There's a culture spreading through the coaching world that I think is quietly doing real damage.
It's the spoon-feed culture.
And I ran into it head-on recently on X, and it actually inspired everything I want to talk about today.
It Started With a Clip of Makai Lemon
I came across a video of Makai Lemon [1st Round Draft Pick, 2026 NFL Draft, Philadelphia Eagles] working through a simple drill. If you've seen it, you already know. The way he gets in and out of cuts is smooth.
Effortless.
Fast.
But I wasn't just watching the drill. I pulled a still shot and zoomed in on something most coaches walk right past: his ankle.
Two things jumped out immediately:
- Big toe flexion capability
- Ankle dorsiflexion and strength
This is where it starts for me. Below the knee. First line of defense against ground reaction forces. Where locomotion actually begins.
And yet, most performance coaches at the high school level (and honestly beyond) never give it a second thought when they're designing a program.
So I responded to the post with exactly that observation.
(We'll do a full ankle deep dive another time — that's a whole newsletter on its own.)
Then Someone Asked a Good Question
A coach jumped in and asked: "How do you train this?"
Fair question. I gave a quick, honest answer with the character limit in mind:
- Isometrics
- Plyometrics
- Great coaching on foot position in single-leg movements
- Exercises with the heel elevated (calf raises, floating heel, spring ankle, etc.)
Simple. Actionable. A starting point for any coach who wants to dig deeper.
And then came the reply that completely changed the direction of this newsletter.
"You're not trying to share the secret sauce huh"
I sat with that for a minute.
There Is No Secret Sauce
Let me be direct about something: I am an open book.
If that coach had come back with a real question... something intentional, something that showed curiosity, I would have gone deep. Happily. That's what I'm here for.
But "secret sauce"? That's not curiosity. That's entitlement.
And here's the thing, if we as performance coaches genuinely believe someone is gate-keeping us, we're missing the point entirely. There is nothing new in this industry. What looks novel today is almost always something that already existed, just repackaged and presented in a different context.
Nobody owns the sauce.
What's Actually Below the Surface
Here's what I really want you to take away from this.
You can grab any coach's program. Their workouts, their playbook, their schemes, their exercise selection. All of it. But what you can't grab, what you almost never see, is everything that went into those decisions.
Think about an iceberg. The program is the tip above the water. Below the surface is everything else:
- What athlete am I dealing with?
- What's the injury history?
- What are the time constraints?
- What's the short-term objective for this athlete?
- What does this athlete need most right now?
- What resources do I actually have available?
That's just the beginning of the questions that get asked before a single exercise ends up on a page.
So when someone asks for "the sauce", they're asking for the recipe without understanding that the recipe alone doesn't make the meal.
"You can get any recipe, but you still have to know how to cook."
And not just cook in a perfect kitchen with every ingredient on hand.
Cook in different environments. With limited ingredients. Under time pressure. For a completely different athlete than the one the recipe was built around.
This Is What Real Professional Development Looks Like
It's not grabbing someone's program and running it.
It's asking great questions. Getting into real dialogue with other coaches. And then... this is the part most people skip
Going and doing the work to figure out how it applies to your situation.
That's where growth actually lives.
So keep going. Keep asking better questions. Keep cooking.
Before you know it, you'll look up and realize you've put together a 5-star dish in a 1-star kitchen.
Until next time,
P.S. -- check out products and ebooks that make coaches lives easier
LINK 👉 CLHSTRENGTH.COM
Cody
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