Dan Garner – Building the Coach/Athlete Relationship to Get Buy-In for Better Nutrition and Elite Human Performance
When they get into the top 100, 50, or 20 in the world, some athletes settle and stay at that level. But a select few NBA All-Stars want to become champions, MVPs, and All-NBA selections. To do so, they contact nutritionist Dan Garner and his business partner, Dr. Andy Galpin: a muscle physiologist who runs Cal State Fullerton’s Center for High Performance. This superstar duo – who cofounded BioMolecular Athlete – apply their human performance expertise to help the elite rise even higher.
For example, they recently reworked Spanish golfer John Rahm’s nutrition, sleep, and other factors that empowered him to win his first major title. Garner and Galpin have also worked with UFC world champions, Olympic medalists, and players in the MLB, NHL, and NFL. The commonality among all these athletes? They not only have preternatural physical gifts but also what Kobe Bryant called the Mamba Mentality (which he relied on when he got off the Madison Square Garden locker room floor to play the Knicks while battling a back injury).
“You can get an unbelievably far distance in your career on genetics, talent, and ability,” Garner said. “When you find someone who wants to also get in that top one percent mentally, they’re willing to match their ability with work ethic.”
Taking Life Stress into Account
Performance experts often follow Game Changer author Fergus Connolly’s advice and work backward from game day to prepare athletes for competing at the highest level. While this is valuable, Garner and Galpin zoom out to take a wider, more person-first approach that acknowledges how factors outside of sports are brought to bear on overall wellbeing.
“The physiological and psychological and emotional stress load that these guys are under is so high,” Garner said. “They’re like a car that has its gas pedal pushed to the floor all the time. We have to take care of that machine as it goes along so that it doesn’t break down, as they’re pushing their bodies like crazy.”
Minding Your Micronutrients
Fueling college and pro basketball players and high performers in other sports necessitates dialing in their macronutrients (protein, fat, and carbs). Yet to achieve the kind of marginal gains popularized by Dave Brailsford at the British Olympic cycling team and Team Sky, whose riders won multiple medals and Tour de France titles, Garner realized that he also needed to look at which micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) athletes aren’t getting enough of or absorbing properly.
“You’d be amazed how many athletes are deficient in micronutrients,” Garner said. “Up to 50 percent of the general American population doesn’t get their recommended daily amount of magnesium, and athletes need up to 20 percent more. It’s depleted through muscular contraction and the production of cortisol, so athletes go through magnesium at a rate you wouldn’t even believe. Then you add in the stressors of social media, practice, and travel. Another big and common deficiency we see is vitamin B6. We do lab work and then come up with personalized protocols to address these issues.”
Balancing the Science and Art of Coaching
Using a comprehensive testing system gains Garner and Galpin a full, 360-degree physiological footprint for each individual. Yet they can’t just slap a 500-page printout of an athlete’s blood test results on the table in front of them, and then tell them to change everything. After all, these are people who have risen to the top of their sports with their current and prior habits. Instead, Garner has to find a few areas that he can zero in on, utilizing the strong bond of trust he has already built with the client, which allows them to accept suggestions, knowing that he has their best interests at heart.
“It’s very easy for me to fall in love with the science of coaching when I’ve got all this objective data right in front of me,” Garner said. “But the most scientific, detailed plan in the world is useless unless the athlete is going to stay consistent with it. And the science doesn’t mean a whole lot without a belief system to back it. And to get that belief, you’ve got to first build trust. Once you’ve developed a relationship with an athlete, then you talk to them about things. It has to be this marriage between the art and science of coaching. It’s all about creating a coaching relationship with each athlete, not a dictatorship.”
Redefining Optimal Human Performance
There’s an old adage in strength and conditioning that was probably coined by one of our frequent guests on The Basketball Strong Podcast, Mike Boyle or Dan John: the best training program is the one you’ll stick to. It’s all very well for a coach to come up with a revolutionary regimen using all their expertise, technical acumen, and experience, but if the athlete half-asses it, then they won’t get the desired outcome.
“I’ve learned over the course of my career that belief and buy-in are just as important as the program itself,” Garner said. “Sidney Crosby famously eats a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before each game. I could come in there and say, ‘This is crappy,’ but that would be bad coaching. I might be able to set him up with a better pregame routine, but it might actually hurt his performance because I’d have offset his psychology. You have to prove yourself before you can tell a world champion to change something that has been working for them for 10 years. It might not seem optimal on paper, but it might be [optimal] for their current context [both] physiologically and psychologically.”
Get more tips from Dan by listening to his full episode of The Basketball Strong Podcast. Also, follow him on Instagram @dangarnernutrition and check out his nutrition and performance resources at https://coachgarner.com.
