Jared Siegmund | Training Paralympic Athletes

NSCA’s Coaching Podcast

As a Strength and Conditioning Coach with the US Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC), Jared Siegmund prepares athletes for the apex of achievement and perseverance. Siegmund shares that, contrary to public belief, the Olympic competition cycle is not every four years — Team USA athletes face fierce competition in World Series events along the way to qualify. He also speaks to the creativity required to coach Paralympic athletes, where missing limbs create unique biomechanics and hearing or visual impairments impact cueing. Siegmund touches on his principles-based programming architecture, sample adaptations, and USOPC’s interdisciplinary support team. Additionally, Siegmund and McMahon discuss the new generation of modern athletes who are more in tune with data and can control their preparation experience. The discussion concludes with the importance of a growth mindset and getting out of your comfort zone, as well as opportunities to enter elite sport.

Connect with Jared on Instagram at: @jaredsiegmund_ or LinkedIn: @jared-siegmund | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs or LinkedIn: @ericmcmahoncscs

Show Notes

“We have a traditional model that we see in our mind as the perfect technique – a baseball batter swings like this, a swimmer swims like this — but when you're missing a limb, it's going to be altered. The form, the biomechanics is going to be altered, and that goes into their overuse injury stuff, how they're producing force. If we can think of outside-of-the-box creativity, and curiosity, and how we innovate, that's going to drive our ideas, our programming. And it's also going to not pin us to our bias. When we do that, we're going to be more successful to give them what they need.” 9:40

“They're all humans. I think once we start to see that and we start to rip off the sense of kind of scared to do anything with them, or train them, or push them hard, […] just treat them like equals, man. It's like, training's training at the end of the day.” 13:25

“When you have a visually impaired athlete, you had to rely on a completely different skill set of coaching and cueing.” 14:22

“When we get down to crunch time this last six months before, three months before, right into the games. Like, we've done this before. We've challenged you strategically in different groups. We've challenged the coaches in certain ways. So we're all confident, so when this happens, we've already practiced it. And maybe even just having a talk about it kind of gives that anxiety or pressure, and it kind of melts away. You know, we've done it, I'm cool, I got it. I'm going to go win, or at least I'm going to give it my best that day.” 21:20