Blueprint of an Athlete with Dr. Robin West

Welcome to Blueprint of an Athlete, where host Dr. Robin West is joined by Erin Hanson, Co-founder and CEO of Guardian Sports. After 25 years in material science, Erin and her husband Lee launched Guardian in 2011 with a mission to prove that science and smart design can transform athlete safety.
The Genesis of the Guardian Cap
Driven by concern for her son who began playing football, Erin and Lee sought a solution to reduce the repeated head impacts in the sport. They realized a full helmet redesign was too difficult a paradigm shift, leading them to focus on a solution for practice, where the majority of hits occur.
The Goal: Design a lightweight, inexpensive, one-size-fits-all soft shell that could retrofit every helmet and significantly reduce impact.
The Evolution: The initial cap was sold in 2012. While initially meeting resistance for its look, the design was optimized with elastic straps and the newest 2.0 smooth design to look more like a traditional helmet.
Validation: The cap was a winner of the first NFL Head Health Tech Challenge (2017). This recognition and the subsequent independent testing provided the critical validation needed for national adoption.
NFL Mandate: The NFL now mandates the Guardian Cap for most positions during contact practices after reporting a >50% reduction in concussions. Player feedback confirms a better experience: "I'm practicing without a headache."
The Greaseless Lacrosse Revolution
Guardian’s mission extends beyond football. Inspired by injuries in lacrosse, they turned their attention to the ball itself.
The Problem: Standard rubber lacrosse balls age quickly, becoming excessively hard (way above safety specifications) and "greasing" (leaching plasticizers, making them slick and inconsistent).
The Solution: The Pearl Lacrosse Ball is US-made from a urethane material. It is greaseless and consistently maintains a low, safe hardness (110–150), which led the standard-setting body to lower the official spec.
Safety Meets Performance: The Pearl improves both safety (softer hit) and performance (consistent feel and release from the stick), making it the official ball of the NCAA, PLL, and MCLA.
Innovations for All Athletes
Guardian continues to leverage material science to create safer playing environments for all sports:
Bio-based Turf Infill: A corn and soy-based infill that replaces the recycled car tire rubber pellets often used in turf fields (which have been linked to health concerns). This new infill is USDA-certified, helps keep fields up to 28 degrees cooler, and has an engineered shape for better performance.
Guardian Loop: A comfortable, soft-shell head protection solution that slips on like a headband, designed for non-helmeted sports with incidental contact, such as flag football, soccer, volleyball, and cheerleading.
Leadership and Longevity
Erin notes that the biggest barriers to adoption are often appearance and competition from major helmet manufacturers. However, the most successful selling point is athlete longevity and availability. Coaches across the NFL and NCAA are adopting the products because their athletes are healthier and available to play.
Key Leadership Lesson: Have confidence in the mission. Erin states that navigating the world of a startup was less about business school and more about the "CEO experience" of raising five children. It's about taking a leap of faith and believing in the goal of improving health and safety, even when met with challenges.

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.
The Visual Demands of Sport
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.
The Power of the "Quiet Eye"
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:
Strain: Quantifies cardiovascular load during activity using heart rate and HRV.
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.
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!

Welcome to The Blueprint of an Athlete with Dr. Robin West, where science meets sports. This podcast explores how data, analytics, and cutting-edge technologies, including wearables, equipment, clothing, nutrition, and recovery tools, are transforming the way athletes train, compete, and recover. Each episode breaks down evidence-based strategies to improve performance, enhance recovery, and mitigate injury risk, offering athletes, parents, coaches, fans, and health professionals a roadmap to unlocking full potential.
In the inaugural episode of Blueprint of an Athlete, Dr. Robin West discusses the Q-Collar, an innovative device designed to protect athletes' brains from injuries. Joined by Dr. Wayne Olan and Suzanne Williams, the conversation delves into the mechanics of the Q-Collar, the science behind jugular vein compression, and the importance of understanding traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). The guests emphasize the need for education on TBIs, the effectiveness of the Q-Collar in preventing brain injuries, and the challenges faced in promoting its adoption among athletes and parents. They also share compelling evidence from studies that demonstrate the protective benefits of the Q-Collar, making a strong case for its use across various sports.
Key Takeaways
The Q-Collar acts like a seatbelt for the brain.
Jugular vein compression stabilizes the brain during impacts.
Scientific studies show the Q-Collar reduces brain injury risk.
Subconcussive hits can cause brain injuries without symptoms.
Education is key to understanding TBI and its risks.
The Q-Collar is FDA-cleared and proven safe and effective.
Athletes report fewer headaches and better recovery when using the Q-Collar.
TBI is a concern across all sports, not just football.
The Q-Collar is easy to size and wear for athletes.
Peer recommendations drive the adoption of the Q-Collar.
Learn more at Q30 innovations here.

🔥 NEW PODCAST ALERT! 🔥
As an orthopedic sports medicine surgeon and longtime NFL/MLB/NCAA team physician, I've spent my career working with athletes and witnessing a constant need for better, safer, and more effective strategies to excel.
That's why I'm so excited to introduce The Blueprint of an Athlete: Where Science Meets Sports! 🧬🏈⚾️
Join me, Dr. Robin West, as I talk to world-class experts about the science that's shaping the future of competition. We're breaking down everything from advanced wearable tech and nutrition to cutting-edge recovery and mental prep.
If you're an athlete, a dedicated sports parent, a coach, or a fellow healthcare pro—this is your essential, evidence-based guide.
The first episode is coming NEXT WEEK! Hit that follow/subscribe button now on your preferred podcast app so you're ready for the launch!
Can't wait to share this with you all!