Barbell Shrugged - Speed, Strength and Power Development w/ Dr. Tim Suchomel, Anders Varner, and Doug Larson #750

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

Timothy J. Suchomel, PhD, CSCS*D, RSCC is an associate professor of exercise science and program director of the Sport Physiology and Performance Coaching master's program at Carroll University. In addition, Dr. Suchomel serves as the director of the Carroll University Sport Performance Institute and as a human performance coach with Carroll athletics. He is a certified strength and conditioning specialist and registered strength and conditioning coach through the NSCA and level 1 coach through USA Weightlifting. His research interests include strength and power development, weightlifting movements, and athlete monitoring from which he has published 1 book, 12 book chapters, and over 100 peer-reviewed research articles. In 2022, he was selected as the Terry Housh Outstanding Young Investigator of the Year by the NSCA. Work with RAPID Health Optimization Dr. Timothy Suchomel on Instagram Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shrugged family, this week on Barbell Shrugged, we are hanging out with Dr. Tim Sukumel, which is very, very cool for us because we're talking about eccentric training. And this is actually like one of those, we're actually bringing a ton of Olympic lifting into this episode. For many of the people that have a background in that

or are interested in that, I think you'll find this very, very helpful on the Olympic lifting side, as well as just understanding where things are at in the science of eccentric training based off of your training age, your goals specifically. This is kind of one of those interviews where we were, we hit the one hour mark

where we had it blocked in our calendars and all of a sudden it was like, we probably need like four hours to get through all the things that we'd like to be talking to Dr. Tim about. And on a personal note, being able to meet him this past weekend at Travis Mash's seminar that he threw

here in North Carolina that I was able to attend a little bit of, what an awesome human being. It's always great when we get to meet people on the show, but actually being able to spend time, shake hands, do the bro hug thing, I wish we had had the opportunity to go and work out because then I could have had really smart people watching me, helping me on my specific things.

Many times at these seminars and with my schedule of what I had going on, I wasn't going to be able to actually be able to do the training and take the deep dive with him, eat dinner and do all the things that make seminars so awesome. But phenomenal episode team. And as always, make sure you get over to rapidhealthreport.com. That is where Dan Garner, Dr. Andy Galpin are doing a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis. And you can access that free report at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash. On today's show, Dr. Tim Sukumel, what's super cool about

having you on the show is Mash has been trying to get you on here. We've got a big, big, long red carpet waiting for people to get on this show mash puts you right to the top of the line here he's a man welcome to the show man i'm excited we're going to talk a little speed and power before i do that um we also need to hear this big stance trap's been telling us you have a big stance on like uh a limb lifting oh yeah we'll do that first yes we're gonna dig into because none of us do it anymore. Matt, you still do a little power clean? I mean, please.

I see it off blocks. You're not taking anything off the floor. Yeah. No. You think you still snatch like 275? No. No. No.

I think I could if I wanted to, but right now, no. Yeah. Tim, we're going to let you talk. I promise. I won't sit here and talk crap to Travis Mash, no matter how much fun it is. I know. He can get me fired up so quickly. We're going to dig into all things speed and power.

But I think as meatheads in our kind of like past weightlifting lives, as soon as I hear speed and power, my brain immediately goes to snatch and clean and jerk, the best ways to possibly do it. Which if you said that on the internet, there would be an entire, there'd be a full-sized hurricane coming through your Instagram feed of half the people hating you, half the people loving you, all of it with opinions on weightlifting. And I'd love to hear kind of your side of this too, to add to the, to add to the conversation. I mean, my, my stance generally is use what works. I mean, everything works until it doesn't work. Right. So, I mean, a lot of the, a lot of the research that we do, uh, those familiar with any of the stuff that we've done

has to do with weightlifting derivatives or modifications to the actual lift. So we may omit the catch phase. And I know people just shut off the podcast right now when I said that. But yeah, we omit the catch phase periodically because we're trying to train a specific stimulus. So if I need to use heavier loads than what I can clean or a client can snatch or whatever, I can use a pulling variation that decreases the displacement of the movement, but still trains the characteristic that I want at the time. So, for example, if I'm really trying to emphasize my ceiling of force production, I need to use loads that allow me to do that. And realistically, some of the research that we've done, we've used loads, 140% of someone's, you know, clean max power, clean max, what have you, when obviously you can't touch those when you're using a catching variation. So, and again, we've done the goal, but it won't happen. Yeah. I mean, and it's the same, everything exists on a spectrum. So the reality is that, you know, the fastest things that we're going to ever touch are going to be sprints, you know, and loaded sprints are slower than, than sprints.

Unloaded jumps are faster than loaded jumps, but loaded jumps still have a place. And I, we've done some research that loaded jumps may be faster than some of the weightlifting movements. And in that case, you know, then we continue down the spectrum where we have our, you know, our resistance or traditional resistance training movements where we're using, um, you know, just our squat press pole to train specific characteristics. There's really a place for everything. And what I use, what I say is kind of train the stimulus, not necessarily just the exercise. Yeah. Does this also kind of, in your opinion, relate to the specific sport or the specific position that people are playing?

The first time I ever actually saw people doing just like clean poles or cleans into a high pole of some sort, whether a coach was not allowing them to do the catch position was when I was training a defensive lineman in the NFL. And it made no sense to me at the time, but now I kind of think about it on that eccentric side. If you're doing RDLs or something along those lines, that eccentric piece is the part that ends up beating you up so much. So if you are, and this is just on the other side of the football,

if you're an offensive lineman, the speed and power piece is going to be massively important, where if you're on the defensive side, you're really kind of like a more eccentrically loaded athlete trying to hold people off. And I watch it all the time, like watching the NHL playoffs right now where there's your, you could be a defenseman barrel and, and some, some forward is barreling down on you to get a puck in the corner.

And you're kind of like in this constant eccentric loaded phase, trying not to get completely demolished by whatever, whatever forwards coming down on you in the corner. Does, does, do you look at things specifically based off of sport position goals, et cetera, on is, is that catch position actually needed? Yeah. I mean, you know, is he can make the, you make the argument, whether it's needed or not to pet. Well, my light just turned off. There we go. Hang on. There we go. He's back motion.

I'm back. Um, you know, apparently I was going to say something really profound there and, you know, it wasn't going to handle it, but I mean, the, the, the catch position, I mean, if we're, if we're talking about just clean variations, you know, obviously we're talking about front school, uh, front squad catch and things like that. So, um, I would make the argument that again, yes, you should be choosing things that are going to train the movements that we need to be performing. But at the same exact time, I would also make the argument that not everyone needs to be in that position. You know, does everyone have to catch? No. Can you? Yes. time. And so, you know,

especially coaches who are sorry, athletes who become coaches, I experienced this, therefore you should be experiencing this. It happens all the time. So yes, I look at things from a, from a positional standpoint, because if I have a skill player in, you know, in football, I need them to be, you know, blazing fast, number one. Number two, you know, I need, I need exercises or exercise load combinations that are going to give me that training stimulus that I may not necessarily have given them previously, if I'm only doing a select number of exercises at certain loads. The reality is, if we're talking about, you know, weightlifting movements, there's probably only a spectrum of maybe and I'll and I'll raise

it a little bit than what I've said previously, it's probably like 60 up to, you know, your max that you're going to be actually getting some maximal effort from the individuals. Otherwise, what ends up happening is you get a sub-maximal effort. And then at that point, what's the point in even doing the exercise, right? Versus if we incorporated additional things like pulling variations, whether it's sub-maximal loading with something like a high pull or a jump shrug compared to loaded jumps or unloaded jumps, they all have their place, but yeah, position specific. I think you just need to choose the exercise load combination for the goals that

you're chasing at the time. Because if we're also laying a foundation for subsequent phases, we also have to think about that too. What, you know, what about the collision aspect of things, you know, when people,? When people run into each other. I know Spencer and I would make the claim that the catch part is going to be more of the, I guess, for lack of a absorb force, but would it be in the torso in a way that's specific to the collision? Sure. Yeah. I mean, if we stick with football, I mean, the only way to getting simulated hit in football is getting hit in football. I've had coaches tell me that, well, yeah, catching a clean simulates getting hit. And I'm like, really?

Does it? Unless we're taking a person on each side of the sleeve of the barbell, running at someone and throwing the barbell at them with weight on it, are we really simulating getting hit in football? So talking about load acceptance that also exists on a spectrum. So, um, you know, I would make the argument that as, and, uh, Travis, you'd probably agree with me that as someone gets better at a clean, especially a power of like a power variation, the amount of displacement that from the top of the pull to where they'd actually accept the load

gets smaller and smaller. So the stimulus becomes less and less. Now, that being said, if you're doing a full catch variation and you increase the load, you get more stimulus that way. But let's think about every single time we re-rack a push press or a jerk. Shark family, I want to take a quick break. If you are enjoying today's conversation, I want to invite you to come over to rapidhealthreport.com. When you get to rapidhealthreport.com, you will see an area for you to opt in, in which you can see Dan Garner read through my lab work. Now, you know that we've been working at Rapid Health Optimization on programs for optimizing health. Now, what does that actually mean? It means in three parts, we're going to be

doing a ton of deep dive into your labs. That means the inside out approach. So we're not going to be guessing your macros. We're not going to be guessing the total calories that you need. We're actually going to be doing all the work to uncover everything that you have going on inside you. Nutrition, supplementation, sleep. And then we're going to go through and analyze your lifestyle. Dr. Andy Galpin is going to build out a lifestyle protocol based on the severity of your concerns. And then we're going to also build out all the programs that go into that based on the most severe things first. This truly is a world-class program, and we invite you to see step one of this process by going over to rapidhealthreport.com. You can see Dan reading my labs, the nutrition and supplementation that he has recommended that has radically shifted the way that I sleep,

the energy that I have during the day, my total testosterone level, and my ability to trust and have confidence in my health going forward. I really, really hope that you're able to go over to rapidehealthreport.com, watch the video of my labs and see what is possible. And if it is something that you are interested in, please schedule a call with me on that page. Once again, it's rapidehealthreport.com and let's get back to the show. Let's think about every single time we re-rack a push press or a jerk that always has to fall farther than a, than a catch and a clean has to. So that being said, I could make the argument that how someone re-racks a clean or re-racks

a push press is probably giving them a better load acceptance stimulus than just catching uh than a clean so uh now again we haven't done a study on that but uh the theory obviously makes sense when it comes you know if a load is falling farther than than uh than something else you would think more potential energy sure right right right which is just height just shot that out the water so yeah i mean and again it all exists on a spectrum it's like when do you we always will say you know you know with with football do you need powerful athletes yes when do you need powerful athletes and you know that's a question that you're you get coaches and say well they need to be powerful all the time. And then you get into the idea of like, well, can they actually be powerful all the time? And, you know,

you can go back and forth on those arguments all day long, but the reality is, what does the athlete need and when do they need it? Right. Totally. Because like, if you look at football anyway, like they're really not playing that much. So like, do they need to be powerful all the time? No, just they need to be powerful and then wrestle all the time. I will say there is something to learning the skill of turning over the bar and catching it 100%. argument that, you know, there are certain athletes that don't necessarily or may not necessarily need to learn that skill unless you are really lacking for a novel training stimulus.

And that's one of your only options. Right. And like the amount of time it takes now, I know right now I'm about to get in a lot of trouble with a lot of my peers in weightlifting, but the time it takes to teach and like they'll say well i can teach someone to clean in 20 minutes and you might very well can but not to the point that it's going to create any type of adaptation it's going to relate to football you're not it's going to take you a long time to like get enough weight on the bar like when you're teaching a 250 pound defensive lineman to clean the time it's going to take for them to learn how to do it and then to be able to receive enough load it's going to make any type of difference it's still

a long time whereas you know i can load up a trap bar or load up just a barbell and do high pulls pulls from the you know hip whatever and i can get a stimulus right now and that's what they're there for and i know it kills people but they're not weightlifters. They're there to get better at football. And if I've got a specific amount of time, my job is to do as much as I can in that amount of time. So yeah. I usually, I usually mention this in a, in a presentation that I'll do it. I'll say learning to catch while pulling with pulling is the primary training stimulus that we actually are getting.

That's exactly what I do. Yeah. That is exactly what I do with all of my athletes. When you go to like, if you ever come visit rise indoor sports, we that's all we do. We'll teach them like whether it be trap bar, deadlift trap bar,

pulls, pulls from the hang. Like I'm doing that. And then while they're resting, we're taking a barbell and just working on the um how to do a clean and so but and then in a few months they can get with it then yeah mass do you feel like uh olympic weightlifting like um and the skills needed to do the snatch and clean and jerk oftentimes kind of is like the sport of speed and power and

strength where like crossfit is like this the the sport of speed and power and strength where like CrossFit is like this, the, the sport of conditioning and like gymnastics. I would say yes. Where it's like you to get the stimulus, the, the training stimulus from what you're doing, you don't actually need to do the specific lift, which I would have probably argued with you for many, many, many hours where if you want to develop like a cardiovascular system, CrossFit is a way that you could go do this. But typically if you're going to do that, you're going to go end up playing the sport.

You make the most, that's the best like observation I've ever seen. So like when someone says Piros Dimas could, he had a 40 some inch vertical. Well, did he have it because of weightlifting or did he have it because he's Piros Dimas could he had a 40 some inch vertical well did he have it because of weightlifting or did he have it because he's Piros Dimas and is born genetically gifted to that very point

I was at a conference with another coach I won't even say his name he's Louisiana weightlifting coach a super fan Gil Hatch I'll go ahead and say it and we were debating this whole that's when I was doing powerlifting I've always loved weightlifting coach is super thin gail hatch i'll go and say it and we were debating this whole that's when i was doing weight and powerlifting i've always loved weightlifting and powerlifting we're at unc chapel hill and we're debating like which is better and i'm like well they're both

have their places just depends and then he brings up shane hammond and he's like well shane hammond's a weightlifter he can do a standing back flip. You know, he can dunk. He's 5'9", 380. It's interesting, coach. He power lifted first, and he could do that then. So, like, now you just got your argument just got shot out of the water. So, is it power lifting that caused it? No. It's Shane Hammond that caused it.

That's it. Like, the sport specifically is going to self-select for the people that are good at those skills versus right um the sport being responsible like for those genetic traits yeah for being predisposed to those genetic traits that then you add a training stimulus to which get better but it helps them get better the slightly above average people are going to be going towards the crossfit thing and uh speed and power people end up loving weightlifting or whatever it is. Right. It wasn't really.

I mean, the sport might help some, but they were powerful in the first place. Like Ryan Grimsland was going to be powerful from day one, no matter what I do. You know what I did back then. So same with Matt Weinecker. He was going to have a 41 inch vertical no matter what I do you know what i did back then so same with matt weininger he was going to have a 41 inch vertical no matter what i did yeah like he was just gifted like his sister ran a sub 11 100 meter that you know his sister so like he's gifted it wasn't because of weight that's fast yeah it's fast he's fat pretty sure she'd be him he's not mad at me right now but yeah i mean yo

we we all obviously love weightlifting that's been in our background for for decades at this point so but tim from your perspective weightlifting as we've already mentioned those are just some tools in a very large toolbox like when you have athletes like what is your process for selecting what you know quote unquote the best exercises to improve speed power like when you get someone brand new obviously weightlifting takes a long time to it. They don't know how to do snatches and clean and jerk effectively. It's going to take them years before they can get to the point to really get, you know, to squeeze the juice out of those lemons. So how do you select exercises for athletes? The first thing I'll do, I tell all my students, this is doing the basics insanely well. Um, I need to be able to see someone

move first with the basic movements. I'm not going to introduce anything overly complex. So I need to see how they move when they squat, when they press, when they pull. Um, because again, the reality is if I can't get someone to squat well, they're never going to do a, you know, a clean, you know, you know, and again, I, you can say teach someone to squat well, um, over, over, over time. And reality is, you know, all of us are born being able to do that. It's just, we, we lose our ability, the more that we don't move. Um, but at the, at the same time, you know, I, I stick with general basics. Um, but I also know that when it comes to introducing weightlifting, uh, variations derivatives, I mean, the mid thigh pull is the easiest exercise you could possibly

learn. I mean, you give someone a small flexion of the knee, small flexion of the hip. And I mean, the cue that we give them, um, you know, obviously provided the age and they understand this, but sit in a bar stool, sit in a bar stool, keep your, keep your torso upright. You're in the power position now. And all we're going to do is now we're going to put a barbell in your hands and just say, extend, you know, get tall. I mean, from that position, um, I mean, that is a, that is an exercise, especially if you're performing it in a squat rack off of pins, we can use, you know, 130, 140. I've seen people use 150% with that exercise. And the main thing that's benefiting them, obviously, is they are learning, one, how to, you know, rapidly extend the hip, knee and ankle joints, which is, again, most common movement in sports. They're learning postural integrity because they need to be able to maintain an upright

torso with that heavier load before we introduce something that's going to be more complex. Now we're going to introduce something like a counter-movement truck. You're still going to keep your torso upright, but now I'm going to have you stand all the way up, dip to the power position and then extend. So now we add in the stretch shortening cycle component, but it's still not complex. I mean, I could introduce both of these exercises day one with somebody. Um, but when it comes to, you know, the, the basics, I just want to make sure that make sure that we are squat pressing pulling to make sure that we can move generally. Well, if you can teach someone how to do a proper hip hinge, they can do a whole lot of other exercises. Um, and, and, uh, you know,

it's kind of funny because the way that you teach someone how to do, um, an RDL or a stiff leg deadlift, you can introduce umpteen other exercises because if you teach someone how to, uh, you know, when they, when they finish an RDL, but they're finishing it fast, first of all, but they're also doing it where they finish with a slightly bent knee in that upright, uh, in that upright position, you're essentially teaching them a transition of a weightlifting movement. That's exactly what you're doing. So then if I start to introduce hang variations, I'm just kind of like, look, you've already done this before. Now I can introduce something a little bit more complex. So the approach that I take is start basic, make sure that they do,. I'm gone again. Make sure that they do that insanely well.

And then we start to incorporate exercises that are going to be more complex. I think it's just all about you said it at Duke when I listen to you speak. It's just about force application. It's like getting caught up on certain exercises. You just need to know at what rate do you need to apply force which is really the definition of strength like strength is like i think sometimes people i don't think really understand strength but strength is not how much i can lift it for a true one i am it's what how much can i lift at a specific rate so like whatever it is and if you're say you're general public and you're someone like us well then you

just need to be broadly you need to be able to be pretty strong uh at a slower rate and pretty strong at a higher rate and with each of those adaptations happen that are good for us like you know like if you're producing force at a higher rate you know our neuromuscular system is getting more efficient and our like joints our tendons, connective tissues is getting stronger and thicker, which is good for all of this. Instead of a movement, just look at how we need to apply force and we can get

these arguments will become null and void. Well, somebody would always argue because they like to hear themselves talk, but it's a new point. To what extent do you use gym-aware type devices to to measure barbell velocity rate of force development etc uh travis knows where this is going it's a bit it's a big conversation yeah this is a great great question yeah so for me the athletes that i have

so we have a small division three school here so i'm gonna i'll call the majority of the athletes that we have developmental athletes we also don't have the budget to have multiple of these. So generally speaking, when it comes to training the athletes, we don't really use any, um, any VBT devices. Now from research standpoint, what we are trying to do is, uh, trying to figure out, uh, again, traditional exercises. It's been pretty well established what those zones and everything actually are. Um, how, yeah, exactly. Shut up, Brian, man. Um, one of the things that we've been trying to do with some of our research is determining how does that compare with some of the weightlifting movements? Now, generally speaking, we know the weightlifting movements

are going to be faster. We're going to be using, um, we're going to be using our, uh, uh, peak velocity versus mean velocity just due to the intent of the exercise. But, uh, the other thing that we did is we tried to incorporate a lot of variations. Um, so we were finishing writing. I just submitted the paper last week, comparing the differences between a barbell velocity with something like a gym aware compared to center of mass or what we term system velocity. Now, the difference obviously is with weightlifting movements, the barbell is traveling independently from the body. As a result, what I want to know is where does the velocity of the barbell come from? Does it come from the movement itself or does it come from what the body actually did to create that barbell velocity? So for example, what we ended up seeing peak barbell velocity was with a jump

shrug and a hang high pull, 20% of a hang power clean max was a velocity of about three meters a second. And now if you know a jump shrug, you're jumping as high as possible off the ground versus a high pull. You're, you're finishing the movement at chest height, well in an extended position. So the difference between the exercises is one is purely ballistic and one is a semi-ballistic exercise that has a large barbell velocity or sorry, large barbell displacement. So what's really interesting is then when you switch and switch that to a system velocity, the system velocity of the jump shrug is going to, is still going to be something like two and a half meters per second versus the peak barbell

velocity of the high pole is well below two because the body isn't moving to the same speed. So it comes down to the question, I remember having a conversation with Travis about this, is what velocity is important? When we're chasing a velocity or a zone for those that use VBT, are we chasing what the barbell is doing? Are we chasing what the system or the center of mass is doing? Because obviously from a weightlifting standpoint, the barbell velocity has to be high because otherwise it's not going to make the lift. But that is their sport. If I'm a team sport athlete who's using weightlifting derivatives for training purposes, I would argue that the system velocity is going to be more important.

I would say it's more important even for weightlifters because like, you know, what happens after you extend is just what happens. But if we're looking to improve that, so a coach, if I want to make that barbell independent of the system improve, I'm going to improve the system. I'm going to improve him. That's just a product of the system. How high the bar goes and how fast it goes. Are you guys getting that? Because once you extend, there's a moment

in time the bar keeps going. You're not doing anything. But the bar continues to go due to impulse. The amount of time you spent producing force and how fast that force was but but like that has nothing to do with the human for the peak velocity thing when you guys are uh using things like gem aware are you able to see the speed for each portion of the lift so how you know coming off the ground i imagine there's not a ton of speed in there it's really from above

the knee to the hip that you're going to see that peak velocity. And then as you were saying, Travis, the bar may be going up a little bit, but it's really all the action is pulling yourself under into the catch position. Are you able to see in each portion of the lift? We have a position. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Doug just drew it out. Yeah, we have it due or yeah exactly exactly like doug just drew it out yeah we have it you know due to position of where you are when the bar spikes and so they'll be normally during

the first pull it continues to increase velocity does and then normally most humans when they transition there could be a slight you know decrease in velocity, and then you get the big maximum at the top. Some people who are really good at the movement, there's no decrease in velocity, but most people there is. Yeah. I actually did my senior project in college in 2005 now on the biomechanics of snatching. So it looked a lot of forced time curves like that

where you see the small spike with the first pull, and then the transition, there's a dip, and then a big spike on second pull and then a dip and then the catch it's pretty it's pretty consistent everybody loses velocity in the transition yeah well like there was like you know even at marquette like ryan does it like there's no dip in velocity like but he's just super fast it's. It's all, it's all technique. It's all technique related things. It's really interesting. It really is. And human genetic components there.

Physiological components as well. Yeah, mind dips a lot. Yeah. One thing I'd like to dig into a couple of weeks ago on a show, we were talking about kind of like the biggest holes in our game and we're all in our forties. MASH is like 130 years old. It's the thing that he's missing the most.

Have you done kind of any research or any ideas on just kind of how do we maintain the speed and power? Because that really feels like it's the first thing that kind of goes as we get older. Yeah, I mean, personally, I haven't done any research on it, but kind of going back to what Travis was saying about how I define strength. I define strength as the ability to produce force against an external resistance within a task-specific context. So the idea there

is that there's going to be a ceiling of force, there's going to be a rate of force, and there's going to be a time over which we produce force. So we move based on impulse, and the still walk around. However, the ability to produce force quickly. is obviously continuing to move moderate to moderately heavy loads, relatively speaking, for the individual to maintain not only bone density, but also the ability to produce force. And I think that's one of the things that we continue to lose when we essentially stop resistance training. But at that same point, at that same, same point, um, obviously we have to put that into context of the ability of the individual to actually do that. Um, one of my favorite memes that I've ever seen was a, um, as a, as a geriatric woman, um, she's doing a deadlift and she's, she's holding like three 15 or something at the top. And it says, you put me in a home, I'll put you in the ground. Um, so, uh, I think, you know, in, in that context, I mean, everyone, everyone's going to be unique in terms of their abilities, but I would also make the

argument that, you know, as soon as we stop doing those things, um, it's kind of just ingraining it over, you know, I, we're not exercising, we're still training at that point. It's not a one and done, it is what am I doing next, just to continue along that process. And I understand it becomes challenging, you know, especially when people, you know, have have kids, and they, you know, have grandkids, you know, possibly, um, you know, surgeries and all that stuff. But I get on my parents regularly about making sure that they continue to resist the strain. I was either last year, the year before I bought them bumper plates. I bought them bumper plates for Christmas. Um, and you know, they have, uh, they have a barbell, they have some plates down downstairs. And, you know, they have a barbell. They have some plates downstairs.

And, you know, my mom's first question is, can you write me a program? And, you know, the answer is I can, but you have to do it. So, you know, it's just making sure that we, you know, ingrain, just ingrain it into part of their routine. So as soon as we stop doing that, that's when I think we kind of go downhill. Isn't that one of the truths of physiology? Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, yeah, she has been. There's a giant stack somewhere of all of the training programs

that trainers and coaches have written for their parents that never get touched. The same place as socks. They're there with those ones. Yeah. So, but like one of the truths of physiology is that like, you know, you either use it or lose it. I mean, brain cells, you know, the, um, the set muscle cells, like we don't use it. They're gonna, they're gonna go. And so like, we got to use it. I say, I say, if you don't train it, you don't gain it. Yeah, sure i say if you don't train it you don't gain it yeah sure so if you don't train it you for sure will lose it though 100 yeah we'll lose it like

i know with me like i found when i was back in school lenore ryan it was definitely like my power my ability to produce force at a very high rate was eliminated and so it took me a long time to build it back i mean a year i mean i'm still working on it and i'm using a lot of your you know your situated eccentric loading well at first i just started lifting and then i started adding like a little something and slowly just adding it back to where i can bring my elasticity so i feel it spreading too anyway you know i'm curious on the uh you know talking about programming for your mom for for programming for older people especially if you haven't ran a sprint in 30 years but you you now realize you're listening to the show you're like man i

really do need to train some speed and power like i'm i'm 60 years old like i might have 30 years ahead of me like i want i want to be able to be as athletic as possible from this point out like how do you get back into speed and power training? What are like the conservative methods to start with and how do you progress? I mean, honestly, the, the one thing I, I think a lot of people lose very quickly also is mobility. Um, because if you, and again, we're going to lose mobility. I mean, you, we're all losing mobility right now, whether we're sitting down or, or, or whatever, but you know, and, and now ever you watch everyone who's like, okay, now I'm going to sit up in a, yeah, it happens all the time. But I mean, just getting into it.

One of the things that my mom really likes to do is she likes to, she likes to run and you know, she's, she's had a couple of surgeries that have prevented her from, from doing that as much as she wants to. But, uh, when she was still, uh, this was prior to this and she was doing more running, I just said, you have to put your shoes on every day, you know, and the mentality there is like, look, it may be early. I have my shoes on and might as well do it. Um know, it's just coming up with a with a routine and not trying to overcomplicate things, but also understanding that it is going to be a long term process. So introducing them to the long term process, I think, is, you know, can you write me a program? Sure. How long do you want your program for? Well, let's just start out

with, you know, you know, four weeks. Okay. I'll write you a program for four weeks, but then the next question is what's next. You know, they may, they may adhere to that for those four weeks, but then we obviously know there's more to it than that. Um, and again, we also know that training is cyclical. It's not going to be the same thing over and over and over again, because then it just becomes monotonous. And one of the things that I definitely see with older individuals is just adding some variety to make sure that they have the opportunity to try new things. And then they're going to find things that they like, they're going to find things that they don't, you know, at this point, when people are, you know, they get, they get a little bit older. Do I expect everyone to squat? No, would it be great? Absolutely. We all love squats. But at the same exact time, when you're that age, do you have to be doing that specifically? Or could you be doing something a little bit lower impact to make sure that they adhere to the actual exercise itself? So again,

it comes down to the demands of kind of what they want out of it and what they can theoretically get out of it. Right. Mash, I just want to let you you know i haven't squatted in like nine months i just have to let you know it's terrible at all at all why i just um there's just other ways to go about it and um i have to lift too much weight i can lift a lot less weight and get the same uh well give me an example that's very vague right there. What are you doing? I can do lots of lunges, although I might get very sore, with 100 pounds, like 50 pounds in each hand. I totally agree. And get the exact same needs for my specific goals.

Agreed. I'm going to squat. I got to squat 315 to, like, think I'm doing something. Yeah. I mean, I squat. I got to squat 315 to like think I'm doing something. Yeah. And I mean, I really totally can't. I can't like I can't do that as regularly as I would like to do it because the loads need to be so heavy that I just. As long as you're bending at the knee and hit an ankle, you're still doing the same thing. You're just on the opposite side.

It's kind of like if you were to do barbell RDLs, how much weight do you have to put on there before you feel still doing the same thing just on the opposite sides it's kind of like if you were to do barbell rdls how much weight do you have to put on there before you feel like doing something i don't i can't i don't do it because it takes a lot i mean but the same reason i front squat as opposed to back squat because back squat you know puts me into you know it's more range of motion at the hip normally just because of the nature of the back squat. It hurts more because of my crazy hip. But by front squatting, you get more range of motion at the knee. I can stay upright, less hip flexion. Yeah, I totally agree.

As long as you're bending at the ankle, the knee, and the hip, who cares? I just wanted to get that off my chest. I felt like I was hiding something from you just to let you know who cares right right that's uh i just wanted to get that off my chest felt like i was hiding something from you just to let you know yeah it came out to me that he's not sweaty i still love you man you know you're gonna come clean man yeah sure sure i mean but like kelly starrett would make the argument that you're probably doing your pelvis you know like you're probably doing it a um and you're probably getting a slight advantage because you know because the right and left are supposed to move independently of each other and because we always you know a lot of weightlifters only do bilateral squatting there's probably some you know problems happening at the

hip yeah due to the nature of the sport so So it's probably better for you. Yeah, it feels better. I do want to dig into the eccentrics. You just got back from doing two talks down in Orlando. I'd love to hear kind of like highest level thoughts on eccentrics and how to incorporate them and kind of like what was your talk about down there? Yeah, so the talk was a couple of talks where it was, uh, it was a lecture base and then a practical, uh, just to kind of introduce and discuss the different methods of eccentric training,

as well as the benefits limitations of each one of them, when you would use them, who would you use them with, uh, how heavy, how often, um, you know, what, what the tempo is going to be. So one of the things that I always mention with eccentric training is we know that it works, but I don't know that we necessarily do a good job of implementing them. And the primary issue is we end up doing these elaborate training studies and we don't even know if the the prescription is correct um and what i mean by that is you know there we may we may do like you know a 10-week training study or something like that and people are using 120% eccentrically for accentuated eccentric loading with the J-hooks. And then they're having a very large percentage fall off.

I'm just making this up. I don't know if this study actually exists. But while that sounds like a good idea, is it really the best for what we're trying to do? Personally, I don't even know if we're ready for training studies from a practical side of things, primarily because, you know, look, if I want to use accentuated eccentric loading, I have several questions that I need to ask. First, is the individual actually capable of doing it? Because if they're not, it doesn't make any sense for me to do it. What's my period of time? And what's my goal? So if my goal for AEL is going to be to induce hypertrophy, so I'm trying to increase muscle size, work capacity, that all that stuff.

If I'm trying to do that, I need to increase the time under tension, um, just to give me that extra, that extra training stimulus. That being said, that also means that I may have to sacrifice the amount of load that I have. Um, but we also have to consider how many repetitions we're actually doing, because generally speaking, when we're talking about hypertrophy, we're doing anywhere between eight, 12 repetitions for, you know, three, four sets, something like that. And the reality is, I'm probably not going to reload the hooks every single time. That would be absolutely miserable. Now, even if you did it in a cluster format where you're doing it every other repetition, then you have to play the game of is the sake of load. Because, again, with eccentrics, you obviously have to control the load. Gravity is going to do its thing, but we have to control the load to a point.

Now, control is a spectrum. Am I moving it really slow? Am I moving it with my natural movement tempo or individuals not actually resisting it at all? And with the last case, I would make the argument that they're probably not getting the adaptations that they think they're getting primarily because they're not actually resisting anything. They're just free falling into the bottom of a squat or a bench press or

whatever. So the primary method, I trust me, I can go down the rabbit hole with AEL, but the primary like purpose of the talk again was to introduce different methods that are out there. So the primary methods that we talk about with eccentric training are going to be our tempo based training where you're lengthening the duration of the eccentric phase of the movement, flywheel inertial training using flywheel devices, something like the K-Box or the Kratos or the XR fly or something like that. There's AEL, which I've been talking about a little bit, but also things like accelerated eccentrics, where you're using bands to kind of pull you down into a faster counter movement or drop catches where you're

holding onto a hex bar where you quickly drop kind of like a snap down, but you're holding onto weight. You can do that with a bench press too. But also mentioning the, the, the caveat of something like a plyometric exercise, because plyometrics exist on the eccentric training spectrum. It's just a matter of how you want to use them in that capacity, because certainly you can get benefits from performing eccentric or you can get an eccentric training stimulus from doing plyometrics. But at the same time, is it going to be unilateral, bilateral? Is it something that has a really short contact time or slightly slower contact time? Do you have a barrier where you're jumping over hurdles and things like that? So there's a massive, massive spectrum.

And again, we were talking about weightlifting movements earlier. Weightlifting movements certainly can provide an eccentric stimulus. Especially re-reacting the jerk. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So again, that all exists on a spectrum every single time you do it. So again, it comes down to what do you need and when? Do you have to produce force quickly over a short period of time? Do you have to do it fast? And if you do, you know, is there a type of exercise that's going to be better for you than not based on what you're capable of doing? So again, I may be talking in circles at this point, but- I got some specific questions. Go ahead. Yeah.

Is there an advantage of doing the slow eccentrics on, you know, like the slow tempo? Yeah. I mean, for sure. In the morning. That's that's right. But there's certainly, there's certainly a benefit to it. And I would, I would argue that you almost have to introduce whoever you're using eccentrics with, you may have to first introduce them to tempo-based eccentrics so that they

understand what they're trying to stop at the time. And I'm not talking about only doing negatives. I'm talking about doing something sub-maximally that they can control for an extended period of time before performing the concentric side of the actual movement itself. So we may introduce and I do it with my I do it with my athletes when we're in kind of an introductory block, because realistically, I could also build some work capacity with them doing something like, um, doing something with tempos. So I'll introduce, like, if we're going to go through a squat progression, I'll say, all right, we're going to perform a, you know, again, very introductory. We're going to perform some kettlebell squats or plate squats or whatever. Um, but what I want you to do is actually lower in a five second tempo, and then feel out the very bottom position of that squat where we will actually do a pause before we stand up. Just so, again, they can feel that position.

A couple of things we're doing there. One, building work capacity because they hadn't done that before. But also we are now, mind you, work capacity is a spectrum as well in terms of how much load you're using, blah, blah, blah. But it also helps them from a postural strength standpoint, because especially if I'm having them do a kettlebell, they obviously have to keep their chest up the entire time. But we're also working on mobility at the time too. So a variety of things can be worked on when you're doing things like your, your tempo based movements. And again, if you switch that and you, you're now working more

maximally, if you will, or even super maximally, you can do things like negatives and negatives. There's not really much research on negatives. I had a very good conversation, several conversations with coach Alan Bishop at the university of Houston. He does a lot of tempo based AEL with his athletes. But the reason that he does it is primarily due to the fact that he wants to really have heavy, you know, he may use 120% on the eccentric side of things before performing the concentric side of things, but he does a five second, you know, eccentric muscle action. And I asked him, I said, do you think you'd get the same benefits of doing just

negatives with that same load? And he said, honestly, I don't know, but he also wanted to, um, allow his athletes to continue to perform the full movement by still performing the concentric side of things afterwards. So, and I, and I get it because if you want your athletes to ultimately perform a bench press or a squat, they're going to have to do both eccentric and concentric and pair those things together. But obviously, one of the things that negatives may allow us to do is introduce a really heavy load and also allow them to control that over an extended period of time so that they can develop that postural strength and the ability to actually control that movement. So yeah, certainly there's going to be benefits to tempos. And I don't think it's the advantages that people think.

That's my point. It's like, right. So the power, the rate of force development, the improved elasticity, all those things probably won't come from that. Yeah. This is your research. Right. Right.

So we have, if you put someone, if you actually put someone on a force plate and they do a squat with a tempo, one of the things that you're going to see is a flat line. If they're doing a slow enough tempo, you're going to see a flat line. And the reason why they're doing that, it tempo, you're going to see a flat line. And the reason why they're doing that, it's not because they just disappeared and there's no force happening. They are maintaining the system weight. So whatever weight they're squatting plus them, they're maintaining it because they're not moving fast enough to cause a fast acceleration one way or the other. Now, does that mean no force is being produced internally? Absolutely not. Because if that was the case, we'd just collapse down to the bottom. Right. Right. So internally, there's definitely some things that

are going to be going on. We're lengthening fascicles to allow for, you know, faster shortening actions eventually. But again, I would also make the argument that it has its place, but that shouldn't be the only thing that we're doing when it comes to eccentric-based training, specifically because eventually you're going to have to move fast. So to your point, Travis, the eccentric speed is something that we can also manipulate a little bit more because we end up being able to produce higher forces over a shorter period of time. Sorry, higher forces with faster velocities with eccentric muscle actions. Which is important and more specific to sport in general. So I think we got to wrap it up, right? Where can people learn more or do you have any big speaking events coming up?

Yes, he does. Actually, I'm actually going to be at Travis's place on June 1st. I'm going to meet you. Yeah. Forged athlete. So I think we're going to be talking to me, centrics. We'm going to meet you. Yeah. Yeah. Forged athlete. So I think we're going to be talking some eccentrics. We're going to be talking some weightlifting movements. So and whatever Travis tells me I'm speaking on.

So. Eccentrics for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll be down there June 1st. I'll be at NSCA National in Baltimore speaking on weightlifting movements and derivatives and some updated research that we have with that. I'll see you there. And then locally, that's where I'll be.

I have a couple of speaking engagements overseas later on in the summer and in the fall. But my handles when it comes to X and Instagram or Dr. T Sukumel. And then I believe on one of those anyway, I have a link to my research gate page where all of the research that we've published, people can find. Get ready. It's a lot. There you go. Coach Bass. Yeah. We're going to stick with Forge Athlete.

It's a big coaches summit and it'll be June 1st. The rise in their sports in Bermuda run North Carolina. Go ahead and stick with Forge Athlete. It's a big coaches summit, and it'll be June 1st. They're rising their sports in Bermuda, run North Carolina. That's the triad area right beside Winston-Salem. But you can go to Instagram at MASH Elite Performance or Twitter at MASH Elite. Look at my link in my bio, and Forge Athlete is like the first one. So, yeah, come to that. It's going to be loaded with studs,

especially even where our very own Dan Garner will be there. Yeah, Dan Garner, Chris Perry. And Chris Perry. So a lot of the Bartleshrug bosses will be there. Or I guess it will be more of the Rapid Health bosses. We're all the same. We're all the same. All the same thing.

There you go. Doug Larson. Man, I'm so bummed that I'm missing that event. I'll be just getting back from Oregon and, and bailing on another trip. Just, uh, not in the cards at the moment,

but it sounds like it's going to be a good time. Uh, Tim, dude, Travis has brought you up in conversation many times. And, I was stoked to get you on the show here. Talking speed,

power, strength is, uh, kind of the, the original passion for getting into weightlifting in the first place, playing sports and football and all that. So, uh,

killer to have you on the show, man. Good to meet you. We'd love to do it man. Good to meet you. Would love to do it again. I'll call you tomorrow. Get your tickets, by the way. Sounds good.

Where can I find you, bud? Oh, yeah. On Instagram, Douglas E. Larson. Look at that. And I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged. And make sure you get over to RapidHealthReport.com. That is where Dan Garner and Dr. Anna Galpin are doing a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis. You can access that free report over at rapidhealthreport.com.

Friends, we'll see you guys next week.