Stuart McMillan – Olympic Coaching, Performance Therapy, and Building a Culture of Collaboration

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Stuart McMillan
Olympic Coaching, Performance Therapy, and Building a Culture of Collaboration

Stuart McMillan is the co-owner and CEO of ALTIS. He has been a professional coach for over 28 years, and has worked with professional and amateur athletes in a variety of sports – with the focus being on power and speed development.

Stuart is an accredited S&C and Sprints Coach, and has spent most of the last two decades working in these two domains. He has personally coached over 70 Olympians at 7 Olympic Games; over 30 of whom have won Olympic medals.

Stuart has worked as part of NGBs in 6 countries, and has been part of and/or led ISTs in the United States, Canada and the UK. He has had the unique experience of coaching at three Home Olympic Games, having worked with American athletes at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, Canadians at the 2010 Vancouver-Whistler Games, and British athletes at the 2012 London Games. Most recently, he coached British sprinter Jodie Williams to a sixth-place finish in the 400m at the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Stuart has been at ALTIS in Phoenix, AZ since 2013 and they recently moved the entire operation to Atlanta, GA.

For more info about ALTIS, check our their website, and follow Stu on Instagram and Twitter.

Stellar Coaches, Athletes, and Fancy Watches mentioned in the episode: 

05:20  Stuart/Kelly origin story; David Deutsch Cheerios Magnetism; Dan Pfaff;
07:25  Stu explains ALTIS
08:36  Stu co-owns ALTIS with Kevin Tyler and  Andreas Behm; They purchased the company from John Godina in 2017
10:50  ALTIS started inviting coaches out to spend a week at the facility; John Berardi
11:27  ALTIS has recently moved their facility from Phoenix to Atlanta
12:20  Stu discusses his life and coaching career before ALTIS; Donovan Bailey invited Stu down so meet his coach Dan Pfaff
13:55  Life pre-internet made it much harder to build a coaching community
14:15  Calgary hosted the 1988 Olympic Games which led to more world class facilities, athletes, and coaches working in the area; Matt Jordan; Nick Ward; Scotty Ma; Charles Poliquin; Andy Barnett;
16:40  Let the record show that Stu actually has more Olympic medals than his mentor Dan Pfaff
18:20  Kelly considers ALTIS the greatest coach environment he’s ever been in
19:03  ALTIS intentionally tries to foster an environment of curiosity, creativity, and transparency; Rachel Balkovec
20:02  Stu feels very lucky to have met Dan Pfaff early on in his career and have him as a mentor
21:55  Creating culture
23:40  Covid has made it incredibly difficult to maintain the culture that ALTIS strives for
24:15  Transitioning from coach to CEO; for a couple of years, coaching suffered
29:20  Covid was actually great for ALTIS and TRS because of the online nature of the core education products
31:20  Stu coached Steve Mesler, Gold Medal American Bobsledder
34:00  What is it like coaching at the Olympics?
35:45  Winter vs. Summer Olympics
35:50  Inside the Olympic Village vs. Outside the Village
39:55  Stu is coaching Kaillee Humphries, the #2 ranked female bobsledder in the world, 4x Olympian, 3x Medalist (2x Gold Medalist); Elana Meyers Taylor
40:55  Stu explains the Monobob
42:25  The Starrett’s daughter Caroline just participated in a Water Polo camp at the Olympic Training center in Colorado Springs and was slightly shocked at the spartan conditions
44:18  CrossFit just took on Monster (Coca-Cola) as a sponsor and the community is upset to say the least
45:17  In the Olympics, the athletes get only 4% of the money that the Olympics brings in (this is lower than other sports)
46:29  Might be time for the IOC to go
48:30  Stu explains how he got to know John Berardi; Science Link 1999; T Nation; Steve Norris; Precision Nutrition
51:25  Working with elite athletes is essentially a science lab for developing better practices; Ian McCowen; David Joyce
55:55  Ben Rosenblatt of the England National Football Team is noticing the next generation of kids dedicated to understanding durability and extending their careers
56:30  Nic Gill of the All Blacks realized that what they did with the All Black was filtering all the way down to the children’s clubs, and that’s its worth the grind at the top
57:30  Should older adults sprint?
60:00  Kelly and Stu share a love of nice watches. And coffee.
62:44  Stu learned ‘Performance Therapy’ from Dan Pfaff and ALTIS now has a new course; Gordon Bosworth; Dr. Gerry Ramogida; Dr. Jas Randhawa
67:33 Stu’s socials

Full Transcript

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