Just Fly Performance Podcast

This week’s guest is Angus Ross Ph.D, physiologist and strength expert working with High Performance Sport New Zealand.

Angus is currently employed by High Performance Sport New Zealand in a power physiology and strength and conditioning role, primarily working with track and field. I first discovered some of his work in my own research on muscular overshoot, where I came upon a slideshow he had done on special strength concepts for sprinting and jumping, and it was one of the best I’d ever seen. Angus has also written a couple (1 http://www.mcmillanspeed.com/2017/01/a-coaches-guide-to-strength-development.html 2) http://www.mcmillanspeed.com/2017/02/a-coaches-guide-to-strength-development.html of great articles on the idea of eccentric strength training on Stuart McMillan’s excellent blog, which I highly recommend reading.

There were so many great topics that Angus has spoke on across these three mediums, such as eccentric overload, chasing weightroom numbers, building rate of force development, foot training, and more. Angus delivered on these topics in our podcast, and then some!

Today, we’ll get into these concepts, as well as some ideas on other strength topics, such as “concentric only” work, muscle slack, core stiffness training, and more. This episode is particularly useful in the sense of how Angus really quantifies examples of athletes who will particularly benefit from eccentric training methods.

I can’t leave out the intro without mentioning the kBox, which is one of the most effective, if not the most effective way, to deliver high, specific eccentric loads to athletes.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

This week’s guest is DeFranco’s gym director of sports performance Cameron Josse. Cameron is one of the brightest young performance coaches in the industry, and at age 26 is one of the leaders in ushering in data driven work on heavy resisted sprints for NFL preparation.

Cameron trained under Joe DeFranco as a scholastic athlete, and eventually joined his staff where he now works with athletes of all ages, including many professionals. Right now, Cameron is doing some of the most advanced speed training around for his athletes, which include a contingent of NFL vets and pro-day hopefuls.

Much of this work centers around what he is doing with the 1080 sprint based on the research of JB Morin, Matt Cross and others on heavy loaded sprinting. Heavy resisted loads are quite a hot-button topic right now, as the research suggests their usefulness but there isn’t the practical case study quota right now to really make people jump in on it. Cameron is doing work right now in this regard, and speaks on his exact methods at length on this potentially effective means of getting athletes faster.

Outside of this, Cameron is doing great work on “game speed” based training, which goes far beyond linear speed ability, and is very involved, dealing with lots of sensory and reactive aspects. Game speed is a relatively new paradigm in the world of sport performance that is of a very high importance to transfer in team sport success.

Our talk today also ranges to vertical jump training and means of building the feet for optimal performance. Overall, this was an amazing talk, and most definitely worth the listen all the way through.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

This week is a little different on the podcast, as the tables have been turned on me, the host of the show, and I’ll be talking and answering speed, vertical jump and general training questions from users that we received on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

After talking with so many amazing guests, it’s humbling for me to turn the microphone around, so to speak, but I always enjoy seeing what our listeners and readers are looking for, and sharing my knowledge on the subject, much of which I‘ve learned from those who have been on this podcast previously.

Questions for the show revolve around jump training, speed and strength development.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

This week’s guest is Andy Eggerth, head track coach at Kennesaw State University where he works primarily with multi-event athletes. Andy is also a coaching educator as he is an instructor for the USTFCCCA Coaches Academy and has written the physiology curriculum. I first found Andy through an incredible presentation of his on a variety of restoration means for speed and power athletes through the USTFCCCA website.

Andy has been a contribute to Just Fly Sports in the past with a fantastic Q&A on the subject of lactate in speed-power development. It’s kind of counter-intuitive to think that some athletes might actually need a small to moderate dose of speed-endurance work to be at their fastest, or jump highest, but as long as I’ve been a coach, I’ve seen this in action (many of those years without knowing exactly why) for over a decade now.

Andy does such a great job of taking physiology and making it interesting in regards to the demands of sport. If my exercise science courses in school were more like the work Andy does, I would have been a kid on Christmas day for each class.

For the podcast today, Andy expands on some points he covered in his original article on Lactate, and also covers a lot of other important topics, such as individualization of training, career and seasonal periodization, potentiation, neurotransmitters, plyometrics, and more. This episode is one of the best blends of science and practice that I’ve been able to record, as Andy is such a tremendous resource in this area.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

This week’s guest is Jay DeMayo, strength coach at the University of Richmond, working with basketball and swimming, lacrosse and tennis. In the world of swimming, Jay also spends time with Nova Aquatics where he has worked with Olympic Gold medalist Townley Haas. In addition to his day job duties, Jay puts together the Central Virginia Sports Performance Seminar, and also runs the CVASP Performance Podcast.

Jay is one of the growing number of users of the 1x20 strength training system where he gets great results with his athletes with less stress coming out of the weightroom. It isn’t the only method Jay uses, however, as we’ll talk about how this work is used as a tool in the context of long-term athlete development.

Ultimately, talking to Jay gives us great insight into what really matters when conducting a strength program for athletes. He is one of the most practical strength coaches I know, and has great insight on the process of developing players.

Today on the show Jay and I will talk about a variety of topics, including year to year development of college athletes, daily workout progressions, key performance indicators for basketball, the 1x20 system, aquatic strength training and more.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

This week’s guest is Dr. Bret Contreras. Bret rose to fitness fame a decade ago when he showed the world the “hip thrust” exercise, and wrote a series of excellent articles for T-Nation on hip extension training. Since then Bret has been pumping out top-notch information through his blog bretcontreras.com on not just glute training, but a variety of areas related to sports performance, including that of speed and sprinting.

Bret has been a major contributor to the field of sport science on all things hip extension. Although Bret has done a lot on the scientific side of things, it is out of his experience as a trainer that things like the hip thrust were born, and Bret continually makes it a point to have an active clientele to train.

On the podcast today, I’ll ask Bret questions on many aspects strength, speed training, and transfer. If you work with anyone who wants to run faster, the hip thrust often finds its way into the conversation. Bret’s unbiased mind in the arena has allowed him a clear view on how to look at research and factors that make people fast (and corresponding special exercise considerations).

I feel a lot of coaches (including myself) have heard things in the speed training world for so long that we take them for granted, but Bret’s knowledge of current research and open-mindedness on the topic is what makes this podcast is a must listen for anyone interested in the role hip extension and the hamstrings play in athletic speed, along with ideas on how to best train it.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

This week’s guest is Dr. Mike Young. Mike is the owner of Athletic Lab in Cary, NC. Mike is also the founder of the website elitetrack.com, which for young coaches like me was an extremely valuable resource in learning more about the sport, as well as various training program. In 2010, I coached a national champion in the 55m dash using workouts I derived largely from Josh Hurlebaus’ training log on the Elitetrack forums.

Mike has been a contributor to Just Fly Sports in the past, and one of the things that Mike has that is in rare demand is experience in biomechanics, track and field, team sport, strength and conditioning, and technology use. This combination makes him a great expert on all things speed and force application.

Today, we are going to cover lots of biomechanical topics on speed development, comparing and contrasting track to team sport. We also get into some special strength topics, such as the role of bar speed measurement in the weightroom, as well as Mike’s use of the kBox in developing specific strength for jumpers and sprinters. If you coach speed, and are interested in the fine points of cueing and exercise selection, then you’ll find this episode particularly fascinating.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

This week’s guest is Jon Hinds, owner of Monkeybar gym chain, with its HQ in Madison, Wisconsin. Jon is the son of Bobby Hinds, founder of Lifeline USA, a prolific trainer and exercise inventor in his own right. You can say that working out is in Jon’s blood. Jon is a former NBA strength and conditioning coach and training consultant for the NFL and MBA.

One of the things Jon is known best for is vertical jump training. He is a master of the use of the power jumper, as we’ll get into this episode. In Jon’s own training, he reached a very high vertical jump, and routinely trains athletes towards 8” gains on their own vertical leap through a unique system. What’s most impressive is that he does so without pushing barbell training, but rather emphasizes training based on movement abilities, band resistance, and descending power sets.

By listening to Jon talk, there are a lot of implications to be made in regards to the way we as humans learn and adapt skills. Jon’s thoughts on the priority of movement skill (sprinting and jumping being a skill) over barbell lifting numbers is definitely something I am in agreement with. The way things like the power jumper overload running jumps is really interesting to consider, since it is a more specific overload than what most traditional plyometric exercises have to offer. The more I learn about sport, the more I realize that the way we force the brain to react to our environment dictates our sprint and jump results much more than cueing movements and lifting weights.

Jon has been doing jump training for 25 years, and it’s great to have a wealth of practical information on the podcast.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

Today’s guest is Dr. Corey Peacock Ph.D., performance coach and exercise physiologist for the pro MMA team, the Blackzilians.

As the theme of this podcast is exploring the world of speed and power development, we leave no stone unturned by also looking at how these qualities are expressed and trained in professional fighters. Are the fastest fighters also the best? Corey fills us in, and gives us information on where key performance indicators and related training strategies in this field are headed.

Believe it or not, even things like the 1080 sprint are making their way into the field of MMA training as Corey and I discuss in this episode.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

This week’s guest is track and field coach Rana Reider. For those of us who live on the internet, we don’t often hear much of Rana’s training and philosophy, but he is one of the absolute best in the world.

Rana spent time as an NAIA track coach before coaching at NCAA schools Florida and Kansas State, as well as UK Athletics, and he has been taking on some of the biggest names in the sport today, such as Christian Taylor and Dafne Schippers as a private track coach. He has been awarded the NAIA National Coach of the Year honor in 2000, and 2011 Nike Coach of the Year.

Rana’s use of technology in the midst of a training session is truly incredible to hear explained. He makes use of pieces like the 1080 sprint https://simplifaster.com/store/product/1080-sprint/ and the Freelap https://simplifaster.com/store/product-category/freelap/freelap-athletic-timing-systems/ system, in addition to Optojump and other tools, all in one run. Rana also takes multiple blood tests during the course of training sessions to determine how to create an optimal flow of the training session.

Listening to Rana talk was one of the rare opportunities for me so far in recording this podcast. My evernote also gained a few extra pages after going through this recording again, as there were many great ideas of coaching and training.

Although Rana uses technology frequently, this episode will show his wisdom in terms of when, and when not to use it with his athletes, and how to take the optimal path in different training situations and athlete types.

It is my pleasure to bring to you a training and technology talk with coach Rana Reider.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.