 40.

Wow.

Okay.

It feels like a lot.

Yeah.

Mixed between girls and guys I don't know.

Is it a lot for you.

It's it's a different approach.

I've worked with large teams.

I've worked with individual groups.

So like a golf or a tennis.

I've worked with bigger groups, like a women's lacrosse team.

We have had 47 on the team at one time.

You know, football can have 80 to 100.

So there's, there's a big continuum of what those rosters look like.

Here again, we're definitely blessed with the resources to have enough coaches within our staff to really give the time and attention and the detailed approach, to be able to, to help them be super successful.

Yeah.

Okay.

And as a strength and conditioning coach, what are you kind of looking for in our training?

Yeah, I'm looking for results.

Yeah.

And I know the coaches are looking for that as well.

Right.

The coaches are always wanting to go faster to be able to, you know, produce more results weekend to weekend to get better over time.

Right.

To always be progressing.

So I think at the utmost like detail and looking at progress in the pool, are the coaches happy with where you're at?

Are you progressing like they think you should be?

And then from there, I want to make sure that you're healthy, like the biggest ability is your availability, right.

So if you're hurt, you can't swim.

If you're hurt, you can't do anything.

So I want to make sure that you're healthy over a long time.

So, like, your robustness and the longevity to your training and approach has a lot to do with, you know, what height you'll reach within the sport.

Because if you keep having to take breaks, right, for tiny injuries or big injuries, you're never going to get to where you want to be.

So just making sure you're healthy, making sure that you can withstand the volume of training, right, that the coaches think it takes to, to be successful in your event.

And then, yeah, just saying super like, in line with what the coaches are thinking, what they want to do next.

Like, I need to know their next move.

So there's a lot of questions always between myself and the coaching staff.

Yeah, I definitely know how that feels like trying to ease back into weight training and swimming after being sick or just after even like a taper period, like resting.

So, so in terms of an individual's character traits or personality, is there is there something that you kind of pick up on and you're like, oh, yes, I can capitalize on that, leverage it in in the weight room, and feel free to use Victoria as an example.

Yeah.

I mean, the biggest thing for me is for an athlete to be coachable, right, that they acknowledge that there are gaps within their performance and within their training, that they need help and guidance with.

And that's where it's a lot easier for me to step in versus try to pull them, into what I would like them to do.

And I do I it's very helpful if the athletes think that they need me.

If I can offer some sort of resource or guidance or, tidbit of information that might help them continue to reach those higher levels of training.

And I just have to be, particular when I insert those.

I can't shove them down their throats.

No one likes that.

But I can definitely lead them gently, to to the water.

And then make sure that they remember it tastes good to drink and, you know, be hydrated.

Whether that's, strength and conditioning or water training or what their nutrition looks like.

Yeah, you definitely know how to come up and critique us in the right way.

Thank you.

So throughout our athletic season, obviously we go through ebbs and flows of big competitions and meets coming up.

So why is it important for swimmers like me and our team to kind of reduce training during like big competition seasons and have heavier training, maybe over like a thick block of just training?

In no means.

Yeah, absolutely.

There's a there's a huge roller coaster right throughout the calendar year with training, with competitions and you know, with offseason, and the biggest thing for me is that there is trends in it that there's a roller coaster, that it's not a flat line, that it's not always a really, really steep approach and that it's not always like the flattest line.

So I want to be able to give, you know, stimulants to your bodies, whether that be, you know, particularly in strength and conditioning or competitions or training.

But then I need to also, you know, influence the coaches and remind myself that you've got to recover from that stimulus from that stress.

So we've got to come down a little bit to let you rest and recover.

And then the next piece of the stimulus and the stress that we give you has got to be higher, right?

Because once you've recovered, you've come back stronger.

Yeah I know you're like, I can feel this, right?

You can feel it.

But once you've recovered, we have to give you a bigger stimulus, so that you continue to progress positively.

Okay.

That makes sense.

So I'm going to reintroduce you, if you're just tuning in, I'm Jay Socol with KAMU student content contributor Victoria Taylor.

Our guest today is Ashley Jackson, assistant director for strength and conditioning with Texas A&M Athletics.

She specifically works with men's and women's swimming and diving teams.

We're talking about how she helps her athletes performance, and how the rest of us can borrow from her training to improve our own lives.

Okay, next question from a strength and fitness standpoint, what do you hope that you're able to do, like growing up 50, 60, 70 and beyond?

Yeah.

And beyond, keep moving, keep being, keep exercising, keep moving, keep, stressing and challenging my body.

A and then B, I think I want to be around for my kids as long as I can and to be as active as I can with them.

I don't want to be the parent on the sideline that can't help them, that can't demonstrate some sort of new sport or they can't, you know, ride my bike with the family.

I want my kids to be active.

I think that's super important from a mental and a physical standpoint.

So I want to be able to give that example for them, for that and continue, like for eternity.

Yeah.

Okay.

Representing the average person here.

How much should we pay attention to things like stepping on the scale or BMI numbers or the endless, supply of self-proclaimed, fitness gurus that we see on social media?

How about those sorts of things?

Yeah.

I mean, there are a lot of self-proclaimed experts out there, and I think that there's probably more self proclamation than than there is studying and, book, book knowledge that they have or, you know, classroom knowledge that they have.

I think you need to be really particular, and picky about who you're listening to, what you're reading, what the sources are.

If you're going to follow something, just make sure it's accredited.

There's plenty of resources out there for the general public for free.

I know everyone likes the WebMD and the Google, and that's just a little bit too generic of a search, right?

Or the Instagram TikTok.

I can't even keep up at this point.

What the social media, popularity, app is right now.

But just just know what your sources are and make sure they're accredited.

As as you seek those out, it's really important, to follow if you're going to follow something or if you're going to listen to that.

That's right.

How much do we pay attention to what we weigh and to, again, those numbers like BMI.

Yeah.

I mean, I think it's important to have, a thumb on your health.

Absolutely.

You know, from ground zero, I think using a lot of people tend to be, scared or, you know, not interested in asking their doctor, like their primary care physician.

About that to start with, I think that that's a good place that while you're getting your yearly physical, getting your bloodwork, like you should know what's going on inside of your body, and there's plenty of avenues out there to be able to get those numbers.

And a lot of them are free with insurance.

And so there's just no reason that you shouldn't have a general idea, like annually, what's going on inside your body hormonally, with your bloodwork, what you're weighing.

And then there's, you know, even beyond that, being able to do some sort of body composition scan gives you a much better idea in to kind of numbers versus lean muscle mass and fat mass, BMI, things that take your height and what you weigh into account only as the variables are pretty unreliable.

Especially for people like myself who have a pretty good amount of lean muscle mass on them.

They might tell me that I'm morbidly obese, which I can promise you I'm not.

Right.

Right now, I've heard the same thing that that, that has been discredited to a great degree after years and years of it being some sort of, supposedly reliable standard.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I've always been told if, if there's a goal that you want to reach, whether it be a number on the scale or whether it be, you know, how you want to look, then you need to assess where you're at and then be able to build a plan to get where you want to be in.

So having as much knowledge as you can about where you're at always helps to correct your path and fitness.

Yeah, yeah yeah, okay.

For those who aren't, do you want athletes and maybe want to start understanding strength and conditioning?

Where would you kind of recommend they start?

Would it be like with weights or more cardio or.

I think again, it depends like where they're at in their athletic career and how old they are and like what, you know, tools they have.

We talked a little bit about dispelling some of the so-called experts out there, but there are good strength conditioning coaches that, you know, have gyms out in local places like this, like in the city of College Station.

I know that there's several, locations that offer great youth strength and conditioning.

And so just seeking out good, reliable sources for that.

Other than that, I think, like, just calisthenics to start with, like being able to manage your own body weight, think push ups, pull ups, sit ups, planks.

You know, those are all good places to start.

They take minimal equipment, techniques.

Pretty easy to start off with.

And then I think just as your interests grows in a specific sport, maybe you're, you know, like, I'm absolutely want to play Division one sports or I want to go to college and get a scholarship.

You know, people are seeking out those professionals to help influence, you know, their abilities.

Young, young, like I'm seeing 12 and under.

Kids have a strength and conditioning coach.

And I think it's great, too.

If you have a good coach, start to get some feedback on things you need to work on.

And just being mindful, with a lot of the kind of land sports that I've worked with or field sports, year round training in the same sport I think is getting outrageous.

And I know swimming is just as bad.

It's swimming year round.

Never take a break, never play another sport.

But we're starting to see a lot of injuries that pop up with athletes that have only played one sport year round for years and years and years.

And they'll come in with bony issues.

They'll come in with right tendon issues.

And, I think being versatile in kind of what sports you play, even if it's just a weekend fun sport with your friends, keyword being fun, and friends, those are important too.

But just having a versatile approach into your sport training will help with the initial approach to strength conditioning.

Okay, and could you explain just a little bit how important it is to you watching, our form during our weight sessions?

Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

She's, I have a saying it's kind of always be coaching.

And it's something that I, I warn the athletes about when they come in is like, if I stop coaching you, that's when you should be worried.

Not when I am coaching you.

Right.

It means that I'm not interested or you're not, you know, taking my feedback into account.

And so always be coaching.

There's always little things within technique that can be perfected or bettered within the sessions.

And feedback for the athletes is something I think that they all desire.

It is hard, you know, in a session of 30 to 40 people to be able to give that individual feedback.

But that's why I really try to get my steps in during our sessions.

Right.

Checking in with everybody.

I try to give at least like one verbal check in, one eye contact check in with each athlete per session.

And that just gives me, a reading in the room on kind of how everyone's doing.

And then I can kind of do my, due diligence and my research on if I need to reach out to them via text, if I need to check in them on practice, if I need to reach out to their coach.

But the feedback piece, I think all athletes desire and for me too, like education and safety, go into, they're a big part of training for me to be able to continue to stress great sound training.

It takes a lot of reps.

And it takes a lot of feedback.

Right?

We're always trying to be better.

So always be coaching that.

Yeah, I think I can't think of any time you haven't said something or critiqued me.

And definitely in the moment I'm like, oh, I feel like I'm doing my cleans or my back squats perfectly, but I need to go deeper in my squat or get my elbows up.

But you always help out, okay?

She's going to hear your voice in her head.

Forever.

Free coaching.

Yeah.

Free coaching.

Yeah.

Talking about form, it makes me think about what I do.

I've got a little a little home gym, you know, with these, man cave sorts of things.

And because nobody wants to see me in a gym working out, I'm just going to be honest with you, but.

But talking about form, like I probably do need to check in with a trainer now and then just to make sure I'm doing things that aren't going to injure myself.

Right.

Yeah.

And you have like kind of a self trainer in your back pocket with your cell phone.

You can always video.

It's hard sometimes to see different angles when you're exercising by yourself.

But the video like the self facing camera great option to be able to video.

And then if you do have a strength conditioning coach or a personal trainer, a lot of times video like sends back and forth can help clean up some technique.

Yeah, until it's super easy over over text message.

That's a great idea because that keeps me at home.

That is a great idea actually.

So, in terms of, again, regular folks who may not have done much in terms of weight training, but we know it's good for bone density and so forth.

Where do we start pushing and pulling weights.

Yeah, just start, just start, just start.

That's the biggest thing for me.

Any any kind of advice.

Find something that you enjoy and just start it.

You talked about, you know, no one wants to see me at the gym.

No one's looking at you at the gym.

They're worried about them.

They're worried about themselves.

Because I feel like somebody is going to, you know, subtly put their cell phone up and start typing.

They might, but it's worth it.

It's worth it.

And, you know, I think that humanity in general could, could do a little bit better job at just, encouraging and promoting activity and, allowing everyone to, to do what they think would be better for themselves.

And just encouraging activity is the biggest thing for me.

Fewer reps with more weight or, more reps with lighter weight depends on your goals that I said, just start.

Just start to start.

Exercise should be progressive.

And so there there should be some differences.

And what you're doing within your cycles, within your weeks, within, you know, your training sessions.

I can't tell you that.

The best idea would be to do three by ten for six weeks and then for eternity.

But like progressive strength training, like, I talked to Vic about with, you know, being able to stress the body and then giving it time to recover, but then you have to stress it in a larger amount.

You have to give it a bigger stimulus or a different stimulus.

So I can't say less is more and more is less.

I say better is better.

Yeah.

And so, you know, seek out those resources.

It's, you know, super simple to start.

We talked about, you know, at first anything will help.

And so do something consistently.

And then once you, once you figure it out, you know what?

You're willing to invest into that area, whether it's building a home gym or seeking out a personal trainer or, you know, joining a Globo gym, like, then you can kind of pinpoint what's best for you.

Get that data where you're at when you talked about, you can you can do the Dexa or you can do the, you know, body mass composition scan.

You can do your blood work with your doctor, like, get an idea of where you're at and then try to match that with where you want to be.

And it's much easier to reverse engineer a plan than it is to just throw something out there randomly.

Yeah, that makes sense.

With the last couple minutes that we have.

Victoria, you have anything else you want to throw out?

Your coach?

Maybe just something real quick.

How has weight training made a positive impact in your life?

Well, it's how I get a paycheck, so that's that's pretty positive.

It is positive.

That is positive.

Yeah.

But I think it's allowed me to be around, like, multitude and a plethora of great, great individuals.

I've loved most student athletes that I've been around, which is a lot.

Most, but I've met some really great people, who I'll be friends with for life.

And the coolest thing for me has been hearing back from student athletes five years, ten years down the road, like they might not even be and I might not even be about strength and conditioning.

It might be that, hey, remember this really hard workout that we had?

You know, I had an interview this past weekend.

I just thought, you know, this is the hardest thing that I've ever done.

And then I remember that conditioning test and I said, no, it's not.

I'm good.

And I crushed it, you know?

And so, you know, being able to connect things that they've learned working with me, you know, within the department, onto into real world things is is awesome for me to be able to see.

For me personally, I think it just gives me a sense of confidence, walking into any room, and knowing that I can do hard things and that I have, and that, you know, stressing my body just makes me, you know, a harder to kill human.

Yeah.

True.

Right.

Actually, there's the goal.

There it is.

Right hard to kill.

Ashley Jackson, thanks for being here.

Fine.

I'm going to go talk to, strength and conditioning coach.

I'm going to give me a trainer.

I'm going to do it right.

Thank you sir.

Yeah.

No.

Thank you.

Brazos Matters is a production of Aggieland's Public Radio, 90.9 KAMU FM, a member of Texas A&M University's Division of Community Engagement.

Our show is engineered and edited by Matt Dittman.

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I'm Jay Socol.

Thank you so much for watching and for listening.

And we wish you a great day.