Washed is a feeling.
Detrained is a number.
I help ex-athletes rebuild their athleticism, and put the results on the record.
Who this is for
I coach ex-athletes. You played seriously, varsity or better. You stopped. You want to feel like an athlete again: in pickup, in a thirty-plus league, in flag football, at your kid's practice.
My story
Sixty seconds into my first basketball game in eight years, I was asking for a sub. I'd never asked out of a game in my life. Before coaches had to drag me out of games. Now I was out of shape. My springs were gone.
Three months of purposeful training started the process. Twelve months made me feel like myself again. Now I'm pushing past where I've ever been. I'm Daniel Gatewood, the strength coach you should have had at seventeen.
Land first. Jump second.
A strength floor is non-negotiable. Once it's there, the spring and quickness you lost come back best when you train them directly, alongside the lifting. Not instead of it. Not after a year of squats. The payoff is getting back in the game in a body that's ready for it.
Lift, land, jump. The jump ladder, rung 0 to rung 3, climbed when your landings earn it. Session 0 if you want your starting point measured. The quarterly battery after that. Every result, mine included, goes on the record: wins, losses, and within noise.
The record
Every measured result I'm allowed to publish, in order, never deleted. Mine first; I'm case study zero.
Countermovement jump
[__ cm]
[Baseline, the week of November 2.]
Single-leg hop and stick
[L __ / R __]
[Baseline, the week of November 2.]
Single-leg drop and stick
[L __ / R __]
[Baseline, the week of November 2.]
Jump height is flight-time-derived with natural landings, so it's a within-person measure: valid against your own baseline, weaker for comparing one person to another.
Athlete Again
The free comeback guide for ex-athletes.
You played. You stopped. You want it back. The guide is where I'd start you: what the research says, what I've seen, what I got wrong, and the first four weeks. First name and email, and it's in your inbox.
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