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Eccentric Loading and Sprint Mechanics for Long Term Athlete Development: Colby Wartman, Origin Performance
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Episode 21 – Eccentric Loading, Sprint Mechanics & Building Athletes That Last | ft. Colby Wortman
Guest host Darren Hansen sits down with Colby Wartman, Speed Lab Director and owner of Origin Performance in Dickinson, ND. Colby shares his personal journey through addiction and sobriety, the mentorship that shaped his coaching philosophy, and how eccentric loading has become the foundation of his athlete development system. From the TreadMetrics leg press to resisted runs and depth jumps, Colby breaks down the tools and methods behind his results — plus a candid conversation on youth athlete burnout and what college coaches are really looking for today.
Timestamps
- 0:00 – Intro & Hero/Hardship/Highlight
- 3:07 – Colby's background & new facility build
- 5:40 – Eccentric loading philosophy & Coach Pete Leno
- 11:55 – TreadMetrics eccentric leg press deep dive
- 19:47 – Recovery, programming frequency & in-season management
- 22:05 – Youth athlete overload & burnout
- 29:23 – Sprint mechanics: negative foot speed & ground attack cues
- 36:35 – Colby's core training toolkit
- 38:27 – Simplifying speed development for coaches
- 41:13 – Shifting to a speed-first program
- 43:40 – What college coaches actually want from athletes
- 44:53 – Where to find Colby & wrap up
If you are interested in getting connected with Colby, Darren, and 200+ private facilities in the country - see if your facility is a fit for the Speed Lab Partnership: https://universalspeedrating.com/learn-more-partner-with-universal-speed-rating-speed-lab-podcast
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Transcript
Introduction of Substitute Host and Guest
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of the Speed Lab podcast. This is Darren Hanson. This is your substitute podcast host. This is like my third week in a row, but at some point, less is coming back. Don't worry, guys.
00:00:16
Speaker
um Today, we've got Colby Wartman, also a Speed Lab director in the USR network here on the call. Super excited to have Colby. I've you know known Colby for, I don't know, five, six years now. And we've kind of got into this whole Speed Lab thing together over time and have an ah awesome opportunity to connect and and always work on
Colby's Journey: Heroes and Sobriety
00:00:38
Speaker
things. So um we'll kick it off, Colby, with the the hero, hardship, and highlight. So give us your hero.
00:00:45
Speaker
Yeah, man. um Thanks for having me, number one. Number two, ah you got plenty of heroes and it's it's definitely hard to choose. But um I have a story that has really defined my life through addiction and through a lot of things. And I know he hears it all the time, but he can't hear it enough. ah My hero would definitely be my college football coach, Coach Stanton. Yeah.
00:01:07
Speaker
treated me as a human when he has 150 other athletes to, uh, to abide to and got me through, one of the hardest times of my life through addiction to opiates and, um, being an all conference football player. So he he, he, just like us as coaches, he doesn't understand the scope of the impact that we have. Um, he has no idea, but, um, I think he can, I'll keep saying it till I'm blue in the face. The guy saved my life. So he's definitely my hero.
00:01:34
Speaker
I love that. And then hardship, are you going alluded to it or maybe there's something else you want to share? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, two major pivotal hardships in my life, uh, through, through addiction, um, had, I'm 10 years sober this year and the, just getting through that portion was super, super difficult, but now into another hardship that, um, Alex Ramosi talks about it, which is my favorite. He's, uh,
00:02:00
Speaker
um what would you, what kind of life would you give somebody if you want them to be persistent? And what type of life do you want to give somebody if you want them to be consistent, give them a really hard life?
00:02:10
Speaker
Um, so right now, just transitioning from being a smaller, uh, uh, version of a speed lab into this brand new building is is the big thing. Just transitioning from where I'm at to where we're going. We have a brand new facility that will be done around April 1st, the first week April. And the growing pains, the anxiousness, the sleepless nights, the finances, all that stuff. That's definitely what we're going through right now. Love it. And then highlight.
00:02:40
Speaker
The other edge of the sword, dude, uh, growing, getting kids, having impact, uh, all that stuff is huge, dude. And you, you know, this, you've been doing it even longer than I have. Like, we don't understand our impact that we have until one day we wake up and it's like, holy crap. And you could think about, this is kind of morbid, but you think about your funeral and how many, how many people are going to be in that room. Like, that's why we coach. And that would be my highlight.
00:03:06
Speaker
Love it. Yeah. Awesome. Give us a little bit more info on this new facility you got going
Career Evolution and Facility Development
00:03:12
Speaker
on. Like, give it like you know, what have been doing the last bit? Where's your facility at? What kind of athletes do you train? Let's dig into it Yeah, man. um It's evolved. I've had a pretty cool route. So um in 2016, started out at a ah at a big box community center training Uncle Joe with the hip replacement and Aunt Susie that has diabetes um all the way through training a couple athletes and then going to a private facility, paying rent in a 25 by 25 square foot room and ah building it from there. That's where like
00:03:46
Speaker
The very first origins of my athletes that are now second, third, fourth year in college started. And then from there, going into a partnership, owning a gym that ah great people, great trainers, not great business people, and made that jump in that distinction there in December 2025.
00:04:08
Speaker
And then a full calendar year later, we go through, we scale a little bit, and now we're building a brand new facility. So ah the the thoughts of like being over your skis is always a yeah is always a term, but it's it's it's coming quick. So we have where we're at right now, and then the brand new build will be done March 15th through the 31st, grand opening around the first couple weeks of April. And we're going from 50 by 30 square foot um facility into 110 by 40 with a balcony and all, all the good stuff, reinforced walls for med balls and enough sprinting space that we can do max V all year round. So it's a, it's a huge blessing and just have to go through the growing pains to get into it.
00:04:55
Speaker
Yeah. And that's a, but that's a big deal in the Dakotas to be able to sprint inside year round. Yeah. it's it's I mean, now this winter, it's i mean it's it's wild, but most winters, it should be about negative 30 right now.
00:05:09
Speaker
Absolutely.
Eccentric Loading in Sprinting
00:05:11
Speaker
Awesome. So the the topic today we're going to kick off on, you know, we talked a little bit about eccentric loading, eccentrics, how how that plays in sprinting.
00:05:20
Speaker
um You've got a pretty interesting... A mentor that you've had and and a background on being able to gain some knowledge ah in this aspect of the eccentrics. um let Let's dive into that. why Give us a little brief overview of of what that looks like, how how you were able to gather a lot of information on it and and whatnot.
00:05:40
Speaker
Yeah, man. Just like ah your college experience and my college experience, it's kind of molded us into what we are today. And ah Coach Pete Leno is the individual that I'm talking about. He he had no business, no business being at an NAI Division II school. This guy should have been a sports scientist for a professional team or a at least a Division I team. He early on ah back in the late, late 90s, early 2000s, a company called Athletic Republic popped up.
00:06:14
Speaker
And Athletic Republic was this company that was definitely ahead of its time. So they kind look like Charlton and were kind of exiled and thought of this new school thing that's not going to work.
00:06:24
Speaker
And come to find out, we fast forward 20 years, 25, 30 years, and it's all the stuff that Speed Labs and USR and all the people that are on the cutting edge are talking about.
00:06:36
Speaker
And so at this time, he was ahead of his time. And it's it's unfortunate because in today's world, he would be he would be ah one of the best coaches there is. And so he found himself at Dickinson State. And at that point in the late 90s, early 2000s, we had a very dominant on the national level football team. And we had a very dominant track team.
00:06:58
Speaker
And at that point, there was a lot of recruiting out of country and doing things that most most small schools wouldn't do. And we we got a hold of ah a couple of Bohemians that came in from the Bahamas and ah They were studs. I mean, they had zero business being at DSU. Obviously, everything was paid for and all that stuff. But that was the start of what built my mentorship throughout my undergraduate and graduate degree and what built the system for bringing home an Olympic gold medal on the four by one.
00:07:36
Speaker
And so then you go full circle and those individuals stayed here and I got to train their daughters who were both high, high level. um One of them has, I believe, the third highest mark in division one all the way through division two and her jumps in the country. And the other one is just going to school right now. So it was a really cool, um really cool experience that I shouldn't have got, to be honest. So I can dive into like the the specifics on the eccentric side if you'd like.
00:08:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think let's talk a little bit about, because we're going to get into and we want the listeners to start to grasp, right, if you're coach or an athlete listening, and a lot of coaches know this, but the the ability ah to absorb eccentric forces is probably one of the most separating factors when it comes to speed development. Like when you see an athlete,
00:08:28
Speaker
know, the ones that can handle the load eccentrically effectively are likely faster than even your strongest kids on the the squad or the deadlift or your traditional movements you think about in the gym. So we'd love to hear more on, yeah, eccentrics, how you implement them, you know, your thoughts on them when it comes to developing sprint speed.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah, man. Ryan talked about it very, very well. And I always take the yoga example, right? Like you get a yoga person, gal, guy that has done yoga their whole life and you get them under a barbell and they crumble.
00:09:00
Speaker
And that all comes down to our eccentric side. And Coach Pete Leno talked about that. And I didn't understand and grasp it at the time. um But going full circle, having them on my podcast, training thousands of athletes, you understand that Yes, there's other pieces to the puzzle, but if they don't have that prerequisite of eccentric strength to handle the forces that they're going through, nothing else matters.
00:09:22
Speaker
Like really nothing else matters. So his big thing that molded my perspective is that there's no forces. that can mimic a full speed fast as you can sprint other than sprinting. You can get close with a lot of other stuff, but he always looked at all other implements outside of speed as just a tool. And he he had he went on this whole other end where it's like,
00:09:49
Speaker
Why am I even using the barbell? Why am I even using the dumbbell? Why am I doing these things? And i I understand it, but I believe that they're still a pivotal portion. I still believe that you need maximal strength. I still believe you need all those things.
00:10:03
Speaker
But it's something that is very intriguing because his whole concept... is our hamstrings, our quads, our knees, everything needs to be able to handle high speed eccentric loading. So when we're going sprinting up a hill, we have massive high speed eccentric loading and we can't mimic that with a lot of external forces outside of sprinting. So as you know, um some of your best athletes, whether it's 100 meter runners or basketball or volleyball, Like the people that can jump the highest usually sprint the fastest. And the people that can handle load on, say, a um any type of eccentrics usually are the dogs, right? And that, I believe, is there is a genetic ah component to that.
00:10:48
Speaker
but it can be trained and it can be trained very well. And the way we do it, um we have, ah we're very blessed to have a ah very cool tool in the eccentric leg press that we use a lot. We use tempos and we use a lot of depth jumps and jumps. That's like our way outside of the sprinting that we use those tools to ah prepare the eccentric loads for the athletes.
00:11:13
Speaker
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.
00:11:27
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.
00:11:44
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.
00:11:55
Speaker
Give us a little bit more, because these people the people listening this aren't going to have necessary access to that machine. Talk us through what that how that machine works, what it does, and then let's see if we can brainstorm even some ways.
00:12:08
Speaker
i don't even know if you can replicate it, but we'll see. It's interesting. ah So this is it's called a tread. The tread metrics is the company. um It's a it's a eccentrically loaded leg press. There's no weight involved. It all pulls electricity. So if we're doing the cool thing that we use them for mainly is isometrics and ah overloaded eccentrics. So. When we're doing our isometric setups, we can do double leg, we can do single leg, and then it gives a proper data so we can see progression over time. And so in our assessment process, we have our sprint assessment, we have our movement assessment, we have all that. But the thing that we have implemented in the last seven months.
00:12:50
Speaker
is a leg press assessment. So they go through and they'll do a double leg ISO and then they'll do a single leg ISO, giving us a metric of peak force, rate of force development, all that stuff. And then we go through the high speed.
00:13:02
Speaker
You can do it high speed or low speed, but eccentric loading. So this leg press, it moves out and you're pushing against it as it goes out concentrically. And then it goes on the way in, no matter how hard you push it's moving. So you have to fight against it on the way in. It registers that force concentrically, eccentrically, and isometrically, and then spits out data for us.
00:13:23
Speaker
And so as a coach that doesn't have access to that, because nobody should, I shouldn't have access to it to be completely frank. Um, I think the best way that I know of, and I want to hear you talk about it too, is progressing heights of depth jumps and intensity of depth jumps. That's what I've used. And I can always sharpen the toolbox and really want to sharpen the toolbox. So um what are some of the things that you're doing that are really focusing on the high-speed eccentric outside of sprinting?
Challenges for Young Athletes
00:13:55
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's, yeah. And like, that's the lame, like for us, most most people listening to this, most facilities, that's probably your best way, right? you're You're doing, you're using gravity, you're using height, dropping off something to create that high speed eccentric loading.
00:14:11
Speaker
um Obviously, for the you can scale right with either load or height of the box. You can add intensity, dumbbells, kettlebells, whatever. So that is probably the best way for most people listening to this.
00:14:24
Speaker
you know Other ways on the weight room side to do more of that that slower or low speed would be weight releasers, which... you know, are still a little of a barrier to get into, but, and they're intensive on time and equipment, but those weight releasers are a way you can do it in the weight room. If you're working with smaller populations of athletes, um, I wanted to highlight a couple of things from like, I think it's so cool that you can use that machine. Like with our ISOs, like for us, we don't, we don't have any way to really see, like get any metrics on if the athletes actually pushing as hard as they can. And, you know, is that progressing over time? Like on a, let's say an overcoming isometric, right?
00:15:02
Speaker
So it sounds like you're actually able to see you know the how much output they're putting into it during the isometric. So you can just lock them in at specific joint angles, track progress over time.
00:15:14
Speaker
yeah um That's sick. it's It's wild. And ah the data that it spits out is pretty cool. So I just made a post like two days ago or yesterday, it possibly was about the progression of that. And it has completely changed what we do.
00:15:31
Speaker
um Because if I can see one, there's a massive asymmetry issue. We need to fix that now because that's that's like the biggest indicator. So number one, if there's a peak force discrepancy between right and left, that's like our biggest indicator. Number two, then we need to increase that peak force and the rate of force development. It does do rate of force development and that's a lot coach led on this, on this piece of equipment, because I can hit the start button and I say, okay, whenever you're ready, hit it.
00:16:02
Speaker
If I don't hype that athlete up in like three, two, one, go, the rate of force development is going to be low. So as a coach, we have to be, we hit the start button and say, Hey, as soon as I say three smack it as hard as you can, that will give us a really good indicator of the rate of force development.
00:16:20
Speaker
um So we just use asymmetries, peak force and rate of force development as our main tools. And we've seen um in a so this athlete specifically in a three month period gained like 112 pounds of force on each leg on average.
00:16:36
Speaker
So he's pushing with I mean, and that's as coaches, we understand that like, okay, what does that tell us? you're going to be able to jump higher. You're going to be able to put more force into the ground and you're going to be able to absorb more force into the ground, which means you're sprinting faster. So that's the reasons we use them. And that's ah what we're trying to tell and show the athlete really.
00:16:55
Speaker
I love it. One thing you might want to get into that might be worth time is tracking, tracking that rate of force development difference like you just talked about, and then correlating that to what does that turn into in ground speed and vertical improvements? Mm-hmm.
00:17:10
Speaker
We're athletes, right? So like having an idea of like, if I can improve this by this much, typically I can expect this much of this, right? Which sounds me confusing, but yeah, you're in a cool situation for that. The ah eccentrics sound crazy. Having a tool that can force high-speed eccentrics sounds absolutely wild and potentially dangerous, but I love i love it. that's like I'm sure it's not dangerous because you can probably lock out where it stops and all those things, but...
00:17:38
Speaker
um All that's really interesting. So yeah, I find that I'm going to to get up there and check, check out that machine for sure. Yeah. It's, it's insane. So it, uh, per every single athlete, you have to measure every single athlete.
00:17:52
Speaker
They have a measurement of complete lockout, uh, which we keep flexion in the knee and, uh, then it just brings it home, dude. And no matter how hard you push, it's going to show us,
00:18:04
Speaker
the tracker on there every single time. And, uh, the only other place that has one is a PT clinic that I know of, but then the, uh, Olympic training center in park city. So all, i mean, park cities, read statistic this year in the winter Olympics, 19 to 21% of every single Olympian has ties to park city, which is wild.
00:18:25
Speaker
Um, so having said that the, uh, The loading of that, the um the ability to do that is is unheard of. And those Olympic skiers, they have a test that they have to do prior to um any type of competition. And they have to do a 30-rep concentric-eccentric test because that 30 reps takes about the same time it takes on the big ski to go from the top to the bottom.
00:18:53
Speaker
It's there too. I mean, the most I've done a six and I'm fried. So it's, it's a whole different feeling because we, we've never done anything that has overloaded the eccentrics like that. And it's, it's a whole different feeling.
00:19:05
Speaker
That's interesting. That's right. My backyard, I'll have to go down there. I've got three girls are going to go do their combine for the, they're like identifying bobsled and skeleton talent. Yeah. I see ads for that all the time. Yeah. I always send girls down. Like I sent one girl down a year ago.
00:19:22
Speaker
She's a junior in high school and she tested so high they invited her to Lake Placid. But then they're like, oh yeah, you're still in high school. yeah I'm back next year. So we're we're lucky because we can like, if kids don't quite fit traditional sports, but they're pretty physically capable. Yeah.
00:19:35
Speaker
We can have them just drive two hours down there, do the testing and see if if they're a good fit. So yeah her um on the recovery side, so you're talking about, you know, how intense this is. Like if you're going to incorporate a lot of depth jumps, um you're listening to this, you're I want to get more of this eccentric loading, high speed is ah eccentric loading.
00:19:53
Speaker
What are you finding? um in terms of like recovery with your athletes, like, are they able to recover quickly? Is there a frequency that you're doing, ah you know, so stuff focused on this? Is there a rep range that you're focusing on? Like, because I would imagine, well, i know, but for me, in my philosophy, there's definitely a way to overcook athletes with this for sure.
00:20:13
Speaker
So want to hear like, you can do way too much when it comes to this stuff. So I want to hear more about like how how often you implement what that looks like. Yeah, man. ah i Okay, I would say in the last two to three years, and I want to get your opinion on this, but the last two to three years, ah athlete schedules and athletes workload has probably tripled.
00:20:35
Speaker
um And you know what I'm saying? So like, at the end of the day, us as a small group performance facility have to make accommodations. And I i have myself doing it all the time.
00:20:47
Speaker
We have to make accommodations for all the other stressors that they're going through, whether they have school lift. In my situation, there's a ah dedicated thing to that. And we have to we have to go through all that. So,
00:21:01
Speaker
As far as like, I can take it in season, out of season. In season athletes every other week are doing overloaded eccentrics on the leg press. Other than that, I can't do it on a weekly basis because the recovery profile for that is way too steep.
00:21:16
Speaker
They're not, they can't recover quick enough. I can cut volume. We can go down to two, three reps, but the standard, the standard rep range on that thing is six. And I can, I can mimic or I can change and manipulate that. But, um, what I found for in-season athletes, especially basketball, and I train a bunch of in-season basketball athletes right now, and we'll have a ton coming on the backend.
00:21:39
Speaker
out of season. But man, they have games every single Tuesday, Thursday, and more likely Friday, Saturday. So if they're coming in on Monday, i can't fry them for Tuesday. Tuesday comes around, they're not going to come. you know like it's It's a whole shit shebang. Have you seen the multiplication of their schedules recently?
00:21:57
Speaker
Oh, I mean, yeah. You know, what's interesting is like, watched this amazing video by Kelly Starrett the other day where
00:22:07
Speaker
Athletes are now youth athletes in most cases or some cases, especially with the good ones. They're taking on demand sometimes that supersedes professional athletes in terms of the practice volume, load, ah requirements of where they need to be at a certain time.
00:22:24
Speaker
you know'll You'll have kids having three to four, we'll just say two to three on the conservative side of of sport practice or sport practice and skill work, and then strength and conditioning daily, every day throughout the week, and then tournaments on weekends. so you know Athletes will play.
00:22:42
Speaker
You know, anywhere from three usually two to three sports. And and that is year round. Like club is year round. So you're playing a sport. You're in season for basketball.
00:22:54
Speaker
Right. But you've got club volleyball stuff you're going to. You've got, you know, whatever, whatever it is. There's like soccer, or club soccer going on, too. So I have athletes that are in three sports. So a volume is super high.
00:23:05
Speaker
And what that requires is the athlete to grow up faster. And number two, if you don't have, like you as a parent, if you're putting your ah athlete into all this stuff, you all you have to almost, and I don't see this a lot, you have to become their agent, their performance manager. they you know These pro athletes have people that are taking care of all these other needs for them for recovery.
00:23:27
Speaker
And as a parent, if you're going to be like, I want you to be a collegiate professional athlete and we're going do all these sports and do all this time, you almost have to be okay with like, okay, I'm also going to be making sure you have food, your lunch prepared, your snacks prepared.
00:23:39
Speaker
I'm going to make sure that you have a massage scheduled every month. I'm going to make sure, you know, you're going to your strength and conditioning. I'm going to make sure we have some way for you to recover at home or a routine. Like you have to become like a performance manager as a parent now, honestly. Yeah.
00:23:51
Speaker
Like, cause if you don't, these, you just see it all the time. Athletes break down, they hate their sport. They're burnt out, uh, injuries, obviously. So yeah, that's a whole another like podcast for sure. Um, I think, I think in, uh, three to five or five to 10 years, we're going to have a huge problem on our hands, um, with, with how crazy youth athletics has got.
00:24:15
Speaker
it's It's so wild. Even in a small, we just recently hit like 32,000 population here in Dickinson. And ah I've just never seen it, Darren. And we when we were playing, it was play your sport, go to the gym with your buddies, hit a back and by his chest and tries, get after it, never squat, go play your sport, out of season summer, get after it. you know But the the the threshold and and the the level of athletics has been raised so much.
00:24:43
Speaker
that keep up, I truly believe, and this is not because I'm in the industry or you would probably agree with me, but I truly believe if you're not doing some type of non-skill strength and conditioning, strength and speed year round, you were behind the ball to play college athletics. 100%. Everybody's doing it.
00:24:59
Speaker
Most people are doing it that make it that level. And now with, it's almost like you're really risking, know, not only performance, but injury if you're not. Like, if you're just playing sport, um yeah, it's like a ticking time bomb.
00:25:17
Speaker
You know, in in reality. and Kids are better than ever at sport. Like, I'm not going to, like, it's they're getting better. Like, their skill is better.
00:25:28
Speaker
i mean, they're they're way better. i went and watched a basketball game the other night. I'm like, guys are way better basketball than my basketball team when I was at the same school, you know, 15 years ago. So, they're getting better. Yeah.
00:25:41
Speaker
But here's what I'll say. the the The thing that's bugging me right now is, um you know, parents are bringing their athlete in and they're 9, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, anything like pre-puberty and unhappy with their performance. Like, just, they come in and be like, oh, my kid's not this, my kid's not that, my kid's, you know, there's other kids that are way better than him at this. And I'm like, and we're doing three different sports. I'm like, nothing, Matt. Honestly, Colby, after 14 years, dude, int until you hit puberty,
00:26:11
Speaker
It doesn't matter how good you are compared to your peers. it doesn't like Until they get go through puberty, will I be able to tell you if they're actually going to be a good athlete or not? You know what I'm saying? like If they're a killer 12-year-old pitcher, that doesn't even guarantee they're going to have a spot on the high school team when everybody else – they got a mustache and they're 12 years old and they're the best pitcher on the team.
00:26:33
Speaker
no, no shit. You know, like, like but those other kids when they hit puberty and some of my late bloomers have been like my, ended up being my best athletes. Like I couldn't fricking walk one foot in front of the other and chew gum at the same time when they were 14, 15 years old. And by junior senior year, they're like freaks.
00:26:50
Speaker
yeah Right. So it's just like, there's a lot of pressure being put on these kids to do all this stuff pre-puberty. And I'm like, I'm like, man, I can't i can't really tell you. i can tell you like, oh, they're pretty good now. But until they hit puberty, it's like a lot of stuff doesn't matter. Like it should be a little bit more relaxed, more for fun.
00:27:07
Speaker
Obviously, accumulating skill work, getting better skill, building the base of strength and conditioning, speed training. But in terms of like deciding it that your sons are saying out loud in front of your kids, whether they're good at sport or not, like none of that matters until they've hit puberty.
00:27:23
Speaker
Yep. And with that's one of our bigger ah markets is the younger kids ah for what I do. And if we can just make sure they don't look like a baby giraffe when they run, we can fix arm swings, we can have them sprint and have fun and compete and then give them basic, basic strength work. Doesn't have to include a barbell. We're doing some squats for eights. We're doing whatever, teaching them how to move.
00:27:49
Speaker
That's what's setting them up very, very well. It's not that they ah can throw 10 miles an hour quicker than everybody else because awesome. You're you're doing that pre-puberty. like What's the Tommy John injury ah percentage on that? you know like You're pushing this threshold earlier.
00:28:04
Speaker
That's the problem. so we're We're doing ah these eight, seven, eight, nine-year-olds are doing what you and I did in college. yeah and and it's It's out of whack, man. and I think in five to 10 years, we're going to have a huge exodus out of sports.
00:28:19
Speaker
And these kids release that hopefully like where people are... like wella whoa we need to chill out i hope so i hope yeah we need a chill out because it's like we're hi that i think we're in the now on the head when it's like man are what you just said there our job as their strength you're seeing speed coach is to put them in the right place with the right skill set that when they physically start to adapt They are ready to move well. They are coordinated. They're well-patterned.
00:28:47
Speaker
And now we can really push the needle with their development because now now that that stage is ready, right? Because you'll get athletes all the time that come in that are super, like,
00:29:00
Speaker
gifted, but their movement and their ability their ability to control their body is very low. And it's like, man, if I could have got you five years ago and everything was already in place before all of this development happened,
00:29:15
Speaker
I mean, that's the difference between, you know, a D2 and AIA and D1 right now. yeah and Like just having all those things in place and then having the right body type after you go through puberty. So that's awesome. no I, yeah, I think that's important for people to hear.
00:29:31
Speaker
um And I just got my brain spinning too, like taking it back to some of the people listening to the podcast. Like when it comes to the sprinting, we talk about eccentrics, for you guys to visualize it, you know, when when that athlete drives that knee forward, right, in their sprinting mechanic, where they have to be really strong eccentrically is to be able to stop that leg first,
Eccentric Strength in Sprinting Mechanics
00:29:53
Speaker
right? Stop that leg as it goes forward and get it to attack back into the ground and then deal with forces upon the braking. So that's where a lot of the eccentric part happens.
00:30:02
Speaker
And... So that's really what separates my my fastest athletes and my athletes with the best technique in terms of not having injuries and whatnot is their ability to get that foot attacking back negatively, which when if you go back and listen, like one of the first episodes on this podcast with.
00:30:19
Speaker
ah Ken Clark, he talks about that. like They've been researching this for 10 years. What separates elite sprinters from like okay sprinters? And it it essentially came back to their negative foot speed or the foot for a visual, like the foot traveling back underneath the body before hits the ground and at what speed that is occurring, which very much has to do with...
00:30:40
Speaker
ah Number one, getting that that leg in the right place in the, or sorry, to the right place in the first place. So being able to get that leg out in front of the body, which it has to do with some different muscles, but then the eccentric ability to stop that thigh at full speed, reverse it and get back towards the ground.
00:30:56
Speaker
and And that's my best move. And you can see that even when kids are like skip, like you can see it all the time once you know what you're looking for. um and And that's the big separator, right? And are you seeing that like with your athletes?
00:31:10
Speaker
even when you like bring them in and start warming them up or you start doing jumps or you start doing skips, you know, even sprint mechanic drills. Can you see that? Like the athletes that can do that versus the athletes that can't. Oh, it's, it's very apparent. And I don't think, and that, that brings up the point, like everything works so synergistically together. Like we're talking the eccentric side because that's where we're going to handle load and prevent injuries and do all that stuff. But But to accelerate our hip and our knee and our ankle complex as fast as we can forward, we have to have a ton of concentric strength to do that. And then once it gets there, eccentrically just to hammer it and put it up. And then the thing that we cue is like if we're doing skips or ah any type of patterning work, like I want you to feel like there's a countertop.
00:32:00
Speaker
above your knee, you need to smack that countertop. When it hits it, it comes down right away. Because the thing that I've been teaching athletes, and I can always do a better job about it, is it is all a game of inches and milliseconds, like everything. Your negative steps. So we've been we've been trying to really hammer with our track kids on our block starts, just getting a non-breaking step.
00:32:23
Speaker
So that was the first thing. Like, let's not slow ourselves down on steps one through three. And then we're trying to get to an acceleration step where it's truly directly underneath us where we can handle that load. And now what we're trying to do once we hammer that individually on an athlete by athlete basis is the ones that have the eccentric and the concentric strength.
00:32:46
Speaker
to push out of the blocks as hard as they can and get that knee swung up and swung down in that millisecond, we can truly get a negative step where when we come out of the blocks, that foot is actually landing behind our center of mass.
00:32:59
Speaker
And then that sets us up for step one, two, three, four, five. But if step one is off, everything else sucks until you start accelerating up and getting the max velocity. So it is, it's the kids that have it, the kids that can, um, for example, we over a four week, excuse me, six week period, we had six levels of boxes from smallest to highest. And I think it got up to like almost hip height, huge box.
00:33:24
Speaker
Every single week we added. So on the first week we jumped off, stuck the landing double leg, and then we progressed double leg to single leg. And now we're all the way up to the highest box. And those kids are jumping. They're vertical jumping off of that, sticking the landing. And there's no secret the athletes that are able to absorb it, stay stiff, almost like a statue instead of spongy.
00:33:46
Speaker
Those are the fast kids. Like you could do that and be like, hey, this kid's fast. And then you go run them and improve it proves it. you know Quick pause here. i want to talk about the universal speed rating. So many coaches I meet are just overwhelmed.
00:33:58
Speaker
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. One software solution to help coaches test, track, and show improvement without adding hours to your week.
00:34:14
Speaker
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. Schedule a free consult and see how the USR can help. Yeah, yeah. I mean, in the warm-up, I can tell when kids going be fast, just like you said, just the way that they interact with the ground.
00:34:30
Speaker
So ah the one thing I've been trying to teach my athletes is just like you said, depth drop, you know is there an absorption? Are they receiving or are they attacking? and And the athletes that are my most explosive,
00:34:44
Speaker
And then I've been trying to cue is to get these athletes to understand, like as you're falling towards the ground, in your mind, you're already creating force down in the ground with your feet. So right when you hit, your you're either matching or beating that force at the at the floor, right? So being able to match that.
00:35:00
Speaker
And I made that mistake a long time in my training. i i like I'm more muscly. I like to lift weight. I've always liked the weight room, right? Because I was good at it. and And I want to hit and absorb, right, versus like attacking and meeting that demand and stopping immediately.
00:35:15
Speaker
So, and the athletes that can do that or start to understand that. And then I say, i want you to feel that same thing when you're sprinting. Like instead of reaching out and absorbing the ground, I want you to hit that ground harder than you think the ground's going to hit you, right? Hit it as hard as you can with your foot.
00:35:32
Speaker
And that that's actually been able to... improve a couple things. So number one is like speeds. Like I i thought like kids are getting faster as we're watching this trend. This is relatively new. Like in the last month, I've been specifically, um you know, cueing this, but technique has gotten better because, and I feel like it's because they're thinking that in their head.
00:35:53
Speaker
And naturally, if you want to hit something harder, you wind up you wind up more, right? But when I'm telling my athletes to hit harder, I'm starting, and I haven't cued this a lot at all, I'm starting to see them get better thigh angles as they come up to the top.
00:36:08
Speaker
Because they're trying they're trying to get in a position that they can hit the ground hard. Does that make sense? Versus like reaching in front their body and stopping and then pulling, reaching out front of their body, stopping, pulling.
00:36:20
Speaker
um So that's been like a cool little expirator like exploring that has been fun. That's what's cool about what we do, right? we can like you know, owning the facility, we can kind of like think of stuff and just implement it. We don't have to talk to anybody. We're like, yeah, let's just try to, let's try this. Let's try that.
00:36:35
Speaker
yep Um, so yeah, that's been, that's been interesting. Has there been anything that you've been doing? so you've been doing the, you know, obviously eccentric isometrics, um, with your athletes. Um, you're seeing that improve their speed. Is there anything else or other cues you've been using? Like if coaches are listening this so they can explore.
00:36:52
Speaker
Yeah, man. um Honestly, and I don't think the athletes get bored of it, but like we found the stuff that really, really works and we stick with
Tools and Techniques in Training
00:37:01
Speaker
it. And then when something breaks or something comes up, we we find the tool that's going to do it. Man, 90% of our work includes a dasher laser, a shred mill, a box,
00:37:13
Speaker
or a barbell. you know like it's it's this It's this synergistic thing that we that we use. so like Most of what we're doing is obviously focused eccentrics. We've been once a week doing um rack pulls or the isometrics on the leg press and then resisted runs. dude like We are hammering resisted runs. I got some really cool ah ah bands that were made actually um from a company that my mentor helped with. It's a It's an elastic band that stretches at stretches and contracts at the same rate as a human hamstring.
00:37:46
Speaker
So it can stretch all the way out to 150 feet, which is wild, but then you can double it up. So like on our max V-days when we're trying to get way less acceleration, just like Padula was talking about, if I'm having an athlete that's struggling to get up to that, I'm not going to, um we have to provide the stimulus that they need, right? So when we're doing our max velocity, it's very minimal resistance, but it's enough to get them 150 feet down the road.
00:38:13
Speaker
But then on the acceleration days, we double it up. And I mean, if you're not over 150 pounds, you ain't going anywhere. um it's It's tough. So shred mill resisted runs, free runs,
00:38:24
Speaker
eccentrics and isometrics. Like that's really what everything is boiled down to. And I talk about this, um, for simplistic sakes for coaches starting out or coaches that have been around forever. And they're going through the Dunning Kruger effect. Like you don't, you, you feel like you don't know anything because there's so much going on.
00:38:42
Speaker
Sprint fast, lift heavy, jump high, throw hard. If you can fit everything into that, you're giving everything you can to your athletes. Yeah. First question. What, what are those bands called?
00:38:53
Speaker
Oh, I will send, I'll send the link to you I got them off Amazon and I was like, dude, I need something that can allow us to hit max velocity patterning work, um, and not have a partner attached to it.
00:39:08
Speaker
So I just screwed it right into my stud and, uh, we let rip dude. So I'll send you the, it's not a, it's not a, like a main brand, but I'll, I'll send you the um the link. Cool. um And it's interesting you bring it up because I think that's like what you just said is really important. like I just did a presentation for Padula's network on long-term athlete development.
00:39:30
Speaker
And it's it's really like, I mean, it's it's simple, number one, but you got to let them bake. Like you got to find those things that work for you that fill those buckets. And then you got to run them and run them and do it and do it and do it and do it. And you' and you're going to be the first one.
00:39:46
Speaker
The coaches are going to be bored way before the athletes, which I think is an important little nugget that you said like earlier when you mentioned like you're going to be bored with it,
Consistency in Training Programs
00:39:55
Speaker
right? But the athletes aren't. So it's really important to to realize that like you're teaching or you're running this workout, you know, 20 times a week with kids or whatever, whatever your coaching load is, but they're only coming in once or twice a week. Right.
00:40:12
Speaker
So it's like, you don't have to make huge changes, throw on crazy movements, any of that stuff. Like our stuff is so consistent. Like our programming over the last four years has been like very, very, very consistent.
00:40:26
Speaker
no Like the only time we get crazy is like in warmups. Like I'll just come up with stuff that's fun. Like I'm literally just trying to set the tone, get the athletes warmed up, get their mind present when you play games or you say jump off this box and do a 360 or, you know, do do what, do put together some kind of pattern over these hurdles, like come up with something cool.
00:40:46
Speaker
You bring them to the moment. So you pull them out of... You pull them out of whatever was going on at school or if they got yelled at practice the other day or they're having a hard time at home, they didn't get their homework done. Like you have to pull them to the present if you want good outputs i'm and good effort in the session.
00:41:03
Speaker
And that's where you can be like a little crazy, I think, is like the prep warmup slash games. Like yeah before you get into the actual training, that's where you go crazy. Everything else is like, man, it's like step by step.
00:41:16
Speaker
It's like, just follow the system, keep showing up for four years and you're going absolute animal. You know I'm saying? It's not anything fancy. Right. hundred percent man it's honestly since we since we transitioned from just straight meatheads olympic lifting squat bench deadlift into seeing the the other side of sprinting and filling the holes with strength the the programming stayed consistent, you know, but that transition is we started kind of awakening of being a better coach. I i say it all the time, Darren, and and i don't know if you've heard me say this, but like the first four to six years of my career, i wasn't making better athletes, dude.
00:41:54
Speaker
I was making stronger athletes. that's That's all I was doing, you know, dis so now I feel bad for them, but now we've kind of come to this other side where it's like, I can confidently say with data from the Lake Press and USR that we're making better athletes. So that's, that's huge.
00:42:10
Speaker
hundred percent. It's, it's really, it's awesome. Cause it's the same story we had of like, well, you know, why are our kids, they're getting so good in here. They're doing really good at the high school level, but why are they not getting as many opportunities? You know, this is like five years ago, six years ago.
00:42:26
Speaker
And then we're like, you know, find USR, join the first speed lab. Our minds are just blown. Like, we're like, whoa Reorient it or like over time, reorientate towards, you know, a speed, speed first program.
Transition from Strength to Speed Training
00:42:41
Speaker
Yeah. Makes sense. Body needs to move the fastest possible. this is what they're doing out on the field. Okay, we'll try it Dive into that. And now over the last five years, you know, we've had 175 kids get scholarships.
00:42:54
Speaker
and And I got for some facilities, that doesn't sound crazy, but I'm in Pocatello, Idaho with the three high schools with a total of, you know, under 4,000 students. Yeah.
00:43:07
Speaker
That's not an athletes is what out of that. Like, I don't know. It's just like, it's crazy because when I, Went to high school here. Like the only kid that went to college in my whole, we want to stay in football. We want to stay in, like we were very good, like in Idaho, beating Utah teams.
00:43:24
Speaker
You know, the only one that got a college scholarship was Taysom Hill. yeah You know, and Taysom Hill, obviously you guys probably know that name. Like I played football with him. He's a year older than me. My whole life played sports with him.
00:43:35
Speaker
And he's not just a freak in high school. He was a freak in the NFL. he said no It's just like, that was the only guy that got looked at. And now with getting athletes faster, more explosive, like, I get it, dude. I love the weight room. But when you look at where sport is trending and what what they want from kids now coming out of high school, it's it's primarily speed and agility yeah and just explosiveness. And it it actually doesn't have a lot. They don't care but what they do in the weight room as much. They don't ever ask me. I've never had a college coach who asked me, like, what's their strength numbers? Like, it's always been like, you know, what's what's their strength.
00:44:11
Speaker
Like for football, it's like, what's her 40? Or even now they're getting to the point where I can just send them like their mile per hours or splits on stuff. And they're they're starting to look for that. Cause I think that's more important anyway.
00:44:23
Speaker
um you know, what's their change, what's their pro agility, what's their L drill, stuff like that. They don't, they can put weight on them, Colby. We know like the, the, the lifting side, that's a lot easier to teach.
00:44:34
Speaker
Oh my gosh. I mean, for all our, my new coaches, they thrive at the lifting side and it takes a while for them to get to like one implementing the program that I'm providing to, which takes even longer is like actually coaching it, teaching it and improving it. Like it takes forever dude it took us years and uh it's it's what we love cool man all right that this episode for listeners went all over the place uh that's how me and colby's conversations always go i'm not even sure what they're going to title this so we'll see we'll see what that is but um let's say they're like man this colby guy he's awesome where where do they go find morio how do they connect with you
00:45:16
Speaker
Yeah, man. um So we're up in Dickinson, North Dakota. I'm the or owner of Origin Performance. So you can find us ah website, Origin Performance, and here in Dickinson. And then all the socials is either Origin Performance underscore or Coach Wortman.
00:45:31
Speaker
that's ah That's where we do a lot of it. I do 99% athletic training. um That's the whole population we have. And then um personally, I do online coaching for ex-athletes and adults that need to transform their life. So that's ah that's where you can find me.
00:45:49
Speaker
Perfect. um for the yeah For those listening, definitely connect with Colby. like If you're looking for a smart, down-to-earth guy that's in it for the right reasons, like that's why we vibe so much. is we're and We're not the Joe Padulas. We're not the smartest smartest cats in the shed, but you know what? We're trying.
00:46:08
Speaker
and ah But we have a lot on-the-ground experience and and practicality with youth athletes and worked with a lot of athletes. Yeah. I appreciate taking your time to be on today. And that's a wrap, baby.
00:46:20
Speaker
Yes, sir.