Andrew Spruill | Elevating Athletic Performance - Mick Unplugged

Episode Transcription

• Episode 12 Transcription

  Intro: Are you ready to change your habits, sculpt your destiny, and light up your path to greatness? Welcome to the epicenter of transformation. This is Mick Unplugged. We'll help you identify your because so you can create a routine that's not just productive, but powerful. You'll embrace the art of evolution, adapt strategies to stay ahead of the game, and take a a step toward the extraordinary.
  
  So let's unleash your potential. Now here's Mick.
  
  Mick Hunt: Welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged, where we dive deeper into your why to really get fueled by your because. And today, we have a very special episode from serving our country in the air force to shaping the future of athletes across multiple sports. Today's guest has transformed dedication and knowledge into unparalleled success, training over 300 NFL Combine prospects, including 51 first round picks, and guiding 100 of high school athletes to achieve their d one dreams. He's not just a coach, but a pivotal force in the athletic world. He set a new standard in sports training.
  
  We're about to dive deep into the world of athletic and mental preparation with my guests, none other than mister Andrew Sproul. Andrew, welcome to the show, my brother. How are you?
  
  Andrew Spurill: Good. Dude, that was a crazy intro. That was good.
  
  Mick Hunt: Dude, it's you, man. That is what Andrew thought it's all about. I could do it no other justice than to do it that way.
  
  Andrew Spurill: That was great. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
  
  Mick Hunt: That is awesome. I'm glad that you were here, man. Like, first and foremost, thank you for your service. I know that, you know, a lot of people sometimes take that for granted, man. But, like, I really appreciate the sacrifices that that you personally made and then that everyone that surrounds you has made for our safety and for us to do the things that we do.
  
  So, again, thank you for your service.
  
  Andrew Spurill: I appreciate it, man. We we'll dive into the that part of my life, but that was definitely, a necessary chapter that I needed.
  
  Mick Hunt: Let's do it. Look. Now I'm gonna so so you needed it. Talk talk to me about why you needed that part of your life. Why why did that help shape who you are today?
  
  Andrew Spurill: Man, I was right out of high school. I was enrolled in college. Didn't take school nearly as a serious as I should have when I was in high school. I just kinda floated by, stayed eligible to play sports. And then after that, it's like, oh, shoot.
  
  I probably should've done a little bit more because I'm just, like, out here not knowing what the heck I wanna do. And The
  
  Mick Hunt: real worst smelching the face kinda hard.
  
  Andrew Spurill: Hey. Quick. Fast. No. It doesn't wait for anybody.
  
  You know, I talked to my dad. I was like, dude, I gotta do something, man. I can't do college. I just can't do it. Let's be honest with you.
  
  And he was in the navy for 4 years. And he's like, I mean, you can look into the military and but if you do, he's like, you gotta go air force. Like, you know, he's you know, I I'm not letting you go in the other
  
  Mick Hunt: branch. There
  
  Andrew Spurill: you go. Of course, it's kinda known for having the best, base of best jobs, best quality of life. So I went to recruiter, pretty much joined within a week, and I left 3 months later. I mean, it helped me a lot. It shaped me responsibility, accountability, being on time.
  
  You know, all those things are they're nonnegotiable in the military. You have to do it. You have you gotta be on time. You have to learn your job in a timely manner or there's serious consequences. You can't just quit.
  
  Like, you can't quit the military. You're in. They literally make you adapt to those things, and that's what I needed. And, did 4 years of that. Kinda found my love for working out and fitness while I was in.
  
  I kinda wanted to, you know, make a life in that industry. So after my 4 years was up, I decided to get out and pursue that. And then that's when I met Tony Volani. I came to FAU down in Boca to do my exercise science degree. And, that's when I met Tony who owns XP Sports.
  
  And I did a internship with him, and I ended up working with him for 10 years.
  
  Mick Hunt: Wow. Yeah. So making that leap from the air force to interning with Tony must have been a significant thing in your life. What core principles or core skills from your military background helped you the most with that transition?
  
  Andrew Spurill: And that's what it was too. I mean, I couldn't have if I met Tony when I was 19 out of high school, I wouldn't have grabbed that opportunity. There's no way. I knew nothing about performance industry or the training industry. I taught myself how to lift weights, and I did a pretty good job of doing that when I was in the air force.
  
  I didn't realize there was a whole world of athlete training outside of the team. I didn't realize that. So I'm looking at him training these guys in the off season, and I was like, man, this is definitely something I wanna do. For me, it was just showing up every day, you know, and I was on volunteer internship status. I wasn't really getting paid.
  
  Just being there, he was giving the times and days they were training, I'd show up as much as possible and just kinda being reliable, showing a willingness to learn, and things like that. I've had kids that I train come up to me and ask me, you know, when they get done playing sports, they're like, what did you do to start your business? Or what did you do to get hired? I'm like Mhmm. Just show up on time and just show some sort of willingness to learn and be consistent.
  
  And you'll be surprised just how much the people who you work for will keep you around and retain you if you just do that. You don't have to be necessarily the best worker or the smartest one there, but if you can be reliable and show up every day on time, they'll probably keep you around.
  
  Mick Hunt: That's awesome. And you've trained thousands of people, not just athletes, but also I know in the military that was a part of your job function as well too. And I always say this, great people. I don't care if you're an athlete, if you're a business leader, if you're the everyday person at your job. Mindset is usually the biggest separator because everyone wants to be great, but very few people actually take the action to get there.
  
  From your viewpoint in training thousands of athletes, right, or thousands of people, what do you see as, like, the top two things that great people do that average people don't do?
  
  Andrew Spurill: It's a good question. The great ones that I've been around, and it it goes back to the the willingness to learn, never acted like they knew everything. Right. Never. Never.
  
  You're talking about 10 to 12 year pro athletes who are sitting there listening and learning and doing basic drills like everybody else. Not once ever asked, hey, what are we doing tomorrow? If we're doing this, I'm probably not gonna show up. Never a conversation. Showing up every day.
  
  No matter what the workout is, no matter what we're doing. Doesn't matter what if it's the basic drills, if we're doing some more advanced stuff, they're in it. They're in the mix every day. No questions asked. And, you know, that's not to say that nobody can ask questions.
  
  Anyone's more than welcome to say, hey. What what's this drill for? What are we working on? How does this help? No problem.
  
  You know, we we can explain that. But the the greatest ones with the most athletic ability and the most talent still came into training like it was their 1st day.
  
  Mick Hunt: They had something to prove.
  
  Andrew Spurill: Yeah. Right? Always. Yep. That that chip never ends.
  
  Mick Hunt: What are some attributes of average people that you see?
  
  Andrew Spurill: Showing up every other day, being late, going a week or 2 hard. Looking like, alright. This guy I think this guy finally gonna turn a corner. Boom. Disappears for a week.
  
  Or is this guy at no one knows. Okay. Drop it in every now and then. You know? Not really having that attentiveness during training.
  
  Just kinda floating through it. Like I said, the great ones are there every day, willing to learn, no questions asked, never miss. If they do miss, they tell you, okay. Taking the fam on vacation for a week. I'll be back next Monday.
  
  Alright. Fine. They don't just disappear. Like, hey. Where's this guy at?
  
  I don't know. Nobody knows. Down in Miami. I think he was in Miami for a party, and he stays down there for or 4 days just hungover. You know?
  
  Like, the legendary guys don't you don't hear that from them. They're coming back. They go down for that party in Miami. They're driving right back up. They're gonna make the session that next day.
  
  But, yeah, it's just but, like, in general, it's it's just there's no consistency in the average ones, you know, floating through workouts, stuff stuff like that. You know, stuff that everybody knows. Everyone knows what average people do, and everyone knows what it takes to get above average. We all know it. It's just a matter of if you wanna do it or not.
  
  Mick Hunt: And that's the same thing for people. Again, I don't care if you're a salesperson. I don't care if you're an accountant, if you're a leader. If you're not consistent, if you can't make the mundane, almost boring, and and routine, if you can't make that routine, it's gonna be hard because there are days you don't wanna do it, but you gotta get your butt up and go do it. The training that your sales leader wants you to go to that you decide, I'm just gonna half butt it today.
  
  It's gonna show in the results, but but yet, everyone wants to be a millionaire. Everyone wants to be a 1st round pick. Everyone wants to be the next one in the line of promotion, but you don't wanna do the same things that have to be done every single day.
  
  Andrew Spurill: And that goes for, all levels too. You know? I'm talking about high school kids too. I've got kids that train almost year round, in season, off season, spring break, winter break, and, like, they make it happen as much as they can. You know, they're a little different because they've got a lot more going on, school, social life, stuff like that than kind of a pro athlete might.
  
  But I've got, you know, kids that show up all the time, And then I've got ones that just kinda drop in. They're not really on a consistent plan. They just come in every couple weeks.
  
  Mick Hunt: Yeah. I was gonna say, so so for some of the high school kids and athletes listening, you're saying, Andrew, I can't just show up, like, every other Sunday with a group of my buddies when it's cool to be there because we have a 7 on 7 next week.
  
  Andrew Spurill: I hate it. I hate it when I've got these kids that I know and I like them, and they'll message me, hey. I'm coming in this Saturday. I'll see you then, and I'll see you in 3 months. Like, what what are we doing?
  
  Like, there's gotta be you can't like, if you're listening, you can't just pick and choose when you wanna do these things. Like, if you're gonna commit to this goes for anything, but I'm talking about our student athlete performance training. But it goes for anything. If you're gonna do something, then do it. Like, you can't just have your toes in the water and then and then out for a month.
  
  Like, it's gotta be like, you really want results, you gotta really commit to it. And I had a parent text me one time. I'd seen the I had seen the kid in forever, and she was like, hey, so and so's off this Friday for a holiday. We're thinking about coming in for a workout. Are you available?
  
  And I just said no. I just I'm not my workouts aren't something you just drop into to burn some calories. Like, it like, it's offensive when people text me shit like that. Like, you you drop into an orange theory class. You drop into, you know, kickboxing.
  
  You drop into spin classes. You don't drop into sport performance classes. There's progressions to what we do. If you're doing private sessions with me, I need you to commit to a certain amount of sessions up front. We're gonna go through the progressions.
  
  It just it just isn't like I hate it when and I'm getting worse and worse as I get older as you know, not worse, but I'm getting better at telling those people no. Like, I'm not I'm just not doing it. So we're just wasting both of our time.
  
  Mick Hunt: I wonder if this parallels to you, Andrew, because I own a consulting firm and a executive coaching firm. When a prospect or someone's interviewing for me to be their coach, when they're a little too gung ho and they're telling me what I what they think I wanna hear, I can pick that up really quick. Versus the one that comes in and they ask a lot of questions, they have a notebook, and they want to know a plan, and they want to know, you know, the why behind the why and the science behind certain things. Those are the ones that I know I'm gonna work with. I can I can filter through the fluff really quick when you're a little too overly excited to work with me?
  
  And it's like, you see the success or you wanna be a part of something. But when I start asking you about commitment and when I start asking you about what are you doing behind the scenes and and you start stuttering a little bit, I already know really quickly you're not my kind of person. Do you see that on your end too?
  
  Andrew Spurill: Yeah. Yeah. It it's it's pretty, you know, it's pretty evident typically upfront what what kind of commitment and what kind of, client and athlete they're gonna be. With, student athletes, it's sometimes can be some of them are a little unassuming sometimes because they're so young. You know, 13, 14, 15, 16 years old.
  
  So, you know, you kinda obviously, you wanna give them, you give them a chance to to show who they are, but It doesn't take that long for someone to show who they are. It happens pretty quick. You know, if you get a kid that says, alright. I'm coming to train Monday, and I think this is something I wanna do. If they wanna do it, they come Monday.
  
  They'll be back Tuesday, or they'll be back Wednesday, Thursday. They'll be back a couple times that week. If they do it on Monday and I don't hear from them again for till the next week, it's like, okay. You're gonna be one of those that's gonna be every other week. Like, I get it now.
  
  Like, I it's quickly evident who you are. I just started with a girl. She's committed to the University of Miami for soccer, and she leaves the summer. She'll she's gonna start getting ready for her her preseason, and she showed up last Tuesday just to check it out. She had a showcase this weekend, so she was gonna do kind of her trial session, and then she was gonna start training this week after her showcase.
  
  Or dad texted me right after the Tuesday session. He's like, hey. She's coming back tomorrow. She doesn't wanna wait till next week to get another session, and even though she has a showcase this weekend. Alright.
  
  I know she she starts tomorrow for good. She's gonna be here every day. I already know. I can tell. They make it pretty apparent pretty quick who they're gonna be.
  
  Mick Hunt: I love it. And so I wanna dive deep into that a little bit because, you know, we talked about NFL. We talked about high school sports, but you train in, like, 20 different sports. Right? Probably 20 plus sports.
  
  How do you adapt your approach to meet the diverse needs of all of the athletes that you're working with? Because they're all not the same. Right?
  
  Andrew Spurill: You know, as far as the speed and the agility and the strength goes, for the most part, it's it's all pretty relative. It's it it like, if you're talking about general speed work, agility, strength, especially that middle school, high school age, any sort of strength in in sprinting work is gonna go a long way whether you play football, basketball, soccer, lacrosse, tennis, volleyball. Now at some point, the more advanced and the more you grow as in levels, college, especially pro, you probably have to dial back and be like, alright. We need to do a little extra of this on the side because you play the sport. If you're a pro and you know, I got, like, a couple pro basketball players that play overseas.
  
  They'll be back in May. They'll they'll train together. So straight straight basketball specific speed and agility, vertical jump, stuff like that. But for the most part, I mean, working with just all the different types of athletes and and personalities, it's that's something that I kinda had to get better at quickly when I started, you know, 14 years ago. That was never something I ever had to deal with.
  
  You know? So that's something I just learned over the years to, you know, kinda just learn how to get along with all kinds of different people and parents. But, you know, there there was, one a long time ago I read, when a trainer had posted something about going into every session with the mindset that I'm gonna like this person and that this is gonna be a good client. And I started doing that and actually really started helping. You know?
  
  Because sometimes you you don't know what they're gonna be like, and you start telling yourself, oh, man. I hope I hope this is a good kid. I hope they work hard. I hope I like them. Maybe, generally, you start to doubt it.
  
  But then if you, you know, say, hey. You're gonna like this person. They're gonna be a good athlete for you. It's gonna work out. I started doing that more often going into every, like, intro or in in new clientele session, and that really started helping, like, me, I think, get along better with the athletes.
  
  Mick Hunt: Good stuff. So you talked about these parents, man. What what are parents doing wrong in in 2024?
  
  Andrew Spurill: Some of it isn't all their fault, but the first thing that always comes to my mind when we talk about this is, like, the club sports in the AAU and the 7 on sevens. It's just like it's too much. Club volleyball, club soccer, probably travel baseball, probably the worst probably the top 3 worst.
  
  Mick Hunt: Really?
  
  Andrew Spurill: Yeah. Because you're talking about travel baseball, they're playing year round. Club volleyball, they're playing year round. Club soccer, they're playing year round. They don't stop.
  
  And it's like pro soccer players don't even play year round. Pro baseball players don't play year round. They can't. Right. Like, what what why are we making these kids?
  
  I mean, I'm talking, like, 7, 8 years old up to all the way through 17, 18. And it's like, they don't have to do it, but if they don't, they're gonna find someone else just to take their spot on that club, and they're not gonna be able to come back to it. So then, like, you know, if you if you really wanna be a high end soccer player, what are you supposed to do? Not do it when everyone around you is playing. So it's a it's a hard thing to juggle.
  
  I don't even know what the answer is to it. I I wish. I read that there's some I think it was, like, Norway or Finland or something like that. Doesn't even allow those things to happen. Like, clubs club sports aren't allowed to to operate year round.
  
  They they're they're it's mandatory to have, like, 2 to 3 month breaks at some point. That's probably the only solution because, I mean, these these clubs are really just money grabs, obviously. These these coaches know these kids don't need to play year round. But if you're gonna get 3 to 400 soccer girls to pay for your club year round, why wouldn't you do it?
  
  Mick Hunt: But 2 things happen when when that's the case. Right? Number 1, you can't give your body time to develop and and be the body it's supposed to be. Right? Like, you can't train and work on something when you're continuously doing your sport year round.
  
  And then the second thing that I see, and we're starting to see this, especially in the NBA, folks can't play a full season anymore because for 15 years prior to them becoming an athlete, a professional athlete, they were playing 300 days out of the year.
  
  Andrew Spurill: And it doesn't allow them to play other sports either, which, I mean, you look at some of the best athletes played lots of sports. LeBron James did. Patrick Mahomes did. Travis Kelce did. All those guys were, like, all state in, like, 3 different sports all throughout How
  
  Mick Hunt: do you find out what you're really good at?
  
  Andrew Spurill: Yeah.
  
  Mick Hunt: Right? You find out. Yeah. I've been on this basketball track forever, but I'm a pretty doggone good football player.
  
  Andrew Spurill: And and then but it you know, when you're when you're playing the same sport for your whole life year round, it's not good to just move because you're only moving in certain ways in that sport, you know. If you're only playing tennis, you know, it it would be great for you to also go play soccer or something so you can get more of that that long field running. In tennis, you're just you're in that little box. Just little things like that. Your body gets to be opened up to so many different, movements and different athletic abilities.
  
  You're really limiting yourself when you only play one sport. But, you know, what are you gonna do? It's the specialization era. Everyone's specializing. So I've got kids that played soccer all year round in these clubs since they were 7, 8 years old that end up getting division 1 scholarship.
  
  So there's there are a lot of success stories to it. But, I mean, ideally, it we wouldn't be playing year round, but I just don't know what the solution is.
  
  Mick Hunt: Question for you. Has the advancement of technology influenced how you train?
  
  Andrew Spurill: Oh, yeah. I do a lot of velocity based training now with the bar speeds. So, you know, instead of this is just one example. Instead of just lifting weight to lift it, we're measuring how fast you're moving it now. That's a big thing, I think, in the sports performance industry is how fast you're moving a particular weight, kinda determines how much weight you should be lifting.
  
  You know, it's like they measure in meters per second. So if you're moving something over 1 meter per second, that's that's a fast movement. So that's a speed that's a speed session. If you really wanna go heavy in strength, you should be moving something, like, under a 0.5 meters per second. And so that's yeah.
  
  It's it's it's a big velocity based is what it's called based on how fast you move something. Also, with sprinting, we we measure our sprints in 10 yard increments with different head starts. So 5 yard head start into a 10 yard fly, 15 yard head start into a 10 yard fly, 25 yard head start into a 10 yard fly. So that's measuring every aspect of your sprints so we know where you're deficient and where you're good. You got a bad start, that 5 yard head start into a 10 yard fly is gonna be bad.
  
  But if you have good back end speed, that 25 yard head start into your 10 is gonna be good. So that's a big thing that, we started doing at FTE probably about 10 years ago. Instead of having to run a 40 every single day, we measure their different areas of their 40 yard dash, and we know which ones they need to work on to get faster.
  
  Mick Hunt: That's freaking impressive. So I'm a get you out there on 2 questions. Number 1, looking ahead, what do you see as the biggest opportunities or challenges in the athletic training?
  
  Andrew Spurill: Oh, I would say, at some point, I think right now is everybody is really learning how to to train straight ahead speed. It's kinda like the blueprints out there. I'm not saying it's not hard, but there's a lot of trainers out there that offer a lot of free stuff on Instagram and things like that. Good ones that you can really, really learn how to train that straight ahead speed and really get explosive and fast. Now the challenge is in team sports, you're not ever moving in a straight line very often.
  
  So Mhmm. How do you train to be so fast, but also be able to train someone to know how to harness it during a game? And that's where I think a lot of trainers get challenged is, okay, it's it's we call it game speed. It's how do
  
  Mick Hunt: you train
  
  Andrew Spurill: how do you train for game speed? We're doing, you know, doing all this explosive and and fast sprinting. Okay. But what are they gonna do when they get in a game when you're not just running in a straight line? So I think that's that's a big thing right now is that game speed training everyone's starting to talk about.
  
  So I would say that's, like, the biggest thing that everyone's starting to talk about.
  
  Mick Hunt: And then getting you out of here on this. If you could give three pieces of advice to the listeners, whether they're a high school athlete, college athlete, business owner, salesperson, what's 3 things that people should start doing right now to to either mentally or physically get better be better?
  
  Andrew Spurill: As an athlete, you know, to get better, you need to focus on I'm gonna put these two things together. Your nutrition and sleep because those are probably the 2 things that high school and college athletes are the worst at. Absolutely terrible. Diet and sleep. I mean, if you get your diet and sleep unlocked, I mean, it it just helps you so much in life.
  
  Like, not even your sport, but, like, your social life, your your classes, your homework, or your grades will probably turn up better, stuff like that. Start looking at your diet and sleep, how you can help that. I would start if you're not as an athlete, if you're not doing it, I would especially these these high school kids, I would start looking at a strength program to get stronger. At at that age, just just getting stronger in general, and I have this conversation with parents all the time, just getting stronger in general will help you get faster. It'll help you get quicker.
  
  It'll help you get more explosive. You don't even you should, but you don't even have to do a lot of speed work. If you just get stronger, you will become better on the field. Now with that being said, nutrition, sleep, strength, conditioning, and, you know, I would start looking into how you can be better mentally. This generation of high school kids now and college kids now talk about this mental health thing.
  
  It's a big topic amongst that age group. They talk about it all the time. They post about it on social media all the time, but I don't think a lot of them even knows what it is. It's a real thing, but I think it's a trendy topic for them. And I tell them all the time, I'm like, look.
  
  All you guys post about how mental health is important for athletes, especially in college because, you know, they get jerked around so much, and a lot of them just feel like, you know, they don't they're not even looked at as people. They're just looked at as a member. I get it. I think it's there's some truth to that, but you're posting about it. But, like, what are you doing outside of the post?
  
  Just because you
  
  Mick Hunt: just
  
  Andrew Spurill: because you put it on your story doesn't mean you affected somebody. So what does it mean to help someone with their mental health? What does that mean? So I think that's probably the other thing I would say to start looking into as a young athlete because it's such a hot topic now and it's it's a real thing. But instead of just post it out, you need to know what it means.
  
  Like, what does it mean to check-in on somebody and notice if someone looks like they're struggling, like, what are you supposed to do?
  
  Mick Hunt: Ladies and gentlemen, my man, Andrew, dropped a lot of dimes today. Andrew, I appreciate you more than you know, my man. And, again, thank you so much for your service. Andrew, where can people find you?
  
  Andrew Spurill: You find me on, Instagram, andrewspruel_. My website, gamespeedtrainer.com. Those are probably the the best two sources to get a hold of me. Very active on Instagram, and and I've replied quick to the website. So either of those works.
  
  Mick Hunt: Good stuff. Everybody reach out to my man, Andrew, especially if you're in the South Florida area. He is the best. I'm just gonna go ahead and put it out there. He is the best of the best, none other than mister Andrew Skrull.
  
  And remember, everyone, your because is your superpower. Unleash it.
  
  Thanks for listening to Mick Unplugged. We hope this episode helps you take the next step toward the extraordinary and launches a revolution in your life. Don't forget to rate and review the podcast, and be sure to check us out on YouTube at Mick Unplugged. Remember, stay empowered, stay inspired, and stay unplugged.