Today’s podcast guest is Scott Leech. Scott is the Associate Athletic Director for Strength & Conditioning and Head Football Strength Coach at the University of Rhode Island. He is also the founder of Gridiron Warrior, where he shares practical systems for developing faster, stronger, and more resilient football athletes.
On today’s show, Scott explores how constraints, games, and technology can enhance athletic development without sacrificing high-performance outcomes. Scott discusses adapting summer training around limited facilities, balancing speed and conditioning with GPS data, and using game-based drills to teach movement while maintaining athlete engagement. The conversation also dives into the psychology of coaching, variability in training, jump testing, vision work, and practical ways coaches can begin leveraging AI as a research assistant and organizational tool while preserving their own coaching philosophy and intuition.
Today’s episode is brought to you by Hammer Strength and the Vert Trainer
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The Just Fly Performance Podcast is dedicated to all aspects of athletic performance training, with an emphasis on speed and power development. Featured on the show are coaches and experts in the spectrum of sport performance, ranging from strength and conditioning, to track and field, to sport psychology. Hosted by Joel Smith, the Just Fly Performance Podcast brings you some of the best information on modern athletic performance available.
Scott Leech explores how constraints, games, and technology can enhance athletic development without sacrificing high-performance outcomes. Scott discusses adapting summer training around limited facilities, balancing speed and conditioning with GPS data, and using game-based drills to teach movement while maintaining athlete engagement. The conversation also dives into the psychology of coaching, variability in training, jump testing, vision work, and practical ways coaches can begin leveraging AI as a research assistant and organizational tool while preserving their own coaching philosophy and intuition.
Today’s episode is brought to you by Hammer Strength and the Vert Trainer.
View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. (https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-home/)
Topics
0:00 – Pushup Rules
2:50 – Baseball Field Constraints
9:12 – Training Space and GPS
18:13 – Fitness Beyond Yardage
23:49 – Games vs. Sprinting
28:46 – Games That Prime Output
32:50 – Overload and Underload
35:03 – Teaching Lessons Daily
42:35 – Variability and Novelty
49:57 – Plyo Metrics and Quadrants
53:25 – Submax Constraints
58:25 – AI for Coaches
1:15:39 – Creative Drill Design
Scott Leech Quotes
“Just because you don’t have the things doesn’t mean you can’t learn about the things. Make the most of what you have, but also continue to learn and educate yourself so that you’re ready for when you finally do get the things that you wanted so bad.”
“I guess it’s a better thing that you have to add the low intensity stuff than if you were doing enough low intensity stuff, but you didn’t have the high intensity. That’s a little bit more challenging to make sure you fit that in.”
“Not every position needs to get fitness through running. Obviously your big guys, your 300 pounders, do not need to be doing the same total yardage, but I think they should have the equivalent level of fitness that everyone else has.”
“You don’t have to necessarily get yardage to get there, but certain positions, I just want them to be prepared to have that time on their feet and that amount of yardage.”
“I think sometimes people see everything on social media and think we just play games all the time. They’re just tools. They’re tools to accomplish whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish.”
“We can use it to teach. We can use it to play games. We can use it to condition. It all comes down to how you’re looking at the situation.”
“If we want to emphasize using speed and using speed as a dominant strategy, we’ll make the box bigger. We’ll open it up more, and then it’s like, you’re not going to be shifty in this big box. You’re going to try and beat them with speed.”
“I’ve told people countless times that I think the cost of the acceleration, deceleration, change the direction, and the scores and stop stuff we do is significantly less than if it was pre-planned cuts.”
“I always tell our kids I want this place loose, not sloppy. If it gets sloppy, I’ll correct it, but I like a loose environment.”
“I feel like that’s a wasted opportunity, so I actually very structured built out every single talking point I want to talk about for eight weeks and every single session.”
“Humans just crave variability too. I could backfill with straight tempo run. I can promise you that I can sit there for an hour and make them run a hundred tempo runs and get 6,000 yards of volume in if that’s what it called for. It would be a mutiny.”
“Now, I don’t 100% trust the ability to write a program yet. I still think strength coaches need to write programs. You have to have your side and your thoughts and your opinions, and you have to form those on your own. You form those in the trenches. You form those on the coaching floor. You don’t form those in front of the computer.”
About Scott Leech
Scott Leech is the Associate Athletic Director for Strength & Conditioning and Head Strength Coach at University of Rhode Island, where he oversees the football program while directing the department’s overall strength and conditioning efforts. Before joining URI in 2020, Scott spent five years at Merrimack College after beginning his coaching career at Springfield College. In addition to his collegiate work, Scott is the founder of Gridiron Warrior, an educational platform that helps football coaches build faster, stronger, and more resilient athletes through practical, field-tested training systems. His coaching emphasizes speed development, contact preparation, athletic movement, and building winning team cultures.
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