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Brian Buck: Force Plate Profiling
535 Plays16 days ago
In this episode, Les and Danny sit down with Brian Buck to dive deep into force plate profiling, injury risk patterns, amortization mechanics, and how elite athletes can monitor and improve movement efficiency across the stretch-shortening cycle.
Brian breaks down practical training application, in-season vs off-season decision-making, and how technology, bloodwork, movement data, and performance therapy all fit together to support long-term athlete durability.
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Transcript
Introduction and Welcome
00:00:09
Speaker
Brian, most handsome man in strength and conditioning. Pleasure to have you this morning. Hey, Lab is here. Yeah, man. I appreciate you jumping on. And, you know, and I definitely miss seeing you more often, man. So it it was good to catch up here. But um no, I appreciate you having you on and definitely looking forward to what we got today, man.
00:00:30
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Pleasure to be here with you guys. um I've heard your podcast, told you I love it. um I love how in the weeds you guys get, and I think it's a good resource for coaches. So it's an honor to be here, and thanks for having me.
Brian's Career Beginnings
00:00:44
Speaker
So you you started out – 12 years ago, 14 years ago now, been a while, 15 years ago now. Are you going to make me sound old? Yeah. It's coming at me. It's early.
00:00:57
Speaker
You, you, you started out at, uh, at Sparta science and, um, you know, we're kind of, I guess like, uh, an, an early adopter of a lot of the force plate stuff in the, in the human performance setting.
00:01:09
Speaker
And, uh, you know, obviously that's kind of been a, a mainstay for you over the years but something i've always been interested in from you is like what's what's changed what's been reinforced you know like there's been a lot of there's been a lot of evolution with the with force plate implementation over these years and and you know you're probably one of very few that have been there all the way through so where'd you start and where you at with that now Yeah, so actually, let's take it back.
Transition from Athlete to Kinesiologist
00:01:36
Speaker
I was ah a minor league baseball player that washed out because of a lot of injuries.
00:01:41
Speaker
I think that's what fueled me into the field to start with. um ah I had a lot of potential, but had a lot of injuries I dealt with all the time, and that drove me to go back to school and get my kines degree at Arizona State.
00:01:55
Speaker
ah During that time, I did an internship with a guy named Keith Wilson at ProAdvantage Training in Tempe. hey And I realized at that point that I didn't know what I was doing with training at all.
00:02:08
Speaker
Um, and he helped me get my first job actually out of college. Uh, I got an interview with the Anaheim angels as an intern, strength and conditioning coach.
Professional Roles and Achievements
00:02:18
Speaker
Um,
00:02:19
Speaker
And I did that for a year and then I got a full-time job with the Colorado Rockies in 2013 and that was really my first introduction to force plates and I'll come back to this because it was a very impactful time in my life and I still, it really shaped the lens of how I still look at things today.
00:02:38
Speaker
yeah. Because of quality of life and how things go in baseball and the demand there, um you know, I quickly climbed the ladder there to where I was in the big leagues as a strength conditioning coach, know, 162 roughly 180 days.
00:02:51
Speaker
roughly a hundred and eighty days you know It was the Rockies, so we weren't in the playoffs. you It could have been longer. But I missed a couple friends' weddings, decided this is not really the path for me.
00:03:03
Speaker
you know this is This is tough. I need more life balance. I went and started working for ah the Boris Sports Training Institute in Orange County um with Scott Boris. So I was training his clientele exclusively there for a bit.
00:03:19
Speaker
And I love it down there, ah as I was telling you, Danny. And then, i you know, Phil Wagner, who is the CEO of Sparta Science, he ended up calling me and said, hey, let's come up here, let's bring you up here and let's start working here.
00:03:33
Speaker
ah And so I did that and I worked there for a handful of years and then now i'm Now I'm the director of applied sports science with a kind of a concierge group called MMVP.
00:03:44
Speaker
um We work with high-level athletes that are seeking, you know, year-round care, training therapy, blood work, tactical, skill work, you know, trend all of the above, you know, whatever they need, we we will do. And so that's a lot of what I manage now here.
00:03:59
Speaker
But a lot of what I do now is I use force plates and a lot of it's the lens that i was that was created at Sparta Science. and so
00:04:10
Speaker
A lot of what I learned at Sparta Science is still how I look at things. um And I don't know if you guys know about Sparta Science, but it was in Northern California. Yeah, I actually spent time with Phil.
00:04:21
Speaker
Yeah, I do. Yeah, when I was playing rugby, I went to Sparta Science with ah Jordan was there. Hoster. Yeah, who else was there?
00:04:31
Speaker
um
00:04:35
Speaker
Wait, who else was there when I was there? So Phil Brady was a coach there. Phil Brady. I remember Phil. Yeah. yeah um Yeah. gone when Scott was there.
00:04:46
Speaker
Oh, we'll i are here yeah yeah. So they had a suite facility where they were training a bunch of high-level guys. They were looking at ground reaction force and they were training based on what they saw yeah um and what they thought they needed. And that got brought to us at at Colorado.
Force Plate Technology in Sports Science
00:05:02
Speaker
So he basically came in and said, hey, you're going to look at these cuts of the force time curve and we're going to make decisions on these. Do you remember what those were, Les? ah ebay Load, drive, explode.
00:05:16
Speaker
Load, explode, and drive, which is so essentially it was rate, force, and time. Yeah. And he did there was no option of anything else to look at. Yeah. Like when he came in, and it was very restrictive.
00:05:28
Speaker
for us in Colorado, but we were dealing with a ton of injuries in 2012. And when I got there, the idea was we needed to make an impact on the health of our guys immediately. And so, by just looking at that sequencing of load, explode, and drive, we can make better decisions on what their efficiency of the stress shortening cycle was and where we could spend more time training.
00:05:53
Speaker
And really, if we only you know The concept was if we only had two days a week to work with somebody, we better be damn surgical with what we're what were and you know imposing on them.
00:06:06
Speaker
It better be towards something that they need um and makes it less injury risk or injury prone. And so load was essentially a breaking rate of horse development. And that was an average of four trials, you know, on Hawken or Valdon. You know, I use Hawken now, so I'll look at breaking RFD um there.
00:06:27
Speaker
So the initiation or creation of force, how can we create that force? And then I think the big piece that's overlooked is really the amortization phase within the stretch shortening cycle.
00:06:38
Speaker
You know, what is your ability to effectively couple that eccentric portion into the concentric and how much energy can we retain or, or transfer in and or redirect in another direction?
00:06:51
Speaker
So that was average relative concentric force on Sparta, um, you know, or, you know, that's going to be, you know relative propulsive force on any other system.
00:07:03
Speaker
yeah. And we looked at that from the amortization phase. But really, I think, you know, if you're not, if you're not able to redirect forces, you're not really going to produce a lot of concentric force, or at least not quickly. So that was kind of that middle piece that we looked at.
00:07:20
Speaker
And then we looked at overall time or or relative concentric impulse and how long it took you to get there um and how long could you apply those forces. So relative propulsive net impulse or or propulsive net impulse is another way to look at it. So essentially we were looking at your eccentric braking, you know, how how quickly can we decelerate How quickly could we couple or how efficiently and could we couple um and go into the concentric version or the concentric portion?
00:07:52
Speaker
And then what was that output in the propulsive phase and how long did you do that? And so the injury, the way that we looked at that from an injury perspective is that we need to be more focused on the balance and less on the ability to grow these outputs that they're already there.
00:08:13
Speaker
And the idea was health and longevity. And much of one quality usually brought issues somewhere. And while a lot of it was theory, a lot of it was taken from what Phil had seen Sparta Science and what Jordan and and Scott had seen.
00:08:31
Speaker
So that essentially got brought in and was like, hey, this is how we're going to profile everyone coming in. We're not going to continue to program guys based on position.
00:08:43
Speaker
um We're going to be way more specific with how they move. And then, you know, let's, you know, that's how we're going program and that's how we're going to check guys consistently so that we have projective information across the board and we get it consistently.
00:08:58
Speaker
And that's really how it came in to me originally. And, you know, so felt super restrictive at that time, but in a way it limited information. what else I could be diving into and what else I could look at, which in hindsight was like a blessing because i could understand what impacted those variables versus, you know, my thoughts of what else we could be looking at that's a little bit more sexy or, you know, it might be more of an interest, you know, output related wise.
00:09:28
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's that's fascinating because um remember i remember being like, I went there as an athlete at Sparta up in San Francisco and had no context of force plates before that. Like, I think it was my first introduction to force plates in 2012.
00:09:46
Speaker
And I got the information and i was like, oh this is great. Like, Now you're, what is that? Damn, that was a long time ago, 14 years later.
00:09:57
Speaker
how did Has it influenced the way that you look at force plates now with this profiling in general? Because you mentioned a couple other things like blood work and other yeah pieces, which I want to dive into, but um it's influenced how you read force plates now and and interpret the information now.
00:10:14
Speaker
Yeah, I'm really still looking at the efficiency of the stress shortening cycle. And so let's go back on that a little bit too from an injury perspective. So that data, if you were extreme load, you were um in comparison to your ability to effectively couple that into propulsion.
00:10:32
Speaker
you were a higher ACL risk or a Liz Frank risk. And remember, this is compared against a massive database, a huge population. So we could essentially take a T-score, zero out of 100, and where are you on there, and 50 being that average.
00:10:48
Speaker
So if you were much above that or you had a large standard deviation above that and your inability to couple that at amortization or in propulsion, we saw that as a risk.
00:11:00
Speaker
At the same time, if you were extreme, explode, you know, not a great use of your lower half, but really stiff and able to transfer force, sometimes too stiff, you know, we saw that as an oblique issue or a lot of times we saw spondy in individuals like that.
00:11:19
Speaker
um And then at the same time, if you were extreme drive or like an over-reliance, excuse me, on momentum, Without proper force production earlier in the stretch-shortening cycle, you were like ligamentous stress or you you had some issues there where you relied a lot more on momentum and that's where the stressors ended up going.
00:11:40
Speaker
So how could we program off that? And then at the same time, if you were minimally developed in those areas, like low load or ineffective ability to create force, we also saw that as like an ACL issue or an ACL risk.
00:11:56
Speaker
um But that was a lot of where our tendinopathies were. Ineffective force creation, usually, you know, around the knee or ankle issue. So they would sequence around that pain. Yeah.
00:12:08
Speaker
um And then inability to couple rate of force with repulsive force would typically be a lot of lumbopelvic laxity. That's where guys would lose it in that a ability to to change direction.
00:12:22
Speaker
Typically, we saw low back issues there. We saw groin. We saw sports hernia. Just think too much laxity in the system. So low drive. would be, you know, your lack of impulse. So, a lot of force and not ability to extend or finish movements. So, we tend tended to see a lot of soft tissue areas there.
00:12:40
Speaker
Hamstring, calf, adductors. And so, so much of that stuff came true. like not Like, not always, but like a lot of the stuff we tended to see in these styles of movers.
00:12:54
Speaker
So, ah To this day, a lot of this holds up. So I still look at these phases. I've changed it the way I've looked at that amortization phase, I would say.
00:13:06
Speaker
I look more, I still look at breaking forces. I look at breaking RFD. um I look at that information. I've changed, I think, my view of amortization into looking more at like force at minimum displacement. Yeah, it forces at their velocity. Yeah.
00:13:21
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Like really when you're coiled and at length, like you're very vulnerable in that position. How well can you hold on to force and how much force can you produce at that moment?
00:13:34
Speaker
I think, you know, and I shout out to Daniel Bove and some of his work. Like I, He mentioned that's a lot where a lot of non-contact injuries likely occur is at that moment when you're extremely coiled, muscles are lengthened, and you're about to change direction.
00:13:50
Speaker
So yeah I use that more as my amortization phase now, but like it's it's still the same because if you couldn't really... if you couldn't You know, if you can't um change direction at that point, you know, concentric force is going to suffer, um at least originally. So I'm looking at braking. I'm looking at amortization, that force at minimum displacement.
00:14:12
Speaker
I'm still looking at propulsive force, um but I'm also still looking at propulsive net impulse. And so a lot of that is like, where is the individual... spending most of their time or where are they the best at and where, you know, or where do they need work within that cycle?
00:14:30
Speaker
um And a lot of that now, I'll still use normative information there. um I'll also look at where they potentially have injuries, what's going on, where they're dealing with something and where it relates to somewhere in this horse time curve and really prescribe or train off of that. But that was, you know, I can...
00:14:51
Speaker
Let you guys ask questions from there. But like there was there was also some studies that impacted the way that I looked at that information at that time. It wasn't just word of mouth. Yeah. are Quick pause here. i want to talk about the universal speed rating.
00:15:05
Speaker
So many coaches I meet are just overwhelmed. They're running sessions, programming, dealing with parents and trying to prove their athletes are actually getting faster. One of the reasons why we built USR was to take some of this stress off the table.
00:15:18
Speaker
One software solution to help coaches test, track, and show improvement without adding hours to your week. If you feel like you're guessing with your speed training or drawing trying to make sense of your data, hit the link in the description.
00:15:30
Speaker
Schedule a free consult and see how the USR can help. Yeah. I got tons of the questions off that. and And Danny, I muted you for a second. So yeah you have to unmute if you have some questions.
00:15:43
Speaker
um Well, my main questions were based around... um I'm going to recap some of the some of the injury sites just so understand. So if you had low load, what was the was the injury sites off of that? yeah if you are Sorry, if you were higher like relative to the other ones, what were the typical injury sites off of that?
00:16:07
Speaker
If you were higher at load. Yeah. Yeah. So excessive rate of force. um Typically we saw ACL and Liz Frank. And that was typically because a ton of force being created without with the inability to then redirect that force.
00:16:24
Speaker
Got it. OK. And that was very common, more so in the football population that we looked at. And the ability and the training that was going on there as well to enhance that without necessarily looking at the other side of the stretch shortening cycle.
00:16:39
Speaker
Go ahead. Okay. And then drive, what was drive? Drive was typically, extreme drive was an over-reliance on momentum, right, without really, you know, a muscular force involved. It was, um you know, typically ligamentous stress. And we actually saw that kind of played out in a baseball study that we did over four years as well, which is...
00:17:02
Speaker
There's probably some faults in that study if you really dive into it, but I think ultimately you like it, there was breadcrumbs there. There was some breadcrumbs and there was some clues to be had of like what was said in that data. And I think, you know, some people knock that study, but like it's, it was helpful for us to understand how these guys moved.
00:17:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And then explode. Yeah, so explode, um again, if you were extreme exploder, you were like a standard deviation and a half or more above the others.
00:17:33
Speaker
Typically, we saw that with an oblique wrist or spondy because of the overall wound up tightness of that midsection or torso. Yeah. Especially in rotary sports, it's not uncommon to see oblique issues there when there's too much stiffness.
00:17:52
Speaker
and they sounds just so And then just to run that back again, you would probably see more of the other side of this, which was underdeveloped or injured individuals that weren't.
Training Methods and Athlete Performance
00:18:03
Speaker
sequencing how they could so low load or the inability to create force rapidly which was usually a sequencing issue it was usually something around the ankle or knee and the the uh compensation around it but that's where our tendinopathy was that was that was guys that had knee pain that were moving around it typically um And then obviously to fix that, it's kind of a catch-22. We actually have to load that.
00:18:29
Speaker
We have to, um and we can get into like what some of the methods were to train these, but um and they still hold true in my book, a lot of them. um And explode again. The inability to create that stiffness to redirect force at that amortization phase is where we would see a lot of that torso issues, the laxity the low back, the groins, the sports hernia.
00:18:54
Speaker
Um, because of that, when they leak that force, they have to recreate it. So you'll see that, you'll see that in a lot of these bimodals, um, these bimodal, um, force time curves, you'll see the first shape and then you'll see the dip and then the second hump. And essentially that, that dip is the leak at that position. Right.
00:19:15
Speaker
position And so I didn't, so first off, we never had, you know, forced time curve. We weren't looking at forced time curves. Really? that's both the crazi That's kind of the craziest part is that we just had the numbers for loaded.
00:19:29
Speaker
And that's something that's interesting. Yeah. And that's something now that, you know, using Hawken Dynamics, like I've found tremendous value in looking at the force time curve.
00:19:40
Speaker
Yeah. If you just look at something like the unweighting phase, the amount of information that you get as a practitioner in the unweighting phase, just looking at what might be going on with the ankles yeah is is one piece that I wish I would have earlier.
00:19:56
Speaker
um Yeah, it's interesting because I see that even now, like, people can spit off metrics, but they're not watching how people are moving. And then they're also not watching the forced time curves.
00:20:08
Speaker
um It's interesting because, like, I did this same kind of, like, thought experiment where i put up three forced time curves at an event. And it was interesting to see like lot of people were like, I aren't i don't know the difference between those. um So, yes, it's it's super interesting.
00:20:25
Speaker
And you said now you are like, obviously, you're looking at it now um and you're obviously using this as a profiling tool. um How do you use it from a monitoring perspective? And then I ah definitely want to get into programming and some of Danny's questions. But how are using it to like monitor long term?
00:20:44
Speaker
but with the afterwards. Yeah, long-term, year over year, I'm trying to see where they sit with these ah as they come into the off-season or how we progress through the year um and also what they're dealing with um physically.
00:20:59
Speaker
um So from a monitoring perspective, I probably look at some other things, more time-based, some more our RSI and take-off velocity. And these I'm looking at as like true adaptations of how they're sequencing.
00:21:12
Speaker
Like, are they sequencing better? If rate of force is going up, in my opinion, it's not always because they're producing more force. because they can effectively sequence in that vector a little bit better. They can create that positive shin angle.
00:21:25
Speaker
They can create so they don't move around it. If I can't create a positive shingle, I'm not going to produce force very quickly. So that's why the the that's why the prescriptive side of somebody that can't produce rate of force or has low braking force, you know, the constraint is a vertical torso.
00:21:45
Speaker
So like a common complex is a front squat paired with like a one leg hop to stick with a vertical torso. So everything is going straight up and down and it forces the flexion at the knees and the ankles to produce that force and it lights up the anterior chain.
00:22:04
Speaker
I would get much better results doing a complex like that with somebody than just doing squats or doing something where the angles weren't present. Yeah.
00:22:16
Speaker
So like for me, that's always what it comes back to in this phase or training that is what are the angles of the pelvis, ah the torso, and how can we get exposed those tissues that are kind of being moved around or compensated around. Yeah.
00:22:33
Speaker
And so they had a study back at Sparta like that they looked at what would affect these variables. That was a pretty big study. And that's where like the light bulbs went off for me back in the day.
00:22:46
Speaker
yeah no They just you know basically found what would improve each variable. And it was such a minimal study, but to me, light bulbs went off. You know, like if we wanted to improve, you know, of force development, it obviously was like a squat or a deadlift. But what that also did in also did is it improved rate and that amortization phase, but it also decreased impulse. Right.
00:23:13
Speaker
So what we dose people with is going to have an effect somewhere else. And so we must account for that you know when we train. If I take up specific qualities, another quality will become imbalanced.
00:23:26
Speaker
yeah And in my opinion, that that's really stuck with me over the years. And every time i I dose or I move a certain way, there's a cost to that. It might enhance their dominant system or that or harness what they do really well, but we're going to have a cost somewhere. And typically that's range or duration of force production in this case.
00:23:48
Speaker
So that study talked about, okay, yeah, the squat and the deadlift could improve the you know load and explode essentially, but it would decrease impulse. um Bracing intensive movements um would improve you know that that explode or that rigidity in the trunk, but it would also decrease impulse.
00:24:10
Speaker
And then... What improve improve improved impulse and propulsive impulse was the split spot that came out of that study. and But if you increased impulse, you decreased load and explode or that force.
00:24:24
Speaker
So there's a cost with everything. And then that's how my mind started thinking more about how do we balance these and who gets what. What can they afford to lose elsewhere if we enhance this system?
00:24:36
Speaker
Uh, you know, because, you know, we need that balance to, to an, everyone, no one's going to be perfectly balanced. That's just not a thing typically if they're elite, but we needed to find where that balance was to support some of these areas or tissues that were less likely to be exposed with their compensation patterns.
00:24:56
Speaker
And what was the profile of like your, your best athlete? Like, what are they, what relationship do they have typically? Yeah, typically like a ah hi high force and amortization ability or force at minimum displacement and lower impulse.
00:25:12
Speaker
But your your unicorn sprinters were actually kind of the other way. They were high high force, rate of force. They were high force at minimum displacement.
00:25:22
Speaker
And they were actually high impulse as well. Those were your guys that could get off the line fast and also start cooking even um even a bit more as they got going using that impulse.
00:25:34
Speaker
Those were rare because usually we saw force at minimum displacement and impulse and to be inverse. You either took a long time for that. And an impulse is force and time, right? So it's it's got to be one side of that equation. Either you produce a lot of concentric force, so you have higher impulse, or you spend a lot more time doing it.
00:25:55
Speaker
What part of the equation is there? And so... A lot of the sprinters, those those are kind of the unicorns that had, you know, everything was very like equally high, but then they had impulse as well.
00:26:11
Speaker
and So it's really for me just finding that balance. And so, you know, I think, again, you talk about improving that slope. and How do we do that? Well, the constraint is a vertical torso mostly.
00:26:24
Speaker
Plyo is there. Again, I'm going to enforce that. And then, you know, how do we train that transition? How do we do that? So we want to raise that dip that I talked about.
00:26:36
Speaker
And we want to improve that force at zero velocity. And so like this a lot goes back to like reading triphasic training with Cal Deeds too, right? It was like, who can maintain stiffness to, to redirect that energy? How do we do that? And typically what part leaks it during movement? And a lot of it was through the torso and that's where we saw injuries too.
00:26:58
Speaker
So the common complex, um, you know, for someone that was training the transition or training the amortization phase was bracing intensive or torso intensive.
00:27:10
Speaker
And it was a deadlift or like a suitcase deadlift where, You're not letting it bounce. You are going to kiss and go because that's how we know that you're locked in with that trunk.
00:27:22
Speaker
So and everything was like, don't let me hear you hit the ground. Like kiss and go. So we knew that they were locked in. Hips were back. All of that force was then shifted to that torso area, that trunk region.
00:27:35
Speaker
um And those are examples, but obviously carries, overcoming ISOs, yielding ISOs. oscillating movements, those are all really good for that kind of contract, relax, redirect ability.
00:27:51
Speaker
And so we saw a lot of that, but we know that that also will kind of torch the system a little bit. That's tough to maintain for a long period of time. um But the guys that needed, you know, if you could dose it in small enough amounts consecutively or or or weekly, actually responded quite well to it.
00:28:12
Speaker
And then the propulsive phase in training that, obviously, you're just trying to expand that that range or that force over time. And so, you know, the way that from that study, it was like a common complex was, you know, a split squat, a rear foot elevated split squat or like a high box step up.
00:28:30
Speaker
And then your plyos were going to be more more long ground contact times in nature. So your broad jumps, your acceleration bounds, um all of those things is we're in trying to improve the ability for those tissues to
Seasonal Training Focus for Athletes
00:28:45
Speaker
move through a full range um but also produce force in that concentric side of it so i think where i've changed a lot on that now is i'm doing a lot more you know pneumatic resistance you know the kaiser squat this is where i like to add in a lot of my accommodating resistance yes
00:29:01
Speaker
um really get full extension of the system through an end range. um And again, I think that helps us really kind of hit both parts of that impulse of force and time. um So these have all stuck with me. There were clues early in that study of what were like one or two exercises that could impact those.
00:29:22
Speaker
And then I've evolved them. You know I think, uh, you know, Daniel Bo put out a really good resource and take off where he kind of elaborated on these, what we had already been doing.
00:29:33
Speaker
Um, and so, you know, I've, I've obviously adapted or I think the, the way that, You have to understand like the baseball side when you're managing minor league baseball and major league baseball is just like different facilities. So you have to be like, what does everyone have as an instrument to use from a training perspective?
00:29:52
Speaker
Yeah. um And it had to be based on that. But now that I don't really have that issue, I'm definitely getting more creative in this with, you know, my flywheels and the braking, you know, and other things like that and pneumatic devices. So.
00:30:07
Speaker
Who are you, like, what's your population that you're working with now? like Yeah. Good question. yeah um Mostly NFL and MLB and some overseeing of NBA right now.
00:30:23
Speaker
And are you, is it like year, like in season? Are you looking at this during the season, off season, different parts of the year? Yeah, mostly in the off-season on the training side and then in-season, I'll get periodic measurements and then it's more so direct conversations with training conditioning staff and or our therapists on the ground.
00:30:46
Speaker
So I don't, I'm not getting as much as I would like in season to see how this balances out. But I think the way that I see it in my lens is, you know, i think we always, strength and conditioning coaches, we look at it as like, how can we enhance this in season? But really the sport is shaping their signature.
00:31:08
Speaker
And so it's really then where can we counteract or balance that? um um And so knowing what the demands are of some of these positions and and the game, really, it's like, how can we get back to neutral or reset ourselves? time. I think there's couple ways to hit the in-season training.
00:31:27
Speaker
And I think one of them is like enhancing the dominant system because it doesn't put much stress on them. It does increase hormone levels and recovery levels early in the and the week so we can get that stimulus.
00:31:39
Speaker
But then we need to also be touching um some of these, you know, weaknesses or kind of training away as some would say, right? We got to be touching these um tissues that are not typically exposed.
00:31:51
Speaker
and it's And if it's dosed in small enough amounts, um there's not a huge general soreness or setback. if it was If it was dosed in higher amounts and higher volumes, like you're going to stress a system that an athlete is not capable of handling lots volume added, like that you can really go in a bad direction.
00:32:13
Speaker
Yeah. And no so from a weekly micro cycle work, let's say you work with NFL player, they they play on Sunday. when are you, when would you test on the force weights? And then when would you make the adaptations and changes?
00:32:28
Speaker
Yeah. I like to test every Monday if possible. When they go in for their lift, I like to test because a lot of that is actually going to be acute trauma impacts. So how do i change the sessions for the week based on their new movement pattern? Because it will be new.
00:32:46
Speaker
It's never the same on Monday. I mean, maybe. But I want to know where they're at in comparison to their norms on a Monday. A lot of times what I would see...
00:32:58
Speaker
and this was just when I was working with some other teams and talking with their strength coaches, is a lot of times you would see a spike in breaking forces and a minimized impulse propulsively.
00:33:11
Speaker
And it was because oftentimes with the acute trauma, the athlete is moving through an abbreviated range of motion. So sometimes the CMJ is a good detector of like,
00:33:25
Speaker
we're just We don't have it. We don't have it, and we're going to move around it, but we're going to do it because you said to do it. So in the NFL, ideally, I get something Monday. gives me a good idea where they are week to week, how they stack up to their norms.
00:33:40
Speaker
um And then if I'm being selfish, I want to get it again Friday. Right. Yeah, so minus two. Yeah. Yeah, just to see if they kind of come back to where they need to get, what last-minute adjustments can I make if they're traveling, what do we need to do?
00:33:56
Speaker
And then also from a therapy perspective, if we are seeing some limitations within these ranges, especially something like ro ah propulsive net impulse, it can actually be enhanced with therapy. Yeah.
00:34:11
Speaker
Because you're adding range to the system, we can get them to move through there. And there's other things I like to add in there too, like some BFR and other things to access deeper ranges. But a lot of times, again, because of the acute trauma, we have to like get them back to where they need to be sitting usually.
00:34:29
Speaker
um So, yeah, ideally I'm getting it multiple times throughout the week. It's not always the scenario. It's fascinating. Like Mark Lewis, he's with the Texans. Do you know Mark?
00:34:42
Speaker
I know who he is. I don't know him. ah He'll be on in a couple weeks. he's He's awesome. But he wrote a whole thesis about testing force plates in American football. And his thesis included, like, plus one testing, so day after a game, and then minus two testing.
00:34:59
Speaker
And then all the changes you can make throughout the week. So, like, basically, you're capturing them at their their highest fatigue state. And I like the way you put it. So it's a new movement pattern. And that's so true. It's like...
00:35:11
Speaker
lot of people are like, well, I don't want to test them when they're the most fatigued. don't want to wait until they've rebounded. But you're missing a lot if you do that. like You're missing a ah window of an opportunity to make changes on something that might be compromised.
00:35:24
Speaker
And you're not you're not capturing a snapshot of their most fatigued state throughout the week. And then you compare that to minus two. That's their freshest point of the week.
00:35:35
Speaker
It's like the point where they've rebounded back and you get to see like, okay, well, what do we change in that week? And then you look week to week, add up all the minus twos and that gives
Transparency in Athlete Data and Decisions
00:35:45
Speaker
you a picture. Add up all the plus ones, that gives you a picture.
00:35:48
Speaker
And you have insight into, you know, where they're trending. So the preparedness over time. um That's fascinating. Yeah. and and And, you know, look, I also like to be extremely transparent with the data.
00:36:02
Speaker
Anytime I'm collecting it, and I think this goes back to um kind of the early way that I was taught to look at this information and share it was I'm very transparent with it. I want the individual to know what I'm looking at. I want the individual to know why I'm going to make the changes that I do.
00:36:18
Speaker
Um, and like even today with my NFL guys, like I'm showing them the forced time curve. I'm overlaying it with their previous month's forced time curve. I'm showing them the phase that we're, you know, if we're working in a breaking phase, I want to be able to show them the slope.
00:36:33
Speaker
I want to show them the increase there, the higher mountain, whatever it might be. Um, if we're working from a therapy perspective on kind of that the ankles or dorsiflexion or ability to pronate or supinate there.
00:36:46
Speaker
I want to be able to show a better curve at the unweighting. So for me, Like, I try and be as transparent as possible with this information, and I also try and educate the individual along the way with what phases we're hitting, why we're hitting it, why we're staying longer in this phase.
00:37:04
Speaker
um The hard part is, is usually when you go on to another phase, you haven't quite seen the true adaptation from the previous phase. Right. That's where you have to, you're limited to the time that you have, but um it's fun to show it when there is super compensation, it does arrive um because usually it's with, you know, something else you're measuring and you're watching them run and you're like, okay, this makes sense. Let's look at the data here.
00:37:33
Speaker
You're just, you're you're your efficiency is improving and the outputs are are rising. So like yeah those the things and so um I have another question, but it's it's a distraction and it's a tangent. So I don't know. Danny, did you want to ask anything on on this?
00:37:53
Speaker
I mean, I'm just over here taking notes like I'm back in like underdress. So no, I don't. This is this is brilliant, though. No, and and that's, I'll go ahead fully if you have. No, no, no, you're good.
00:38:05
Speaker
Yeah, and that's one thing too is I'm always trying to, you know, I have kind of have my system that I operate in and the numbers that I like to look at and obviously very transparent with it. I think my mind is always going to ah the model. and I was kind of running this with Danny earlier. was like work in the therapy perspective really enhance or highlight things phases I'm trying to go to? Is there a way that we can reduce co-contraction? Is there a way that we can allow better movement patterns in these phases?
00:38:38
Speaker
Um, and what is the dosage look like? Cause I think our group is doing some really good stuff with, um, Gary Ward and some of his wedge work, um, and a lot of the interaction, ah of the foot at the ground, sometimes bringing obviously the ground to the foot and helping these guys kind of sequence better. And I know Danny's been able to see it a little bit out here with some of the therapists, but,
00:39:01
Speaker
I'm trying to better understand that stuff to to understand how it can impact and and a magnify kind of the loads and and blocks I'm putting onto these guys too.
00:39:13
Speaker
It's always something want to go into. Yeah, no, I mean, broadly, like it's we've we've had the exact same intention of work with with different perspectives of looking at it. I can speak to to both of you guys on this because I've ah played this role for you both in some capacity. But, you know, from the from the performance therapy lens, what we're looking to do.
00:39:32
Speaker
is create an acute transient window that him that offers an improved opportunity for adaptation. So I think like the in-season examples that you were working through is ah is a perfect illustration of this.
00:39:47
Speaker
We're banged up, hamstrings are stiff, feet hurt. You know, we've been dealing with some nagging Achilles stuff. We're not coming in there with the mindset of we're going to make the hamstring pain go away or soreness go away.
00:39:59
Speaker
We're not going to alleviate the the Achilles pain entirely. But what we are going to do is through different manual inputs or through different SMR inputs, different movement or breath inputs.
00:40:11
Speaker
we're going to create this transient difference in the tissue or in the body that is going to give us a 60 to 90 minute window where you guys can go in and do the precise loading or do the specific inputs with better return.
00:40:27
Speaker
And if we get better return arbitrarily, 10%, 15%,
00:40:32
Speaker
You know, in an in-season period for a high-level athlete, that's a really meaningful difference. And we get that two, three times throughout the week. Now we're getting really some accumulation behind that. So whether it's transiently improving the the the range or it's manipulating the ability to pressurize through certain portions of the foot,
00:40:50
Speaker
or it's the ability to desensitize pain in the hamstring through those different lenses or through those different you know ways of making a difference here. Ultimately, the outcome is the same. The athlete feels slightly better to hit the training floor, to hit the field, and they're going to get somewhat more out of those inputs.
00:41:09
Speaker
And now we have a collectively higher return on the back end. And I think between what I've experienced, again, with both of you guys, um but then also, too, through the influence of Stu and how they have utilized performance therapy in the track setting, that's really the biggest misconception I think most people have with the therapy piece. Or even if we take the word therapy out of it, right, and we talk about high school strength coaches, from foam rolling to, you know, lax balls and SMRs and different mobility patterns.
00:41:39
Speaker
You know, these things are not just passive in nature if they're done intentionally. And if we do them under the provision of how are we improving the opportunity to train? I think it changes the the paradigm at large.
00:41:53
Speaker
Yeah, that's really well said, man.
00:41:57
Speaker
I have a i ah distraction in question now. Bring it. Can I ask it? right. So obviously, like, force plates plays its role. What are the other pieces? You mentioned blood work.
00:42:09
Speaker
You mentioned, forget all the other pieces that you mentioned, but, like, clearly, like, you're making decisions based on the health or performance of an athlete with this, you know, bunch of different tools. like can you go into some of those?
00:42:22
Speaker
Especially blood because i'm I'm getting more interested into that. It wasn't on your script today, but, yeah. No, love it. Um, one other piece that we look at as a spring box scan.
00:42:34
Speaker
So a spring box analytics. So we get a muscle scan of a full body to see how, you know, side to side looks like what asymmetries we have. How does that kind of fit into their archetype and potential injuries they've been dealing with?
00:42:47
Speaker
So we get a good snapshot and those are ah those are legit to have. Um, yeah, It's just the athlete going and sitting in an MRI for 45 minutes to get a full body one.
00:42:59
Speaker
And they can look at you know, they can look at, they're building a database too for sports and what that looks like in comparison with norms. um So blood work, obviously we're doing, I've been able to, we've been able to bring in some performance chefs on this side of things. So really taking the information from, you know, the 150 to 200 biomarkers that we're getting and translating that into um you know, specific allergens or things that they have there and where can the chef be providing things to, i guess, essentially limit inflammation and provide a
00:43:35
Speaker
um you know, a solid foundation to to stress more, essentially. ah We had really good results this last year doing that. We had an athlete that was going through some ah some ah bloating and like carrying water weight and was not feeling good and was never hungry.
00:43:55
Speaker
And we we basically did a ah gut reset and was able to lose a lot of that fast and get going in the right direction. So from the nutritional side, it's not something I'm an expert and but there are people that are and trying to arm them with the right information from the blood work has been extremely helpful.
00:44:17
Speaker
um And then I think... Having some some biomechanics video analysis done as well. um Again, shout out to Gary Ward who who helps our group a bit um analyze you know where where shapes are lacking, where there's missing range um from it from even just walking down the hallway and walking back. Because if you just look at the simplicity of somebody walking and the issues that you can gleam just from watching that,
00:44:47
Speaker
um The lack of range on one side, the movement or on another side that's not apparent. Like if they do that all day, what happens and what are they ingraining into the system with how they operate? And then how can we provide some value there in terms of accessing ranges or positions that they tend to avoid at all costs, even like just subconsciously? Yeah.
00:45:09
Speaker
Um, those are a a big part of our, our initial like sit down profiling piece. And then then the other piece is obviously just talking to the athlete. What do you, what do you want?
00:45:21
Speaker
Where, where do you want to be better? You know, how do you want to feel better? What's going well for you? um What about this process do you like and not like? I think a lot of that is just um the openness and transparency with what they're really looking to get instead of me just saying, hey, you need all of this. Yeah.
00:45:41
Speaker
So that's that's that's been a good feedback loop, I think. And then ultimately, I'm trying to validate all of it through the numbers, you know, where I can, just me speaking candidly. Like, that that's what I'm trying to do is therapy sessions, table work, nutrition. It all comes back to what you're seeing and and how they sequence and their efficiency there.
00:46:01
Speaker
So, and the metabolic cost that it takes to get to the same spot. So, like, that's all a thing. All right, we got to take a second to talk about the universal speed rating because I literally just found this out and it blew my mind.
00:46:12
Speaker
We just hit over 500,000 verified speed tests inside the USR software, half a million. That's coaches all over the country testing, tracking, and proving athlete progress with this system.
00:46:26
Speaker
It's not just data. It's giving athletes confidence and giving coaches real proof of results. I remember running our first Speed Lab test back in 2019 in a closet that my uncle helped me build, now half a million.
00:46:38
Speaker
If you're not testing speed yet or you're doing it without a system, this is your chance to check it out. Hit the link in the description, book a free consult, and see how the USR could work in your program. Yeah.
00:46:50
Speaker
ah You mentioned our group a few times. Who who is our group? Yeah, we got VinFam is one of our rehab PT.
00:47:01
Speaker
um Him and Mike Mancias really started this whole thing. So Mike Mancias is in l LA. um VinFam and then ah there's myself and Jason Park is our director of performance therapy. Danny Foley has gotten to work with him here and there. And then we have some other people that are involved on more of a kind um a contract side.
00:47:25
Speaker
um But dont don't want to forget John Lee is one of the therapists that we work with. He's extremely brilliant in what he does too. um So we have a large kind of network of people that we can access when we need, but that's really kind of what it looks like right now.
00:47:44
Speaker
And in in the way you guys work, like... Like who do people would take different leads at different times or like, is there some, a person that kind of directs everyone, but yeah. yeah Okay. So I'm kind of like our training lead.
00:47:58
Speaker
Um, I'll direct everything on this side, um, from a data perspective, from a training emphasis perspective, all of that I'll tend to lead that whether they're with me here on site or not. um And then um obviously it's it's a conversation with everybody, but I'll kind of run that side. And I'm located here in Dallas and then a lot of the team is in l LA.
00:48:19
Speaker
We do have a facility in El Segundo. um So we do have that as well. So that's, these are kind of our hubs at the moment, although we have athletes that are elsewhere um that we fly to or that we work with or we see them when it works. But um yeah, our kind of two hubs right now are Dallas mill and LA.
00:48:39
Speaker
Love it. all right. Sorry for the diversion. I'll get back to back to the script. Did you want do you want to go through balance and precision?
00:48:51
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think that's a you know we kind of where we left off a second ago. you know like ah The one thing that was coming to mind for me is is really focus through this, through balance and precision.
00:49:02
Speaker
What those primary changes from end to offseason? and And where does that priority list kind of go to for each? you know maybe Maybe some of that being like specifically within the training context, but then also more generally the distribution between how much time are we spending training and how much time are we spending for more of a therapy or or a restorative lens.
00:49:24
Speaker
Yeah, off-season is a bit different, as you guys know, so you got some ability to to do a lot more. I really hope that the athletes can make enough adjustments and balance out in a GPP phase where we're really hitting a little bit of everything to really kind of balance them out after the end of the season and the stressors that are there.
00:49:44
Speaker
And then i think really, what do they look like from the stretch shortening cycle? Where are they efficient? Where do they lose it? Where are they good at? you know Where are their weaknesses, so to speak? And then I'm really in the off season still trying to hit all of these pieces of the puzzle, the stretch shortening cycle, but I would definitely tier or weigh my system more into where they need, um in my opinion. And that's going to be based on um comparative norms and or injuries that they're dealing with. So if I can spot that by location on the body and line that up with where in the stretch shortening cycle they are the weakest, I will spend a lot more of my time in that period.
00:50:25
Speaker
And I really think, because look, if I just look back at my time in Colorado, where we did a lot of this, it was a lot of training weaknesses. And I think we had a lot of conversations about like, why aren't we always gearing up their strengths? That's why they're here, right?
00:50:40
Speaker
They're here because of this and we're not going to touch it. If we fast forward the four years that I was there at the end, we had decreased injuries in over half and we were in the top five in the league in injuries in that time.
00:50:53
Speaker
So that really, you know, and i and so it was like, are we are we drinking the Kool-Aid does this work? And so from my perspective with the the athletes that I'm working with now,
00:51:06
Speaker
It's not about really raising any more strength or or some of these sexier outputs. It's a lot more of managing the availability and making sure that they feel good to do their job. um So off-season, I will still touch these qualities regardless. I will touch them all, but I'll spend more time where needed.
00:51:25
Speaker
And then in season, it's going to depend a bit. It's a bit of a balance there of, again, I think more to my point of touching the dominant system and harnessing that, I think, from a to almost boost recovery and and get them to feel good. And then there's times throughout the week where we have to touch what the sport is not giving them. And I think a good example of this is even Andrea Hoody back in the day when she was at Kansas. I used to talk ah talk to her quite a bit.
00:51:53
Speaker
And the basketball side of things is start, stop, fast, as fast as you can, change direction, all of that. So what they're getting on the court is going to be probably opposite of what she's going to feed when they're training session.
00:52:07
Speaker
And that's not that's counterintuitive. And it seems like, well, what am I doing? Well, you're really... You're really placing some balance in there and some, you know, I like the way that Hunter will put it, some slow force and some other things in there that we can add to add the resiliency in those structures that are being taxed at high levels in chaotic environments with high velocity.
00:52:29
Speaker
So in season, I kind of still have that lens of I'm not going to go. I know that it can be stressful training a system that you're not very good at, but if we're touching it weekly, that stress dissipates and then it becomes normal.
00:52:43
Speaker
um I think that that mindset has worked well for me, but I do like to, you know, again, we've got a long stretch and it's very stressful during a certain period, I'm not going to like...
00:52:55
Speaker
really crush somebody. but you got to pick your times to like really kind of reach and and push a little bit. So I probably didn't answer your question fully. But um and a lot of that's going to depend on what I'm getting back in the data to.
00:53:07
Speaker
No, spot on, man. And I think um it it it highlights a ah great point that that I've been really emphatic about recently, which is like, you you know, of course, I'm coming from the health lens or from from the therapy lens. So, you know, again, I'm really trying to do my best to provide a good illustration of what the most effective things are for health.
00:53:30
Speaker
and And the more that I do this and the more that I go into it, like we were talking before we got, we started recording here, like the most potent thing that we can do for balancing the system and for overall improving health and readiness is appropriate load and dose.
00:53:46
Speaker
Like the the therapy stuff and the table work and the tissue work, All of it is great and fine and serves its purpose. But when you see that and do that as a standalone, isolated thing, it's not effective over time.
00:53:59
Speaker
there there has to be a redistribution of stress and load and and how the tissues are being sequenced um in order for these things to really kind of take hold. So it's a, you know, again, like the way you were describing it there is exactly what I think is is best practice in that, you know, we have to see health as also being training. They really are, you know, an inextricable thing.
00:54:21
Speaker
And the better we are at seeing those as being infused rather than separate, the better the overall outcome becomes. Yeah, no, I totally agree. and And like the data is very helpful for me. And yeah I go back to some stories that I had, like when I, during my time in Colorado, it was like, if we had a guy come in and he was like, you know, again, we're looking at these T scores. He's like 80, 80, 60.
00:54:44
Speaker
It's like, dude, go watch film. Get the hell out of here. Like, honestly, don't don't even come in here. We don't need to improve these qualities. Let's spend our time better.
00:54:56
Speaker
And, you know, when I talk about how do we balance this, you know, precision or balance, like, you know, we go back to that conversation of like, well, this is, you know, let's take a guy in the big leagues that's a burner.
00:55:07
Speaker
he's said He's chopping the ball in the infield. He's beating it out. You're not going to get him. You got that guy. Why would I not enhance that quality of just a ton of force production and very fast?
00:55:19
Speaker
Should I enhance that or why would I train as weaknesses? And if we we were talking about a certain individual and we're like, this guy has chronic hamstrings. He has them every year.
00:55:30
Speaker
So I think it's where it is where can you shift your mindset to better understand what's going to suit them better and would it actually help them? If you can access deeper ranges of motion, is that going to harness the genetic capability that you have currently um with that rigidity and stiffness of the athlete that you are? Because that amortization phase, in my opinion, of the stretch shorting cycle is the most genetic.
00:55:55
Speaker
yeah So do we always need to tap more into that or can we add this balance, which will in turn allow them to reach a little bit deeper and get a little bit more out of their current system? So we have in season, out of season.
00:56:09
Speaker
We have contextualized, you know, differences through different sports. What you have talked about, you know, for a while and have kind of leaned into is this force phenotype aspect or bucketing. You know, obviously we have like the James Wild quadrants and Daniel Bove's work and and a lot of people are doing this in different ways. Hunter as well.
00:56:30
Speaker
for you as it applies to you, what is force phenotypes mean? And then maybe how does that just generally kind of change the approach to training, you know, pick your, pick your, your, your flavor in season, out of season, but, you know, just generally speaking, different athletes have different mechanical movement patterns, strategies, and et cetera. So how does that change the approach for you?
00:56:53
Speaker
Yeah, we just, I mean, I started these a long time ago. um Actually, during my time at Sparta, it was just a really easy way to take something complex as a ah forced time curve or a counter-movement jump and relate it to the athlete. I think that's that's where Load Explode Drive came from back in the day. It was like...
00:57:12
Speaker
how can this relate to the athlete and how do they understand what you're talking about? So these phenotypes kind of came from that. You know, you could sit there and be analytical and be like, well, you you're an early peak bimodal first time curve.
00:57:24
Speaker
It's like, well, what does that mean? And so like we would have names for it, you know, like the force leaker, right? Or the Mr. Momentum or the hinger, right? These are just like... These are basic things that aren't scientific at all, but it helped them understand why they were getting what they got.
00:57:42
Speaker
and um And so, you know you know, the hinger being a good example, right? Low braking force, but pretty good everywhere else in the stress shortening cycle. That's, you you know, that's usually a sequencing issue.
00:57:55
Speaker
And so if they can better understand why I'm getting them to be vertical in every movement they're doing to force that sequencing pattern that they're avoiding, they understood it. So the the phenotypes for me are really just a better way to graph something that's kind of complex and be like, oh,
00:58:11
Speaker
All right. That makes sense. I understand why this lift would work now. um You know, and I love the other, what you know, and then some of the work by, you know, Rouch where he did, you know, the stiff flexor, the hyperflexor and all of that. That's helpful. And I think that's especially helpful for people that might not have force plates.
00:58:31
Speaker
if you can see it and you can see, you know, the stiff flexor being more elastic, or you can see the muscular driven mover, uh, using more impulse, these are helpful ways to just break things down for people. So for me, it's, I try not, I have these archetypes to help me like just very much think about what's important in the training, but it's also a big piece of how I discuss this with the athletes so that they understand what I'm talking about.
00:58:58
Speaker
And, understand why they're doing what they're doing so i've still had these phenotypes i still i stay still very much match up to what i'm looking at now um and you know with the the james wild quadrants too like they match up you know fairly well there too with just the strategy and where typical injury locations might occur so that's where like When I left, you know, when I got out of spar science, I tried to go as far away from like what I had been like taught because i felt like because I was restricted and this is what I knew that I got to get the hell out of that.
00:59:34
Speaker
I need to look elsewhere. I got to look at what other people are doing. And I look years later, I've come back to it. you know I hear you guys and Stu talking about these quadrants, and then I'm looking up my phenotypes, and I'm like, this is the same. so This is the same. So interesting.
00:59:50
Speaker
And so these light bulbs are going off, and so it really it just comes back to efficiency of the stretched ordnance cycle. Go ahead, though. Sorry, I cut you off. No, it's all good. I was wondering, what what's where's Phil right now? Is he still in the Bay? Yeah, I think he's somewhere in the Bay. you know Obviously, Sparta Science was acquired by Oura Ring.
01:00:08
Speaker
um Yeah. And yeah, I'm pretty sure he's still in the Bay Area. And now you've got to reach out. yeah Yeah. I mean, like seriously, if you just look back, and I've got to give him his credit, like everything I described at the beginning of you know low load, high explode, and all these things that just seem super rigid, it was like,
01:00:25
Speaker
Phil was a pioneer in the way that he looked at this stuff because so much of it holds weight today. And while I've evolved certain things that I do and how I look at them and, you know, the new system I'm using gives me a little bit granularity to dive deeper into the force time curve and some other things. That's great. But Phil was, he was a pioneer in how he looked at this stuff. And also i think how he helped a lot of people, you know, shape their view in this stuff. And it definitely impacted me. And, uh, but yeah, got to give him a shout and see what he's doing.
01:00:55
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. i didn't I did not know he got acquired by Oura Ring. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was interesting. So that happened, I think, last year. um It was acquired by Oura Ring. And so there are still, like, Sparta Forceplates out there, um but I don't know if Oura supports that or what the deal is there. um and Obviously, no, you know there was a ah large data piece of Sparta Science, so there's probably some of that involved in that acquisition. But...
01:01:24
Speaker
um I don't know a ton about it, to be honest. Yeah. Incredible. Yeah. So i and I, you know, i willll we'll do this another time, but I think where my mind goes with you guys and especially the the combine presence that you guys have and what I think about a lot when I hear you guys speak is really that, that precision versus balance and how you guys engineer that on your side. And like I said, this is the conversation for another time because I know we're about out of time, but My mind always goes to how you guys are managing that from an output perspective and preparing them for that and versus the long term.
01:02:00
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, the the the the depth of it would be would be a great part, too, for us. But to make a quick point on that, the interesting thing was that the the archetype model is actually what unified the language and kind of the work outcome for Les and I. And, you know, when we first linked up, you know, earlier this year,
01:02:23
Speaker
It was the most difficult thing, as always, was the communication. It was what are what are we trying to say? Like we knew what we were trying to do, but we didn't really understand how we were getting there. And then the more that I leaned into the archetypes of the quadrants from James Wild, it almost created a a centralized language.
01:02:43
Speaker
And then from my points on the health perspective and his points on the performance perspective, it gave us this clear identification of differences between guys, what those work priorities were, and then how we were going to achieve that.
Unified Approach in Performance Training
01:03:00
Speaker
And you actually like covered ah almost all of this brilliantly throughout this talk. But it was a lot of those things. It was, do we need to freeze or free degrees of freedom?
01:03:11
Speaker
Do we need to focus on pain sensitization or do we need to focus on acute activation? Do we need to focus on the foot or the hip? and it really clarified a lot of things. I'm probably speaking mostly for myself here.
01:03:26
Speaker
Um, it really clarified a lot of things in the directionality of work, but then I think it also, you know, really kind of, um, again, unified the outcomes that we were working for. And, you know, if we, uh, take a single example of this, like what we did with Katarina over the summer, um,
01:03:42
Speaker
was brilliant. Like yeah it was, it was really, really good, very smooth. Um, everything felt like it was, you know, can grow in and, and the, you know, the inputs again, at least from my end felt much more intentional. So I think with this era that we're entering of everybody, you know, producing radar charts and quadrants and archetypes and graphs, you know, I think, uh, there's a lot of different ways that these can have utility, but the important thing to understand is like,
01:04:10
Speaker
Especially if you work with other people or you work within a team setting, those archetypes and those those quadrants need to express the same language from the health and from the performance side.
01:04:22
Speaker
And I think we were just able to achieve that. So, yeah, I think it's a really important thing, man. Yeah, couldn't agree more. Yeah. Well, I have a couple more like quick questions.
01:04:36
Speaker
And if you got a few minutes.
Industry Focus and Simplifying Processes
01:04:38
Speaker
do it um So the the first thing is, is like, what do you feel like our industry is missing right now in terms of monitoring or profiling athletes? Like, is it a piece of tech a thought process? Like what what's missing right now?
01:04:55
Speaker
Oh, good question. Um, I think there's too, I think there's too much going on, you know? Yeah. Um, we're an inch wide, mile deep.
01:05:07
Speaker
It needs to be the opposite. so I think we need less, we need less things to look at. And I think that's what will help ultimately understand if like you're being effective or not.
01:05:17
Speaker
I think it's looking at less in my opinion. So, um, that would be my thoughts there. love that. if you could design a piece of technology today, we got a hundred billion dollar grant coming to you.
01:05:34
Speaker
What's that piece of technology? Oh man. I just want to send a 1080 over here, you know, we're out there. You're arrange it. You're going arrange it. hey Um, you know, it's,
01:05:49
Speaker
The nerd in me wonders a lot about ah more of the motion capture involved with all this. You know, we've created these archetypes. We've seen the study from Rouch where we can look at these different types of movers. I think blending them a little bit better would be helpful, I think, not only for the coach, but for the athlete to understand some of these sequencing. So, like, just that's very low-hanging fruit, and it probably already exists. I don't know about it.
01:06:13
Speaker
Me either. Yeah, yeah.
01:06:19
Speaker
Okay. Last one. The answer you were looking for, I'm not a creative cap on right now. No, but that's good. I definitely, it's the same for me. It's, it's more, lot of it does already exist with some of it. It's like the motion capture stuff and then cheaper and easier, simpler.
01:06:37
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. Um, Okay, last question.
Coaching Impact and Athlete Guidance
01:06:42
Speaker
um What was like the most impactful moment of your coaching career?
01:06:49
Speaker
Or you were you just like, man, this is it, I'm here? Um...
01:06:59
Speaker
That's really good question. there's been There's been a lot of people that have had a huge impact on me that have made or had me feeling validated in a certain scenario, which is very selfish.
01:07:11
Speaker
But I think ah think a lot of what we do is really just trying to give back and help people not make the same mistakes that we did in our athletic careers. ah I think I've been able to do that for a few people. But gosh...
01:07:24
Speaker
ah cast
01:07:30
Speaker
I don't know if I have an answer there. I wish I did. no too You're too humble, man. you're way done a lot You've done a lot of cool stuff. I've i've seen you on TV.
01:07:41
Speaker
Yeah, i think I think there's been some people that I think recently that have brought me into their lives and given me an opportunity to be a small part of it and seeing them succeed is like the most impactful thing for me.
01:07:55
Speaker
Like that is, that's everything. um So there's been some of that recently in my life. So I've been fortunate to see it and it really makes like every bit of it why I do this. like It's just everything. So, um yeah, I've been fortunate to be around some really good people that have been able to make me look decent at what I do. So that's been, like, very rewarding to see them be happy and them get what they wanted out of this, ultimately.
01:08:22
Speaker
Not, like, me validating numbers to them, but them have success on the field. And, like, to see, like, recently I had an athlete that, like, the whole town finally figured out who they were.
01:08:35
Speaker
And I think that like that was like missing in their life and it was missing in my life. And I recently like got the, saw the validation occur and it was like one of the coolest moments of like my career.
01:08:46
Speaker
not Love that. That's something that like i have old clothes for sure. No, you're humble. No, appreciate it. No, has been a fantastic talk. and And I have a ton of follow-up things that I want to go through. Like, definitely want to reach out to Phil. He's probably sitting in ah and a bunker, billion-dollar mansion in in the Bay now. But I remember the first day I met Phil, he brought me into his office. And I was like, he was talking to me, but I was so distracted because there's so much writing on his wall.
01:09:16
Speaker
And was like, yeah yeah what's going on in here? What's going on in here? if they um But he he sat and talked to me for 45 minutes. And I, you know, I was a low level athlete, you know, like nobody important. and And the level of attention that he gave me, and like he didn't care who who you were. He was just like, going to talk to you and you're going to learn about force plates today.
01:09:39
Speaker
thank you It was unbelievable. I had no idea what he was saying. But now looking back, i'm like, man, that that one interaction brought me to Jordan, Scott, you, tons of tons of other people in our industry and also shaped a lot of what we're doing now. It's funny how you said things come full circle. So it was interesting to hear that story about...
01:10:02
Speaker
How you went to it, came back to it. And it's funny because like all the things that you brought up and and mentioned is like kind of what I'm looking at when I'm viewing force plates, not even realizing like someone's done it before me on that side. So it's it's pretty cool to see. And I appreciate you sharing your perspective on it.
01:10:20
Speaker
No, of course. I appreciate you guys hearing me out on it. And it's it's different for me to say it out loud. Like sometimes I think about what I went through and like kind of the the ways that this got brought into my life and how I learned it and everything. And and sometimes you think youre you're in a rabbit hole somewhere and that no one else is seeing the same stuff. And then It's good to like your guys' is podcast and what you discuss, like it's had me thinking a lot of like things I used to believe that I went away from that I came back to. And I think that that's been my career in a nutshell is like you think you have something identified or figured out and you get away from it.
01:10:56
Speaker
And then some something brings it back. It's been like it happens to me all the time, actually. oh But I think that's like the most valuable part of like being in this industry is, is being open-minded enough to look elsewhere and look what else there is that can be done or how can be done or who's doing it better than you.
01:11:13
Speaker
And then figure out, you know, the best way to put it into your practice. So it's been a, that's a huge props to you guys and what you guys are doing here and, and the podcast and, and the voice that you're giving people. So I appreciate you guys.
01:11:26
Speaker
No, for sure. We're going to have you back on soon after I round up Phil and we'll, we'll get you back on. Yeah, for sure. Kenny, were you going to say to me? No, no, no. You're good, man.
01:11:37
Speaker
Yeah. Just, it's really nice in Southern California this time of year.
01:11:43
Speaker
I mean, anytime you want to come out, man. And I would definitely love to get you out for a couple of days for combine, man. I think it would be a cool thing for you guys to chop it up for real. Yeah, please. and we I'm thinking December. ah I'm thinking before combine. But like let me get some insights going into combine, you know. No, for real. I think ah there's a lot more we could dive into on on the topics ah of the four stuff and all that. We just kind of skimmed it today. So we'll definitely have to do it more in person. have to come out see you guys and talk some shop.
01:12:14
Speaker
No doubt. Still it. Cool. Appreciate you guys.