IRL Performance Coaching

IRL Performance Coaching MSc. Biomechanics, Performance Coach & Clinical Exercise Physiologist

I use science & technology to maximize athletic performance

1000+ Athletes Evolved.

FREE week of training: https://www.irl.coach/free-week

09/05/2026

Want a free guide + a free week of the program? Link is in the comments

Most football players stop training in-season.

This is THE fastest way to lose everything you’ve built.

There are 2 main ways most athletes get in-season training wrong:

They either stop completely and watch their strength and speed disappear, or they keep training like it’s the off-season and show up to games sore and beat up.

Most just don’t know what they should be doing, and when they should be doing it based on their practice & game schedule.

So I built a flexible in-season training template. It shows you how to train in-season AND how to set up your schedule around games and practices so you stay healthy, strong, and fast on the field all season.

—

In-season football training · strength and conditioning for athletes · IRL Performance Coaching

Most football players stop training in September. By week six of the season, the strength they built all summer is gone....
09/02/2026

Most football players stop training in September. By week six of the season, the strength they built all summer is gone.

The other half train too hard or too much, pile on fatigue, and get hurt.

My In-Season group training runs Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights.

You buy a pack of sessions and book whichever ones fit around games and practices - twice one week, once the next, whatever makes sense with your schedule.

Nobody’s locked into a night they can’t make.

Ten athletes a session maximum, so everyone actually gets coached.

Force plate testing every week means training is adjusted to how each athlete is recovering, not to what the calendar says.

High intensity, low soreness - nobody walks into games flat.

The whole point is finishing the season healthy - it doesn’t matter how strong you are if you’re hurt and sitting on the bench.

Sept 8 – Nov 16

Packs of 4, 8, 12, and 16 sessions, $30–40 per session depending on frequency.

Message me if you have any questions.

Sign up link in bio

09/01/2026

Want a free guide + a free week of the program? Comment “In-Season” below and I’ll send it over.

Most football players stop training in-season.

This is THE fastest way to lose everything you’ve built.

There are 2 main ways most athletes get in-season training wrong:

They either stop completely and watch their strength and speed disappear, or they keep training like it’s the off-season and show up to games sore and beat up.

Most just don’t know what they should be doing, and when they should be doing it based on their practice & game schedule.

So I built a flexible in-season training template. It shows you how to train in-season AND how to set up your schedule around games and practices so you stay healthy, strong, and fast on the field all season.

—

In-season football training · strength and conditioning for athletes · IRL Performance Coaching

08/31/2026

Let me be clear.. ⬇️

If you’re a new personal trainer or strength & conditioning coach, I’m not telling you to *not* to post content - you absolutely should.

Organic content is one of the most effective ways to build brand awareness.

However, with the recognition of social medias value, we now have every coach and their dog trying to blow up their TikTok & IG following.

This has lead to a lot of inexperienced coaches:

Attempting to speak on topics way out of their depth, often leaving out important context.

Posting useless exercises or methods for the sake of novelty & vitality.

Losing opportunities to actually work with people because they’re more worried about getting content posted than actually coaching.

Their are whole sub communities of “coaches” and lifters on this app spreading unproductive training & dietary strategies (and blatant misinformation) all from some theoretical inference a random gym bro thought up after reading a single study abstract.

Ironically, the “science based lifter” cult is the worst for it.

But people follow along because they want results & they don’t know any better.

Social media is a magnifying glass, and getting the entire attention of the internet is a double edged sword.

The right post could gain you a full client roster.

The wrong one could destroy your reputation for years to come.

The combination of knowledge & experience is what makes your opinion unique.

You understand the science of what you do, but you’ve also tried & tested it.

Because at the end of the day, it’s not always black & white.

Your story & experience set you apart - and people DO want to hear about it.

Because they want to know what works.

The social media landscape has brought value back to individual nuance & authenticity.

It’s just a lot harder to provide that when you have nothing to draw from.

You should still post - post about how & who you’re training, post about what you’re learning, your goals, whatever.

But sometimes, you just need to stay in your lane.

Your time will come.

No days off. Our athletes showed up for work on Day 1 bringing maximum effort to our 2026 Combine and setting the tone ...
08/21/2026

No days off. Our athletes showed up for work on Day 1 bringing maximum effort to our 2026 Combine and setting the tone for a killer season ahead. Big thanks to Ian Rowan-Legg - Athletic Performance Coach and the team at IRL Performance Coaching for keeping the energy high and running a flawless event.






Top Performers:

Vertical (in)
1. Max Wetmore 32.9
2. Emmett Mont 32.0
3. Wyatt Verdonck 31.5
4. Kamji Ejinima 31.3
5. Tyerico Oliver 30.2

Broad Jump
1. Wyatt Verdonck 9’11”
2. Kamji Ejinima 9’9”
Max Wetmore
Emmett Mont
3. Omar Al Safadi 9’7”
4. Prem Mistry 9’5”
5. Marlon Fletcher 9’3”

40yd Dash (sec)
1. Emmett Mont 4.62
2. Omar Al Safadi 4.68
3. Max Wetmore 4.70
4. Henry Mont 4.75
5. Shane Lucas 4.76

Pro Agility (sec)
1. Emmett Mont 4.22
2. Max Wetmore 4.38
3. Jaxson Mosher 4.41
4. Prem Mistry 4.43
5. Wyatt Verdonck 4.46

Bench (135lbs, reps)
1. Jaxson Mosher 27
2. Jake Aucoin 24
3. Jett Leblanc 23
4. Henry Mont 22
John Paul Rahme
5. Charlie Knight 21
Kyle Lush

Bench (225lbs, reps)
1. Nick Clarke 13
2. Jake Hoopey 10
3. Wyatt Verdonck 8
4. Max Wetmore 4
5. Dany Nadour 3

08/17/2026

The split jerk might be the most underrated power exercise out there.

Everyone loves the clean - fewer prioritise mastering the jerk.

If you’re chasing explosiveness, this one earns its spot.

The quick dip and drive builds serious rate of force development - how fast you can produce force, not just how much.

Which is more often than not the most important quality that actually transfers, because most athletic moments (a sprint step, a cut, a takeoff) happen in under two-tenths of a second.

In most sport movements, there’s no time to grind out max force. You produce it fast or you may as well not produce it at all.

Then comes the part most power work skips: the catch.

Dropping under the bar and slamming on the brakes trains eccentric force and deceleration - the same quality that lets an athlete land, cut, and change direction without falling apart.

Stack coordination, mobility, and overhead stability through the hips, trunk and upper back on top of that, and you’ve got one movement covering a ton of ground with plenty of room for progression.

For athletes totally new to this, I typically prefer to start with strict overhead pressing before progressing to push pressing, and eventually jerks.

Dumbbell and landmine variations are fantastic as well, and can be a great variation on their own, or a means of getting athletes comfortable with sequencing of the movement itself.

I included these in my new 16-week athletic training program, which you can try for free by commenting “athlete” below.

08/13/2026

This is one of the more impressive, and more useful lifts I’ve seen from an athlete graduating high school.

Alex hit these heavy SSB reverse lunges towards the end of our Spring Phase back in June.

Committed to StFX X-Men Football this coming season, Alex Alex Law increased his training frequency with me this Spring & Summer and saw huge increases in his strength, speed and power, all while adding muscle mass.

I’m really happy about these lifts in particular because I’m a huge believer that split squat & lunge variations are some of the most valuable exercises an athlete can perform to move the needle for actual performance - especially those with variable movement demands.

Don’t get me wrong - heavy bilateral movements will always be a staple for absolute strength (his squats and deadlifts are also through the roof)

But the positional specificity, capacity to load each limb, and implications for linear multidirectional movement make split squat and lunge variations arguably more important.

Alex has been training with me for 3 years now and I couldn’t be happier with where he’s at heading into his first year of university ball.

08/12/2026

Sample set x rep scheme ⬇️

- Comment “Athlete” for a free week of my new training program -

Eccentric strength qualities are incredibly valuable for athletes in both the upper and lower limb.

We usually talk about the eccentric side for the lower body: landing, cutting, decelerating.

But your arms are constantly absorbing force in sport.

Eccentric strength & power allows athletes to absorb and redirect high forces during sport, whether that be making or absorbing contact, throwing a baseball, or even just controlling a fall.

These demands show up in a surprising amount of areas, and having the tissue tolerance to withstand them is critical for both performance and health.

Typically my off-season progression for eccentric work looks a little like this:

Extensive eccentric (slow tempos) -> Intensive eccentrics (supramax eccentrics) -> Fast eccentrics (paused catch) -> Fast eccentric (reactive catch)

I find the bench press drop catch is a great, controlled way to develop these qualities.

Now, general pressing strength should always be priority number 1 before trying to program higher speed bench variations. It’s hard to move load at any significant speed & control without having the strength to move it well in the first place.

I’ve programmed these with anywhere from 40-70%, sometimes 80% of an athletes 1RM, and even 80% is fairly heavy. You don’t need as much load if you actually “pull” the weight towards you.

If the weight is light enough, I’ll program up to 6, sometimes even 8 sets. If it’s heavier, we do less volume (3-4 sets) - no surprises there.

I may set these up something like this:

Week 1: 6x5 @ 50-55% 1RM
Week 2: 6x4 @ 55-60% 1RM
Week 3: 6x3 @ 60-65% 1RM
Week 4: 6x2 @ 65-70% 1RM

Again - I’ll do these with a paused catch before progressing to fully reactive. Make sure you drop loads down when making this switch, as it will be more stressful.

08/06/2026

Your fancy ladder drills are not moving the needle when it comes to speed.

I’m not saying burn your ladder.

As a warm-up, a coordination drill, a way to wake up the nervous system - sure, it has a place, and screaming that it’s evil is an by most coaches overreaction.

But if it’s an integral piece of your speed program, you don’t have a speed program.

You have a marketing tactic.

Linear speed is the product stride length x stride frequency.

With more powerful, lengthier strides coming from high force production and efficient application of that force into the ground.

And frequency a result of the quick & coordinated ability of the hip flexors and extensors to turn the leg over with each stride.

Quick and efficient change of direction and multidirectional speed comes down to decelerarative and accelerative power, and can be maximised with the support of ones situational awareness and ability to react to stimuli.

A ladder drill simply trains your feet to move quickly in a tiny space while producing very little force, all while covering almost no distance & responding to zero additional stimuli.

While some positions may seem comparable to on field speed, it’s lacking any similarity that actually matters.

If a coach recommends ladder drills to get you faster - run the other way.

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