Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Challenge Conventional Speed Training with Matt Hank, Head S&C Coach at Santa Monica College
0 Plays2 seconds ago
In this episode of The Speed Lab Podcast, host Les Spellman sits down with Matt Hank to challenge conventional speed training.
They dive deep into acceleration and max velocity mechanics, why most coaching cues get lost in translation, and how elite speed is actually developed.
The Universal Speed Rating is looking to work with more elite training businesses through our Speed Lab partnership. If you are interested in systemizing your speed training and growing your business, click the link below to schedule a intro call with our team.
https://universalspeedrating.com/learn-more-partner-with-universal-speed-rating-speed-lab-podcast
Episode Timestamps00:00 – Matt’s background & entry into speed training
03:50 – Why respectful disagreement moves the industry forward
05:00 – Building athletes from the ground up
08:50 – USR milestone & why testing matters
09:32 – Horizontal force vs coaching language
14:00 – Organizing acceleration in a weekly plan
19:00 – Key components of an acceleration model
21:00 – Assessing athletes & teaching coaches what to see
25:15 – Principles of max velocity
27:00 – Do sprint drills actually matter?
32:40 – Strength, coordination, and late swing mechanics
36:50 – Forward foot speed explained
38:09 – Why flexion-based drills fall short
42:17 – Why getting better at drills ≠ getting faster
44:18 – What “works” vs what actually improves speed
48:00 – Extension, reflexive movement, and elite sprint models
52:20 – Reactive vs non-reactive athletes
55:00 – Physical qualities vs coaching cues
58:00 – Advice for athletes right now
59:00 – Individual differences in sprinting
01:01:00 – Closing thoughts on open dialogue & growth
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:06
Speaker
All
Introduction and Role
00:00:07
Speaker
right. So, yeah, my name is Matt Hank. I am the head strength and conditioning coach, sports performance coach at Santa Monica College. Right. That's a junior college. So it's a little bit different set up already than and a lot of other people are kind of going through. But it's the same thing. We're training athletes on a daily basis.
00:00:23
Speaker
So at the college, real responsibilities are the main kind of core group of teams that we have that we're training on regular basis, ah both basketball teams, both soccer teams, football, ah volleyball, kind of that's our main group right there. And then um just diving in into speed research and everything like that on the side. And that's kind of where I'm at. Yeah.
00:00:47
Speaker
how' you How'd you get into speed? What made you start looking down the rabbit hole and going into it? yeah I would say the strength was very interesting to me at
Shift to Speed Development
00:00:58
Speaker
the beginning of my career. Like it probably is for a lot of people when they get into this, you know, ah powerlifting methods, Louie Simmons, weightlifting methods, anybody I can get my hands on in terms of their content. And then it just kind of became like, i was already in the rabbit hole so much. I'm like, there's nowhere to go. like it's just here. Like, get them stronger, get them more powerful. And I was like,
00:01:19
Speaker
That's not it at the end of the day. They're still competing on a field, a court. So I was always interested in speed, but I just kind of like whatever people say, I'm going to do it. So go to USA track and field course. i'm just good to do what they tell me. I take courses. I go online. I go to research things, whatever they say.
00:01:34
Speaker
And then I was like, there's got to be a little more. There's got to be. Like what else can I do to put my own little twist on stuff? So um that's what really got interesting is we're like – yeah Right? We've all seen this. Athletes are getting faster, but then still aren't.
00:01:47
Speaker
But like strength, almost everyone's getting stronger. I thought like for a junior college, we have 15 week off seasons, by the way. It's different here. Everyone's getting stronger in 15 weeks unless they don't show up. right But speed, there's not necessarily. There's some kids are like, and then they stay, they plateau. I'm like, what's going on That's a good point. That's a
Exploring Unconventional Techniques
00:02:05
Speaker
really good point. Yeah.
00:02:06
Speaker
Yeah. I think that's what really interested me. It was like, I'm not seeing the consistent results, speed development like I am and strength. I got to get out there and look. So that's kind of where it really started to be honest. Yeah. That makes sense. So you did USA track and field, h go through that and you're like, okay, well that, we know that speed's important, but there's more to it than that.
00:02:28
Speaker
Where did you look next? Yeah. ah I mean, every anybody I get my hands on. so But one thing that really like started to make my thought process turn a little bit was some of the f Franz Bosch stuff and then, like I don't know, 2012, 13, 14 range right when his book came out.
00:02:47
Speaker
And it was like, oh, this is a different perspective. I'll sprinting a little bit. And then we go down deeper rabbit holes. We're like... start I mean, you're in San Diego, I'm in l LA here, but like David Weck in San Diego, like, that's really weird. I'm like, what am I doing here?
00:03:00
Speaker
And then I got connected to where a lot of people affiliate affiliate me with now is like a Darien bar. And that's been really the last like eight years or so. And it's just been like, wait, this is outside the box, but totally makes sense. This outside the box, but they all can make sense. And then I couldn't relate it to the research. That was the crazy part. I was like, they're they're all saying these things.
00:03:20
Speaker
A lot of people dismiss it, but I'm like, no, you can directly connect
Challenging Established Ideas
00:03:24
Speaker
this stuff. And I was like, okay. So, but anybody get my hands on, you know, I used to remember, jump on your podcast back in the day. I think it was like pre-COVID or something, but anybody, obviously. yeah. yeah Jonas' stuff, Stu's stuff back in the day, but... um I'm like, what are people doing?
00:03:43
Speaker
So anytime I go to a major conference, I was like, let me look for the speed clinics, especially the movement clinics presentations, I guess you could say. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, one thing, and part of the reason why I had wanted you to come on is like, um...
00:03:57
Speaker
I love, i really love one thing that I see in the industry. I think it's when people like respectfully disagree with things because and our industry is so binary and it's like, it's either you agree or you don't. And if you don't, then you're enemy. It's like, no, I love when when people have a different opinion on something.
00:04:17
Speaker
everyone's so likely to just follow what the the consensus is don't want to speak outside that and I really enjoyed um like even just in the comments like we were going back and forth I was like let's hop on a podcast I was dead serious because um it's so it's so rare and um I have a ton of respect for you for that and yeah I just love that so I don't I don't take offense to anything you know um But yeah, I wanted to kind of just double click on what we were talking about and just like, yeah, I think there there is a way of thinking in the industry that's commonly accepted without much thought.
00:04:57
Speaker
And it does need to be challenged for it to move forward.
Coaching Philosophy and Research
00:05:00
Speaker
So I wanted to just kind of dive into a little bit of your philosophy and and just how you build an athlete from the ground up, making them faster.
00:05:09
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean, for sure. I would say maybe piggybacking off of that last statement, we almost even just touch on like the research a little bit. But even like we just said before, kind of offline, like at end day, we're still coaches. So my favorite conversations are like this, like two coaches going like, oh, this is my first progression. This is my volume. This is the, the, the, the.
00:05:28
Speaker
That's what like I geek out on. But then at the same time, we do like have to take a step back. Like, is there anything supporting this? Is there any science? Is there any research? Is there like, and I know obviously we both like look into that and have connections to different research individuals out there.
00:05:43
Speaker
So, i would I would just say this first. um When a white paper is produced, right? Right. it's a series of authors. They do a great job. They put a lot of time and effort into it. So, I always respect that. I mean, I'm in the education business myself. Like, i I not only coach, but I teach. That's influenced the way that I train in my speed model, by the way, that might get into.
00:06:04
Speaker
Heavily influenced my speed model. I started coaching athletes in terms of teaching progressions.
Interpreting Research in Practice
00:06:10
Speaker
um But when I look at some of the results, let's say, on some of these different sprint research papers,
00:06:18
Speaker
I could go into with my own lens now. Like I don't have to use the same lens that even the researchers using, right? Like like if we talk about like the force-based topic, and maybe let's say like horizontal first because if we we got to accelerate before we get to top in anyway. So let's maybe start acceleration topic.
00:06:35
Speaker
um And then we go like, hey, who's who's leading that industry? And you're looking at like JB stuff and all his colleagues. And I'm just going to go, all right, put me straight to the results and these outcomes.
00:06:46
Speaker
And everything else is cool because – but it's a lot of their opinion. It's a lot of – to be completely honest and I'll say it to these people, a lot of it is kind of like the boys club and they're interacting with each other. And there's a lot of us on the outside that have to just take their opinion for face value. But I'm like, okay, so if we see these higher values of like horizontal force for fast athletes – Does that mean that they have to punch harder or push harder as the white paper would say in the conclusion, like as their discussion rather?
00:07:13
Speaker
That's a discussion. That's just a conversation that the author is having with us, their interpretation of the data. That doesn't make it The only way that's like, that's just their thought process. So, my thought process is no, I don't think it has to be a push in the ground to get horizontal force to improve.
00:07:29
Speaker
You can anchor to the ground with tremendous downward, which is also then you get your vertical, but let's talk horizontal right now. um I looked at it how most people taught us like pushing the ground and the whole mass goes forward.
00:07:43
Speaker
And then that would be all your drills. Acceleration-wise. Punch in the ground, the entire mass shoots forward. Because why? Then it's easy. F equals ma. The mass doesn't change. All you got to do is accelerate that mass. So just punch it in the ground, drive forward.
00:07:58
Speaker
But then I go like, so then india the root of the equation is acceleration. So, who says that to accelerate fast, you to punch down and back? Who says that? Now, everybody says it. I agree.
00:08:09
Speaker
But can there be a different perspective on it? And I'm like, well, actually, you're accelerating little masses along the way. You're having the the foot's rotating, boom, and then the shin, and then the thigh, boom, and then your torso is getting out front.
00:08:22
Speaker
So, to me, I'm like, it's not a single mass. We have these series of joints stacked that are accelerating fast. yeah That's producing force at the end of the day that if it's if it's we're going to go F equals MA, but it's not even that because it's
Effective Coaching Communication
00:08:34
Speaker
rotating through space. So, we got to actually look at torque.
00:08:36
Speaker
So, it's a rotational force we're looking at. um So, that's that's i'm kind of where I'm at when I look at like the research, for example, that's going to influence my program. So, I want to jump in before I keep going. Yeah, no, it's great. So, 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. We just hit over 500,000 verified speed tests inside the USR software, half a million.
00:09:04
Speaker
That's coaches all over the country testing, tracking, and proving athlete progress with this system. 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.
00:09:21
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.
00:09:33
Speaker
And this is where we were going back and forth. So research says horizontal force um is important and but in terms of the vector the the vector for acceleration.
00:09:45
Speaker
And then what you're saying is coaches hear that and they're like, okay, well, how do I create that? um i teach I teach extension. I teach pushing. I teach whatever it is.
00:09:56
Speaker
Mm-hmm. you're pushing back and saying that that is a method to it, but there there might be a better way. Mm-hmm. And a lot of times, like, where things get lost in translation and people say, oh I disagree. It's like, well, no one's disagreeing with with what we're talking about from a force vector standpoint.
00:10:15
Speaker
I think what we're talking about is what to say and what to coach. Mm-hmm. which is highly, highly unique and artistic. I mean, I've been i've been in training camps with Olympic level athletes where I disagree with what the coach is saying based on what I typically do, but it works.
00:10:34
Speaker
And I'm like, oh, dang. And that just opens you up to a level of thinking like, well, there's more than one way to achieve the same task. And a lot of times in this industry, we just follow like this person did it, so I'm going to do it.
00:10:47
Speaker
Instead of saying, okay, well, why do they do that? Maybe your population's different. You know, if you have developing athletes, you could pretty much do
Structuring Training Sessions
00:10:55
Speaker
whatever you want, say whatever you want. As long as they're training, they're getting better.
00:10:59
Speaker
So that can't be their population that you you use to prove your methods. If you have a highly elite person, you take them from 10-5 to 9-9, okay, well, that's a different story. like that's That's an elite thing.
00:11:12
Speaker
um But yeah, let's start let's go deeper on that. um So pushing is is something that's not in your vocabulary in terms of coaching. Yeah, not anymore. I mean, because like we're developing speed qualities for the day with the athletes. My language, and that's, you hit it, right? You hit the nail on the head.
00:11:31
Speaker
It's language at the end of the day. I keep getting back to that with other coaches I talk to you as well. I'm like, I'm just going to use fast words. I'm going to say that I need my actions to be fast. I can even say, yeah, i want my limb on my leg coming down to the ground fast, which we all agree on. Like, you know, angular velocity or limb velocities and things like that.
00:11:49
Speaker
So, I like using just that type of language. I don't want them to think like force, like so in the weight room strength. that they They correlate those two and I'm like, they're pushy and there's these long extension patterns.
00:12:00
Speaker
And then other things I see is like when the athletes do push, say stance leg, ah swing leg, then it's just going to hold out. it's going to It's going to cast longer. If there's a down push or the war we could flip it on its head, a lot of people go pull through on the swing leg on early ASL, on ASL in general. You got get the leg out front. It's got to get to this blocked position.
00:12:20
Speaker
Pull it through. Okay, but if you're going to pull the swing leg through, you're go to have to have it you're going to have to have stability on the stance leg to pull something through. So, you're going to be on the ground longer. now you're going to get up on your toes. Now, you see these floating positions. Things like that is what I see when I use these type of cues. Even I watch other coaches um use those kind of cues. I'm like, there's just too much ground time, length time, floating time. They're not sequencing. But the cool part is that when you go sequence, I could work on different pieces. I could be like, ah, I could just work on the ankle and foot today.
00:12:53
Speaker
Bam, that's going to improve everything. I could just work on femur rotation, boom. I could just work on the shin, but not only it has to change, but it has to ISO once it changes. So, it doesn't just like get to this magical horizontal.
00:13:06
Speaker
It can't just like, oh, I'm bare. I mean, we all know that. You you train 40s, but we also watch hundreds and 60s. It has to change and then lock. So even some of the drills, I'm like, if you're not teaching that, then then to me, there's a little bit of you're missing out. um So then my drills start to associate with some of the patterns that I see based off the mechanism. So that's why I kind of always use the word like mechanism, like what's the mechanism to get that shin to change?
00:13:32
Speaker
Well, it sequence too. I had to first go through the foot ankle, then the shin's allowed to go, then the femur's allowed to go. Now that could be like conceptually hard for athletes, but then that's where I started teaching too. that was ah That's the game changer for me. I teach in the weight room before we go under the a track or field or something like that.
00:13:50
Speaker
um So I would say that in terms of some of the horizontal, but if we to want to sidestep real quick to the vertical real quick, because that one's highly controversial. Or do you want to go to your questions?
00:14:00
Speaker
one more One more on the horizontal part. So how do you organize that in the week? Like how do you, you got a group of athletes and and like one thing that people should know is like the junior college population is extremely elite sometimes. Like there's good athletes in that group.
00:14:16
Speaker
But you also have developing athletes. Yeah. And you have a wide range. You have a lot of athletes. It's probably just you and you produce results. So how do you how do you organize that acceleration in the yeah, yeah. So, I mean, one of the things is I'm using the same language and the same types of like drills, let's say, the same program with, let's say, football the whole football team.
00:14:42
Speaker
and And like you just said, you'll be like, what? You got this 18-year-old kid who really shouldn't be playing college football. Let's be completely honest at the JUCO level. And then we got another kid who's running 23 miles an hour, which we get, by the way. Right.
00:14:53
Speaker
and People are like, bullshit. I'm like, okay, fine. then then then I believe it. I see it. Yeah, yeah. It's just they're there for a reason. Education. ah I mean, I could go into that. I know that clock. Yeah.
00:15:04
Speaker
Anyway, the point is I have the wide range. So I'm just looking at like, what is the mechanism I want to train today? So I stack my mechanisms across a program.
00:15:17
Speaker
And the coolest part is like football and soccer are two main kind of running sports that I deal with ah sprint wise. They got 15 weeks in the off season. So I can like joke hand words, slow cook them like crazy But I have a whole model.
00:15:33
Speaker
So I'm stacking one mechanism
Sprinting Mechanics and Holistic Training
00:15:35
Speaker
off of another, off of another. Like if we're going cell, I'm going teach them. just b I'm going to meet them where they're at. It's football. I'm going to say, hey, get in a football stance. And I know that's different because I train football players. I know there's DB stance. I know there's a you know linebacker stance. line and get to I know that, but I just tell them get like in a football stance.
00:15:52
Speaker
We're going to run out of that position. That's folded running. You know, squatted running, people like to call it that, but that's just learning to leverage themselves and not expand and push out. That could be level one. That's it for the day, right? Like week one or day one.
00:16:05
Speaker
and But I could do all this other stuff out of it. Like, am I curving it? Am I angling it? Am I building agility right out of it? You know, because a lot of the time straight line is limited in football, right? Maybe my outside people.
00:16:18
Speaker
my skill guys, but so I could build off of that one concept of like stay low and compact, curves, cuts, angles. ah I could have a dance out of it to go, jab steps if it's a receiver, any of that.
00:16:33
Speaker
Flip the hips to go if you're a DB. I can literally do that in the same session though. I'd be like, hey, DBs, we're working on this mechanism, low to go, but you're going to flip to go. Receivers, hey, receiver stance, you go. Limen, you know, run block to go.
00:16:46
Speaker
So I could, that's the coolest part is like once I start to develop the system was like, okay, there, but how do you get low to go? Hey, if it's from null or zero, shin angle has to change. So I'm going to teach him that. I'm going to be like, Hey, look at you drop this way. You don't just drop your chest. Cause some people will do that. If I say low to go, some athletes just drop the chest. I'm like, no, no, you got to load the system. Our load of the system is cranking the lever. The shin drops a little bit. Iso it. You get out.
00:17:12
Speaker
So that's just a like a quick way. That's already a couple of weeks of training right there alone of teaching things on top of drills. It could be all the all the starts that most of you do and everyone else does. Half mealings. If you like doing, I don't know, ladder drills, fine. I'm only doing like two or three rungs of a ladder, but then they get out into those positions.
00:17:30
Speaker
um Things like that. So what are your what are your components? You mentioned squatted running. You mentioned um yeah you mentioned the foot, the the the shin. So what are your components when you're building an acceleration model like that you have to hit?
00:17:48
Speaker
Yeah, well, those are those are the main ones, I'd say, for sure. A lot of them. I'd say they're the big rocks. But what I'm doing, though, too, is... um Before we even say sprint that day, we've got like a 90-inch flat screen in our weight room.
00:18:01
Speaker
I'm putting up presentations for that. I didn't used to do this. This is a game changer. So I'm showing them. the Heck, they're probably some of your guys that are running 40s of the combine. They're probably some of you know other people's guys and gals that are running the fast 60s and 100s. I'm literally showing them this.
00:18:18
Speaker
This is my interpretation of what they're actually doing. Boom, boom, boom. So, we literally, yeah, what is the foot doing? is it anchor How does it anchor? Because that's one of my things, right? If you could anchor to the ground, you can rotate sequentially over the top really smoothly, the ankle, the foot. So, we talk about that. But then we do something too. Maybe we're doing like an exercise in the weight room to to feel that anchor, to feel that folded position.
00:18:41
Speaker
And then we go out to the field. Hey, you just worked it. You felt that. This is the same thing I need on our sprints. Like we keep it that simple really. But um just just thinking it kind conceptually through. Your foot
Assessing Athlete Performance
00:18:53
Speaker
has to do something. so I'm go work on that. My ankle rolls. Even though we say stiff ankle, the ankle moves.
00:18:59
Speaker
So, we address that. um but has to be able to create an anchor or stability even after it moves. It does move every time. So, the the ankle stiffness thing is like that's that's a little bit of a myth, but it's just a language barrier. It's all this in my opinion because it moves and we all agree on that. But then it anchors. The shin moves. We know that. Then it anchors. The femur rotates. What does the swing leg do? i So, I teach them stance leg, swing leg, relationship of the two. Some days it's just stance leg. Hey, just feel the leg on the ground.
00:19:30
Speaker
Does it go through these rotations? Ba-ba-ba. Next week, I don't know, maybe I'm working on a swing leg mechanism. Does it fold? Hey, when you have early acceleration, by the way, your heel doesn't fold all the way up to your butt.
00:19:43
Speaker
That's okay, but it still folds so it can come through. It doesn't just sweep through, for example. So we work on that. And i I'll watch the athletes during A-cell and they're pulling their swing leg through all hip flexure base. and I'm like, too much, man. That's too muscle-driven. There's no reflex-driven there. So then we work on like...
00:20:02
Speaker
You know, what nobody else is doing, that cross-extensor reflex concept. So, we got to get off the ground fast so the swing leg comes down almost reflexively or automatically because that's the definition of cross-extensor reflex.
00:20:13
Speaker
When you and I took undergrad, we was like, that's what they taught us. nobody Nobody knew what that meant. i didn't know what that meant. had yeah Had no concept behind it. But now I'm like, if you rapidly remove your stance leg, you're either going to fall on the ground or you're going to fly in the air.
00:20:26
Speaker
We're not birds, so we're not going to fly. We're going to fall on the ground. So, what do we got to do? It's built into us. We've removed our stance leg. Our swing leg comes down rapidly, relatively free or automatic. So, I don't have to have them attack the ground aggressively all the time. I could work on removal of stance.
00:20:43
Speaker
which is, I know, very different conceptually. I know that is. But that's how we've gotten away from the punch and the drive the hammer. And um it's just been smooth for us because then it's like smooth running. We talk about that kind of stuff a lot.
00:20:57
Speaker
Yeah. so How do use how you assess? how That's it's amazing. How do you assess your athlete? the Like, do you take them through a process where you you grade these things, you look at these things, or is it more just like,
00:21:11
Speaker
subjective because like, okay, let me tell you why I'm asking. yeah So like you have an eye for it. You could see it. You could teach it. You could grow it. Let's say a developing coach comes out and they don't, they don't know. How, how do you teach them to see these things? Is is there an assessment?
00:21:27
Speaker
No, I mean, literally everything at the end of the day is like video, slow motion. But then it's like, come on, Matt, give me a break. You're going to do that with your 60 junior college football players? And it's like, no, I don't.
00:21:39
Speaker
But that's why I do the one time teaching on the board. Or I'll take though. I'll take like one of our fastest kids. You know, he's running in the 22s or something. I'll put him on my board.
00:21:49
Speaker
I'll break down. I'll be like, you know why? i don't know. Amir's running like 22 miles an hour, right, everybody? And they're like, oh, he's just fast. I'm like, yes. Look it. And then I can like i could do anything. I could screenshot.
00:22:02
Speaker
whoever, Xavier Worthy's 40. forty andbe They have so many resemblants. Look at guys, it's the same mechanisms. So I get it. It's tough. We all need the objective data. I think that's where I get lucky. I don't need as much objective data at a um at a junior college, to be honest. But I do go a cell profile and top end profile. And for us, it's that simple.
00:22:22
Speaker
So we're just going a 10 yard. And and what does that what does that look like? No, ours is so simple. So we literally, first we had free lap and now we're getting, we have, what's it called? OVR.
00:22:33
Speaker
But we're, I mean, whatever you use measure, you know, that's what I always tell people. Like if you're in a high school, you should still have something to measure. So we just went build in because there's too much noise with a one yard build in a two yard in beam, release the beam kind of stuff. So we go five to 15 is our A cell profile, 30 to 40 is our top end profile.
00:22:53
Speaker
And that corresponded great with Ken Clark's research when he looked at the combine stuff. was that a while ago now, almost 8, 10 years ago now. um So, it worked perfect. So, we get the back end of the 40. get the front end of the 40. It's football players. Then, yeah, we we used it for soccer and other athletes too, but that's what it was based off And then we could tell them,
00:23:14
Speaker
kind of like percentages where they're at related to the team. We could pull it up related to, you know, combine athletes. But that's really all we do because at the end of the day, I'm like, that's what matters to me, how fast you go from here to here.
Enhancing Max Velocity through Coordination
00:23:25
Speaker
Because it's going the strategy you use. What strategy are you going to use? We're always going to work on that. Like, all right, guys, working on this strategy did today. it sometimes it's like a challenge. I'll be like, like our soccer girls, when I told them, um like, this ah this is from the top end more, but we don't do, we did like anti-high knee running.
00:23:43
Speaker
And I explain it and they go, what the heck? And they run I'm like, this is so goofy looking the first time. And the one or two girls gets and their leg just snaps down. I'm like, hey, get over here. Show show the rest the what you look like off of that cue alone. Boom, boom, boom.
00:23:58
Speaker
So we do a lot of that kind of too, like challenge. Can you stay in a folded position if run five meters? I hope so. You play football. hope I hope so. You're a running back. I hope you can stay folded if run five meters, five yards, same thing.
00:24:10
Speaker
So I know i'm kind of all over the place, but these are all the ideas of how we yeah integrate some of the concepts. Yeah. so So you you test in the beginning, you do what you teach, and then let's say like how often are you are coming back to testing to see like progressions and all that?
00:24:29
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean the cool part is we could just have days where we're testing the front end just like an A cell profile. We could do days where we just test the back end and look for improvements in top end speeds.
00:24:42
Speaker
So every like three or four-ish weeks, We'll come to something, some kind of test. And sometimes it's just the gates are out there. We're doing a speed session for the day. All right, let's just fly through the gates at the end or at the beginning.
00:24:55
Speaker
And it's not as structured. So i know me I know a lot of people talk about that too. They do that. I just think it makes sense where there's not always like a test day. these kids anxiety all that i'm like let's just flow let's run it but i would say in general every like phase or every block for us like three to four weeks we we try to do one of the tests for sure yeah yeah okay let's dive into max velocity yeah to what uh where where do you what do you guys where you at on that what are your principles there
00:25:26
Speaker
ah So that's where it really kind of took off originally with these concepts where I was like, oh my gosh, stop getting so much hate mail and hate DMs. Okay. That's why got you on here, man. i respect I respect anyone who has their own opinion and has their own way of testing things out. trying It's the only way this industry grows. So yeah if you if you've gotten a hate mail from any of these people that are listening, i'm i'm I'm disappointed. Yeah. It's not recently, at least. Thank God. No, I think it's changing. I think the industry is starting to accept ideas too, which is good. Because I mean, if you think if we just take a step back, anything I just said, is it that radical? Not really. Like I'm sprinting guys and gals like you are. I'm doing probably lot the same sprinting concepts. I just eliminated a lot of the drills preceding it. But i just were you and I are probably doing a lot of the sprint concepts the same. Let's be honest. So it's a lot of the language like you said.
00:26:24
Speaker
Do you know my test that I did last year? Did I tell you about this? don't think. So I did – someone was like, I don't think the drills work. So I said, all right, yeah, I probably agree.
00:26:37
Speaker
So did no drills last year with my combine group. Zero, not one. The only drills that we did were – mean, we did resisted and assisted. and Okay. yeah we just We did some – That's it. But like, it was really just sprints.
00:26:52
Speaker
And when I tell you we had the same result, if not better. So then you question, if you're not questioning everything that you're doing, yeah it's purpose and why you're doing it.
00:27:04
Speaker
I'm always trying to update and figure out. Now there's some things that I'll bring back this year. Like, oh Well, you know, i actually like the wicket. Even though some people don't, I liked it. So I'm going to keep it.
00:27:16
Speaker
in And the reason why I'm keeping it is because I can see their stride pattern. It's more for me. So yeah I don't care. ah there's like a few There's a few things that I'm like attached to.
00:27:27
Speaker
right yeah ah that experiment that I did with a group of NFL combine guys and then fast forwarding to this year where we got like double the size of the group. I'm looking at like What do we actually need?
00:27:40
Speaker
And I want to talk to everybody that I can with different opinions to figure out what works for you. So, yeah, I think just going back to the beginning, i think a lot of people see things and and they don't recognize it. They send a hateful DM or a ah ah mean comment or something disrespectful.
00:27:59
Speaker
Darian blocked me. I don't know why, but I like him. Okay. So i I, I really pushed back on if you don't agree with somebody, you don't like them, you know, um, try to figure out why it works in their, in their scenario.
00:28:14
Speaker
So with that being said, let's dive into max velocity. Yeah. Not like, and like exactly what you said. That's, that's the best. And people try stuff. Like you said, you tried it and it was like, I don't know until I try it. I was the same. That's what I mean. I didn't know if any of these methods of work. ah We just went all in one year. We're like, let's try it. I'm getting inconsistent results. You might've been getting all the great results and you tried it. That's even more bold than a lot of other people. Like they wouldn't even have the balls to do that.
00:28:41
Speaker
So mine were just inconsistent results. So I had to try something new. That was my thing. I mean, yeah, but yeah, so no, exactly. I mean, a hundred percent of agree for sure on all that, all those concepts.
Vertical Forces in Sprinting
00:28:53
Speaker
The verticality. This one's this one's tricky too. you know like We both know Ken really well. um you know and um like Vertical research, obviously it's amazing because it's what pushed the industry really.
00:29:08
Speaker
I mean, that was before JB's horizontal research, if you look at it from a time chronological perspective. So all of that, I always go, that's good stuff. like We wouldn't be where we are.
00:29:19
Speaker
that's great. ah It's just, this how i kind of look at it now. So we're running, we're sprinting at a high velocity. What are we doing? We're leaving the ground, we're going in the air, and then we're coming back to the ground.
00:29:34
Speaker
Now, say you and I are running against each other and you're faster, excuse me, you're faster than me. You're traveling at a higher velocity. Your limb velocity should be higher if you're also moving faster than me.
00:29:46
Speaker
So, when we both enter the ground, not only are you moving at a higher velocity than me, your limbs are probably moving a higher velocity than me. So, we're going to impact the ground. It's like, I mean, I don't even like using this analogy but it just gets people like, whoa.
00:30:00
Speaker
Like if there's an airplane that just took off and has no speed, hits the ground, people might survive. Mid-flight going 700 miles an hour or whatever, hits the ground, that's a disaster, right? It's it's it's a tragic thing. But um so that's kind of where I'm at. It's about the impact to the ground. What kind of velocity and what kind of height are you falling from?
00:30:18
Speaker
And people go, oh, Usain Bolt was whatever, 6'5", whatever. Yeah, but he held his legs, his swing leg fold for so long and he removed, he retracted his stance leg, which invoked a reflex to snap down the swing leg.
00:30:33
Speaker
You'll see other people, the most beautiful race, the 2012 Olympics finals was for the best sprinters of all time. And some of them start to reach and Usain Bolt just keeps holding it, snaps down. And that's not his 8 race, by the way It's the nine six whatever race.
00:30:48
Speaker
but um And you just see it, like hold, he's falling from a crazy height. If you fall from a height at a tremendous velocity, you are going to get these large vertical ground reaction scores from beta.
00:31:02
Speaker
That's what it means to me now. It simply means that you're impacting the ground with tremendous velocity and you have your mass, right? But you have gravity working with you. Why? Because you're not working against gravity. You're allowing the fall to happen. Boom.
00:31:16
Speaker
Boom. But then there's more to it, right? Because then we look at that data, we go, the fastest people have that beautiful beautiful vertical spike. It's very narrow. The slow athletes have this drawn out.
00:31:27
Speaker
It looks like a flat mountain, relatively. The verticality of it. And I'm like, yeah, because their timing's off. It takes them too long to get their center mass to settle and get over the stance leg.
00:31:40
Speaker
The fastest people, they hit the ground and their center mass and their swing leg, which has mass to it, that's that second mass, right? That we know the two mass model, that's the second mass. The rest of, it's the lower leg is mass one, everything else is mass two if we just go two mass. In my opinion, there's like 30 masses to it, but two mass we'll stick with right now for this conversation.
00:31:59
Speaker
Two masses, first mass hits the ground, second mass travel is over. They can coordinate that better than you and I can, better than anybody. If they're running nine sixes, They can coordinate that action better than anybody else. Same way as Shohei Otani can coordinate 450-foot swing, crazy 110-mile-an-hour exit velocity off a bat better than you and I can. It's coordination. um It's timing and sequence. It's not just his not ability to just punch the ground with tremendous viciousness and
00:32:31
Speaker
I don't know, whatever the adjectives people are using these days, just attacking the ground. It's very coordinated. It's very sequenced. That's how i look at the verticality of those ground reaction force data now.
00:32:41
Speaker
It's an impact to the ground. So I know so that was a long-winded... It's all good. Is that something you teach? Is that technical or is that physical? So, like, is he able to hold that? is Is Bull able to hold that leg from attacking the ground because he's got...
00:32:57
Speaker
incredible eccentric strength. Is it a coordination? Is it technical? Like some of these things um in my, in my mind are physical. There's no physicality to everything if you look at it, but, um, you and I both also know, like some of our fastest athletes, they don't, they aren't the strongest.
00:33:15
Speaker
They aren't like... Yeah, I wouldn't say... ah Let's remove strength from the equation. does that yeah How you produce forces has very little to do with your ability to produce max strength.
00:33:26
Speaker
yeah But like if we talk about forces going through the hamstring, for example, at late swing, that prevents the leg from reaching out in front at 11.7 meters per second, 12 meters per second.
00:33:40
Speaker
yeah There probably is some truth to the like, well, his leg doesn't reach out in front because he has this ability to maintain something. Or is it something you can teach? Like, can I teach a yeah a week yeah a weak athlete to do this?
00:33:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, because I don't use, that's what I'm saying. When I go to speed days, I don't i don't have my weak athletes, strong athletes anymore. I just have fast athletes and then faster athletes. That's i'm saying. The language changes because that all i don't start to i' start to build in the strength wording on those speed days anymore. We eliminated that. We talk about like, like I said, to me, he's highly coordinated, but his leg, this is the crazy part. His leg is almost fully straight at top end when he's out in front.
00:34:21
Speaker
It doesn't go down. Like we got to rewatch these things again. His leg is like fully extended at the knee almost, like almost full extension at the knee. So that means he's actually not hold, hold, hold, drop.
00:34:33
Speaker
No, it's hold, hold, hold, kick out while the center mass is traveling over. And then the foot lands and he travels over that center of mass. So that now now a new base of support, which will be the new stance leg.
Misconceptions in Sprint Training
00:34:44
Speaker
but um But even to take one step back, See, this is good because this is where the conversation I think needs to go because you were just saying about front side hamstring strength essentially is what you said because you're about casting or anti-casting of the limb. Yeah, but to me go like – yeah but to me i go like So we talk about complete circles with our athletes.
00:35:06
Speaker
So to me, that's a half circle. So we already eliminated half the circle, half of the function of the leg. It starts on the backside is what I'm getting at. So let's say you're on stance leg, okay? And the stance leg, I would say slingshots, like the seamer slingshots you forward.
00:35:21
Speaker
To me, it's not a hip thrust or anything like that. Like a Uri drill doesn't have application to me because that's not the application of spring. It's more of a... seammer The shin got locked and now the femur can rotate and slingshots. What happens is that the hamstring can rapidly, bah essentially, and this a lot Darien Barr's concepts too.
00:35:39
Speaker
You got to give him props for all these ideas and it can lengthen at rapid speed. The stance leg. then it can coil up on this tremendous velocity on the backside and it shortens so fast.
00:35:51
Speaker
And I go to like some of the researchers, I'm like, where's our backside shortening velocity data? We need more of that data. We need more information. There's a decent amount, decent amount. We call it the rip phase from toe off,
00:36:02
Speaker
to basically when the thigh is parr, or the femur is like ah perpendicular with the ground. So that that that is studied. i mean, it's six, seven times body weight and and shortening velocity.
00:36:15
Speaker
um Yeah, so okay, keep going, keep going. Yeah, yeah. But i would say that's not popular. Like the the speed experts don't talk about the backside because they eliminate it most of the time. So I'm saying this is where it creates the speed on the back because it shortens reflexively almost relatively. like it the coil The coil is almost happening if you allow it to.
00:36:37
Speaker
And it's creating momentum to get to the front side to have that tremendous velocity, that limb velocity. So that's what saying. Like where is the limb velocity coming from is what I always get at. And it's like, oh, well it's on the front side.
00:36:49
Speaker
I'm ah like, so then you missed the entire backside because there has to something. Well, I disagree with that. So I think it's it is researched it a lot. um We call it forward foot speed.
00:37:00
Speaker
So Ken Clark talks a decent amount about two times your forward body mass speed is probably your foot speed coming from the backside. So from toe off, the highest speed is reached before you get to the front side, essentially.
00:37:16
Speaker
So the higher speed, you're saying? The highest speed? yeah that Yeah, like the higher speeds are are reached there. On the back. And then... Yeah, on the back. Exactly. From the back to on the way to the front. Perfect. but then But then you have to slow the foot speed down when you get to the front side. So if you if you can't rapidly contract eccentrically, the foot's going to land further out in front.
00:37:38
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And no matter how, you know, we could we could argue how do you build that, but that that is what happens. You're getting, I run 20 miles per hour, i could have my ford foot speed from toe-off be almost 40 miles per hour. And it' it's moving, it's fast, it's swinging through fast.
00:37:58
Speaker
And then what is the question? Like, There's athletes that could do that really well, but don't have the the supportive mechanism on the front side to do it. But it's all one together in my mind.
00:38:11
Speaker
Quick pause here. i want to talk about the universal speed rating. 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.
00:38:23
Speaker
One of the reasons why we built USR was to take some of this stress off the table. 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.
00:38:40
Speaker
Schedule a free consult consulte and see how the USR can help. Yeah, yeah. No, i I mean, I agree. But then I would say, how come all these drills are get to the front side as fast as you can to eliminate backside drills out there? They're being taught to maybe not your combine guys, let's say, but they're being taught to high school track coaches. They're being taught to people like me.
00:38:58
Speaker
Why are we have so many drills that are just get to the front fast and get it to it high? Who cares what happens on the back? Why are those drills being disseminated? I think it's stupid. So like most of the drills you see in the world are flexion based.
00:39:13
Speaker
Right, right. we What you're saying is not too different than what Stu and Dan Path have said is that flexion is a reflexive action and not very not very important to teach the way we teach it. So every A drill that I've ever done is a waste of time.
Innovative Sprint Training Strategies
00:39:30
Speaker
I mean, there's parts of it that i that i that I enjoy with the kids and it buys time and it teaches certain things and whatever. Flexion-based drills are a waste of time. or what isn't but What creates the forward foot speed, it probably has more to do with what happens from the extension side. Yeah. So um you've talked a little bit about foot ground interaction. So how that foot impacts the ground. And then the next part of the cycle is what happens on the ground, which is extension.
00:39:59
Speaker
So it's ah and that that is the whole extension cycle. So the leg coming back down to the ground, early extension. And then we have like a late extension coming out the back.
00:40:09
Speaker
um which creates the reflexive forward foot speed and and front side action. Now, I don't disagree. I think flexion-based drills are a waste of time.
00:40:20
Speaker
um I think that Most of us focus on the front side of things because it's it's visible and it's it's easy. But what creates the speed is how they manage that extension and how they manage their early flexion.
00:40:35
Speaker
The early flexion is going to cause the late flexion get to the top and then the early extension so it's all it's all one and uh we hyper focus on the front side of it but yeah i agree yeah yeah for sure that's what saying that's what people don't get is like i was like oh i guarantee we're gonna agree on most things and not and it would be like no way you're just i'm like well no because there's only running is running how can you like how can you disagree on too many running things when it's running yeah but that's why i laugh sometimes and i'm like people get on
00:41:07
Speaker
um But then there will, but like I said, some of the information that's being disseminated on different sources around the world are like, I'm like, why you do so much frontside like you just said? And it's like, yeah I get it. You can see it. You can feel the frontside. You can manipulate it during drills. I get it. I get it.
00:41:24
Speaker
And even you made a perfect point was like, Some of us are attached to things. Like I'm attached to certain concepts. You're attached to certain concepts. We all are. So it's like, oh, I like doing this. This is cool for my athletes because i I'm attached to that concept and I know it well.
00:41:37
Speaker
So it's fun for me. If it's fun for me, I'm going to be like, yeah, going to be excited. My athletes get excited. So I mean, it's coaching 101 too. So that's what i tell people too. Yeah. As long as you know, it doesn't make people faster. If you get better at ASKIP, it doesn't make you run faster.
00:41:53
Speaker
Period. Yeah. That's it. That's what we like. i think some of us have to just put that information out so more and more. This conversation we just had these last two minutes, like you can do them, but sometimes I'm not going to lie to you.
00:42:05
Speaker
Like you just said, I got to just like kill five minutes today. Like I'm like, all right. So then I'm going but most of the time now is where I started eliminating the drills when I want to kill time. And now we'll like, we'll do a kind of reaction game.
00:42:18
Speaker
We'll do a lot more like perception, a lot more perception reaction stuff. And that becomes very fun for them because it's interactive with teammates. So I think that's what the other part, I think when I was DMing you originally was time is a constraint.
00:42:31
Speaker
So if I'm going to, if I'm going to value my time and my athletes time and go like, Hey, 15 minutes of these drills, Or I cut them out and now i got 15 minutes for you to do perception action coupling type of drills where you're visually seeing your opponent open their hips. You know it's time to attack or you could pull back or you know how to like swivel. I mean, even your offensive lineman, but you know how to get off and slip your hips because somebody's edge rush is coming at you.
00:42:55
Speaker
I'm like, I think that's having more bang for their buck, you know, than me doing the ace skips and stuff. And that's why I went to that. really Yeah. Yeah. on the rest That was what it was. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you you have, um I think what happens is is when people think speed, um it's very hard to coach someone to run fast. Like, i mean, it's not hard to coach someone to 22 miles per hour It's very hard to coach someone to 24, 25.
00:43:24
Speaker
um and And you could pretty much do anything to get someone to run. i mean, I think most most high school kids like with the right training, right at right time, could run ten eight in the 100.
00:43:38
Speaker
I think most kids. i think a so like And obviously, like that that means if they're the right body weight and all that. But like I've seen kids that are very average run 10-8. um it's not necessarily very, very, very difficult to do. it I think it's extremely difficult to get 10-5 and even harder to get 10-3,
00:44:00
Speaker
So like what works for each age group is is very different and and what works for each level. So in the beginning, you could do whatever you want. I could do, hey we're doing stadiums.
00:44:11
Speaker
We're doing two-mile runs and shoot, they all might end up getting faster. When get to a certain level, you can't do that. So like my, my thing is um now like kind of question back to you is like, what are those things we talked about flexion based drills?
00:44:31
Speaker
Doesn't make sense. What are the things you see in the industry that just don't make any sense from an improvement standpoint that might be working because of their population and who they have?
00:44:42
Speaker
But what are those things you think are just a waste of time? Oh, I mean, definitely the drills. But I would say this too. But even again, just the researchers came out with that, that ah track athletes versus team sport athletes. That's what we got to distinguish too in our head.
00:44:58
Speaker
Now, it's very tricky because then you're getting paid to train people to perform in the combine. I'm just doing paid people getting paid only for people to perform on Friday night, Saturday night, Tuesday night when they play game.
00:45:10
Speaker
um So, I don't need tremendous front side height on my leg drive. So, that's what I see. I see so much, again, it's kind of back to, we already discussed it, but when we're running more upright,
00:45:24
Speaker
We've had tremendous success. And this hasn't even really been put out there much. But two years ago in the 100 meters NCAA, this guy named Louis Hinchless won the 100 meters. He came out of nowhere.
00:45:35
Speaker
But he didn't come out of nowhere because I had worked with him for two years to get to that point. He was at Washington State. Then he went to Houston. He was with Carl Lewis for that year at Houston.
Feedback and Adaptive Coaching
00:45:45
Speaker
doing traditional track drills and i'm not saying anything bad right now because i don't want to get into any of that kind of stuff i'm just saying the facts what he worked with every single time we communicated it was this where he dominated was his top end speed okay that's how he dominated the race right he won the ncaa championship ran a nine nine something and he's the guy who came to me at 10 three by the way um
00:46:12
Speaker
Your limb speed, like we've mentioned, has to be extremely fast, but then there has to be some kind of breaking or stopping. Otherwise, what? Your your legs just keep traveling forward? So what we do is we put like a block, and that's no different than jumping block, like you block your arms to jump up or things like that.
00:46:29
Speaker
And blocking and track and field is very common, but i don't know if it's used A appropriately or B enough. So, it was when the block, the swing leg thigh. And all of a sudden, this intentional thigh block at one point would reflexively snap down that swing leg. Boom.
00:46:46
Speaker
So, what I'm saying is this. People are teaching front side, front side, front side. They don't realize you got to get that leg back down. So, what they they do realize. So, they go, go to front side and then punch it down. Go to front side, punch it down. I'm going like speed to the front. We block it. It comes down reflexively. Next step and you go.
00:47:05
Speaker
It works tremendous team sport athletes because they don't want to get front high side. The research already shows us that. A. B, we think in our mind track athletes like the the most beautiful images of the athletes where they get this high knee lift. I'm like, yeah, because they it happens every to everybody because you're leaving the ground so you can exchange your limbs.
00:47:24
Speaker
i mean you're going to leave the ground. You're getting toe off on the stance leg and you're going to come relatively up. There's a trajectory upward. It's already there. It's built into the system. I don't need to go extra high knee lift. So we do the opposite.
00:47:37
Speaker
ah We do blocking drills. um Game changer. Yeah. For one of the topics, I'd say. Yeah. it's It's interesting to hear you talk about it because you're just saying what I'm saying in a different way. So...
00:47:51
Speaker
um When you look at the best sprinters in the world, the best, like fastest people in the world, they have about 75 degrees of flexion. So front side, about 75, which is very different from what most people assume, which is 90. And then the best people in the world also have about 105, 102 105 degrees of range of motion between the thighs.
00:48:15
Speaker
So if you hypothetically were to to build a model with a 90 degree flexion, well, that leaves 10 in the back. So eliminates the extension. So a lot of times what we're talking about, we're saying like the the backside's important.
00:48:30
Speaker
we're We're really saying extension's important at every level of the run. at If you're running 100 meters, running a 60, you're running a 40, 20, 10. Extension's very important because it's it's what causes propulsion.
00:48:43
Speaker
Extension is is a more reflexive action than people realize. And then ah the early flexion is more reflexive than people realize. So what do you control? And you you talked about it is how you impact the ground and and all that.
00:48:57
Speaker
um So based on that model, and Ken Clark talks a lot about this, like if you are attempting to get a high frontside, you're interrupting the entire process and you're you're causing an early um end to your extension where you don't get the reflexive action on the backside.
00:49:17
Speaker
So which means you have to muscle through it, which means then you have to try to raise it up and then put it back down. So running becomes a very I would say front brain activity when it's primarily reflexive.
00:49:30
Speaker
um So maybe like, yeah, I mean, it everything that you said, i I don't disagree with. I would say, what are the things that you teach to teach that early blocking?
00:49:42
Speaker
Or is it? No, it's that sometimes. So it becomes like a timing issue. So that's the fun part, like the challenge of the day. Say you and I are going out and sprinting together. Because I do. I sprint every week. Myself and my assistant coach, Nick, we sprint. We try this stuff.
00:49:56
Speaker
We're like, hey, today we're going to run further so we can get a little more upright, which is common sense, obviously, um to kind of extend our sprint out. But let's play around with where we block our swing leg.
00:50:09
Speaker
Because it's the know that that's a timing issue. That's all it is. So it's not it's not going to be a strength issue. I'm not going to talk about strength of people. but Because if you leverage it correctly, strength won't really be the inner interference or the like helper. They'll just come reflexively.
00:50:25
Speaker
So we could do that. We could be like, hey, let's stop early. Let's stop at late. Let's see what happens. Oh, when do I get, I mean, when do I get my best scores? We're gonna have our timing gates out. If you and I go sprint on Sunday together, we're have the timing gates out anyway the whole time. we're At least it's gonna give us an indication of something. Okay, well, that was crazy bad. I mean, I was blocking way too late. I just
Developing Coordination and Technique
00:50:44
Speaker
floated in the air. You'll start to feel those things.
00:50:46
Speaker
So it almost becomes like challenges I do, like I said, for the athletes sometimes. Instead of like just, you have to do this, I'm gonna teach it this way. I'm like, no, these are concepts. This is the mechanism in place. But another mechanism to correspond to that, I would say, would be removal of the stance leg with some sort of like intention, right? Because removal of the stance leg, withdrawal, it's a reflex, a withdrawal reflex. And we're starting to correspond that reflex with some thigh blocking, right?
00:51:17
Speaker
that swing leg is going to come down with even greater velocity, kind of like you just said, um subconsciously or not as intentional. It's going to be almost, boom, flexible in nature. So we would do those. Does that cause ah too early of an extension if you remove the leg?
00:51:34
Speaker
Yeah, but remember, like, what? We're not the fastest of the world, but we're still going to be on the ground for tenth of a second. So, how are you going to, you know, so what am I going to going to go to point. I'm going to lose a hundredth of a second at the most. No, like, so I think it's all when you tell your brain to do it, though, too.
00:51:51
Speaker
This is a secret that we're starting to realize. say Say I tell you to punch the ground, and this could still work too, by the way. I just have to know when you got to punch the ground. If I tell you to punch the ground and your foot's on the ground, game over, it's too late.
00:52:03
Speaker
Long extension patterns, foot's on the ground too long. But if I told you to punch the ground, earlier, it might work. So now we have coaches out there saying things like that, punch the ground. But this athlete, athlete A, they interpret it as punch the ground early. Athlete B, they don't punch the ground until they feel the ground.
00:52:22
Speaker
So now you have two different responses with the same cue, for example. That's just an example. so And do you do you think that that, like, for example, if I... Were to find a reactive athlete.
00:52:34
Speaker
So somebody had a higher RSI reactive and had a non-reactive athlete. Do you think they're consciously doing that or do you think that that's based around their system that they've they they physically have?
00:52:45
Speaker
yeah i think of all this is like, I don't know. I mean, ask your athletes how aware they are when they're pushing at what phase in the ground. They're going to say something. They don't know at all. That's what saying. Exactly. Exactly. That's what people don't get. They're like, they see somebody in the Olympics running nine eights and they're like, I know this person knows exactly what they're doing. I'm like, really?
00:53:05
Speaker
You think so? yeah No, a lot of it's feel. It's feel. like So if we can get athletes... That's why i always ask them. i'm like, hey, when did you feel it? Did you feel the ground early? Did you feel the ground late? Like, we're just having conversations a lot now, which we didn't used to have.
00:53:19
Speaker
these Those type educational conversation, which is cool. Then I yeah like i can get somewhere with it. um But then that can be a whole Max Velocity day. It's like playing with that concept, playing with how quickly you remove the stance leg, how quickly you...
00:53:34
Speaker
Do something with your swing leg, the timing. So, that's what we that's what we do essentially. Like, let's work on the timing of this today, timing of that. What happens if you really work on folding fast on the backside? Oh, it's too conscious. It's too slow actually. Okay, let's try to maybe like remove the stance leg faster. Oh, that came up more naturally. You didn't have to consciously flex the back leg. It almost like twof folded on its own. Like, those are the kind of conversations that Yes, I know people are like, the oh, bullshit, because you're at junior college, how can you be doing that with them? And it's like, no, it's it's pretty natural now, honestly. Like, we just have fun with it more now. Like, like it's like we're playing a game all the time. i'm Like, hey, how well can we get your body to move in these segments?
00:54:14
Speaker
without just punching the ground. And that's all that, that's how it started originally. So, um, this is a bad, uh, but do you remember pose running became like a really, um, yeah really like sexy thing in the industry. And it was like, yeah,
00:54:32
Speaker
I don't know how it came about, but somebody was like, well, what if you think about it in this way? and And people loved it, and it was it was great. um I'm not saying that, I'm not drawing a comparison exactly, but I think what you what you're doing is you're thinking about the running cycle, and then other ways to achieve the same. The data is the same. Like we all know the data on how people run.
00:54:56
Speaker
um There's just different ways to consciously create that and think about it and develop it. um I'm going more towards like now that i'm I'm teaching like different ranges of people and I've tested things out, I found that the lowest correlation to make your people faster is actually me.
00:55:18
Speaker
I'm i'm the the least like you meaning like my voice is the least impactful thing. I've found that developing physical qualities for people.
00:55:29
Speaker
you're not springing, you're not fast. If you're 275 pounds, you're not fast. Like there's there's some absolutes to this. um There's ways to develop reactivity. There's ways to develop the ability to have a stiffer ankle or more compliant ankle or stiffer knee or whatever it is.
00:55:46
Speaker
Um, and I've, I've kind of gone more towards that side, but then also there is a conscious part of it. And the conscious part of it kind of is, uh, I think about like the coordination. So like, for example,
00:56:02
Speaker
My daughter is flexible. She's strong. he's She can do all these things. She can't do a backflip. Well, why can't she do a backflip? Well, it's a highly skilled technical thing that you have to practice. You have to learn. You have to get that technique and you go through the stages. And what you're doing is you've put those stages Like these are my key big rocks that I'm going to teach and focus on.
00:56:30
Speaker
And I'm going to make them conscious until they're unconscious because you're dealing with guys that are not Usain Bolt. Like Usain Bolt, if you coached him, you would probably just say run from here to here and say nothing.
00:56:43
Speaker
i would I would probably assume if if he's running nine, five, whatever.
Personalized Training Approaches
00:56:48
Speaker
you're not really telling Usain Bolt much. um But when you get a average kid that played JV until junior year that had a growth spurt that has been on his phone for 10 years, like you probably are teaching something.
00:57:02
Speaker
And that's and that that's also okay. So um we're reaching the end here, but I just wanted to kind of like get your ideas on... the development model for athletes.
00:57:16
Speaker
What's the main thing, if an athlete's listening, what's the main thing they should start doing right now? Ooh, yeah, that's a loaded question. I would say it still would come back to that a little bit. Like you're a young athlete, what sport do you play?
00:57:31
Speaker
What position are you? So we just pick a sport, like, don't know, I'm a wide receiver, I play like football, I'm 11 years old. Cool. Who do you wanna be like? How do they, now now watch their film, how do they run?
00:57:43
Speaker
What do they do when they run? How do they get and out of breaks? Because the visualization is huge in my opinion too. And and kids wanna mimic somebody always. So, I think that's why we started to have success too. I'm literally just putting videos up of fast people, different sizes, shapes and I'm like, look it, different size, shape but that this say ankle always does the same thing. This this femur does the same thing always.
00:58:07
Speaker
So, now kids won't do that but they will go on. That's why I mentioned this. They will, like you said too, they're going to be on the phone all day. Find the right resources. Find people that are moving fast and just watch them because I asked my college athletes, I'm like, you really watch Like basketball team, do you really watch them move or do you just watch the end product? Like, hey, he scored. Are you watching how this foot picks up? There's a false step. There's a drop step to go. The shin drops on the false step. Did you see that?
00:58:32
Speaker
And they're like, oh, I kind of, not really, but now I will. And it's like, shoot, yeah, let's start watching how these athletes move in space. Try to replicate that, I would say. Yeah. you know, and then and just not getting kids into overly technical models because like we've just agreed on a lot of it. Some of the technical technical models are all over the place, you know, like let's let it move a little more freely with some basic structure.
00:58:56
Speaker
good Yeah, no, I like it. Do you think that like, for example, I'm i'm five eleven and you meet someone who's 6'3. Yeah, like that's me. We run different.
00:59:08
Speaker
We run different. Probably. You're 5'11", I'm 6'3". That's like Nick and I, my assistant, we have all the videos up online. We run different for sure. But like the coolest part is when we go to train together, because he's built more like you, like you're stockier, right? And I'm called mean. Yeah.
00:59:25
Speaker
we The same day, we'll be like, hey, we're both going to work on um anchoring to the ground or we're both going to work on stopping too much shin angle change because we're getting too much almost casting of the shin. Nobody talks about that. But like we're like, whoa, we just keep falling to the ground. like We didn't stop our fall today essentially.
00:59:43
Speaker
And even though I'm 6'3", 220, and he's 5'11", same thing, 215, 220, we're both doing the same mechanism. That's what I keep trying to say to people. like That's why I can train my linemen who are 300 and my skinny baby giraffe junior college football kid that's 170. I could train them with the same sprint program for that day based off a mechanism. They're going to exhibit different movement.
01:00:09
Speaker
But they couldn't have the same intentionality, I think. That's where I'm getting at. yeah blow So I think you and I could train the same day and do the same exact thing, to be honest. We would just start to tweak things. Once we realized, you're like, nah, I'm a stronger guy than you, man. I can do this better. I'm like, good. yeah We're both working on this. I'm like, I'm tall and long. I can maybe get out a little more than you can.
01:00:28
Speaker
Cool. I'm going to use that to my advantage. But we're still both doing this. So that's how I kind of look at it now, to be honest. I love it. Well, I'm going to come up there and try some stuff out with you.
01:00:40
Speaker
and yeah Yeah. I mean, LA, San Diego, same thing. I go down yeah to San Diego too all the time. So yeah. Yeah. We do our draft training in Santa Ana. Oh, there you go. yeah And and i'm at I'm at Red Bull frequently.
01:00:52
Speaker
There you go. I'm at Santa Monica College. at this Yeah. So we'll link up. I appreciate you, man. And again, like i I genuinely respect you. and And I love that you had a ah different opinion. Darian, I invited him on too. He has me blocked. You have my number. I'll talk to him. I don't, I don't hide from smoke.
01:01:13
Speaker
I don't hide from conversation. um I have respect for anybody that's trying to help people. I don't, I don't, I don't look at this from a competitive standpoint. i don't do this like from a money standpoint, none of that. Like it, it's a passion of mine and.
01:01:29
Speaker
I love hearing different opinions because you said a lot of things that I agree with. And I think most people will agree with you just looking at it from a different angle, which helps me and helps kids. So let's just keep working, man. And let's talk soon.
01:01:43
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Awesome. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. It was good. It's good to these conversations. I think that's what people need anyways, like to push it forward. You know, if it's here and then it comes to here, that's of the name of the game. I'm out about the echo chambers. i don't want I don't want people to come on here and say what everything that I do. I want people to come on here and say, I disagree. I challenge this. I think about it this way. Like, cool. I love that. So let's keep talking, bro. Yeah. Awesome. Perfect. Thanks so man. Awesome.