What does it actually take to prepare an athlete for a sport where the environment itself is part of the challenge? In this week's episode, Richard Graves sits down with Ryan Blake, Performance Coach, Consultant, and founder of Extreme Sports Performance, to explore the fascinating and often overlooked world of action sports performance.
Ryan brings a unique perspective to this conversation. A former action sports athlete himself whose career was cut short by a life-threatening injury, he has since spent over 20 years working across elite sport, academy systems, private education, and national governing bodies, before circling back to the world he started in. Today, he works as a performance consultant for British Water Ski and Wakeboard, Head of Sport Science at St Paul's School in London, and Lead Tutor for the Youth Strength and Conditioning Association.
This isn't a conversation about conventional periodisation or standard gym metrics. Ryan challenges the assumptions baked into most traditional performance models and makes a compelling case for why action sports, think X Games, halfpipe snowboarding, freestyle skiing, demand an entirely different approach. One built not around chasing peaks, but around building repeatable, durable performance that holds up under fatigue, variable terrain, and real-world unpredictability.
He talks through his Restore, Apply, Own framework in practical terms, explains why training in a fresh state but competing in a fatigued one is one of the most underappreciated problems in sport, and shares how he uses a blend of velocity-based training, jump testing, readiness monitoring, and athlete-specific education tools to close that gap. He also weighs in on the growing use of AI in competition judging, the rapid rise of the X Games League, and why the preparation systems in action sports simply haven't caught up with where the sport is heading.
Whether you're a sports scientist, strength and conditioning coach, or simply someone with an interest in how elite performance is built at the fringes of mainstream sport, this is a conversation worth your time.
In This Episode You Will Learn
About Ryan Blake
Ryan Blake is a performance coach and consultant specialising in action and adventure sports. He founded Extreme Sports Performance in 2018 after a career that has taken him through elite academy systems, professional sport, private education, and national governing body consultancy. He holds accreditations from both the UKSCA and NSCA, holds an MSc in Maintenance and Enhancement of Elite Performance from the University of Portsmouth, and has worked with world champion athletes and Olympic medallists across disciplines including British Tennis, England Cricket, British Cycling, and now British Water Ski and Wakeboard.
Alongside his consultancy work, Ryan serves as Head of Sport Science at St Paul's School in London and as Lead Tutor for the Youth Strength and Conditioning Association. His own background as an action sports athlete — and the life-threatening injury that ended that chapter — underpins his philosophy around risk, durability, and long-term performance. He is based in Guildford and can be found on Instagram at @extremesportsperformance or at extremesportsperformance.com.
FREE 7d SCIENCE FOR SPORT ACADEMY TRIAL
SIGN UP NOW: https://bit.ly/SFSepisode241
Learn Quicker & More Effectively
Optimise Your Athletes' Recovery
Position Yourself As An Expert To Your Athletes And Naturally Improve Buy-In
Reduce Your Athletes' Injury Ratese
Save 100's Of Dollars A Year That Would Otherwise Be Spent On Books, Courses And More
Improve Your Athletes' Performance
Advance Forward In Your Career, Allowing You To Earn More Money And Work With Elite-Level Athletes
Save Yourself The Stress & Worry Of Constantly Trying To Stay Up-To-Date With Sports Science Research