#369 The Future of Athlete Training: Insights from a Leading Coach | Mike Niklos

Dave Tate's Table Talk

Dave Tate

Fitness, Health & Fitness

4.9 • 586 Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2025

⏱️ 153 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We welcome Mike Niklos to this episode of Dave Tate's Table Talk Podcast!

Since 2008, Mike Niklos has worked with athletes at every stage—from young athletes just beginning their journey to the highest-caliber professionals in the world. With nearly two decades of coaching experience, Mike has designed and implemented long-term athletic development programs for youth ages 8–18, as well as elite-level, high-performance training for professional, collegiate, and Olympic athletes.

His resume reads like a roll call of global sports organizations. Mike has trained and developed athletes competing in the NFL, CFL, XFL, NBA, MLB, MLS, USWNT, NWSL, UEFA, BBL, and Rugby Union. His ability to adapt programming to the demands of each sport—and the specific needs of each athlete—has made him a sought-after resource in the world of strength and conditioning.

Mike's coaching philosophy blends science-based performance principles with practical, real-world experience. He understands that building a dominant athlete requires more than just raw strength; it's about developing speed, agility, power, durability, and mental toughness over time. His long-term approach to youth training lays a foundation that not only improves performance in the short term but sustains it throughout an athlete's career. For professionals, his programming is dialed in to optimize peak performance when it matters most—on game day.

https://www.instagram.com/niklos11/

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Transcript

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0:00.0	What sometimes gets lost, we forget about the conversation with the athlete.
0:04.0	How did the year go? What were the injuries like? Where are you at mentally?
0:07.0	There's been some athletes that just mentally are exhausted.
0:10.0	Go on vacation, I'll see you in two weeks.
0:12.0	If we start training you now by the time, someone is paying you to do your sport,
0:16.0	you're going to be burned out again and you're going to get hurt.
0:30.7	It's time to sit down, keep it real, and cut the bullshit.
0:32.7	Welcome to Table Talk.
0:35.6	All right, guys, back with another episode of Table Talk.
1:10.9	Today, my guest is Mike Nicholas. Did I pronounce that right? Absolutely, yep. And before I get into, well, for your background, let's just, I want to get into, I got a question for you real quick. I'm excited to ask. So background is you've worked in the public and private sector for close to two decades as a serenth and conditioning coach. Correct. From D1, all the way down to what you're doing now in the private sector for a while, working with kids all the way up to professional athletes. Yep. Okay, cool. We got that covered. So people know who you are really quick. Going through some of your tweets, right? I'm old, so it's tweets, right?
1:12.5	There was one that stuck out to me that says,
1:14.8	technique is not the cause, but the consequence.
1:18.5	Right.
1:18.7	Collaborate on that.
1:20.5	So, and I think, you know, for me,
1:25.9	and to even preset this, and I know we had talked about, you know, off
1:30.0	camera of when I was here in 2009 with an underground strength session. And I remember, number
1:35.7	one, it was the most incredible thing I've ever been to, but I remember talking to Wendler. And he
1:41.3	comes up to me and again, coming from Columbus, knowing everything about you guys and all that stuff was awesome.
1:47.9	And, you know, I got to ask my one question and he started going back and forth.
1:51.4	And I was a 450, 500 pounder at the time, but obviously wanted to increase it.
1:58.0	And, you know, and we were talking.
	...

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