Coach DJ Taylor, Vestavia Hills, AL (2026)

08/18/2023

Happy Friday!!!

Let’s T.G.I.F.!!!

📸creds:

11/29/2022

AFI is more than a passion project.

I am working to improve our communities 1 athlete at a time by providing athletes, coaches, and parents the resources they need to supersede their potential!

Through AFI I have been able to impact a little over 200 athletes and 10 coaches within the last year.

Your donation here will go toward providing families of athletes in our community a blessed holiday season.

I am extremely thankful for the continued support. I will need your help and I will call on you so stay ready 😉.

07/15/2021

It’s important for everyone in all kinds of roles and with all sorts of responsibilities to have effective communication skills, so I wanted to explore this topic for athletes and coaches.

Communicating well could be the difference-maker that puts you over the top for a new job, a spot on a team, or a college scholarship.

I added a new blog post to my website with a few tips on how to improve your communication skills and be a more effective coach or athlete.

Here’s the first tip:

Listen Well
When someone is talking to you, what are you doing? Are you listening intently, or thinking of a response? It is natural to be thinking through your response when someone else is talking, but to be an effective communicator, try to listen well. When you listen well, you are gathering clues about the other person that provide even more insight into what they are saying. If a colleague, coach, or peer is communicating problems they are having, instead of trying to solve the problem right away, listen and take note of what is going wrong. Show with your body language that you are invested, and make eye contact with them as they speak. When the person has finished speaking, depending on the situation, recap what they said, either aloud to them or in your head.

To read more about how to communicate clearly, respect others in your communication, and offer and receive feedback well, go to coachdjtaylor.com and click on “Blog.”

I hope these tips are helpful! What helps you be a good communicator? What advice do you have for others?

06/30/2021

We have another great article from with his thoughts on certifications. Here’s some of what he shared:

Certifications are important. And they're not all created equal. When looking at certain job descriptions out there, it is clear that some are required more than others.

Whatever certification we’re considering or preparing for, it is important to know why we want it, what it will do for our current or future positions and responsibilities.

Not only that, but it is important to look at what it's going to take to keep them. If you have five different certifications that all require a certain level of continuing education units (CEU’s), are you willing to do the work to maintain all five of those? And are all five of those giving you a different scope of practice?

It is okay to sit for some with the knowledge that you are not going to maintain them. So, you're doing it for professional development and there is nothing wrong with that.

It’s also important to know the differences in the hierarchy of certifications within an association.

For example, there are four primary certifications within the NSCA: CSCS, Certified Personal Trainer (NSCA-CPT), Certified Special Population Specialist (CSPS), and TSAC-F. The ACSM focuses on a different population than the NSCA as we can see by the certification offerings.

Each one of these provides a different scope of practice with only very little overlap. Compare the NSCA CSPS to the ACSM Clinical Exercise Physiologist (CEP). Each one of these provides a different scope of practice with subtle overlaps.

Neither of these associations tell the practitioner how to provide or deliver their services, because these are not programs.

This puts the responsibility of writing and delivering the programs in the practitioner's hands.

So, what are your thoughts on certifications? Do you have a clear plan that makes sense for where you are now and share you want to be in the future?

Read more from Daniel at coachdjtaylor.com.

Link in bio.

06/23/2021

We all know character matters. But how do coaches affect the character of their athletes? How do we make a positive impact on who our athletes are now and who they will become in the future?

In a dissertation titled “Coaching for Character: Mechanisms of Influence on Adolescent Athletes Sportsmanship,” Nicole D. Bolter wrote:

“Coaches who act like good sports, reinforce sportsmanlike behaviors, teach athletes how to show good sportsmanship, and avoid emphasizing winning over being a good sport were related to how athletes behave toward teammates and opponents… Coaches are important sources of social influence for encouraging good sportsmanship among their athletes and thereby helping youth achieve positive developmental outcomes often highlighted as long-term benefits of sport participation.”

We have a significant role in helping our athletes become people who compete and interact with other people from a place of positive moral character. All coaches want their athletes to excel and win, but character should always come first.

and I have been thinking a lot about the ways coaches can help their athletes have positive character traits. We want to prepare our athletes for success in all areas of life. We want our athletes to be kind and generous people who display utmost respect for themselves, other athletes, and their coaches.

When good character is emphasized, we all win.

Read more of my thoughts at coschdjtaylor.com. My latest list also includes links to three posts about character over at coachnev.com.

And if you have any thoughts about how coaches can promote positive character in athletes, please share in the comments!

06/19/2021

Have you ever trained for months, and then realized you weren’t making progress? A couple of years ago I hit a significant plateau, my bench one-rep max was right at 405 lbs., my squat one-rep max was right under 600 lbs., and my deadlift was 500 lbs. for multiple sets and reps. I wasn’t able to go beyond those numbers. But why? My body composition and nutrition were solid, so I knew it wasn’t that.

I was at a true training plateau, and I needed to do something about it.

A training plateau is when you no longer make performance gains through your current implementations. This can be with weight loss, muscle mass gains, strength gains, or performance.

Plateaus are a result of an inadequate stimulus. This can be due to under-stimulation (not enough total volume and/or not enough intensity), or over-stimulation (too much total volume and/or too much intensity). Ultimately a plateau is a sign from our body that something needs to change. So I had to figure out what I needed to change.

Read more about this process at coachdjtaylor.com in the blog post titled “HIT A PLATEAU? TRY RULE OF 60” posted on September 27, 2019.

Link in bio.

06/12/2021

We are happy to feature this guest post contributed by Coach Daniel Heller, a regular contributor at coachdjtaylor.com. We’re excited to share his knowledge and skills with our readers! You can connect with him on Instagram at .

“I first learned about SOAP notes when I was helping my mom and her team create a curriculum for lifestyle coaching back in the early 2000s. One of the naturopaths on our team introduced SOAP notes as a way of organizing intake for patients. Later on in my internships and jobs in clinical settings, I discovered this was the norm for how physicians organized data for insurance, diagnosis, and overall patient care. The “SOAP” acronym stands for Subjective data, Objective data, Assessment, and Plan. I’m going to share how I use this system with clients (athletes, coaches, parents, businesses, etc.) to get a clear picture of where they are and how I can help get them to where they want to be.

The Plan is exactly how we take our clients from where they are to where they want to be. They come to us at a certain point in their journeys, with specific stories, data points, and things they want to improve. It is our job as Strength and Conditioning Coaches to take the assessment of all of this information and create a proposed plan to meet the clients where they are and implement real improvements in their journeys.”

We’d love for you to read more of Coach Daniel’s article about SOAP at coachdjtaylor.com. Link in bio.

*Image from Daniel Heller.

06/12/2021

We are happy to feature this guest post contributed by Coach Daniel Heller, a regular contributor at coachdjtaylor.com. We’re excited to share his knowledge and skills with our readers! You can connect with him on Instagram at .

“I first learned about SOAP notes when I was helping my mom and her team create a curriculum for lifestyle coaching back in the early 2000s. One of the naturopaths on our team introduced SOAP notes as a way of organizing intake for patients. Later on in my internships and jobs in clinical settings, I discovered this was the norm for how physicians organized data for insurance, diagnosis, and overall patient care. The “SOAP” acronym stands for Subjective data, Objective data, Assessment, and Plan. I’m going to share how I use this system with clients (athletes, coaches, parents, businesses, etc.) to get a clear picture of where they are and how I can help get them to where they want to be.

The Plan is exactly how we take our clients from where they are to where they want to be. They come to us at a certain point in their journeys, with specific stories, data points, and things they want to improve. It is our job as Strength and Conditioning Coaches to take the assessment of all of this information and create a proposed plan to meet the clients where they are and implement real improvements in their journeys.”

We’d love for you to read more of Coach Daniel’s article at coachdjtaylor.com. Link in bio.

Coach DJ Taylor

08/18/2023

11/29/2022

07/15/2021

06/30/2021

06/23/2021

06/19/2021

06/12/2021

06/12/2021

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share

Category