143: Christian Thibaudeau on Advances in Neuro-typing, French Contrast, and Youth Development | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

Today’s episode features Christian Thibaudeau who is back for his third appearance on the podcast. Christian is a world-renowned expert in strength training, but has gained recent attention particularly for his neurotyping system (read my review of it here), which trains athletes in accordance with their neurotransmitter levels and sensitivities. His original podcast with me on the topic is an important listen (if you haven’t listened to it already you should do that before you dive into this episode) and is also our most popular episode to date.  The neurotyping system is a true game changer, and Christian followed up his original talk with episode #99 which went in depth into competitive aspects of each neurotype, and how to approach competitive “chokers” from a neurotyping perspective. Today’s episode is a two-headed monster of awesomeness when it comes to developing athletes.  The first half of this show, Christian goes in depth regarding early childhood (even down to the 0-2 year old range) and what experiences a child needs to have to optimize their chances of being a good athlete later on.  Christian also gives his take on the over-coached, over-speciailized epidemic that is plaguing youth sports today. The second half of the show goes deep into specifically training the 2B and type 3 neurotypes (think those athletes with a “weaker” nervous system), and how to properly approach them from a speed, power and sport skill perspective.  Training athletes in the 1B and 2A categories, and even 1A are pretty straightforward, as modern power development methods such as French Contrast will easily improve abilities here. Athletes with less dopamine sensitivity have different needs, and there are other strategies that can prove useful here.   Finally, Christian gives some insight on nutrition and neurotyping, as well as thoughts on training frequency.   If you are interested in your own personal neurotype, there is a questionnaire for this now available on Thib Army. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.   View more show notes at just-fly-sports.com/podcast-143-christian-thibaudeau