Beyond Coaching with Katie Guillory: Redefining Limits and Pursuing Greatness (Ep 101)

Kelly interviews Katie Guillory, assistant strength and conditioning coach for LSU women’s gymnastics and beach volleyball, about her path from LSU softball to coaching, including stops at Traction, Liberty, and Illinois. Katie breaks down LSU gymnastics’ razor-thin national title loss (.04%) and the team’s “revenge tour” mindset, plus what she tracks in training—force plates, strength foundations, mobility, fatigue markers, and athlete management systems using technology and data dashboards. She shares practical advice for having difficult conversations, emphasizing trust, tone, body language, and when to pause and revisit. Katie also discusses overlapping gymnastics and beach volleyball seasons and starting mandatory training in mid-September. She opens up about losing the lower half of her left leg in an accident, adapting daily through disciplined routines, and training for Paralympic long jump with goals toward official marks, camps, and 2028 trials, while planning a website, T-shirts, and a book.

From the Episode: 

• " After that, I realized I was really interested in strength and conditioning more than physical therapy, just because I thought it was more on the proactive side of performance versus the reactive side."
• " So it was really fun to watch that happen because when they pop off the plate and they just float in the air, you just know that their engine is running high right now, and you know they're gonna do some very cool gymnastics."
• "  So the short answer is strength will lay the foundation for every single bit of power."
• " I owe it to them. I don't wanna waste their time collecting data just to do it. I want us to be able to make action-based decisions on what we see."
• " Your egos go out the door and I love it. I love it. And sometimes there's like a little bit of animosity, and you can sense the tense in the room, but you understand it's for the greater good of the athletes and I don't mind that."
• " And then recently, just over a year ago, I was in an accident and lost the lower half of my left leg. And my buddy who used to work with me at the University of Illinois just randomly called me up, and he was like, "Have you been poached by Paralympic teams yet?" "
• " So the fastest thing that a human body can do is sprint. I'm teaching myself how to do that while left and right sides of my body move completely differently at the highest speed possible to be able to jump the farthest possible in a sport, you're right, that I have never done. That is the wildest thing to me, so why not chase it?"

Notes and Considerations: 

• Follow Katie's journey on Instagram
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