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Coaching Culture with Ben Herring
Coaching Culture with Ben Herring is your weekly deep-dive into the often-overlooked “softer skills” of coaching—cultural innovation, communication, empathy, leadership, dealing with stress, and motivation. Each episode features candid conversations with the world’s top international rugby coaches, who share the personal stories and intangible insights behind their winning cultures, and too their biggest failures and learnings from them. This is where X’s and O’s meet heart and soul, empowering coaches at every level to foster authentic connections, inspire their teams, and elevate their own coaching craft. If you believe that the real gold in rugby lies beyond the scoreboard, Coaching Culture is the podcast for you.
Coaching Culture with Ben Herring
Wal Herring: Feed Your Potential: Concussion, Womans high performance and Personalized Nutrition
If you want to book Wal for your team you can reach her here: wal@walherring.com
or check out her womans wellness programs here: Walherring.com
What if everything you see on your body was made from what you ate at some point? This profound insight from sports nutritionist Wal Herring serves as the foundation for a revolutionary approach to nutrition and wellness. Drawing from her extensive experience with elite teams like Leicester Tigers and the English Rugby League, Wal shares how nutrition isn't just about physical performance but affects our mental clarity and emotional stability too.
The conversation takes a deeply personal turn when discussing concussion recovery, as Wal explains how she helped her husband Ben overcome debilitating symptoms through targeted nutritional interventions. Rather than simply resting, she reveals how certain foods either feed inflammation ("adding oxygen to the flame") or help reduce it, offering hope to athletes dealing with brain injuries. Her practical advice on avoiding alcohol, processed foods, and sugar while increasing omega-3s and creatine provides actionable strategies for healing.
Female athletes receive special attention as Wal explains how women's hormonal cycles significantly impact performance, recovery, and injury risk. For coaches working with women, understanding these physiological differences proves crucial for preventing ACL injuries and optimizing training schedules. The outdated approach of training women "like little men" fails to account for these important biological variations that affect everything from strength gains to emotional processing.
Throughout the episode, Wal emphasizes individualization over rigid protocols. She challenges common practices like calorie counting, suggesting we focus instead on energy levels and overall wellbeing as better indicators of nutritional success. This perspective shifts nutrition from a numbers game to a personalized journey of discovering what works for your unique body.
Ready to take control of what you can actually change in your health journey? Listen now to discover how small nutritional adjustments might unlock your full potential, whether you're a competitive athlete or simply seeking to improve your everyday wellbeing.
I love the research side of things and I dig into it. However, when you've got anecdotal evidence of somebody saying, hey, this has worked for me, it's just tucking that piece of knowledge away because it could help somebody else. If you want these younger generations, this younger generation, to take care of themselves, you've got to take care of yourself. I had no idea that my cycle was even a reflection of how my body was handling the stress, but that is something that we need to teach, not only the females, but also, I think, the coaches. While you might be able to get away with it when everything's healthy and everything's great, maybe you can't get away with it right now.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Coaching Culture podcast, the podcast about cultivating culture and leadership. I'm Ben Herring and I've been loving this side of the game for bloody ages. Today's guest is a very special guest. Today. It is Wol Herring and we have been married 20 years and she is a sports nutritionist by trade, but she is absolutely everything else A wellness coach, a lifestyle coach, a woman's high performance coach and a passionate concussion researcher.
Speaker 2:And I've been with her for the last 20 years. We have four children and she has shaped and molded me as a human being and she's influenced everything I do, from my coaching journey to my parenting journey, to my personal physique and physical journey. And she is simply outstanding at what she does. And she joins us today to talk about the science of this stuff, but more so than that. She has got master's degrees in a gazillion things, but it's her ability to keep it simple and make it approachable by people which really sets her apart in this field. She's worked with the Leicester Tigers, the English Rugby League team, and she's travelled the world for the last 20 years. She's back now in Sydney, australia, where she's brand spanking new. Whoa. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Jeremy.
Speaker 2:What a pleasure that we are here together. We often have these conversations, me and you, over the dinner table once the kids have gone to bed and that thing, and we go deep on this sort of stuff. We talk about all sorts of stuff and we critique each other, we give each other feedback and it's a pleasure to live with someone who you respect so much and you draw so much information out of, and to have you on the show today to talk about your experiences is really cool, and there's a couple which we'll get to, and that's concussion and that's the high-performing woman's sport, which are two of your areas which I know firsthand. The stuff you are doing is unreal and it's changing people's life and mine is one of them. You actually physically saved my life, I reckon, with what you did for me and my concussion. I had a very bad concussion which we'll get to later in the show. But I'd like to just know a little bit about your philosophy around nutrition and its value and its value.
Speaker 1:So my philosophy on nutrition is I guess it comes from a high performance, about maximizing your potential, but in general everyday life it's about just being the healthiest person you can be, because nutrition affects everything. It affects the physical, it affects the mental, it affects emotional, and I think it's an opportunity that it's something that we can take control over. So we can't control what genes we have, what you know like. You can't control whether you're going to be a prop or a bat. Do you know what I mean? Your body is made for those either positions. How we can control is what we put in our mouths to maximize that potential, or for later on, after you've finished that sport and if you're coaching, what you put in your mouths to have those brain connections to be fired up, to learn to inspire people to be the best human you can be.
Speaker 1:And nutrition is one of the fundamentals that you can do there. And you see it so clearly when you've been in it for such a long time that people underestimate it. And if you actually think about it really, really simply is everything that you see on your body was made up from what you ate at some stage. So if you even just think about it like that. You're like oh, oh, and then a lot of more questions might answer what might come up for you as an individual. But if you start there, you start to understand how much profound influence nutrition can have on all walks of life. It's an opportunity for us to just take personal responsibility for our own lives, and I think that's where the fundamental philosophy, my philosophy comes from is just taking personal responsibility. That's my life philosophy, and nutrition is one of those areas which you can why do you reckon people don't give real credence?
Speaker 2:Well, some people do, but bulk of people don't take control of and dominate the nutritional side of their life, whether that's high-performing athletes or general population. Why not? Why is it not? Got more focus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's one of those ones where if you don't know, you don't know right. So if you were never taught it, if you were never given groundings in great nutrition growing up, how are you expected to know it? And we only I mean we only really follow what our parents have done too. So if we had a childhood in which nutrition was never talked about, nutrition was never even put, you know, as in something that could affect us mentally, physically, emotionally, then how would you know that Like it's, like there's so I think people kind of talk about sometimes in the health and wellness space is like, oh, those people who don't do that. It's like, well, they just don't know. So it's once you that door is open. And if it's opening up the door with you right now, then amazing, like that's the first step. So it's just understanding that first.
Speaker 1:And then I kind of think it was like for me what it came from is I had some health issues when I was a bit younger, and I must have been. I can't remember who I was listening to at the time, but it was like blame, my genes and all the rest of it. You can blame things that you can't control. But then somebody said the analogy of we're all given a loaded gun. We're all given a loaded gun of what our genetics can give us, or what our genetics are leading towards us in terms of potentially diseases, but you get to choose to pull the trigger or not. And so if we can just slow that down a little bit in terms of what we do with our nutrition, then you know that's all we can control, and what we can control is just the meal in front of us.
Speaker 1:If we understand that that's the control we have. We can't control whether we get cardiovascular disease or you know if our genes are leading us that way, or whether you know you want to be a lock but you're actually a prop. We can't control that, but we can control what's in front of us. So I think that's. I guess the second philosophy is one of the grounding philosophies is know what you can control and know what you can't. And, yeah, just do everything that you can control.
Speaker 2:And I hope you don't mind me saying this, but just that illness you talked about is you had cancer when you were 21. And the diagnosis was potentially that you wouldn't have children again and I really loved just being on that journey with you and seeing the effort you made to make sure that you actually gave yourself best chance to actually prove that wrong and you ate so well and you prepared so well for that that I was just so impressed and, as it turned out, we had four kids. So you really debunked that prognosis from the cancer ward, which I love, but for me, a lot of it was the way that you maintained not only your nutrition but also your wellness and your headspace and that sort of things, which is a big part of who you are, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, and I think to me, having cancer when I was really young is probably one of the best things that ever happened to me, because it shaped who I am and I fully understand that. For me, because I've got obviously just a thing which I get cancer like, that's my go-to. Some people have heart disease, some people have other sort of cancers, but for me it was Hodgkin's disease, so I have that. But then also because I had chemotherapy, because I had radiotherapy, I now have an increased chance of getting other sort of cancers. So I can sit here and go well, it was me, this is really bad, or I can go well, that's just what. That's the hand I've been dealt, the cards I've been dealt, and so I'm going to do everything that I can to hopefully not get it again.
Speaker 1:And if I do, I know, like I know, everything that I do today is prolonging my life a little bit further, because essentially, if I didn't have that sort of treatment, I probably wouldn't be here right now. So I'm so grateful for, I guess, the bonus time and I'm going to do everything I can to extend my life for as long as I can and if something does happen, I can look back and hand on heart, say I've done everything that I can do. There's nothing worse that, I think, even within a playing. You don't know what you don't know. However, do everything that you can to be the best possible player. So when you finish, you can hand on heart and say I did everything I could. You might not have maximized everything because you didn't have that knowledge, but you did everything you could in that moment. And that's what I'm kind of, I guess, I aim to do with my nutrition and my lifestyle right now. Don't get everything perfect, but I'm doing everything I can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great thing, Cause I like I take that back to my own rugby journey too like I always wanted to be an all-black but never got there. But I'm so proud that I did everything to the best of my ability with what I knew at the time and I look back now with all my experience coaching and I go. I definitely wouldn't do it again like that. But because I was just hoeing in, like just giving it a crack and going for it, I loved that I did that and and put it all out there. And I guess it's the same with what you're talking about is you've got to go hard with what you think you know and experiment right.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, and I mean that's all we can do. We can't look back in regret and say I didn't know that. It's like, well, you didn't know it, but now you do. So what are you going to do with that information?
Speaker 2:Love it and I also think it's testament to you too. I think having this experience of cancer is led onto your professional life too, because you are heavy science-based. The amount of text medical, boring medical textbooks you read and research. You were a medical researcher for two years but I reckon that experience with that illness gave you real empathy and gave you a real personal touch to your interactions. And when I see you with clients and people you're mentoring and teams that you're with you have this wonderful ability to connect with the whole but also really connect with the individual and motivate them to their best performance level. Have you noticed that's an evolved thing over your career, like the importance of being able to deliver?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, at the end of the day, like it's individuals in front of you, right like you have to understand what they're going through from their perspective. So, for example, there's always ideals, however your lifestyle might not be, you know, like suit those ideals. So, for example, you've got some woman driving two hours to go to a practice and then driving home. Now you could say the ideal is to have this, this and this in terms of nutrition. It's physically not really possible for them to be doing that because they're driving two hours each way. So it's understanding where that person's coming from, what constraints, what boundaries they have in their lifestyle, and then trying to arrange nutrition to support those. So nutrition shouldn't be this hard thing that you've got to do and it should be something that you can easily fit into your lifestyle. And it might not be perfect, but it's the best that you can do in those moments.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's really individualized right. Nutrition should never be a blanket statement. It's got to have flex to cater for individuals right.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. It should always be individualized because we are not the same in terms of you know what we go home to, what we can afford, what we can. You know everything is different for each individual. So you actually have to understand the individual's constraints and boundaries in lifestyle before you say, hey, you've got to be doing this, you know, like because it might be impossible. And then they feel really bad because they can't live up to that expectation. And then it becomes this emotional thing and you're putting this, all this pressure and expectation on this person, for it's needless, because you actually have to understand them first.
Speaker 2:And that sometimes varies. I know your experience around that side of things is when you came out of university with your master's in nutrition and then you've gone on and done a lot of different alternative things as well with homeopathy, naturopathy, and then you've worked with the highest high-performing teams as nutritionists, like the Leicester Tigers and the English Rugby League. You've worked with the best around. So you've got the research and you've also got the experience. But initially, right, when you came out of that university you sort of had an interesting mindset, right.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, I think it's. I guess it's all theory, right, it's all, everything's great in theory, until you're smacked in the face and like it's. It's the same sort of thing, like, and actually I think it came back to my I remember the very earliest thing because I was interested in nutrition, really way back in the day, and I remember coming home and so I grew up in a dairy farm. My dad, I remember coming home, and so I grew up in a dairy farm. My dad, my mum and dad, they'd get up early in the morning, they'd come home for breakfast and then they, you know, probably wouldn't sit until dinner time. And I remember dad was having this breakfast and he was having, you know, the typical farmer's breakfast eggs, bacon, all the rest of it piled on top of each other and me coming in. You know, oh, that's so much such a you're going to get hot disease. You know, like, because I'd learned this theory, and he's like, well, what?
Speaker 1:My dad looked at me. He's like what, what would you have me eat? And I was like, well, at that time I was like very raw my nutrition. So I said, well, wheat, bix will do. You know, like I wouldn't prescribe that now, but back then I'd be like because I only knew a little bit I'd be like have some Weet-Bix and milk. And he just looked at me and he just went if I ate the shit that you think I should eat, then I'm going to be hungry two hours later. I eat this, I can come home for a snack at 2 o'clock and then I'm all good for dinner time.
Speaker 1:He knew, based on what he was doing in his day, like he was doing hard physical work. He was out, you know, on the land, and he knew that this meal would last him the whole day. So if he tried to be what was healthy at that time by having a couple of weekbooks, he'd be hungry an hour later and then he'd like he wouldn't be able to do the work he'd be able to do. But he understood that within his body. So that, I guess, was a smack in the face, because the theory of what you should have been eating at the time was just not going to work for my father. It was just there's no way it was going to work for him.
Speaker 2:So that was, yeah, that was my first kind of like oh, something's not quite right here and that's the beauty you had when you you went into high performing teams around the world and you got the exposure to the very best athletes playing the game of rugby, which is a high combat contact sport, and sometimes the nutritional advice of the best practice doesn't always cut it, does it? There's, there's guidelines, but you've got to have that flex right well, I mean, it's as simple as I mean.
Speaker 1:I guess it's it's wellness. It's as simple as um. I mean the best advice would be okay, you've played a game of rugby, um, go home, have your wine down and go to bed. And they'll be like yeah, I can go to bed, but I've just taken upper at six o'clock. Do you really think I'm going to be going to sleep? You know like. So the best thing is to get enough sleep. Go and do it. You know like, but actually they've just had uppers and their brain's still ticking over. There's no way that if they go to bed, that they're going to go to sleep right there.
Speaker 1:So how do you adjust your practice and your advice to reflect what's actually going on? Um, do we need, like they like, the upper because it helps them with their mental processing speed on the field? Okay, so that's good, that's performance. We have to be thinking about what we're actually doing here, right, we're trying to make them the best on the field for that game, for that 80 minutes, okay. So then what do you do afterwards that can maximize that potential of that recovery within the confines of he's just had Napa? So you know it's dealing with that side of things and actually what's in front of you rather than the best of oh, just go to sleep. Yeah, it's not going to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, have you had any like? Have you had any like gleaming examples or people that you've looked up to that have really, like sparked this journey for you? In terms of individualizing programs like this, well, that's a good question I programs like this.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a good question. I think there's been a lot of mentors on the way and I think that's the I mean. If anybody's getting into nutrition or the kind of the wellness piece of it, it's just be really open-minded to what's working. And a lot of people will say, because I love the research side of things and I dig into it. However, when you've got anecdotal evidence of somebody saying, hey, this has worked for me, it's just tucking that piece of knowledge away because it could help somebody else. It might not, but it might. So it's understanding and just keeping an open mind of what is actually helping people and actually not just because something that's not hasn't been scientific validated. If it's helping somebody, even if you don't know the reasons, if it's helping, it's helping right For me.
Speaker 1:I've got, I guess, a philosophy it's not going to hurt you and it could potentially help. What's the harm? It has to not hurt you first. You know any side effects, but what's the harm in trying Like there might not be any research on it, but let's just give it a go?
Speaker 2:And if it works for you, man, it works for you Great. And that's a big one for your philosophy too, isn't it the experimentation around what works for you, right?
Speaker 1:Oh, you have to understand what works for you. So you as a player or even as a coach, like if you want to be the best coach that you can be you have to take care of nutrition Like it helps you physically, mentally and emotionally. So your reaction emotionally to your players when they're coming to you, how you have those tough conversations, how you can eloquently communicate all of that nutrition has an effect on. So it is about having an understanding and awareness of yourself and how you're affected by food and just putting pieces of the puzzle in together. You don't sit down and do a thousand-word piece puzzle and just put everything into place. You trial a little bit.
Speaker 1:No, that doesn't go there. You put it aside. You trial something else. But as long as you're building up that knowledge for yourself and what is working and be open-minded to things that your own belief systems because belief systems do dictate the foods that you choose as well or don't choose so you know it's being open-minded as well If you can be open-minded, then, yeah, you'll get the best out of yourself.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's a fantastic comment you just said about coaches' nutrition, because when we talk about nutrition in the sports context, it's always referred to as the athletes involved.
Speaker 2:However, you make a very good point in that, as a blanket general rule, a stereotypical coach isn't in good shape themselves. Certainly, historically, that is a tendency of coaches to let themselves go, probably due to the stresses and strains of the profession. A lot of people judging you, and often the first thing to go is your own fitness and health. And then it's also your nutrition and you do things like drink a little bit more and do a little bit less exercise. Cause of that stress, but I know you agree with this. One too, is that you've almost got to be your own business card in that regard as a coach. If I'm expecting athletes to be at their functional best and I'm a poor example of that there's a little bit of hypocrisy in it. I know you don't have to play the game, but it sends a pretty strong statement when you're in great physical shape in order to be resilient to the stresses and strains of coaching Sets a fantastic example, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:Oh, I think it really does. And I think if you're, say, if you're a professional coach, just taking care of yourself, because you will have better mental side of being able to pick up things, be able to be more emotionally in tune with your athlete, you know, like you'll have a broader perspective because you're not in your own head as much, because you've got better resilience like nutrition does play a role in that. But even if you're coaching junior players, junior athletes, like I always think things are caught, not taught. So if you want these younger generation, this younger generation, to take care of themselves, you've got to take care of yourself. Like you can try teaching.
Speaker 1:But let's be honest, a 15 year old is probably not going to hear what you say. They're going to see what you do. So if you're the one getting I don't know hammered after the game and you know, or if you're so intense that you're yelling at them, there's a difference between I think, as being a coach because I've watched a lot of coaches on the sideline I think there's a difference between being a coach and being passionate and yelling, versus yelling at players and getting at players, you know, especially when they're young, like there's a difference there. But if you can't control yourself, that you're yelling at players like you've got to look at yourself and go okay, where can I, where can I step up myself? And you are your own business card. You can't expect a player to be calm, level-headed in a high pressure situation. If you're not, so you work on yourself and the other things will. They'll learn off you, they'll. They'll say it's caught, not taught.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it's a really good reminder for coaches listening to this, because we often don't think about, you know, the nutritional side and the health and wellbeing side of what we do as coaches and we are modelling it, and we're modelling it to our players as much as we're modelling it to our children, if you're if it to our children, if you're if you've got children.
Speaker 1:But I just want to say there too, it's because a lot of people go well, I should and I don't know, so I'm not going to do anything. It's not that you have to get everything perfect. You're just on your own journey and you're trying, that is enough, like, and it's putting your hand up when you make mistakes or you're not, you know like. It's not hiding anything, it's just going yeah, I'm trying here, and that is enough for young athletes to go oh cool, that's awesome. I can try too. So you don't have to get everything perfect. You don't need to be the most perfect model. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about just you trying to be a bit better than you currently are, like trying to put a few more habits in place, healthier habits, and that's all you can do. You don't have to be perfect.
Speaker 2:I love it Better than you currently are and putting good habits in place. Now that's what coaches say to their players all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so if you do it it will land so much better than if you're not doing it. Love it.
Speaker 2:Now, while on that trying a little bit more aspect, there's a very topical thing which is concussion and dealing with it and trying to be better at recovery from concussion. Now, this is a very personal thing for both me and you, because people might not know this, but I retired at 29 years old from professional rugby with serious concussion which took me about six months to say I was on the right track and about two years before I'd say I was really back to 100%, and it was a rough journey and all the classic stuff you have with a concussion. I was the absolute pinup boy for Brain fogs, depressions, mood swings, headaches all that stuff was me and you were inspirational and instrumental in me making a 130% recovery on it. And I think it's a really important one that we share with coaches around the world who listen here about how we can be better at understanding this aspect and the big component which you talked about.
Speaker 2:I remember the day you came to me. I'd been battling for six months just not recovering and you came to me with a tone of voice which said you're doing something which is keeping you in this state. It's your responsibility, you are doing something, and you talked about it like this. You said well, if you get a bruise on your leg, you know the principles of rest, ice compression, elevation, you know that and you can do it. But when you've got a bruise on the brain, which is essentially what concussion is, it's very easy to go. There's nothing you can do and you just take the advice, which is do nothing, just rest, which is the advice I got, and I did it for six months and nothing happened.
Speaker 2:Nothing changed. In fact, arguably, it got worse until you said you've got to take responsibility because you're doing something. And I loved it because when you said that, you then started suggesting these protocols and they were the things like you're putting something in your body through your nutrition which is keeping you from recovering to 100%, and that was a game changer. That was an absolute game changer for me, and I don't think we talk about it enough and we don't at all. I'm a coach of where a lot of concussions happen and the protocols aren't there. So I'd just like to dive into this aspect a little bit for our coaches here that have to deal with concussions and how to treat it a little bit more.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess there's two things. I guess two tangents there, because there is the long-term effects of concussion, which we obviously would talk about from yours. But then there's also in a season it's rugby concussions are going to happen. So what can you do? Is you're right, like you can see, like, say, you do an ACL or sprained ankle or something? You can physically see that there's swelling. You can physically see that the movement stopped. You can physically see you know you're limping With the brain. You can't see any of that. So it's really I think it's A sometimes you don't even know what's going on because you can't see it. But B things happen that you don't understand are happening because of it. So you might be a bit more moody and it can be put down to people around you just going, come on, cheer up, and you don't know why you're feeling like this. But you're just feeling like this and then you start to like that sometimes perpetuates kind of this downward spiral first of all. But if you understand yourself, if you had these concussions, that this is what's going on in your brain. You can't see it, but something's, something's going on now.
Speaker 1:There's two aspects really, if we put it simply what are you doing to? I kind of think of like I like the analogy a fire's started. The concussion was a fire and it started. Now whatever you're putting in your body is either doing oxygen to a flame and like making that flame go more, or is putting water on it, or it's calming it down right. So whatever you're doing in your diet can do one of those two things. So the things that really inflame it make things everything worse. Whether you've just had a concussion or you've had it, you know you're dealing with the after effects six months later. The first one is alcohol, any or drugs, anything that changes your brain. But you know like if we drink alcohol we get drunk. That's changing your brain.
Speaker 2:It's like a stimulant right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, stimulant or depressant. I don't really understand the exact mechanisms, but we all know that when we have alcohol it affects our brain. Everybody knows that. You have enough alcohol, you get drunk. But even one glass of alcohol is affecting your brain. It just gets to a point where you feel drunk. So it's understanding that that's stimulating your brain and it's a toxin's not doing you any. Any benefits, zero benefits.
Speaker 1:So any research that says, oh, this is, it'll give you this, maybe some antioxidants, but because you're having no antioxidants in your diet, like alcohol is doing zero for you. Let's just kind of put those boundaries around. So if you've had concussion, that's the biggest thing, and drugs as well. Like if you're doing any sort of drugs, it's changing your brain, you're making things worse. So, but we have other foods that can then also inflame it.
Speaker 1:So the big foods, which I, generally it's not. This is where you have to do a little bit of experimentation, because it might not be um, it might not be you, but experiment and see what it works if it is. But anything that keeps you inflamed, which is wheat and gluten, sometimes dairy, it's processed foods. So it's all the like. All the sugars and the monsters and the energy drinks and all anything that kind of, is really inflaming. So I guess I think the processed foods those may be keeping you in an inflamed state. So it's looking at, though, what you're putting into yourself first, and try to eliminate them as much as you can.
Speaker 2:Is sugar in that same, sugar's in that same bucket, isn't it? That's in a that causes that it's like gasoline on a fire.
Speaker 1:Right sugar Sugar increases inflammation and inflammation, a concussion, is inflammation. So if you follow that line of logic, you can get into the weeds of actually arguing back and forth. But if you just follow that logic and this is a thing that then we can argue about what about fruit sugars versus like, let's just say, added sugars, like really high sugar? So I'm talking about energy drinks, I'm talking about sodas, I'm talking about a really quick fix of just a lot of sugar. That's what I'm talking about. Let's not start talking about how much I don't know sugar is in I don't know cereal or something like that. Let's just keep it up. The big main ones to begin with right.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a really easy example when one of our little kids has a can of Coke, we can see instantaneously how crazy their head goes, hyperactive, and I think that's a really clear example. Everyone knows that you give a kid a can of Coke and they're going to go crazy mentally. And that's just because what it's doing right, stirring up, the's doing right.
Speaker 1:It's stirring up, or everybody talks about the sugar high, right, but it's kind of talked about. It's like, oh, that's just normal. Well, when you've got a concussion, that's adding to your inflammation in your brain. So, while you might be able to get away with it when everything's healthy and everything's great, maybe you can't get away with it right now. So it's it's putting it in perspective like, yes, we can, um, feel bad about we've got this thing and, oh, woe is me. It's our reality. Okay, that's just what it is. What can we do with that? Right now, everybody's different. What? Where are you at? So it's, um, and it's just experimenting for yourself to see how much effect that actually gives you. So, yeah, so in terms of diet within a cushion, we actually have to look at the big big things. But alcohol and drugs are the first two. Sugars, gluten can be for something, dairy can be for some other people, but anything that's going to inflame your body is inflaming your brain.
Speaker 2:So just having a look at it like that is, I mean, it's just a really simplistic way of looking at it and then just, just just, on that, while I just want to I just want to sort of outline what you did for me which had massive implications is you made me, after six months of not recovering, you came in and said you need to be recording exactly what you're eating and we need to work out what it is you're eating specifically that is keeping your headaches here, that is keeping your brain fog here, and it was after a couple of weeks where it actually did that. I could go back and say every time I get a headache, it's because I've eaten that an hour earlier. And you had just made the point right. You said to me for you, that food is creating a response which is not helping you heal, and that may be different for different people, but you need to take responsibility on that. And when I did that and when I followed your protocols, it was phenomenal how much quicker I got better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And just to be clear, my protocols is really just it's basically taking individual approach and how you are affected by food. So not only physically but emotionally and mentally, because we talk about the, the brain fog, we talk about the headaches, but it's also your mental um. You know what negative thoughts that you have on replay, because I'm sure most people will have the um thing. When they're feeling great and everything's good, they don't have many kind of negative loops that are going on. But when they're feeling down, even after, like if I drank you know, I had a cup of glasses of only a couple these days glasses of wine the next day my mental loops are going ding, ding, ding, ding.
Speaker 1:Do you know we have everybody has their things. So it's understanding how mentally you're reacting, but also emotionally as well. Are you more reactive to your kids? Do you have more of a short, short fuse? That can come from the foods that you've been eating. They can kind of whip that up. So when you understand yourself and understand what foods are affecting you in that capacity, then you have the ability to choose for yourself whether you're going to eat them or not.
Speaker 2:I just think it's so awesome because you're actually putting a lot of personal ownership and responsibility on you, the person that's got this thing. Rather than just take the advice which is often given is to do nothing with concussion, you actually say no, no, that's the last thing. Yes, you need to just take it easy sometimes, but you've also got to be really proactive and just monitor what stimulus is you're putting in you, now more than ever, because your brain's in a state which needs you to be hyper-aware of what's going on right.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. And that's the thing is, you've got something going on. That's just reality. So then the choices that you make can either help it or it can hinder it, because if you think about it in terms of nutrition, everything that you see, everything that you're made up of, is the food that you've been eating. So if you want to take ownership of that and at the end of the day, you're the only one feeling your experience, you're the only one. Nobody can change that for you.
Speaker 1:So if we understand that, then it's like okay, what am I going to do? And you don't need to be perfect. And if you're not getting it right because there really isn't no right, if you're not, you don't need to feel bad about yourself, because a lot of time with nutrition, if you are, I don't know, eating something or drinking something, there's this, there's this feeling bad about it and the comfort food and all the rest of it. We've got to take emotion out of exactly what we're eating and just take it's just what we're eaten or have eating, or have eaten, eaten, um, rather than think about it in terms of, like, I'm being bad or I'm being good, ah, it's. Let's do away with those terms. Nutrition's not about that. It's about you just understanding how food makes you feel physically, mentally, emotionally.
Speaker 2:Love it. Yeah, so you talked about what you can't do or shouldn't do, but what are some of the things that you recommend that you actually do do when? You've got a concussion, and especially if you're a parent of someone who's had a concussion, what's your advice?
Speaker 1:So if you think about well, first of all, you simply think about okay, your brain has got a really high concentration of omega-3s, the DHA, the EPA. So eating more fish Fish have a lot larger omega-3s. And if you're going to have omega-3 supplement which has been proven to be safe, make sure that you're having a brand which has been third-party tested for impurities. So just do a little bit more research on the brand that you're having. But having a supplement of omega-3 is going to be really good. So you start there because that's going to be nourishing your brain. But then you've.
Speaker 1:Also, if you think about nourishment, you think about just all the micronutrients that you can get from food. So eating is plant-centric and I'm not saying don't eat meat, because protein you definitely need protein as well. In fact, you should be having enough adequate protein, but having those vegetables and or vegetables and fruits and beans and legumes and plants, basically so just having a little bit more than you would normally have. You don't need to be create this whole new diet which you're going to go on and then you'll fall off later. Just have a little bit more vegetables in your, in your what, what you're eating, even if that's just a little salad that you're having at dinner time or lunch time, whatever, um. So if you're having those two things in terms of nourishment and the last one, which is um has been really good for um again, safe.
Speaker 1:I'm of the opinion. If it's safe and it's not going to hurt you and it could potentially be good for you, then give it a go. And that is creatine. So creatine, quite often we think of in terms of building muscles, but the research is becoming clear it's really, really beneficial for our brains. So, taking around it's like three to five grams a day of creatine and just see if it helps, see how you respond to those and go from there.
Speaker 2:I love it Well, like it's certainly a really fresh perspective on how you approach concussion Really being active in your recovery like you would any other injury, rather than the passive advice that has been given for eons around this sort of stuff which is do nothing. I love your approach, which is actually be really active, take responsibility, think and be aware of what you're putting in. That's fueling or not fueling your recovery. It's awesome.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And I'll just say on that too, even if you haven't had a concussion but you're playing rugby, you've got increased risk of concussion. That's just what it is. So even having the creatine and the omega-3s and making sure your diet is, you know, roughly pretty dialed in throughout the season of rugby, if you do then sustain a concussion, that is going to help you. So you're already going to have all the nutrients in your brain to rush in there and help heal you, and then you also have the habits in place to be doing it. So just be aware that. So, from a parental perspective, our boy he's 13, and throughout the season, fish oils and creatine that's two things which he's having. Just so, if he does have a concussion, we've got that kind of safety net of knowing that we're doing everything that we can that's going to help heal his brain in the best possible way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's been really good. So it's a great practice which we've yeah, we've seen some real benefits of. Now you've obviously been around the world with this stuff and you've worked with some pretty big teams. You've worked at Leicester Tigers in England. You've worked with the English Rugby League team. What are some of the things that some of those world's best players have done that sort of sets them apart on that nutrition and wellness space that some of the best professionals do that you think would be really good advice to anyone coming through with a mindset around maximizing themselves through nutrition?
Speaker 1:yeah. So I think that, um, if I'm thinking about the, you know the, the professional men who um, because it was the men that I was working with back then they, they were the ones who understood themselves and was always hungry for learning. So they, these were the ones who um, who lasted a few more years in professional sport than the people who just didn't really care, who were just eating because the coach told them that they needed a nutritionist. But the ones who really went far, not only in maximizing their own potential, but then also they played for longer. Longer were often the ones who just had a hunger for learning and always knew that their body at late 30s was different to 20s, so the how they ate changed or the more emphasis they put on nutrition had to change. And so these were the um.
Speaker 1:So my biggest advice, if I mean, if these young people or anybody wanting to maximize their potential, is understand their bodies. Because when we look at, say, research, research is done on a group of people and we get insights into, like this is generally what helps. But if you take that same research and try to say, well, it's going to help every person as an individual, there's a disconnect there, because even in the research, research there's people on ends of the spectrum, right, it's like a bell curve. So you've got to understand yourself and so when you're asked, when you're saying you're seeking help from a nutritionist or a strength trainer or anything like that is, use them because I've got the knowledge, but then understand what it is for you and understand yourself and how you respond to that. So I come from nutritional perspective of like, although I can guide, I can guide people what to eat. I'm not going to tell them what to eat because they need to take empowerment over that. They need to take make their own choices. And I love the um.
Speaker 1:I love dealing with the guys who'd be like, okay, this is what you generally should have, is, um, you know, eat three hours before and have this meal, and some of them would be like, no, that doesn't work for me. And I love that because they knew their bodies and they knew what it took to go on the field and what worked best for them. Because some people say, you said, have this particular meal three hours before, some people would eat that and they'd be peaking at that time. They'd get on the field, they'd be great For others and they'd be peaking at that time. They'd get on the field. They'd be great. For others, they'd still feel really heavy in their gut and they'd get on there and 20% of their energy is taken up by this feeling of sluggishness because they just feel it in their stomach. For other people, they need to eat something else before they go on, because everything's been cleared out and they feel hungry. And then they're going in the field and they're like they're a little bit hungry.
Speaker 2:So, everybody, you are an individual and you have to make those decisions for yourself and experiment with what's going to work for you, knowing that can change as you age as well isn't that fascinating like having been around a long time, I've experienced, uh, you know, young dietitians or nutritionists coming out of university with all the thoughts around what should be done and trying to blanket ban everybody in the same thing, and I personally have found some examples where it hasn't worked for me, but I've done it to mixed results. But what you're saying is you've got to keep experimenting, right? It's your body. You react slightly different for a whole lot of different reasons, right?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and you've got to take that responsibility over that responsibility over it a lot. I was the same when I came out of the university. I remember this, um, I remember this one I was doing some nutrition for some multi-sporters and the multi-sports like they do multiple days, like on your feet, like five day racing, and I remember because that's just what I done, my, my masters and so I, I knew, I knew what you should be eating, like the. I did the research.
Speaker 1:You should know, and he tried to get this guy that's like, hey, this is what we should do, that. And he just looked at me and goes yeah, that's not going to work for me. And I was like what, when he goes, if I, when I do that, I perform really poorly. So I work better, like this, and it's like, okay, so it really taught me. Like you have to understand the instead of coming and going blank. This is what you should do is understanding the person in front of you and what they've worked out and then tweaking it to maximize that, rather than just go. And for young people it might be a bit different because they have got no knowledge. So you're actually guiding them to create that awareness for themselves. But for especially the older athletes, a lot of time they understand what works with their body and they don't need somebody coming in saying you need to change everything up and do this, because they've already done that and they know it doesn't work for them. So it's providing those little tweaks for them.
Speaker 2:I actually remember an example. You told me about a player who I won't mention his name used to have a ritual of, on game day, having McDonald's and I remember at the start you thought, gee, that's nutritionally that's an interesting one. But he justified it. As I get in such a positive mindset and space when I have that, it takes me back to my youth. I get excited, I turn up to the game pumped because I've had McDonald's, like I did when I was a kid, and I remember you saying that's a really interesting part. That's the mental side of nutrition. And I remember you let it slide. You said, okay, game day nutrition is one thing and science is a number of things, but it doesn't take into account that sort of emotional piece. And that's the bigger part of our bodies, is it's not just the scientific stuff? Right? There's layers.
Speaker 1:It goes back to is it an art or is it a science for individuals, right? So we can say, like, nutritionally, I can look at them and go, that's a bit terrible, isn't it? But in all reality, what you're doing at 80-minute performance, you're not going to run out of carbohydrates in your muscles, you're not, you know, like it's not as though you're going to be going for like four days out there or whatever it is. So, in terms of what you've been doing generally in the diet, he was really good. It was just that, and that's what is missed sometimes. Back to that mental, emotional is that's what nutrition can give us as well. It can either give us, like, really positive vibes and everything, or it away.
Speaker 1:However, I do want to preface this. When people go, I'm going to try McDonald's because it makes me feel great. Well, does it actually make you feel great? Because I think, a lot of the time you might feel great for that, you know 15 minutes, but then you have a crash, you know. And so if this that's and I think that's most people so it's you have to understand that for yourself too and not trick yourself to no-transcript moment. Doesn't it might mean that you, that you, really it affects you later on. So if it, that is you, you have to actually. You know like it's making that awareness for yourself, because it's so easy just to let it slide because, oh, maybe it doesn't make me feel great later on, maybe I'm just tired, maybe I've just done a lot of work. It's not the McDonald's that did that to me, it's these other things, because I really like McDonald's. So it's yeah, just keep an open mind and don't lie to yourself as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it, and I just love it how I've seen how many medical journals are just lining your library. So I love how you can blend that scientific rigor with these practical sort of adaptable solutions. I think it's a really good trait and it's not done all the time, and I think that's why you are so well respected by players that you look after and mentor, because you really individualise it to that individual and you talk like all the scientist stuff. You can sort of bring it down into easily digestible things. Is that something that you've worked on?
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. That doesn't come naturally to me at all. I go off on tangents, have you seen? On here I'm just, I'm so passionate about this and this and like. And I think knowledge is a bit of a curse sometimes, because once you know something, you find like, how do you not know that? Like, how do we like, when you're saying, try to unknow that a tree is a tree, you can't right. And it's same with knowledge, and so sometimes I get so kind of in the weeds that you kind of have to come up for fresh air and go.
Speaker 1:Actually, what is actually going to matter here and I think what, what I bring it back to, is that what we do 20, 20, if we do um, 80, 20 percent, that gives us 80 of the results right. So even in your diet, if you do your 20%, just get your fundamentals right, just get you know what I said before the one, two, three, get that, do that. And we can argue about whether you should fast or whether you should add in these micronutrients, this powder here and this, but that's down there. Let's just get this bit right first and that's going to get you, give you 80 of the results. And once you're there, then it's about like sorting everything else by yourself. But you have to get those fundamentals right first. Do the do the 20 to get the 80 results love it.
Speaker 2:I also loved how you said um and I'd love you to dive into this that um, eating changes with age. You said that just before eating. Yeah, eating habits should change as your age, because your body changes, right like absolutely yeah you were talking about a professional athlete, like a changing from when you start as a 20 year old to your 30s. Is that actually actually what you have to do? You can't just do what you did.
Speaker 1:I mean, if anybody can think about it in terms of like you get, I mean, our 13 year old boy. He can play two, potentially three games of rugby in the weekend and he's, he's fine, you know, like, during the week he's recovering, he's great, there's no issues. You get a 35 year old athlete, like, or say, no, 20 year old athlete. He might play one game. He's recovered by Monday. He's good to go for a good training on Monday, tuesday, great. You get a 35 year old athlete. He might not be recovered till Wednesday, you know like. You know he's a bit slower, he's a bit. He still gets recovered by the next week, but it's slower and it's. You just have to take care of him a little bit more.
Speaker 1:I mean you, you see any professional environment. You've got these guys in your team right, like that's just what it is. So then, as you age, we're not as physically resilient as we are in our 20s. So we do need to dial in our nutrition, we do need to dial in our rest periods, and that a lot more than we did in our 20s. That's just normal. But if you want to stay at that high in sport, that's what you need to do.
Speaker 1:But also, even after you've finished playing, things change in your body that you just need to make sure that you're keeping up with, and it is that resilience, it is making sure that you are eating wisely, for your changing. But I mean women. We change a lot more than men, especially in our 40s, so that obviously I'm really passionate. I am really passionate about that side of things. But once you start understanding that, then it's not like bending your head against a brick wall going, oh this worked for me in my 20s, why isn't it working now? I'm just going to dial in and do more of this. No, we need to step back and reassess and again get reacquainted with our bodies and understand it. What's going to help us go forward?
Speaker 2:I love it and I can attest to that firsthand. A number of guys I used to play with. When they stopped playing, the weight just piled on, and not in a good way because there wasn't an adjustment to you know the actual what they were doing. When the rigors of professional rugby stopped and you were processing it, your body was reacting differently. It just it went pear-shaped for a few years, there for a few, and that's for sure. But I am interested. Well, you talked about your passion for the women's space and I know that's a space that you are passionate about these days, and women's high performance sport, particularly as a rising, is a rising beast and it's going to be awesome. It's growing all the time, particularly in rugby where it's in some parts of the world it's the fastest growing sport around. So what is the difference in approach to women and, from your experience with a lot of high professional male teams, what is the difference that you have to be aware of when coaching women and particularly around the health and wellness side?
Speaker 1:um. So with with women, I mean the the glaring difference is that we're on a cycle, a monthly cycle, and that affects our um, it can affect our mental space, it can affect the way um we digest different foods. It can, it can affect a lot of things. So, as females, it's really, really important that we understand ourselves probably even more so, I would argue, than men do and understand how differences in our cycles affect our different perceived levels of exertion, how we hydrate and all the rest of it. So understanding your body, it becomes very paramount, I think for females and I think in high-performance sport. I don't think it's there yet, but having things which we can check in and I mean we've got things like whoops and HRV monitors now that I mean if we could get to a stage of, as health professionals, having a look at the athletes' HRV and teaming that up going okay, this is the phase that you really need to dial in nutrition. You have to be a bit more dialed in than this phase. You know we can do things like that and I think there's a way forward for that.
Speaker 1:But it does start with females understanding their bodies and quite a lot of the young athletes I know, probably when I was younger, I had no idea that my cycle was even a reflection of how my body was handling the stress. But that is something that we need to teach, not only the females but also, I think, the coaches need to understand that sometimes if you've got a player and you're like, oh, she's not putting in any effort today, it might be that she is really putting in, maxing out effort. It's just that she's in a particular phase of her cycle where she hasn't been recovering that well, maybe, and she's bottoming out and so it's understanding. There are phases and we're not just, we don't just go along on one level. We're up and down with our hormones and that does affect us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's massive too, and considering, a lot of women's coaches are men. This is actually a really important aspect to understand because when you're coaching men and boys it's pretty consistent, like we're just the same level, like whether that's good or bad I don't know, but just you know, nathan, you know caveman stuff all the way through, but women go up and down right. So there is a lot of um variances from one week to the next, to the next and next, and if you're understanding that it's important because old school way, when rugby was just growing in the women's space, I used to hear this statement which said just train them like little men or little boys, just smaller versions of men. But that is, you just can't do it because there's so much nuances and differences around this stuff. If you're not on top of it, not only do you not get the best out of some of your female players, but there's other things like injury risk and other stuff, like that right which comes into play for coaches.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. So it depends. So we've got more high risk of an ACL injury in particular parts of our cycle. So we've got more high risk of an ACL injury in particular parts of our cycle. So there are things that we can do, like the warm-up specifically in that phase can actually help reduce the risk. So it's understanding that.
Speaker 1:So, like I look at, like I've been looking at a lot of teams warm-up and the girls seem to do the same as the boys and I'm like shouldn't we have a specific warm-up for females? That I mean because obviously women, females, one might be in one phase, one will be in another. So we can't. Just, you know, if we're going to do a blanket warm-up is to understand that maybe let's do this particular warm-up that covers everybody. I'll just understand I'm going to come 15 minutes earlier when I'm in this phase to do these things to help activate, so I don't get those to decrease the risk of those ACL injuries. So you're not going to not get it because you've done a particular warm-up, but you can decrease the risk and that's what we're really after is doing everything we can so we don't get those injuries.
Speaker 1:And recovery as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, is that right. You recover differently in different parts of that cycle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and there's a lot of nuance to this as well. So it is understanding your body and that's why I really like the wearables which you can wear now. So because as a female, you can see it. Really, it's smack in your face that in particular phases of your cycle you might not sleep as well, so you're not recovering as well, so do you need to go to bed half an hour before you know? It's all those little things, all those, I mean the minor tweaks. You know it could be even 15 minutes before, or waking up 15 minutes later. So all those little minor tweaks, um, that we can do if we are aware of them, um, but often we're not aware of it.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah and and and even I know another one that you've often mentioned to me is about your strength gain. Certain periods you're better at lifting weights, certain parts of the cycle you can be stronger or faster and that type of thing right. So, as coaches like with men, it's often you just blanket ban a gym session, so everyone's doing this and you sort of expect everyone to get it. But your programming for the women's game is different. It's got to be a lot more individualized depending where you are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it depends on where you're at, I guess, with your high performance.
Speaker 1:Because I think if you're just starting out and you're trying to sync everything with your cycle, I think you just need to get in there and lift weights and do the and and do the program and do the conditioning, like it's kind of like those fundamentals, right you've. You have to have the fundamentals first and having doing strength gains within your cycle, that there's a little bit, but that's the really top, but it's it's understanding that, um, maybe there's times in your cycle where a woman can actually lift more or just feel like they're lifting more and their perceived exertion is much more. So it's understanding that I think, as a coach more than anything, because you might think that they're slacking off or that they're not onto it or whatever today, and it's actually they're just really struggling because they're in that phase of their cycle and they're, you know, not onto it or whatever today. And it's actually they're just really struggling because they're in that phase of their cycle and they're really trying, but it's just not. It's just not coming across like that at that particular phase.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a lovely concept to just be aware of that difference, right it's?
Speaker 1:yeah I think too again if we talk about that, because we're talking just about physicality here, but there's also the mental, emotional sides which go with that as well, because with the fluctuating hormones that affects our brains and how we process things, whether we're really great with our words and eloquent and how we speak, versus we're all kind of everywhere. And the thing is, is what people say? Because I think there's a little bit of taboo around. You know that premenstrual cycle being, you know, like emotional and everything. What I would like to say there is that because quite often happens, it's like oh, she's just, you know, she's just PMSing you and she's just ignoring, she'll be fine.
Speaker 1:Whatever she says in that period really means a lot to her. It's just that she doesn't speak it in the other phases of her cycle, so it might not come out quite eloquent because it's harder to be when you're quite more emotional. However, that thing is really bothering her and needs to be addressed. And it might just be in all the other periods. She just shuts up and doesn't say anything. So it's not just dismissing it because she's in that part of her cycle, it's actually going okay. I'm just going to tag that and then we can speak about it, maybe in a week or so where the emotions are not as raw. But she'll still. If we bring it up to her, she'll still be able to talk about it, but it's not as emotional as it can be in that premenstrual, in that time.
Speaker 2:And it's really interesting you talk about that emotions of the female side of the game, because particularly in rugby it's a different age brackets that you get from the women's game to the men's game too, right, like you'll often see young teenagers, teenage girls, making national teams, particularly here in Australia but across the world where you don't see that so much in the men's game You're largely we have to wait till the early 20s to get there. But women make it a lot younger. It's not uncommon to see a 17-year-old making a national team. And at the same time you also get the older end where women potentially have had children and then come back at the later stages. So older end where women potentially have had children, then come back at the later stages. So you've got a really big disparity of ages and and probably maturity levels and emotional stuff there as well, right, which you have to be aware of as a high performance coach of the female game, oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And to be to be checked in with that and have those support structures in place, I think is um is really important, um for those younger athletes and and um, yeah, I think is really important for those young athletes and yeah, I think the older woman can really help out with the young athletes there. So I think it's. I mean, I think it's really cool that the young athletes can have those mentors that are not a part of their family and then, because they're amazing, amazing women, so it's it's cool to and I think for for the older women who are in the game, who in the last few years, to understand that role and and to and I they do, they give back their.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's pretty cool watching them, yeah yeah, well, I've seen, I've watched you um deal with some of those ladies, um, at both parts of that spectrum and the high performance woman space, not just for rugby but across sports, which you do, and the lecturing you do, and it's awesome to see the impact of just even sometimes it's just one really good conversation where you have, where you've just ignited something and and spark that awareness around that you are different as as a female and you've got to think differently than what's been before, which has been predominantly just men, and actually adapting the way you are as a professional sports woman in this combat sport right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it comes back to again. It's that awareness that we've talked about a lot during this conversation awareness of yourself, but also feeling validated as a female, that your emotions and your thing you matter, like it's, it's you don't. I'm not trying to be like a man. I think I always, when I was younger at least, it was kind of a bit of a like you know, like I don't do PMS, like I'm like you know, but it's like now I'm just embracing it. It's like, yeah, I definitely get more emotional at these times and I have, and it's just communicating that and but also understanding on yourself.
Speaker 1:When, like, you do get emotional and you are, is understanding, like, okay, this is, this is for me for the next few days. How do I want to, how do I want to react, how do I want to behave here? And the more that you're checked in with yourself, the more that you realize, like sometimes, when you're going through those periods and say you're really just really mentally and emotionally low, that this is not forever, this is just part of your cycle. Do what you can nourish yourself, be communicative with the people around you and I mean, that's all we can do. That's again. Know what you can control and what you can't, and sometimes you can't control the fluctuations of your hormones and how it's affecting you mentally, physically, emotionally but you can control your actions or how you look after yourself when you go to sleep, how you treat yourself, and if we can treat ourselves with a little bit more nourishing, a little bit more you know, self-respect, I guess self-love then that's. It goes such a long way with then maximizing our potential as females.
Speaker 2:Love it. Love it, wally. Now I'm keen for this one around this kind of stuff. I'd be really keen to know nutritionally and this could be a really contentious one for you is do you have any beliefs around the nutritional side of the game? I guess that's the best one for you that you believe your peers and the contemporaries would disagree with.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a good one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm conscious too that nutrition is such a one that people have some pretty strong opinions on. So strong opinion away.
Speaker 1:Strong opinion away. Oh, that's a good one. Um, yeah, so I think it comes. I think the the probably the biggest thing which I, um I differ from my, a lot of my contemporaries, my peers, um, is that I do not believe in calorie counting. I'm just gonna say so.
Speaker 1:I'm I'm a big belief in being calorie aware, because if you're not aware of, like you know they'll or the killer, we'll say calories because american, but it's actually killer jewels if you're not actually aware of how much energy you're eating and things, that's thing. But actually counting to the minute and being and I don't think men particularly do this, actually I I think it's more the women that kind of get wrapped up in this I think it's terrible mentality. I think it's a terrible thing to get into, because if you are counting everything, that's not health, that goes towards like half your energy is going towards I've had that and I've got to do that and I've got to do that. Oh, now I need to go for a 20 minute run just to balance that out, and that's not health. So I don't believe in calorie counting. I believe in what I said before just make your fundamentals really make those. Now, if you're bodybuilding and if you're doing the extremes of physique stuff, your calorie counting may come in at those extreme levels, but not for 99.9% of the population. Being calorie aware and understanding but not calorie counting may come in at those extreme levels, but not for 99.9% of the population, being calorie aware and understanding but not calorie counting.
Speaker 1:So that's probably the biggest, the biggest thing and I think you can. You know whether you're eating enough, say, as a, as a male, you know whether you're eating enough. Because if you're doing resistance training, you're trying to get big and you're doing everything the conditioning and you're not growing well. Maybe you're doing resistance training, you're trying to get big and you're doing everything the conditioning and you're not growing well. Maybe you're not having enough to eat. So we need to have a look at those quality, quality foods rather than, yeah, the quantity. It might be more about the quality foods that you're eating and then it comes into are you having enough protein and all the rest of it? But yeah, in terms of I hate counting, I've never counted calories. Actually, it's never been a thing that I've ever done or ever prescribed my athletes to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, certainly, from my perspective too, it gets painful, oh absolutely painful, measuring everything.
Speaker 1:And also the amount that you're probably going to like, because we're estimating it right. We're not being precise. You're only going to be really precise if you're going to weigh everything to the minute detail. But most of the time we're estimating, and your estimations are going to be off, probably by the number of gaining or losing 5kg a year, even if you think you're doing kind of maintaining. So it's um, yeah, I think the the estimations that you're gonna, that you're going to have, is completely inaccurate as well.
Speaker 2:So yeah, well, what, what? Why do you think people would disagree with that? Is that just a train of thought? That's been um. Do you know what?
Speaker 1:it comes from is, I think, when, when this is. I might be wrong here, but how I think about it is when we're so wrapped up with weight being the only measure of health that if you are a certain weight you're healthy. Then it kind of seems you follow a line going okay, well, it's about energy in, energy out. So then I've got to count this and I've got to. I can understand that line of thinking. However, health is not about weight, because I could be, we could, I could have my twin sitting here. I don't have a twin, but I could have a twin sitting here. Exactly same weight, but I've got way more muscle and she's got way more fat. Now, who's the healthiest there? We've got the same weight, you know.
Speaker 1:So it's um, I think when we concentrate, we put too much emphasis on weight or a number on the scales, rather than actually what's happening in our bodies and what's you know like the body composition and that side of things, and that's a really hard thing to measure. We're getting better at it. Um, in terms of, you know, you can jump on a um, you know some. Sometimes some gyms have ones you can jump on the scales and have, but even then it can be inaccurate with hydration. However, we're getting better at it, but it's easy just to go. Well, scales is just another that we can use.
Speaker 1:So I can understand it in terms of everyday use but at the same time, like I kind of think this is I mean, this is what I say my kids is is that if you're wanting to be better in your health, the biggest thing to concentrate on is how you feel. It's the energy that you have, because you know straight away, like if you're eating a particular, some particular foods and your energy just goes, oh, and you slug it. Well, yeah, that's what we need to work on, rather than going, just being oblivious throughout the whole day and then jumping on the scales and using that as your measure. Use your energy and how much fatality you have in life and how you respond to things, your mental, how resilient you are emotionally and physically. Can you last the whole day, the two trainings or whatever you've got going on? That's our measure of if our diet's working for us or not.
Speaker 2:That again keeps coming back to that personalization of the information.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of the information. That's awesome. Hey well, what a pleasure to have you on and I actually find it's very rare, and knowing you well, to find someone who blends like essentially world-class experience with the science and I know you-class experience with the science and I know you read a lot of the science and you also have this really practical, human side to you which works in any team environment. I absolutely love it and, having experienced it firsthand, I can only attest to how good you are at this and I encourage. If people are looking for advice in this area, they reach out to you via the show and you're so approachable that you would be a blessing to converse with. So before I go, I'd just like to wrap up with my three thoughts to take away from this conversation with Wal. Number one is the how you address the concussion.
Speaker 2:Concussion is a hot topic these days and, instead of just the concept of doing nothing, I love your take on it as personal responsibility. If you were to bruise your leg, there would be a process that you followed Rest, ice, compression, elevation, that stuff we know. However, if we treat a head knock, a concussion the same way, it's a bruise on the brain. We've got to really be active in putting good stuff in to help settle that inflammation down, and that comes back to what we put in our bodies, and I think that concept is an amazing thing for anybody in a contact sport to be aware of. Number two I love your concepts around the woman's game and that it's circular as opposed to flatline like the men's game, and it's really important to note that the women's side of rugby is not just little men or little boys and treating them the same. It is a different thing to look at your cycles. All that stuff needs to be front of mind for coaches and players alike in order to maximize the best performance that you can possibly get and to look after injuries as well.
Speaker 2:The last point, number three, is your concept around experiment, that eating is a process to be aware of. So keep asking questions, keep not settling for just saying, oh, that's what I'm doing, because that's what I've always done, knowing that your body is evolving, it changes over time and you got to as well. So experiment with what you do, see how it works, take notes, look after yourself and enjoy it, and I think if you do that, you're well on the way to being a top performer, in whatever field you are. Well, thank you for joining us on the coaching culture podcast thanks, jamie.