130: Pat Trainor on Holistic Performance Training in Pro Baseball | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

12/27/18 • 57 min

Today’s episode features physical preparation coach Pat Trainor, who is currently the Minor League Strength and Conditioning Coordinator for the Tampa Bay Rays baseball organization. In his current role, he oversees the physical preparation of the Rays player development system, consisting of about 175+ athletes and 8 staff members. Pat is a coach in the pro baseball ranks who is a master of context. When it comes to training high-level athletes who already have a high degree of sport skill; enough for them to get paid for it, there is never just one solution for every athlete. On top of this, integration of one’s training system into the grand scheme and vision of the sport coaches is critical to success, something Pat does a great job of and goes in depth into in today’s episode. Pro sports are often a tradeoff of skills as well, if you get faster and quicker, you may lose some hitting power, so managing what to change and how to do it is important. In today’s episode Pat goes in detail into how he builds his physical preparation program around the needs of his players, and in context of their skill demands. He also goes into the importance of the feet, his approach to maximal strength development as well as how to approach agility development in baseball. 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. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Key Points How Pat integrates his physical preparation work in context of what the skill coaches are wanting to accomplish The importance of the feet in training baseball athletes Maximal strength considerations in context for minor league baseball The differences in physical readiness between players of different cultural backgrounds (USA and Latin America) Building speed and agility in baseball players and lynchpins that determine an athlete’s ability to move properly Pat Trainor Quotes “In field/court sports you don’t have this one variable you can point to and say “that’s what made this guy better” “We need to be able to train athletes to handle practice workloads” “The number one thing we can have the largest impact on is speed/acceleration (for baseball)” “We as physical preparation coaches always have goals, we want to make sure we spend some time on players weaknesses, but don’t want to spend so much time we take away from their strengths” “If we want to work on defense and speed, that’s part of the pie we are taking out of that guy’s day” “We use the 5-10-5 basic pro agility... it can be used as a measure of strength... we don’t use a 3 or 1 rep max test (outside of maybe January)” “Our outfielders may not need to do as much decelerative work as our infielders” “Agility is really weird in baseball... for me it more comes down to a mobility standpoint” “If players lack internal rotation, that’s saying something along the lines of that’s wrong from a tissue standpoint or a bony process” About Pat Trainor Patrick Trainor is currently the Minor League Strength and Conditioning Coordinator for the Tampa Bay Rays baseball organization. In his current role, he oversees the physical preparation of the Rays player development system, consisting of about 175+ athletes and 8 staff members. Prior to joining the Rays in his current role before the 2017 season, he has spent time with the San Diego Padres and Cleveland Indians, as well as a previous stint with the Rays as an assistant strength and conditioning coach at the Minor League affiliate level. Outside of professional baseball, he has held positions at the collegiate level with Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, PA (2007-2009) as well as Queens College in New York (2012), overseeing the physical preparation of varsity sports.

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129: Cal Dietz and Chris Korfist on French Contrast, Foot Training and Speed | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

Today’s episode features Cal Dietz and Chris Korfist, two highly regarded individuals in the world of sports performance who are no strangers to this show. I was excited about getting Cal and Chris on the show together since they created one of my favorite sports training book on the market: Triphasic Training for Football. In this manual, French Contrast training is used heavily throughout the entire training cycle, and the results of the program on high school football athletes were huge gains in sprinting and vertical jump abilities. We’ll kick off today’s show chatting about how the Triphasic Football Manual came together, as well as the idea that French Contrast training is something that isn’t just for peaking situations. From there, we get into something that Chris and Cal have been working heavily on, and that is training the foot. A good athletic foot requires more than simply doing calf raises, and Chris Korfist in particular has a variety of isometrics specially designed to train the foot in different aspects of gait. Cal Dietz is well known for his use of oscillating repetitions and the great results he gets form them, and we also cover the use of oscillating repetitions, not just in peaking situations, but their effectiveness to bring out explosive strength in athletes to a greater degree than standard repetitions. We’ll also touch on the Exogen weighted fusiform technology that is revolutionizing technique and special strength training for sports. 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. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Key Points The creation of Triphasic Training for Football Tissue change in deep squatting Importance of the foot in athletic performance/vibration pickup Elastic contribution to movement in athletes and animals Foot strength training progressions Usage of oscillatory reps in strength training in non-peaking situations Use of the Exogen gear in sprint training Cal Dietz and Chris Korfist Quotes “If you consistently do deep squats, then the pliability of that quad tendon becomes less; and then you have altered a ton of free energy return that is a quick and explosive contraction” “The foot dissipates about 30% that comes into the body so you can properly deal with it” “When the foot hits the ground, it’s absorbing vibrations of what the ground is” “Your gait changes momentarily when you switch from one running surface to another; the best athletes can change and adapt quickly” “We wouldn’t have knee problems if we ran on air... the foot is the problem” “The basis of the foot is getting the isometric strength down first... if you don’t have the isometric strength, it’s just not going to work very well” “The true value of oscillatory reps is very specific stress” “Start using Exogen with the calf sleeves.... you are talking about rotational inertia” “The common thing you’ll see with people doing a high knee action is to throw their torso forward” About Cal Dietz Cal Dietz has been the Head Olympic Strength and Conditioning coach for numerous sports at the University of Minnesota since 2000. He has consulted with Olympic and World Champions in various sports and professional athletes in the NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB, and Professional Boxing. During his time at U of M, he help founded and chairs the Sport Biomechanics Interest Group with its purpose to explore the physiological and biomechanical aspects of advanced human performance encompassing the various aspects of kinesiology, biomechanics, neuro-mechanics and physics. Dietz has also given numerous lectures around the country, as well as publish several scientific articles and dozens articles on training. Most recently, Dietz co-authored the top selling book, Triphasic Training: A systematic approach to elite speed a...

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131: Sheldon Dunlap on Oscillatory Isometric Integration into Triphasic Training | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

Today’s episode features strength coach Sheldon Dunlap, one of the most creative strength coaches I’ve met who is doing big things with strength training for speed enhancement. Sheldon has been a strength coach at UC Davis 3 years, one of his primary sporting assignments being track and field. Prior to UC Davis, Sheldon was a strength coach for the NBA D-league Erie Bayhawks and was an intern at Duke University. I first met Sheldon at the First Annual “Bay Area Sports Performance Seminar” put on by Dr. Ramsey Nijem, as we sat at a table together while listening to presentations. In learning of some of the things that Sheldon was doing in the weightroom with his track athletes, and the impact it was having on their performances, I discovered I was sitting next to a young pioneer in our field. Today’s show is all about Sheldon’s strength system for track, which has unique ideas in the sequencing and integration of oscillating reps, as well as training methods for the hip flexors (TFL in particular) and the feet. This is an awesome “nuts and bolts” episode with training ideas that anyone can instantly integrate into their own system (as I have). 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. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Key Points What Sheldon is doing with his track program’s strength and conditioning How Sheldon got into tendon elasticity considerations in his program How Sheldon replaced the isometric phase of Triphasic Training with an oscillating isometric phase The types of lifts Sheldon used in his program Sheldon’s approach to hip flexor work, specifically TFL work How skateboarding impacted Sheldon’s long jump takeoff Sheldon Dunlap Quotes “Tendon elasticity is the name of the game in track and field” “I replaced the isometric phase (of Triphasic Training) with oscillating work... we had our Blue and Gold meet that year and people were getting PR’s left and right, left and right” “The first time around I did this we did two weeks of eccentric, two weeks of oscillating, and then they went home, and I used 5-3-1 for their concentric phase while they were at home” “I want a “black mini band” type of athlete (an athlete who produces more movement power respectively through the power of the fascial system” “(After a deep oscillating squat phase) I felt like lightning coming out of the bottom of the squat, but I got stuck halfway up” “After going TFL pops, the next day after bounding, my TFL had never been so sore in my life” “The stronger your TFL is the less you have to rely on your psoas” “In skateboarding you are able to produce a lot more elasticity because you are putting your foot on the ground with a great amount of force in a small amount of time” Show Notes Oscillating squats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOZHVwKfCOM TFL Pops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su4xw9h4pKc&feature=youtu.be About Sheldon Dunlap Sheldon Dunlap has been a strength coach at UC Davis 3 years, one of his primary sporting assignments being track and field. Prior to UC Davis, Sheldon was a strength coach for the NBA D-league Erie Bayhawks. Prior to the Bayhawks, he spent 2.5 years as an intern at Duke University. Sheldon attended Appalachian State University and is certified by the NSCA.