Today’s podcast features Dr. John Cronin and Joe Dolcetti.  John Cronin is a sport scientist with a physical education and coaching background, who after getting his Ph.D, has spent most of the last 20 plus years at Auckland University of Technology.  He has published over 400 peer-reviewed papers on speed, power and strength, along with having the opportunity to train a variety of athletes and teams, ranging from youth development to world champion level. Joe Dolcetti has had a 35-year career in high performance sport coaching, science, and conditioning training across the globe.  As an inventor, he has developed, and launched Exogen®, the world’s most advanced wearable resistance.  All in all, Joe has worked with many of the world’s top sporting programs including the NBA, NFL, NHL, Major League Baseball, the English Premier League, UFC and many others.

Sports performance training is making the shift from the classical “1RM” powerlifting mindset, into athletic speed development.  This is great, but there are still many holes to fill in the athletic equation.  We may obsess over bar velocities in the gym, but the gym is dominated by many force-oriented levers while sport is uses many speed-oriented levers (third class), such as limbs swinging in space.  At some point we must expand our training awareness beyond the what (basic force) into the where (placement), and in the process deepen our understanding on how the body produces high speed sport movement.

On the show today, John and Joe get into their journey of high velocity resistance training for athletes (such as wearables including vests and ankle weights, and then sprint sleds).  We’ll talk about the differences between training “stance” phase of movement, and aerial elements, and how the latter is a missing piece of training the force-velocity curve.  Finally, we get into the development of the Exogen system of wearable resistance, and how it encapsulates principles of high speed and specific training adaptation.

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Timestamps and Main Points:

3:25 – John and Joe’s journey in exploring various wearable and external resistance training methods and how it led them to where they are now in their view of wearable resistance

16:00 – John Cronin’s early research and findings using weighted vests in pursuit of improved athletic performance

20:00 – Effects of sprint sled training versus weighted vest training

23:52 – Philosophy of training “stance” versus training what is happening in the air in athletic movement, and the implications of stance-based vertical force not being the holy grail of sprinting and athletic movement

35:35 – Lever systems, angular velocity, and ankle weights

42:18 – The principles behind the Exogen wearable resistance gear, and how it trains the angular momentum aspect of loading to improve athleticism

1:04:33 – Final thoughts on training sport speed through a focus on wearable resistance and angular velocity training

Dr. John Cronin and Joseph Dolcetti Quotes

“That’s where we’ve gone the last 6-8 years, unpacking that limb loading”

“Where you put load, in many ways, is more important than how much load you are putting”

“The one thing I’m confused with is the parachute, I tried them and just thought these are better for jumping out of an airplane”

“(Training with a weighted vest) the vertical ground reaction forces will stay pretty much the same) when you put that mass on, you don’t jump as high, the center of mass displacement is compromised, and the (vertical) effect stays pretty much the same”

“The weighted vest gives absolutely nothing in terms of horizontal ...