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Eccentric and Isometric Training for Speed and Durability: Ryan Paul, Owner of New Athlete
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The Speed Lab Podcast - Episode 17
Substitute host Darren Hansen of HansenAthletics sits down with Ryan Paul, owner of New Athlete and veteran performance coach with over two decades of experience training athletes. With more than 12,000 athletes trained since 2001, Ryan shares his evolution from conjugate periodization to an eccentric-focused training philosophy centered on force reduction and deceleration. The conversation dives deep into why athletes often return from college slower despite being stronger, the critical importance of teaching athletes to absorb force before producing it, and how long-duration isometrics (up to 300 seconds) are transforming athlete durability and performance. Ryan also breaks down his unique assessment methods using lunge positions to identify sprinting tendencies and explains why training volume in the weight room should better reflect the demands athletes face on the field.
Timestamps- 0:00 - Introduction with Darren Hansen
- 0:44 - Ryan Paul's background and 23+ years of athlete development
- 2:41 - Evolution from conjugate training and its limitations
- 3:54 - Why athletes get hurt decelerating, not accelerating
- 5:08 - Common deficiencies: athletes can produce force but can't absorb it
- 7:29 - Why college athletes return slower but stronger
- 9:39 - Programming ratios: ~80% eccentric/deceleration work
- 11:08 - Long-duration isometrics explained (5–300 seconds)
- 16:01 - Cueing isometric lunges and assessing sprint type
- 20:49 - Using USR technology to validate training observations
- 22:29 - Redefining "recovery" and reducing systemic inflammation
- 26:21 - Personal results from eccentric training
- 27:01 - Favorite movements: Bulgarian split squats and toddler patterns
- 29:34 - Crawling, coordination, and cortex development
- 31:00 - Daily integration of eccentric training
- 31:45 - Results: healthier athletes, better repeatability, reduced injury severity
- 33:26 - Advice for coaches: match training volume to game demands
- 36:21 - Closing remarks
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Host Background
00:00:04
Speaker
All right, guys, welcome back to another episode of Speed Lab Podcast. I am not Les Spellman. My name is Darren Hanson, and I am your substitute podcast host today. um My background is I've been coaching athletes for about 14 years. I've owned a facility by the Hanson Athletics here in Idaho for 10 years, and I've been able to work with athletes of all varying ages and development.
Focus on Force Production with Ryan Paul
00:00:25
Speaker
um Today, we are highlighting RP, ah Ryan Paul. He is on the podcast today. We're going to talk about all things force production and kind of the unique way that RP looks at it.
00:00:37
Speaker
I'm going to give him a second to introduce himself and talk to you guys through who he is and his background. Thanks man. I'm happy to be here.
Ryan's Journey and Training Methodologies
00:00:47
Speaker
um Yeah, I've been training athletes since 2001.
00:00:51
Speaker
I started my company called New Athlete out of the back of my truck and it's been kind of a journey on, uh, just grabbing different modalities or, or methodics and trying to figure out what works best. And the majority of what our stuff is, is rooted in, uh, the methodics of Jay Schroeder or what, uh, you would see kind of in the freak of training video that's been splashed around on social media lately.
00:01:20
Speaker
um it's funny how that goes through different waves and everyone thinks it's brand new and they freak out. But anyways, um, I think this year we will have eclipsed 12,000 athletes now that I'm realizing what year we're actually in.
00:01:36
Speaker
um So I've seen quite a bit. I worked with a lot of professional athletes um down to middle school and even preteen, preadolescent.
00:01:49
Speaker
There we are. And that is that is a wild story in terms of, you know you know, you hear people listen to this or maybe thinking about starting a performance business or they're in the first stages. And, you know, you've been able to make it from a back of a truck to, you know, upwards of 12,000 athletes, which is probably more more than most coaches ever get a touch in a lifetime. Yeah.
Visiting Ryan's Gym and Unconventional Methods
00:02:09
Speaker
um So I'm super excited to kind of go through because actually for the listeners, I went and visited RP's gym just to get an idea of like what the heck was going on up there. Because if you follow him on social media, it's a lot different than what you might traditionally believe to be strength and conditioning or or what you did when you were younger.
00:02:27
Speaker
um And it kind of opened my eyes to a lot of things. So to kick it off, I kind of want... RP, maybe just share a little bit or talk through like how you look at force production and reduction and how that influences what you do with your athletes.
Traditional vs. Innovative Training Approaches
00:02:41
Speaker
Sure. So i guess what kind of drove me to where I'm at today is I got tipped on to conjugate periodization and some of the West side programs that go along with that and went full tilt with that. My guy saw great results.
00:03:01
Speaker
Um, but the, it was almost like the dam kind of broke out of it. And to the defense of conjugate, I think there were a lot of holes that I wasn't filling, which led to a lot of injuries.
00:03:16
Speaker
But if I'm looking at just what I was observing through only using conjugate, it was really great for getting my numbers to go up and quote unquote, producing more force or moving more weight.
00:03:31
Speaker
But where I felt like it really lacked was it doesn't carry over to the game and the aspects of the game. More specifically speaking of an athlete rarely, if ever, gets hurt when they're accelerating.
00:03:46
Speaker
It's usually when they're in contact with someone or decelerating. And I would even put contact as a deceleration. So if they can't if they can't handle whatever forces are coming at them, then to me there's a deficit.
00:04:02
Speaker
Absolutely. And then I, you know, from my own research, it looks like the arguments are rising too of like, you're only going to be able to produce as much force or some sort of ratio of force can comparable to how much force you can handle, right. Or, or reduce.
00:04:17
Speaker
um Maybe the body has like some inhibitions within it. What is your thoughts on that?
Body Limits and Neuromuscular Connections
00:04:24
Speaker
I guess, can you define inhibitions more? I agree with you, but I'm just trying to, get a little more specific just to hone in. Yeah, I think we're i and on where I'm at is um kind of the body's awareness of, you know, I can only handle so much force without, you know, risking injury or, you know, I'm not comfortable at a certain load neuromuscularly. Like I don't have that connection between the brain and the body. So potentially it limits how much force you can produce to keep it safe from, not you know,
00:04:58
Speaker
reduction or deceleration forces that are, you know, beyond what it feels comfortable with handling because they haven't touched that in training. They're just hitting that in sport. Sure. Okay. So I'll just give you an example.
Athlete Deficiencies and Technological Insights
00:05:12
Speaker
Cause I know before we jumped down, we you threw out the question of what am I seeing versus the young kids um versus my pro athletes or combine guys.
00:05:24
Speaker
And with almost a hundred percent certainty, all of the guys that come in from the collegiate setting, number one, they're wrecked. Number two, they can move a ton of weight, but they really, really lack.
00:05:39
Speaker
And this is shown in using Hawken and some other things they're breaking RFD is terrible. Unless they have had some coach really hone in on teaching them how to break down with routes or breakdown from full sprints or, you know, however it is, unless they've been given that type of quality or they've been taught that quality, their data comes back as very, very deficient or poor. Okay.
00:06:10
Speaker
So that's, that's kind of the first, for me, that's the first thing that I look at is if I've got a linebacker that's in, and let's assume he's playing at a high level D one or above and he's two 30 he's and I see him jump and he lands and he's producing 7,400 newtons on his braking. me, that's extremely deficient. Now, if I could cue him and tell him to stick his landing, he's automatically going to go up.
00:06:44
Speaker
But to me, if if you remove the cueing that I would give him to stick that landing, it kind of, lends itself to there being a neurological deficiency in how he's responding to the ground or responding to the force that he's having to produce to stop himself.
00:07:04
Speaker
and That makes total sense. So what's interesting is, you know, I don't have access to as much of this data collection as, for example, your facility. But one thing I do recognize with a lot of my athletes that I train all through high school, they leave, they go to college, they come back. they're A lot of times they're they're slower, they're stronger, like you said, but they've kind of lost that like magic that like the coaches I can see of the way they move, the way they skip, the way they sprint.
00:07:30
Speaker
So I'm wondering now, I'm like, I wonder if it's a combination of like they're maturing. So they're gaining weight naturally. a lot of colleges are getting kids, you know, putting on muscle mass, putting on weight, putting on strength, but potentially they're missing this lack of stimulus um that you're talking about here.
00:07:49
Speaker
So actually you see like performance numbers drop or, or just injury risk rise. Like what's your thoughts? Do you agree with that? Or or what's your thoughts on that? I do agree with that. And,
00:08:01
Speaker
I would go even further into that, that I think when you have a lot of, let's just take your collegiate athletes, just because you threw that out. I think the focus becomes more on concentric, heavier lifting.
00:08:16
Speaker
And I think when the body has repeated bouts of concentric, heavy lifting, it naturally is going to tighten up. And when it tightens up, it loses its ability to decelerate forces eccentrically.
00:08:31
Speaker
And when you lose your ability to decelerate forces eccentrically, that force has to go somewhere, ligaments, tendons, bones. Or at the same time, I think when you have a ton of heavy concentric lifting, you actually create low-grade inflammation systemically and you increase the ability for injuries to come in or a susceptibility.
00:08:58
Speaker
Okay, I like that. um So within your program, you know, my first question, let's say if I was first hearing this as a coach is, okay, you know, maybe I've been making this mistake. Maybe I've been doing a lot of concentric work only.
00:09:11
Speaker
i mean, what percentages or or like a training session? i mean, are are you touching these these cap these capabilities we're talking about eccentrically?
Eccentric Training Focus and Incremental Depth Drops
00:09:22
Speaker
um Let's say like outside of sprinting, let's say like in the weight room because we I mean, most people listen to this know, you know, speed consistent speed work is important. Jumping plyometrics because, you know, or at least in the way that we think about them, because athletes need consistent exposure to those to maintain those qualities.
00:09:39
Speaker
um But when it comes to like the weight room, you know, if an athlete comes in on your programming, Are they spending like 50%, you know, doing depth drops and then lifting or are they spending more time doing eccentric qualities versus concentric? Or can you give us some insight into that?
00:09:55
Speaker
Yeah. So for me specifically in our system, I would say it's an 80-20 ratio. But, it you know, I can't say that as like that's a blanket, like everybody's getting that because it depends.
00:10:09
Speaker
if an athlete comes in and their movement patterns are extremely compromised, I've got to spend more time on getting what I would say, good foundational movements to become second nature for them.
00:10:22
Speaker
Then I'm going to go more towards drip depth drops. But I mean, what that, what that's going to mean is we're going to start off with a six inch box. Maybe we do 200 reps. Then we go to a 12 inch. Then we go to a four, uh, an 18 and then a 24.
00:10:37
Speaker
um But I would say overall, if if I was to give a ratio, I would say it ranges between 60% to 80% is going to be in that eccentric realm, followed by a lot of long duration, max joint angle isometrics.
00:10:55
Speaker
Yeah, that's perfect. Let's bleed into that. like What benefits are you seeing with your athletes? and And talk about those durations because a lot of people think 20 seconds is a long time.
00:11:07
Speaker
So let's let's talk a little bit about that.
Long-Duration Isometrics and Performance Benefits
00:11:09
Speaker
Okay, so the durations for us will go anywhere from five seconds to 300 seconds.
00:11:18
Speaker
It just, it depends on where we're at. So what I would say is if an athlete comes into us and on our readiness scale, they're saying I'm at a five out of 10, they're automatically going to mobility and then long duration ISOs, which would be two minutes, 30 seconds and above. Okay.
00:11:38
Speaker
And the reason that I like that, and this, this kind of gets into ah the weeds with Schroeder stuff is that it's been preached for ah years that I've known um and followed Jay's stuff that five minutes was the magic window.
00:11:55
Speaker
And if we can get an athlete to do that that, that does not mean that they're going to actually hold a particular position for five minutes maximally.
00:12:05
Speaker
It's not going to happen. ah And I, can confidently say that I've had one athlete that, and I'm talking 25 years, one athlete that has held an isometric lunge without fail for five minutes working maximally one. Yeah.
00:12:23
Speaker
So the idea is that if, if I'm in that position, I'm going to work maximally until I fail, the clock is continuing to run.
00:12:33
Speaker
When I fail, I've got two deep breaths. I immediately get back in, reassume the position that I want, and I continue to rinse, wash, repeat that until the time is eclipsed. Okay.
00:12:46
Speaker
So what's happening is I'm cycling through the energy systems and almost forcing a faster recovery rate by having the athlete jump back into that position. I'm not going to rest for two minutes. I don't i don't care about full recovery.
00:13:04
Speaker
Additionally to those max joint angle isometrics, you have a huge stimulation to mitochondria. There's a bunch of other things that come out of that. But I think what happens is, is because you're having such a big stim to the mitochondria and you're cycling through those energy systems, I repeatedly hear from athletes when they come from our program to their collegiate programs, like there's new athlete shape and then there's in shape.
Stimulation Over Weight in Athletic Conditioning
00:13:33
Speaker
And they're two totally different things. And I've got a running back that's up at UW, big boy. He's 230. He reported early.
00:13:44
Speaker
And after the high school season, we we only had about five to six weeks to really kind of prep him and get him ready. And when he left and he got up there, he was – these are his words to me.
00:13:58
Speaker
I couldn't believe how good a shape I was in. hey but we didn't do the stuff that they were doing or focusing on at his school. We were just doing the same stuff that we were doing in at New Athlete and just cycling it two to three times a week, mix it in maybe with some five to as high as 20% heavy concentric lifting, but it was selective on what we were doing with those lifts.
00:14:26
Speaker
um And I really was not concerned about what you know, kind of weight they were moving, I'm more concerned about stim. And that's that's another segment that we can talk about is I view everything from a stimulation standpoint, not a weight standpoint, which I guess kind of lends itself more into...
00:14:46
Speaker
making
Universal Speed Rating and Athlete Progress
00:14:47
Speaker
sense when we're talking about force. 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.
00:15:03
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.
00:15:21
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.
00:15:32
Speaker
I actually have a couple of questions just to clear some things up for people. So i love you talked about it. um Obviously, it's important during these ISOs that they're working maximally the whole time.
Effective Isometric Lunges: Coaching Tips
00:15:43
Speaker
what what are some cues that you're using with them? Like, how are you queuing? Let's say, let's say we're doing like a lot of coaches are familiar with like a split position, ah yielding ISO. Like what, what are some mistakes that athletes normally make?
00:15:56
Speaker
um If I'm coaching them and I'm looking at, I'm trying to implement this stuff Ryan's telling me about, um you know, what, what's your typical mistake? You know, what kind of cues are you giving them to really make sure they're active in that spot in the way that you want?
00:16:09
Speaker
Sure. So I think, One of the things that I like, and and I'll answer your question, but I'll kind of give you some, a segue of how I use the lunge to also determine what type of sprinting athlete they are.
00:16:23
Speaker
Most of our spinners are gonna be very, very short in the lunge. And they're also gonna lean over at the hip, almost like they're hinging. So we then throw data on them. We can put them on catapult, get a five build, 10 fly, 10 build, 10 fly.
00:16:39
Speaker
or even just get them on video. And they're nine times out of 10, they're very pitter-pattery. Tons of steps really don't go anywhere. Where if you get some of our elite 100, 200, maybe 400 guys that come in, they're very long in the lunge, meaning a 90-degree angle with the front leg. The back knee will typically be 135-ish at that angle.
00:17:05
Speaker
um and And we're using that just to show... a little bit of, okay, what is their athleticism? How can they move as it pertains to sprinting and accelerating?
00:17:16
Speaker
And that's that may be a very ignorant way of looking at it, but it's been a pretty good indicator for us as to what we can expect to see out of that athlete.
00:17:28
Speaker
So back to your original question on executing the lunge or it you know if we're looking at that one in particular. So let's assume my left leg is forward.
00:17:39
Speaker
I want to begin ramping up tension by pulling in maximally with that left hamstring. At the same time, I'm driving down into the ground with that left glute.
00:17:51
Speaker
Right glute, I'm going to begin to extend while rolling the hip into an anterior tilt, which will allow the GTO of the front right hip flexor to shut off.
00:18:08
Speaker
because the opposing muscle is contracting, then we can actually get the nervous system to understand what it is to be at length. And that just just by doing that alone, we begin to see some gait changes and we start to see changes in max velo.
00:18:25
Speaker
Okay. So I've got a visual of it. So that you guys might have to play that back and listen to that, but yeah obviously it's really important at the end there that you have the pelvis tucked under in the right position, which, you know, let's say an athlete, they're tight in in their hip. flight like Let's say they can't really get into that.
00:18:41
Speaker
Do you start them shorter in the lunge and then work over time to that length in position? It depends on the disposition of the athlete. um Yes and no.
00:18:53
Speaker
You know, if it's, if, if we got some dogs in there, I'm i'm going right to it. They don't have, there's no leeway for them. They got to go right to it. Yeah. If, if some of the athletes come in and I get a sense that, you know, ah I'm not going to be able to push them, then I'll, I'll kind of let them go to their own degree. Or what we'll do is we'll break it in and we'll go, okay, you got four sets of a minute.
00:19:14
Speaker
Your last set, you have to go to max joint angle.
Lunges for Assessment and Data Utilization
00:19:20
Speaker
Or I've had some where we go, you're going to go 10 seconds short, 10 seconds long, 10 seconds short, 10 seconds long, just to almost prime the nervous system to say, hey, it's it's okay to be in this lengthened position.
00:19:34
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. that This is all amazing. So I'm taking a ton of notes. Obviously, it sounds like to me, it's also a great assessment tool, right? So you can look at your athletes, like you said, you can almost classify, you know, you know what what this athlete struggles with in their sprinting.
00:19:50
Speaker
You know, is it frequency? Is it length? Are they able to hit long positions, drive through the ground? Go ahead. go ahead Oh, sorry. um Don't mean to cut you off, but I just, it's it's another good thing to keep in mind that Prior to meeting less and getting involved in USR, there was no, our KPIs were either visual or auditory.
00:20:12
Speaker
So there was no, data was not even, it wasn't even on the horizon. In fact, I found data to be extremely annoying. I found the tech to be annoying. um We had Tendo units and, you know, using those to just come up with a number for the sake of coming up with something i found to be irritating.
00:20:33
Speaker
because I could get that number if I just heard the bar move the way that I wanted the bar to move. Just like if, you know, you you listen to sprinters and you and you can tell when someone is fast because that metronome is very, very fast or very slow or or those were things that we were using. So the lunge took on more meaning as far as, ah you know, what is this athlete going to display to us?
00:20:59
Speaker
And then once we got in with USR and we really started to s sink our teeth into data, it then confirmed what we were suspecting and what we were seeing before. Yeah.
00:21:11
Speaker
Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off No, that's a great way to segment for our listeners understand the benefits of like USR and working with Les and those guys. So I love that.
00:21:24
Speaker
um One question that pops into my head is like, For a listener, i mean, I came up there and went through this and ah like you said, being in shape, right?
Recovery, Adaptation, and Athlete Feedback
00:21:34
Speaker
Like I thought I was pretty in shape and I almost threw up. So was pretty, it was pretty wild experience doing some of these longer durations. um What does, you know, if people wanted to implement this with these athletes, does this give them insight into like the recovery between sessions look like when you're doing these maximum high intensity holds, know, do you see this really shut down athletes for a couple of days, they need time to reset or, you know, would it be the opposite of what you would initially think and and they're pretty fresh throughout the week?
00:21:59
Speaker
Well, i I think to answer that, you kind of have to I guess, get into the mind of the athlete. um What is fresh? What is recovered? What is, you know, some some meathead athletes, they just they they chase soreness to validate that they've got a good workout.
00:22:20
Speaker
And that could be good. I think it's more on the ignorant side if that's what we're just chasing. Because to me, the more sore that you are, the more inflammation you've created.
00:22:31
Speaker
And if you're not combating that, eventually it's going to rear its ugly head and it's you're going to be a and pardon me you're goingnna be an inflamed systemic issue.
00:22:45
Speaker
So the recovery time on this. um What the athletes will come back to us and say is, I'm i'm sore as hell, but it's weird. It's different.
00:22:56
Speaker
I feel like I can move and I don't feel like I'm old and rickety and I don't know how to explain that. And I think what, what happens with that is that you end up changing how the nervous system is actually moving.
00:23:11
Speaker
And here's, here's one of the examples that I would give with this. So we have a lot of high school football players that come in and, you know, you look at a big kid, six, I don't know, six, four ish, two 30,
00:23:26
Speaker
And he goes, yeah, I'm i'm squatting 450. But then you have him do an air squat on camera and he has no control over that whatsoever. So what that tells me is that he's dependent on the weight to create the range of motion to check the box of that's a good squat.
00:23:43
Speaker
And then convinces himself that he's a good athlete. He's a strong athlete because he's actually moving this weight. When in reality, if he doesn't have the control with his body weight,
00:23:55
Speaker
he really is completely out of control with 400 pounds on his back. And he doesn't have an ability to actually decelerate not just his body weight, but forces that are greater than what he's being put on with 400 pounds.
00:24:10
Speaker
So with that being said, i think those types of athletes don't really understand how to move and their body is in a defensive state in every training session that they go through.
00:24:25
Speaker
yeah So they're they're constantly beat up and they're constantly sore, but you know they fall in love with the game of, you know this is just part of the
Eccentric Force Production and Performance Enhancement
00:24:33
Speaker
process. I got a grind, grind, grind. And in you know that's just what it is, but I can't move or my back hurts or my knee hurts, or you know those are the common things that we hear where we then take that athlete, we flip them, start them learning how to actually handle the forces that they're going to see on the field but then do it 50, 100, 150, 200 times in a given session.
00:25:03
Speaker
And because they can actually stop or actually produce more force eccentrically, their concentric lifts go up, but their inflammation comes down because they're actually moving agonist antagonist. Then there's the harmonic dance between those two muscles or whatever, you know, whatever muscle group you're using.
00:25:22
Speaker
um And because of that, that low-grade inflammation is reduced. Quick pause here. i want to talk about the universal speed rating. So many coaches I meet are just overwhelmed.
00:25:35
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.
00:25:52
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. So to sum it up, guys. Sorry, I went on a major tangent. Yeah, it's it's different, right? Like it's different than when you think about lifting weights and the soreness levels. I mean, I remember feeling...
00:26:12
Speaker
ah fresh the next day, but also fatigued, which sounds like totally different. But I like felt really good after going through some of these long ah duration holds. And I think I actually...
00:26:23
Speaker
pretty much i tied my we sprinted right after it and I tied my my best time ever at at the time ah or my best miles per hour. So um it's definitely a very interesting stimulus. um When we talk, we've talked a lot about like the the long lunge position. What are like two one or two other of your favorite like favorite ways to load this and patterns that you use with athletes consistently?
00:26:46
Speaker
Oh, gosh. um
00:26:50
Speaker
I mean, any, it can be any movement that a human should be doing. Yeah. I, you know, I don't necessarily lower body. Let's be like lower body sprinting. Um, what's a couple of, okay.
00:27:03
Speaker
I'm going, Bulgarian split or what we would call back foot elevated, but then I would also go, uh, rear foot elevated to where, you know, I'm my back knee is, you know, 155 degrees. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's really, really open.
00:27:19
Speaker
Um, Front knee, front shin is always going to be at 90 unless I'm working on a different quality. if i'm If I'm working on accelerating as it pertains to sprinting, then I'm going to lean that forward a little bit more. And I want to convince the nervous system that, you know, the angles that I need in a shin in sprinting are appropriate.
00:27:41
Speaker
Because I think what a lot of athletes do, and in here I go off on a little tangent, is they like to segment what they see pro athletes doing And then they try to replicate that without having the context of why that pro guy is doing it.
00:27:57
Speaker
Or they don't have the backstory of, well, that pro guy, he's 25 years old. He's 30 years old. He's 200 and some odd pounds. He's been training for 15 years.
00:28:09
Speaker
He understands how to move. yeah Where you as the freshman, sophomore, junior, whatever, you don't have a clue how to move, but now you're trying to go to the end of the result when you don't even have, you don't even know how to crawl as a baby.
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah. That makes total sense. so the other thing, sorry, I'll circle back to the um movements.
Natural Biomechanics and Infant-like Movements
00:28:34
Speaker
um I do want to squat, but I want my feet about, you know, what I would do is I would go fist width apart or I would go right where the the hip joint actually is.
00:28:47
Speaker
I want to try to get back to as, infinite and not like infinity, but I'm sorry, wrong word, ah infant, like toddler movements, because I think that's where everything is rooted.
00:29:01
Speaker
And in, you know, if, if a lot of athletes are very um awkward with their movement patterns, then I'm going to have a march in place because I want that stimulation from both cortexes.
00:29:14
Speaker
Yeah. So there there's, there's, you know, I'm kind of jumping all over the place. So i apologize, but that's, That's another thing that you get an athlete that comes in and they they struggle with a lunge or, you know, you see them skip and they're going same side, same, ah same knee, same arm forward.
00:29:30
Speaker
You know, to me, that's a cortex issue, which also is then a coordination issue. Yeah. And that's more common than people think. I think if you don't coach athletes, like when you get a young athlete in, at least in today's ah where athletes are at, um that's that's pretty common if you get a younger ah younger kid that comes in.
00:29:49
Speaker
um And you're like, whoa, yeah where do we start there? Right. So you're giving some solutions for that, which I love. Yeah. And typically what I found, because i'll I'll ask parents, did your child walk before they were one? And, you know, they kind of light up and they're like, yeah, he was really, really good.
00:30:04
Speaker
And I almost want to go, no, he wasn't good. He just did what you forced him to do when he wasn't ready to do it. yeah you You took him from crawling to, oh my gosh, he's walking at nine months. He's a prodigy. He's not a prodigy at all.
00:30:20
Speaker
you know What you did is you interrupted that feed forward system in that cross crawl pattern. And now you're paying me to fix it.
00:30:31
Speaker
Yeah, Absolutely. Yeah, that's interesting. You know what? When I have my first kid, I'm going to 100% just, I'm going to make them crawl to their five. You know what I'm saying? No, I'm just kidding. You how fast they'd be? So fast.
00:30:45
Speaker
I love that. Okay. Now, so when athletes are coming to your gym, they're touching some form of of this type of work every every day when they're in with training with you, right? You don't just have one day. They come in, they do this, and then they go back to training normal per se, right?
00:31:02
Speaker
Every day. Every day. Awesome. um My am i ah kind of my wrapping up question, because there's there's a lot in this and I'm hoping you guys will reach out to Ryan as well to kind of dive deeper into this. But, you know, just from layman's terms, people that haven't seen your gym, haven't seen your Instagram, haven't seen what's going on that, you know,
00:31:22
Speaker
the, the, uh, results you're producing kind of with this mindset and what you're doing have have been pretty, pretty ridiculous
Daily Specialized Training and Its Benefits
00:31:29
Speaker
really. So I want to hear like what you're, what initially comes to your mind when it's like, okay, if I start implementing some of this in my training, you know, what are the benefits you're seeing, uh, to your athletes and maybe that you're not seeing with other athletes that aren't doing this as well as like the carryover to their speed development?
00:31:46
Speaker
Um, Well, again, just my observation, but the first thing that stands out is the athletes become healthy, healthier. um Number one, number two, their repeatability on the field goes up tremendously.
00:32:01
Speaker
Their results or max velocity or vertical or, you know all the numbers that we want to have increase, increase. um And then I find that the injury would rate drops significantly.
00:32:17
Speaker
or the severity of the injuries reduces dramatically. Yeah. Which, I mean, those three things you just said are, i think, what every coach is chasing. So to recap it, repeatability, which I've i've made a couple of videos on, and how you know at coaches say they want athletes that are in shape. I think in reality what they're saying is they want athletes that can repeat high efforts, ah you know, repeatably.
00:32:45
Speaker
Max velocity. So developing top speeds. um I think one thing you didn't mention is it's going to work that other end of the spectrum too with the deceleration capabilities, which bleeds into that game speed for athletes being able to decel, accelerate, and then healthier, right? Those are all things that like, that's what, those are all the buzzwords that you hear with what yeah coaches want with their athletes. So yeah, I think a hundred percent implementing these is important.
00:33:10
Speaker
What would be your advice? Um, You know, as a coach that's hearing this and they're like, dude, RP, I'm bought in. um I'm really interested in in in starting to implement or learn more.
00:33:21
Speaker
um You know, how how can they go about that? Where should they start if they want to implement something like this next week on Monday after listening to this podcast?
High-Repetition Concepts for Sports Demands
00:33:30
Speaker
Well, what i one of the things that is um kind of a goggle that I put on or a lens that I put on is if I take an athlete,
00:33:39
Speaker
And I'll just take you. a question to you would be, how many steps did you take in a given practice? Well, we weren't even tracking at the time, but a lot.
00:33:51
Speaker
Sure. But now expand that out to the week and then the game and then a month and then two months and three months and and now six months and then seven. Now you're getting upwards of 17, 20,000 steps.
00:34:07
Speaker
so Am I really going to believe that in the weight room, four sets of eight to 10 are going to fill the gap of something that I'm doing 17,000 times?
00:34:20
Speaker
That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Now, could you replicate that volume? Not necessarily, but if I think what is my ground contact time every time that I step on the ground, it's, you know, what, a fraction of a second?
00:34:36
Speaker
let's assume that I'm elite or let's assume that I'm not, but a full second. So if I'm holding in those positions for X amount of time, 300 seconds, and now I expand that out with the same thought process of how many during a week, during a month, during you know six months, I can begin to, and in maybe this is just a flawed way of thinking about it, but I begin to close that gap from that 20,000 to whatever you know, I was before.
00:35:08
Speaker
Yeah. So to answer your question on what could coaches do, kind of break out of that mindset of it has to be eight reps or it has to be 12 or it has to be, you know, whatever methodics you're using and press it and just see what the athletes do and see how they respond.
00:35:27
Speaker
I'm not saying go from, well, we've never done this before and now we're going right to 200 reps. It's too big of a stimulus, but you know, you want to do something that's going to start to capture what is actually happening on the field of play in the weight room.
00:35:44
Speaker
yeah And then using your data in your high speed velocity sprints or your D cell or your XL, and then see what the data does. And then look at what the trends are on that and then adjust accordingly. Okay.
00:35:59
Speaker
Love it. um Awesome, Ryan. Thanks for being on the pod. I know there's going to be so many follow-up questions, so we'll make sure to put your your tag and your information into the there's show notes and all of that and take care of that for you.
00:36:15
Speaker
um Thanks for your time. Appreciate you hopping on and sharing with everyone. Yeah, appreciate it, man. Thank you very much.