Hey everyone, welcome to Reps & Research.

If you're someone who thinks about athletics the way I do: not just what's happening on the field, but about why it's happening, and how we can get better at it… this newsletter is built for you.
Every week, Reps & Research will cover sport psychology, player development, technology in coaching and athletics, and other parallel topics. The latest thinking from journals, labs, and locker rooms, distilled into something you'll actually want to read. No paywalls, no fluff, just research-backed content for coaches, athletes, students, parents, and administrators who believe that the learning never stops.

A little background on me, since you're trusting me with a spot in your inbox.
My name is JD. Born and raised in Minnesota, now planted in South Dakota. During my undergrad years, I double majored in Sport Management and Psychology while taking on just about every coaching role I could find: youth basketball for community ed, junior high football, high school girls basketball, and a couple springs with a local AAU basketball program. By the time I graduated, sport had already been my classroom for a couple of years.
In 2024, I accepted a graduate assistant position with Mount Marty Women's Basketball. While working under Coach Allan Bertram, I completed my Master of Education in Coaching Leadership, putting the finishing touches on that just this month.
With the degree done and my role extended as an assistant coach, I finally had the space (and no more excuses) to launch something I had been sitting on for a while. That's this.

Let’s get into it →

🧠May Was Mental Health Awareness Month, and Sports Took It Seriously:
Virginia Tech Athletics and the Hokie Club kicked off Mental Health Awareness Month with their annual CAMP Fundraiser, calling on their fanbase to donate to the Sport Psychology department and support the Counseling and Athletic Mental Performance (CAMP) staff delivering mental health services to student-athletes year-round. (https://hokiesports.com/news/2026/05/1/hokies-rally-around-student-athlete-mental-health-this-may)

📄New Research: The Complexity of Pro Athlete Development
A narrative review published in Frontiers in Psychology on May 18th tackled the growing tension in North American professional sports leagues; where dedicated athlete development roles are expanding rapidly, but financial incentives tied to wins and championships often conflict with long-term player growth. The authors noted that coaches under pressure to win may overplay early-maturing athletes at the expense of broader development. (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1804236/full)

🏊FORM's AR Goggles: "Real-Time Coaching"
HeadCoach™ 2.0 integrates into FORM's smart goggles and delivers coaching based on objectives directly through augmented reality, essentially putting a coach inside a swimmer's head during every lap.(https://www.endurancesportswire.com/form-wins-smarter-athletics-aquatics-innovation-award-for-headcoach-2-0-at-the-2026-smarter-sports-awards/)

Lindsey Vonn: When 'Physically Ready' Isn't the Whole Story"

Vonn's return to the Olympic stage was supposed to be one of the great stories of Milano Cortina. At 41, already competing with a torn ACL, she was 13 seconds into her run when a complex tibial fracture ended it all. The crash was brutal and sudden. But was it really as unpredictable as it looked? Sports medicine researchers would argue there were forces at work long before she hit the snow.

The stress-injury model (first developed by researchers Andersen and Williams in 1988) proposes that psychological stress doesn't just wear on the mind, it directly compromises the body. When athletes are under significant mental load, their attentional focus narrows and their muscle tension increases, both of which slow reaction time and reduce the instinctive movement that keeps athletes safe.

For coaches, this reframes injury prevention entirely. It's not just about warmup protocols and load management, it's about knowing your athlete well enough to recognize when load is piling up on them. Relationship stress, competitive anxiety, fear of failure, pre-existing injury, and pressure to perform are all variables that belong in the injury risk conversation, even if they don’t all show up on a medical chart.

The practical takeaway is easy to overlook: cleared to compete and ready to compete are not always the same thing. Building the kind of trust where athletes feel safe telling you they're struggling (mentally, emotionally, personally) may be the most underrated injury prevention tool in your program.

+9% From the Bedroom, Not the Gym. When Stanford researchers had NCAA basketball players increase their sleep, both free throw percentage and three point percentage improved by approximately 9%. Players also demonstrated faster sprint times, quicker reaction times, reduced fatigue, and improved mood.

Why it Matters: Most coaches spend hours discussing offensive schemes, player development plans, and scouting reports. Yet one of the most powerful performance enhancers available to athletes is completely free.

Before searching for the next competitive edge, make sure you're getting enough sleep to maximize the one you already have.

(Mah CD, Mah KE, Kezirian EJ, Dement WC. The effects of sleep extension on the athletic performance of collegiate basketball players. Sleep. 2011 Jul 1;34(7):943-50. doi: 10.5665/SLEEP.1132. PMID: 21731144; PMCID: PMC3119836.)

Copenhagen Planks (Physical)

One athlete on their side, a partner holding their leg, lowering slowly toward the ground using nothing but their inner thigh. It doesn't look like much, but the Copenhagen has become one of the most evidence-backed injury prevention drills in sport. The adductors are chronically undertrained in most athletic populations, and that imbalance is a leading contributor to groin strains, hip injuries, and knee instability across virtually every sport.
Research shows an 8-week Copenhagen program can reduce groin injury incidence by over 40%, and the hip adductor strength and pelvic stability it builds translates directly to cutting, deceleration, and single-leg power regardless of sport. Start with the short-lever variation before progressing, and aim for three sets of 8-12 reps two to three times per week. (https://e3rehab.com/how-to-perform-copenhagen-planks/)

If-Then Planning (Mental)

Most athletes have a pre-game routine, but few have thought through what happens when things go sideways mid-competition. If-then planning fixes that by having athletes pre-load specific responses to likely stressors before they compete. For example, "If the crowd gets loud and I lose focus, then I'll take one deep breath and reset", automating a productive reaction before the pressure even arrives.

Research on competitive tennis players found that athletes who built individual if-then plans before matches were rated as performing better by coaches and teammates than those who only set general goals. The exercise takes minutes: athletes write down two or three scenarios that typically disrupt them, then pair each with a specific, actionable response. (https://theperformancepursuitconsulting.com/blog/5-steps-to-enhance-your-performance-through-pre-performance-routines)

Contrast Training (Physical)

Contrast training pairs a heavy strength movement with an explosive plyometric in the same set. A heavy squat followed immediately by a box jump, for example. The heavy lift "wakes up" the central nervous system through a phenomenon called post-activation potentiation, recruiting more fast-twitch fibers so the explosive movement that follows produces significantly more power than it would cold.

The application is universal: faster first steps, higher jumps, quicker cuts, regardless of sport or position. Start with 3-5 reps of a heavy compound lift at 80-85% of max, rest 3-5 minutes, then hit 3-5 reps of a matched explosive movement. (https://blog.overtimeathletes.com/top-contrast-sets-for-athletes/)

Reactive Agility (Physical)

Most agility training has a dirty secret: if an athlete can see the path before they move, they're training change-of-direction speed, not true agility. Real agility, the kind that actually shows up in competition, requires reading and reacting to a live stimulus in real time, which is an entirely different cognitive and physical demand that pre-planned cone drills simply don't train.

The fix requires no extra equipment, just a coach or partner willing to be the stimulus. Stand in front of your athlete and give directional cues through hand signals, verbal calls, or body movement, forcing them to process and react rather than execute a memorized pattern. Start with simple two-direction cues and progress to four-direction or sport-mimicking scenarios as athletes get faster at processing. (https://www.trainheroic.com/blog/improve-athleticism-with-these-4-reactive-agility-drills/)