Stuart McMillan
ALTIS CEO
alligator boogaloo
I wrote the following short piece well over a decade ago -- back when I first started sharing my thoughts publicly. I started a blog called 500words (this was prior to the old mcmillanspeed site), where every post had to be 500 words right on the nose. This was my 2nd or 3rd one -- and I share it here...
Stop Trying to ’Fix’ Athletes!
I’ve never been comfortable with the term ”corrective exercise”. In this short post, I’ll tell you why. When we stand back and look at the big picture, the challenge to improving the health and performance of athletes may seem overwhelming. How can we help athletes improve the quality of their movement with all the complexity and subjectivity that it entails? ...
Let’s Connect
Introducing our new Membership — ALTIS Connect We are re-imagining The ALTIS Membership. You might be familiar with ALTIS 360 — our on-line portal consisting of 100s of hours of amazing video content — ranging from presentations from our own staff and many of our expert friends from around the world, to behind the scenes training footage, to exclusive access...
Sprint Science Categorization
This short post is meant to accompany a two-part article I wrote for SportSmith HQ - where I updated my thoughts on my push-pull categorization. In sport, we use categories all the time: through placing things into categories (‘categorization’), we are better able to recognize, differentiate, and understand the complex systems we interact with. A number of categorization systems already...
Introducing an incredible Mentorship Faculty!
If you’ve read my last couple of emails, you will know that we are soon launching a new Mentorship Program. Thus far, through the ALTIS education platform, we have written almost all of the Courses ourselves. With the exception of a few of the track & field Courses, the expertise required to write these Courses has existed within our own...
What’s wrong with coaching education?
A quick word on coaching education: The sport performance industry has traditionally valued what has been termed ‘technical skills’ (knowledge of anatomy, biomechanics, physiology, etc.), and thus has developed accreditation processes based upon Courses that teach these skills. More and more, however, employers are prioritizing the character of their employees, and are less-interested in the typical technical course certification processes. ...
In coaching, “how” is more important than “what”
Over the last few weeks, I have been talking to a few of my friends in leadership positions in sport around the world, as well as sharing a post on my Twitter account, about what type of things they value in new coaches. My goal in this - besides simply interest - was to better understand what the types of...
We’re Moving!
After 8 great years in Phoenix, we are excited to announce that we are moving our center of operations to Atlanta, Georgia. Phoenix has been a wonderful home for us, and we have really loved being there. We will forever cherish the friendships we have made with the great folks at Paradise Valley Community College, Movement Restoration, and especially,...
Bandwagon-Jumping and Virtue-Signaling
When a reply to a recent email simply read “BANDWAGON JUMPER!” (yes - in all caps), I wasn’t surprised - but, as someone who values complexity and nuance - I was disappointed. In the last couple of weeks, we have received a ton of positive feedback on our latest efforts to support women and minority coaches. In addition, we have...
Play the Game FASTER
“How do I make my players faster?” As a coach, this seems like an important question to ask yourself, right? It is! But not the most important question. The most important question is, “how do I make my players faster in the game?” Let’s say you train a group of twenty 15-year-old football players for 12 weeks. Like any good...