In this new episode of Orreco’s ‘Optimized’ podcast, our host Marc Cleary is joined by Dave Hamilton, Director of Performance Science for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, an Orreco client.
Dave has a wealth of experience, supporting athletes performance across multiple sports. His interest in strength and conditioning and performance science started from a stint playing professional rugby in the UK and overseas. He then took a career opportunity with the Scottish Institute of Sport before moving to the English Institute of Sport. After a stint in Qatar he moved to the US, while working within a range of sports from rowing, to hockey, football, US collegiate multi-sport, Olympic systems and now to American Football with the Buccs.
Dave outlines his thoughts on creating a world class program, what fundamentals he has gathered from his breath of experience to support programs and athletes becoming and staying successful. Marc and Dave go through the challenges of collegiate sports compared to the National Football League and the motivators and the non-negotiables that Dave relies on to produce successful athletes and a championship winning team.
The two discuss the importance of creating trust to earn buy-in from athletes and colleagues. Managing the time you are asking from the athletes to be impactful. Dave discusses how to answer the simple performance questions, without creating hassle or excessive effort from the people on the ground.
Later, Dave outlines a typical NFL week from monitoring to training and how those training days are manipulated to prepare for the upcoming game and ensure the athletes are appropriately prepared and recovered. They also discuss how culture within the team and amongst the players plays a vital role into the effectiveness of that preparation.
Finally, the two touch upon the current landscape of technology and the necessity of technology to answer questions and not create more. Dave also outlines and highlights the role Orreco plays in answering the challenging question of his athlete’s current physiological state.
Enjoy the episode.
