Today’s podcast guest is Joe Pedulla. Joe is a strength coach at the University of Oklahoma, where he oversees performance training for softball and women’s golf. Prior to Oklahoma, he coached in professional baseball with the Kansas City Royals organization and worked extensively in private-sector performance, helping athletes develop strength, speed, power, and resilience.
This episode with Joe Pedulla explores how coaches can better identify what athletes truly need in speed, strength, and power development. Joe shares his path from small-college baseball player to SEC strength coach, including lessons from self-directed training, throwing development, and imperfect environments. The conversation dives into sprint profiling, athlete archetypes, resisted sprinting, tempo work, training buckets, and how coaches can balance general development with individualized performance needs.
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Topics
0:00 – Joe’s Coaching Journey
5:26 – Throwing Is Throwing
9:17 – Technical Models vs Self-Organization
20:43 – Tempo Runs Reconsidered
25:53 – Building Athlete Robustness
34:14 – Rocky Weight Rooms
40:26 – Sprint Archetypes
43:01 – Building the Quadrant System
48:57 – Wilde’s Athlete Archetypes
51:48 – Comparing Dietz’s Model
56:54 – Training the Second 10
1:01:05 – Resisted Sprint Training
1:07:39 – Athletes Good at Everything
1:14:12 – Simplifying the System
1:16:33 – Mentorship & Closing Thoughts
Joe Pedulla Quotes
“You can still get some really great results, even if things are imperfect.”
“Focus more on the things that you’re doing right. That kind of spares me of a lot of stress sometimes, just understanding how much progress is still possible even when you’re not doing things by the book.”
“Throwing is throwing, and the implement is kind of secondary to the motor task of throwing.”
“You don’t have to think about the position that you’re going to be put in. It’s going to do it for you.”
“If you were to boil it down, that’s ultimately what we’re trying to do with skill development: self-organization.”
“That was a game changer for me: getting over the mental hurdle that you can only do high CNS stuff on a high day.”
“Movement on the field and how you’re sprinting is the ultimate expression of your abilities.”
“Time under the load is the stimulus, not the distance.”
About Joe Pedulla
Joe Pedulla is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and strength coach at the University of Oklahoma, where he oversees performance programs for softball and women’s golf. Prior to Oklahoma, Joe worked in professional baseball with the Kansas City Royals organization and coached in both private-sector and collegiate performance settings. Through his platform, Pedulla Performance, he shares practical insights on speed, strength, power development, and athlete preparation. Joe is known for blending evidence-based training with real-world coaching experience across youth, collegiate, and professional athletes.
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