Today’s podcast features coaches Dan Back and Tim Riley. Dan Back is the founder of Jump Science and is a coach at Xceleration sports performance in Austin, Texas where he trains both track and team sport athletes. Dan has been a guest on episodes 263 and 337 of the podcast, speaking on sprint and jump topics. Tim Riley is the Director of Sports Performance at Kollective in Austin, TX where he supervises all pro, collegiate, and youth athletic development.  Tim currently oversees and conducts strength and conditioning sessions for NFL, PLL & AVP athletes.

In the quest for improved athletic qualities, we often look at things in isolation.  We look at the most powerful training means, right now, to help us to achieve better performance.  For the best results, however, we need to broaden our view of training, and understand the qualities at the bottom (early athletic development) and the top (maximal strength and force training) to maximize potential.  We need to understand all of the iterations of skill and strength that come before the sprint, jump, throw, agile moves, etc.  you see on the field, and how everything works together in the grand scheme of training.

On today’s podcast, Dan and Tim speak on their own early athletic experiences, the critical “base level” abilities explosive athletes need for a better vertical jump (as well as general explosive movement), where and how maximal strength work fits into the long-term development equation, warmup and game-based concepts, assessments, and more.

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Timestamps and Main Points

3:30 – Dan and Tim’s early sport and training experiences

12:30 – Dan’s take on track and field speed and abilities within the scope of team sport performance and two leg jumping

18:00 – The potential of mass-amounts of calf raises to have a negative impact on speed later in life

23:30 – Core general physical preparation methods in athletic performance, such as grappling, hurdling, racing, tag, etc.

27:30 – Discussion as per the pyramid of jumping and jump preparation

37:00 – How Tim and Dan view the warmup process, considering more of a traditional warmup versus more of a game-oriented warmup

51:30 – Dan and Tim’s assessment process for athletes, and looking at macro-type assessments (performance driven) vs. more micro-level assessments (joint based or more discrete movements)

1:04:15 – Thoughts on how strength training can transfer more easily, given an appropriate base of explosive movement training and skill

Daniel Back and Tim Riley Quotes

“I can see (the martial arts drills) in my daughter’s ability to fall and get back up (in other sports)” TR

“When I first started getting obsessed with jumping, my standard workout was 2 sets of 100 calf raises 5 days per week, and looking at myself in my 20’s I was a great jumper, but I wondered why my maximal velocity was so bad, and I really wondered about some of the negative influence of all those calf raises as a teenager, vs. what if those are all sprinting contacts instead?” DB

“I saw these kids at 4 and 5 years old, 6 and 7, and the bulk of their training is broad jumps for distance, bounding for distance, jumping from one mark, and landing on one foot, climbing up wall” TR

“Jump in a way that’s fun and do it consistently for years… and that should come on top of a base of more variety; and that’s where running, agility, interacting with other people and the ground that should be in the movement variety skill” DB

“The best athletes were already really explosive, fast, powerful, good movers before they touched a weight… or took weight training seriously” TR