Coach Tony Holler

09/02/2026

Jake Cohen has agreed to an unfiltered, contested, let-it-rip podcast.

Check his recent 🏈 takes on social media (Jake Cohen Sports Performance).

Recording on Thursday!

Follow the podcast at the link below so you won’t miss it! ⬇️

https://open.spotify.com/show/0wxv0vbKMrElFs5sLP2Os4?si=e3IgUGSfQoqbN5y2VAwvYw&utm_source=copy-link

09/01/2026

My FTC Podcast with Brian Kula has generated tons of feedback, especially concerning hamstring & Achilles injuries.

This is what Boo Schexnayder says about Nordics and RDLs:

“The hamstrings are built to accept fast eccentric loading (sprinting), so Nordics and RDL’s make things worse by fatiguing the area with no hope for progress.”

He follows it immediately with:

“The answer to hamstring health is simple: teach mechanics, value mobility (over max strength), and sprint year-round.”

🤔 His larger point is provocative: hamstring weakness is usually not the primary cause of hamstring injuries, so simply adding more isolated hamstring strengthening may add fatigue without addressing the underlying problem.

What if speed training—not conditioning, grinding, or simply gettin...

08/31/2026

Speed capacity = sprint repeatability. This is from a recent Feed the Cats podcast with Brian Kula. Now available on all platforms

08/30/2026

I like this paired with John Wooden’s Eight Laws of Learning.

1) Explanation
2) Demonstration 💥
3) Imitation
4) Repetition
5) Repetition
6) Repetition
7) Repetition
😎 Repetition

08/27/2026

Doing a deep dive into Hans Selye (1907-1982). ⤵️

Too much stress without adequate recovery eventually produces exhaustion.

The traditional coaching mistake is assuming:

MORE STRESS = MORE ADAPTATION

Selye’s work says that’s not how biology works.

A better equation would be:

STRESS + RECOVERY = ADAPTATION

And when stress continually exceeds the ability to recover:

STRESS − RECOVERY = BREAKDOWN

(Injuries are almost always a load-management problem.)

Selye eventually differentiated between:

EUSTRESS — beneficial stress that stimulates positive adaptation.

DISTRESS — excessive or poorly managed stress that becomes harmful.

08/27/2026

Training is a stressor. The goal is adaptation, not exhaustion.

Feed the Cats lives in the adaptation zone

A high-quality sprint is an enormous stimulus. Sprinting at 95–100% exposes the nervous system, muscles, tendons, fascia, and coordination system to demands that slower running simply cannot reproduce.

When you train the EXTREME, you train the RANGE.

🚫 “How much work can we get athletes to tolerate?”

🎯 “What’s the smallest dose that produces the adaptation we want?”

And…

🚫 stress → adaptation

🎯 appropriate stress + recovery → adaptation

More stress doesn’t automatically produce more adaptation. Eventually, additional work produces diminishing returns and can become counterproductive.

“For every substance, small doses stimulate, moderate doses inhibit, and large doses kill.” ~Hugo Schulz

🚫 “You’re tired. You need to learn to push through it.”

🎯 “Why are we training speed when the athlete can’t access speed?”

Tired is the enemy, not the goal.

08/25/2026

Feed the Cats prioritizes speed and eliminates mindless conditioning designed to create fatigue rather than improve performance.

Kids gain athletic fitness by stacking performance-level work, creating the CAPACITY to repeat skills at a competitive level.

Important: If you go beyond five or six seconds your average outputs will drop REGARDLESS OF EFFORT.

💥 Keep outputs high. Tired is the enemy.

Another ingredient is to patiently let the sport train the sport. The goal is to be 80% in shape and 100% healthy.

Sprint fast, lift heavy, jump high & far, bounce, and throw.

Supplement speed with X-Factor work—weights, plyos, isometrics, mini-hurdles, med balls, eccentrics, COD, and other creative exercises that deliver a positive stimulus without stealing from speed.

Do all of this in a gamified way (record, rank, publish)… on a foundation of rest, recovery, sleep, and nutrition.

Never let today ruin tomorrow.

Let the competitions be the hardest thing you do.

Make training the best part of a kid’s day because kids are good at what they LIKE and obsessed with what they LOVE.

When kids perform, effort is never an issue.

Joyful athletes create joyful coaches, and joyful coaches create joyful athletes. It becomes an endless feedback loop.

08/25/2026

Schmidtbleicher Principle: the final repetition of an exercise has the most profound and long-lasting impact on motor learning and central nervous system (CNS) adaptation.

The brain deeply encodes and "remembers" the ex*****on quality of the final rep of a training set or session.

💥 Tired is the enemy… train in a state of energy, excitement, and enthusiasm

💥 When you train the EXTREME, you train the RANGE

💥 When an athlete PRs in a workout, send them home ⚡️⚡️⚡️

💥 Don’t burn the steak

💥 Send athletes home with gas left in the tank

08/24/2026

Run fast, lift heavy, move efficiently, and rest often. This is from a recent Feed the Cats podcast with Brian Kula. Now available on all platforms

08/21/2026

New Feed the Cats podcast episode posted! 90 minutes of coach-talk with Brian Kula!

https://youtu.be/jVhC_Ty0Utk?is=rVkN1XQzaxsF-mdh