Welcome to Blueprint of an Athlete , where host Dr. Robin West, an orthopedic and sports medicine surgeon , is joined by Ted Rath, Director of Sports Performance for the New Orleans Saints. Rath's work spans nearly two decades in the NFL with the Rams and Eagles, minimizing injury and peaking performance across the roster.

Core Philosophy: Mind, Body, and Process

Rath’s performance model is guided by caring for the person—the mind, body, and soul. He focuses on teaching orthopedically sound techniques to correct faulty movement patterns, increasing the athlete’s health span beyond their career.

In the face of adversity and tough seasons , Rath stresses that the process must remain the priority. Focusing on process ensures the team is building a foundation for years of outcomes, not just riding the waves of wins and losses.

Building Trust and Vulnerability

The most successful element that "travels well" between the five NFL teams Rath has worked with is developing great relationships. This establishes the trust needed to ask players to endure uncomfortable recovery protocols.

To build trust quickly, Rath advises leaders to be vulnerable. The greatest four words a leader can say are: "I messed that up". Own the mistake, explain what you learned , and back it up with action.

The Data-Driven NFL Week

Rath details the meticulous structure of an NFL week. Monday is a crucial recovery session to flush acute soreness with mobility work, tempo runs, and lower-body strength training.

He emphasizes the importance of daily communication with the entire coaching, medical, and performance staffs. These meetings review practice loading, injury reports, and workload management.

Key Indicators for Injury Prevention

Rath relies on objective data to flag injury risk:

• Reactive Strength Index (RSI): This force plate metric measures neuromuscular fatigue status—how efficiently an athlete loads and redirects force during a jump. A significant drop flags a concern.
• Context: Data like RSI is combined with subjective wellness (stress, soreness, sleep) to make informed decisions on practice deloading.

All data is housed in a custom-built Athlete Management System (AMS) that simplifies millions of rows of data into "actionable" and digestible visual profiles.

Final Advice

Rath’s new book, Beyond Comfort, stresses the need to lean into discomfort and respond to adversity. His final advice for all athletes: Master Technique and ensure your daily habits align with your goals. The most underrated recovery tool is sleep.

Welcome to Blueprint of an Athlete: Where Science Meets Sports! Host Dr. Robin West, a board-certified orthopedic and sports medicine surgeon, is joined by Dr. Daniel Laby, a leading expert in sports vision whose work has transformed how elite athletes perform.

For over 30 years, Dr. Laby has helped competitors in MLB, the NBA, NHL, and Olympic sports refine their most powerful tool: their vision system. He discusses the science behind the Sports Vision Pyramid and the difference between ophthalmologists and optometrists in this specialized field.

Dr. Laby emphasizes that no sport is played with your eyes closed. He breaks down how visual demands vary:

• Small, fast targets (baseball, tennis) require high visual acuity. The average MLB player's vision is 20/12—significantly better than the general population's 20/20.
• Large, slower targets (basketball, soccer) rely more on peripheral vision and spatial awareness.
• Close contact (boxing, fencing) demands excellent depth perception.

A key takeaway for all athletes is the "Quiet Eye" concept:

• In golf putting or basketball free throws, maintaining a fixed gaze on the target (or the point of anticipated contact) before, during, and after the action is critical.
• Dr. Laby's research shows that successful free-throw shooters fixate tightly on the rim, while those who miss have scattered visual patterns.
• By preventing the brain from initiating an eye movement too early, the Quiet Eye ensures 100% concentration on the motor task, leading to greater accuracy and success.

Dr. Laby concludes that wearables and technology (like stroboscopic glasses and eye tracking) are revolutionizing the field, moving testing away from simple eye charts toward dynamic, sport-specific analysis.

Resources:

• Sports Vision with Dr. Laby website
• Sports Vision Pyramid
• Sports Vision with Dr. Laby YouTube

Welcome to Blueprint of an Athlete: Where Science Meets Sports! Dr. Robin West is joined by Dr. Greg Grosicki, a Research Scientist at Whoop who turns large datasets on recovery, sleep, and cardiovascular metrics into actionable insights for athletes.

Dr. Grosicki explains that the Whoop band, initially focused on performance, has expanded its mission to include unlocking healthspan. The low-profile strap worn 24/7 monitors three core pillars:

1. Strain: Quantifies cardiovascular load during activity using heart rate and HRV.
2. Sleep: Measures duration, efficiency, architecture (REM/SWS), and the critical metric of Sleep Consistency—found to be more strongly linked to long-term health outcomes than duration alone.
3. Recovery: A score (0–100) based heavily on your Resting Heart Rate (RHR) and Heart Rate Variability (HRV) compared to your personal baseline.

The Hero Metric: Heart Rate Variability (HRV) HRV is the variation in time between heartbeats. A higher HRV is generally better, but Dr. Grosicki stresses that it is highly individual and should never be compared between people—only used to track within-person trends against a personal baseline.

HealthSpan and Whoop Age Whoop's HealthSpan feature provides a Whoop Age (effective age) based on nine physiological and behavioral metrics (excluding HRV) that are scientifically linked to longevity. This feature gamifies health, encouraging long-term positive behaviors.

The Future of Wearables: The conversation highlights that the next frontier for Whoop is the Advanced Labs feature, which integrates data from up to 60 blood biomarkers with continuous Whoop metrics. This holistic data empowers members to take preventative action, moving wearable technology toward a game-changing role in preventative health and personalized recovery.

Listen to the full episode for a deep dive into the science behind training, recovery, and making better everyday decisions!