Conjugate For Fighters & Track & Field Training Secrets w/ Colton Razo (SSOF Ep 196)

Colton Razo3:02

The biggest thing I think I learned from them was... Okay, so after I was with Matt, and Matt has a very sort of concrete system with how he trains people that's a conjugate style system. And as you are, I think as a young strength coach you kind of think you're like, "Okay, I know everything. I know a system now. This is the only... This is the way. This is the way to do it." And so certain even preconceived maybe notions or biases that maybe I had at that time and how much they've changed.

So, a big one being Olympic lifting. After leaving my time with Matt, I thought Olympic lifting wasn't necessary at all. Like you don't need to do it. It's dumb. I would tell you don't do it at all. Now all of my athletes Olympic lift, every single one of them. And so even something like that.

But then what John I think really did a good job with was teaching me how to pair the demands of practice... This is track. This is where we're track and field there. What are they doing in practice? What are they doing in the weight room? How are you marrying these neuromuscular demands? How is that going to impact what they're going to do while they're training for that day?

How is it setting them up what they're going to do tomorrow? And how does it sort of overlay within the overall arching scheme of that time of year, where we are, what's the theme of the week, the cycle, how the coach programs, everything like that.

So, I'd say overarching philosophy would be just that is to make sure that you are utilizing common training schemes paired with neuromuscular demands and kind of looking at things from a much more global perspective and not so siloed as to this is the weight room and some way should perform separate from everything else.

James de Lacey4:31

Yeah. Yeah, as I think that's a common way of thinking of at the these kind of isolated or silo approaches. This is what happens in the gym and then this is what happens out here and there's kind of no real matching, but it's interesting to go into... We can start with the Olympic lift stuff. So, you said you went from none to everyone does them. So, what do you see as... I guess what are the reasons behind that change?

Colton Razo4:56

I think exposure. I think so, when I was a college athlete, I was terrible at the Olympic lifts and so probably in the back of my head I was like, "You know, what? I'm not good at these, so they must not be good." And so when I got introduced to John and really just he... Well, when he taught me like, "Hey, this is how the Olympic lifts are done," was huge for me. He even sent me to get my USA weightlifting. I did it with Mike Gattone in Chicago.

And just sort of showed me the versatility that they allow within the different Olympic derivatives, the Olympic lifts themselves, and how much you can accomplish with a movement and the versatility therein. I think it's really invaluable wherein, if you have athletes... Let's be honest, I see my athletes after practice, when they come in, it's like how much... How many movements can you really ask them to do or things can you really ask them to do that you're going to get really high intentionality behind? Three, four, maybe?

So, if with this one lift, if I can accomplish a myriad of strength qualities or given things with one thing as opposed to having to place with maybe two or three, it just made a lot of sense to me. And then as we've kind of gone through my career, I've only I think gone to believe even more into that.

James de Lacey6:14

Are there any particular derivatives that you really like to use?

Colton Razo6:19

Depends upon time of year. We do a lot of pulls. Like just clean pulls, we'll do jump shrug, jump pulls, things like that. I'll do a lot of block work. Hang work. I mean, I kind of do it all. It depends upon the time of the year as far as more sort of joint angle modulation with what we're kind of doing maybe in that phase of training kind of where we're at and the quality of training.

James de Lacey6:46

If you're anything like me, you're short on time. Kids, family, work, training, and having to cook meals on top of that is just not going to happen. So, I'm happy to announce Trifecta Nutrition are sponsoring the podcast. You get epic meals like these ones, turkey taco bowl, Texas barbecue protein plate. These are a couple of my favorites.

But it means you don't have to prepare all your own meals and it makes getting good nutrition relatively easy. I've tried other meal delivery companies. Most of them are too high fat, not enough carbohydrates, or if you're getting kits where you have to cook yourself, the portions for two is actually for one, especially if you are like me and you're training often.

So, if you want to take something off your plate and have meals like this delivered to your door, go down the description. There's a link there where you can order Trifecta meals. This is the performance line, which are higher protein and higher carbohydrate, and you can use code liftbig40. You'll get 40% off your first order.

Let's actually run through that. So, obviously you have the track and field season. You mentioned, obviously, matching kind of the demands of what's happening in practice to the weight room. So, it would be kind of interesting, maybe even just a general idea, a general structure of kind of how that year runs and how things change and progress. I think it would be a good way for listeners to kind of get an idea of what's going on and why.

Colton Razo8:01

Yeah, so I guess a super simple overview really is if I'm looking at... Okay, let's say at practice that day they did acceleration development. So, we're kind of early fall kind of phase, acceleration development. If you're doing plyometrics on that day as well, what's something that would make really good sense would be short horizontal bounding. Makes great sense to pair on an acceleration development day. So, your broad jumps, consecutive broad, standing triples, some simple bounding like left left right right, double doubles, things like that. Makes a lot of good sense.

Another thing that would make good sense in the weight room is your more deeper knee flexion work. So, for the Olympics, we'll do more kind of pull-based work, work from the floor. And then deep range of motion... You could probably front squat in that time if we're looking more so in fall. Or back squatting, deep range of motion, things like that.

As we kind of progress through or maybe the emphasis of the day changes, even if I see them more of a max velocity day, I'll be more keen to do things either from the hang, from higher blocks, joint angle changes. Any plyometrics will now have lesser ground contact time. A little more vertical emphasis as well as horizontal. If that kind of makes sense.

James de Lacey9:09

Yeah, for sure. How many weeks, how many days a week are they in the gym with you usually?

Colton Razo9:14

It depends. Usually anywhere, so I see all track and field athletes are with me from two to four depending upon the time of year.

James de Lacey9:26

So in the fall, as you mentioned, they doing just two sessions with you then or is that four?

Colton Razo9:31

That would be more. So usually that would be like three or four.

James de Lacey9:34

So what, what, what do the other days typically look like? Are they still the same, is it still the same pairing? Kind of the acceleration max velocity and they would kind of repeat through the week or is it something else?

Colton Razo9:44

Depends on the coach. Usually Mondays are an acceleration development day. And so if I see them on like, let's say I see them Monday, Tuesday, Thursday. If Monday is acceleration development, maybe Tuesday is more tempo oriented. Wednesday might be more of a day off. Thursday maybe they're either doing, I've seen tempo again depending upon the time of year of the coach. Or maybe they're doing acceleration again.

They're in another stuff. Okay, now I have kind of my pairing there. Whereas then on Tuesday, I wouldn't really do anything neural. That would be more of, more like lower CNS type of day.

So I'll do a few things you can do. I've either done like more upper body only on those days you can push it heavier. Or I've even consolidated all of their more like ancillary repetition effort movements. And they'll do most of them on that day. I lost your mic. Mike, try again.

James de Lacey10:38

I hope you got me.

Colton Razo10:39

Yep, you're back.

Or I've even consolidated all their like auxiliary more so movements on a tempo day or like a lower CNS type of day.

James de Lacey10:49

So be kind of like a high-low model you would typically run throughout the week.

Colton Razo10:53

Yeah. Yeah, to a certain degree for sure.

James de Lacey10:55

Nice. And but yeah, that would be cool to actually go into as well. We'll go deeper into that as well. But to go down the conjugate route just because I think it's, it's become or is quite popular within the combat sport world. This is probably right many different sports, but I think within fighters it's kind of been labeled as one of the training styles to do.

So it'd be interesting to kind of go into a deep dive of the conjugate system for anyone listening who's kind of wants to learn more about it. So maybe to start with a general overview of you know, what even is the conjugate system and how's it all together?

Colton Razo11:33

So the conjugate system, really what we're dealing with, you could, so you could classify all exercises you're doing into three categories. Repetition effort, dynamic effort, max effort. The conjugate system is basically having all of those exercise categories being trained in a given week, in a given mesocycle, microcycle at the same time. So everything is present at all times.

And then you're just kind of more so adjusting or modulating maybe the emphasis based on the volume of those given things. So if we're going for like a max effort sort of emphasis, that'll be brought up to more of like a stimulating sort of training loads or volumes, everything else gets brought down like retaining, right?

If we're looking at like Zatsiorsky's classical model, it's either going to be a detraining, retaining, stimulating loads. And it's basically just a modulation of those three things.

And I think my first exposure to that that would have been with Matt. And I think one thing he did within his system that really made a lot of sense to me and I think was quite smart was all of those things are present every single day just within different displacing, different emphasis on what it was based on the time of the year and then even putting sort of a level of being a time constraint on the sessions themselves.

James de Lacey12:45

Got you. So what would be some examples of max effort, repetition, dynamic and those indices in terms of maybe exercise selection and kind of how it's set up with set, rep, intensity, all that.

Colton Razo13:00

So max effort, really what we're looking at is anything over 90%. You can do that in, I mean, Olympic lifts can be created into max effort work. The classical would be like bench, squat, and deadlift that people tend to think of.

And then dynamic effort, same thing. That's where your accommodating resistance comes into play. You see that's where you see the bands and chains, things like that. Olympic lifts prescribed appropriately within given percentages also dynamic effort.

And then repetition effort, even if brought down I guess to subsequent intensities, really well 70% below, you're looking at more so now repetition effort style. So that could be, I guess, higher volumes of squat, bench, and dead. But that's where more and more your auxiliaries now lie. Classical repetition effort, by definition, is being taken to failure or it needs to approximate to failure. So that's where a lot much more of your sort of auxiliaries are then being taken into play.

I think the biggest thing you probably see with the conjugate method that maybe gets misconstrued is just variation for the sake of variation. And I think sometimes conjugate is confused with we're just going to do a bunch of stuff all the time and not touch the same movement what like more than two times in like a 12-week span. I don't, I don't use it that way. I think there's not too many athletes that is probably the best for. But yeah, that would be kind of some classical examples of the three categories.

James de Lacey14:24

Yeah. I guess I come from like a pure powerlifting background, so I guess you could say it could be misapplied within the athletic realm. As you mentioned, the switching of exercise, I guess it's probably one of the main points when someone talks about kind of a conjugate or even like Westside method is that rotation of the lifts where you only do it once on a like a max effort day and then move on.

So you're sticking with the same lifts most of the time because you're trying to see progress in those versus having that kind of rotation going on every week.

Colton Razo14:55

Well, you know, and you can conjugate a lot of different ways other than just the pure novelty of changing the exercise. You can conjugate by a sequence. So we would have done the same exercises in a given lift. Maybe I change the sequence. I can change percentage. I can change the volume allocation. There's a lot of ways in which you can still conjugate and alter maybe the emphasis of that session from a strength quality perspective without just completely, you know, throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

And I think that that's where I think it gets a little muddy sometimes with people and they look at it like, well, how can I take this with athletes because I'm going to be teaching 15 exercises every single session over and over again. And you know, people read a lot of accommodation, you have to change it, right? Change the exercise.

Well, the magnitude of the stimulus is also getting enhanced for an extended period of time before it begins to plateau then drop off. So you're actually leaving quite a bit of low-hanging fruit on the table by moving that exercise out so frequent.

James de Lacey15:52

So what would be some examples of to make it really easy to visualize of maybe like a really simple training session that has an emphasis on one of those qualities and then how that would change with the same exercises to kind of change that. That makes sense.

Colton Razo16:08

Yeah. And so within like my screening, I'll kind of play upon a lot of different sort of like PAP constructs. So I try to look at things like whatever the first exercise is, how does this then impact the subsequent and the subsequent and the subsequent and the subsequent. And so it's like, and you can look at a few ways to, I'll tend to look at more as an ascending and descending sort of schemes as well.

But a really easy way to modulate it is let's say like if I'm doing like maybe some clean pulls as my first lift and then maybe I'm doing some cleans like full power cleans from the floor for the second and then we're doing like a back squat for that third. Merely by modulating the volumes of the three, I could dictate what is more so the emphasis.

So maybe if I'm literally just doing following more of a max effort style of day, maybe I'd go more, more volume allocation with heavier loads on the pulls, kind of bring the clean itself down maybe more so either baseline of more dynamic effort intent or lower volumes at higher intensity and then we're doing a single and then we're clustering it whatever and then the back squat is more of max effort intent. So we're touching something over 90.

If I want to keep it more dynamic, all I would then do is either keep things the same and use the clean pull less of the volume. It's pure potentiation for the clean. Increase the volume there in more of a dynamic effort sense. So then the volume percentage range would be between like 75, 85%. Achieve dynamic effort there. And then on the squat itself, keep that more dynamic.

So that's where you do dynamic effort squatting. Whether that's pure just velocity based, you're going to do is combining resistance with that. Or if I really wanted to, I would just maybe eliminate the clean pull entirely. Just do the power clean. Just do the squat. Or vice versa.

James de Lacey17:48

I like that. I like that. That was good. That was a good visual. With the you obviously mentioned some of the other like ascending descending kind of thing. Do you have a preference? There's obviously many ways to structure a session. They all kind of work.

But you've got some structures that are maybe from fast exercises, jumps, plyos, Olympic lifts, and then heavier like squats for example, versus reversing that. Maybe doing your heavier stuff first and doing your light stuff later. Do you have a preference in there or you kind of just using it depending on what you're trying to emphasize?

Colton Razo18:18

I think it's somewhat context dependent. If they're coming from me after practice, they're wound up. They're not in it. They're wound up.

James de Lacey18:26

They kind of done the speed stuff already.

Colton Razo18:28

And so, the first one or two things should probably be the main event for that day. However, if they're coming to me and they haven't practiced at all, then it's okay to now okay, we'll warm up. So, whatever that needs to look like, we'll do our warm up. And then maybe in that case, maybe it's more the third movement might be sort of the primary movement of that day, as we kind of then still allow them to sort of excite to the level that I need them to.

And that will also dictate sort of my, that's kind of part of the nuance within the maybe prescription itself of exercise volume and some percentage sort of modulations there.

James de Lacey19:05

How do you balance what's happening on the track versus what's happening in the gym? For example, you mentioned doing some plyometric work on acceleration day. Obviously with or even on the high velocity day but sprinting itself is also plyometric exercise. So how are you balancing this without kind of potentially overdoing it?

Colton Razo19:25

Okay. My last, when I was at University of Houston, my boss was, well, Carl Lewis was our sprints coach.

And so Carl was my boss. But Carl didn't do any pliers, or at least very minimal, almost none. And so in conversations with him I was like, okay, well coach, is that consistently the case or are you not going to do them? He's like, yeah, no, I generally don't. I was like, okay, well then I'm going to. So tell me if that changes.

Whereas here at Ohio State, my current sprints coach, he does quite a bit of plyometrics. And so I really don't do as many here or I'm maybe filling a gap somewhere during certain times of the year. And so yeah, it depends. So I've been in situations at Houston again where they're not done and so that then falls all on to me and I can do them and sort of dictate that myself, or here where he does do them and so I need to kind of be aware of that.

James de Lacey20:21

Yeah, fair enough. With the weight room as well, so you mentioned obviously some different protocols and things, but anything to go into more maybe advanced strength training protocols if you use them at all. It can be things maybe your favorite or typical variations, maybe cluster sets, maybe eccentric overload. Is there anything in those brackets that you typically use with your college athletes? Are they advanced enough, some of them, to even get down that road?

Colton Razo20:48

Well, that's the question too. I love cluster sets. I love clusters. I will almost look for reasons to cluster things.

And then I guess more things, I'll do more extended duration isometric work, more on this time when they're off-season, they're done competing and they're not going to compete now for some time. So, extended duration isometrics at length. I'll do some overload eccentric type work, like your two-to-ones or we'll do true overload eccentric work or just pure lowering type of work.

There's certain dynamic effort work I do. There's some loaded plyos, loaded jumping type things I do. There's some loaded throwing stuff that I do that's probably a little different that maybe people don't see. Loaded throwing, so barbell throws, like kind of like a thrower. Yeah, so they're literally throwing it. There's, I wish I had weight releasers. I don't, because that would enhance my ability to do the eccentric pieces of it.

James de Lacey21:57

Or even flywheels.

Colton Razo22:00

Right. You know what? We actually just got quite a few. So, I might have enough to logistically pull it off. We've always had them but not many, not enough. And so, just with the group sizes I deal with, a lot of times that's the battle with more advanced teams is the logistics you're going to battle. My throwers is six people.

James de Lacey22:19

Oh, perfect.

Colton Razo22:20

So, I can kind of do whatever I want. But, you know, if I've got sprints and jumps that's 20 plus people and we only have two flywheels, it's like, all right, well, I can't do this.

James de Lacey22:30

What flywheels did you get?

Colton Razo22:33

Kbox.

James de Lacey22:34

Kbox. Nice. So, you got more of those now to be able to potentially put people through that?

Colton Razo22:40

Yeah. We just bought six of them. And we already had two or three. So, if I can get to my facility when I need them consistently, because that's my thing too is can I consistently have them on this day, because if it's well, you know, most of the time, then I usually just won't do it.

James de Lacey22:58

Yeah, that's fair enough. Is there anything in particular you're looking to do on the flywheel?

Colton Razo23:03

I mean the overload eccentric piece of it for me, especially with some single leg work and two to one work on that stuff can really be great. Anytime you're dealing with trying to overload eccentrically and just sort of enhance eccentric rate of force development, I think within the context of my sport is big.

James de Lacey23:21

So, you're obviously just about eccentric rate of force development for the sport. What else have you identified as kind of key metrics or these key adaptations you're trying to change for track and field specifically? Because a lot of the stuff is kind of universal sport wise. So, a lot of the stuff you're trying to chase is probably a lot of the stuff or similar stuff to what many fighters and other athletes are trying to chase.

Colton Razo23:44

Are we talking about sprinters and jumpers specifically?

So, eccentric rate of force development is going to be a big one. Peak also force is going to be a big one. Time to peak force is going to be a big one. That's where later on within training, all of my loaded jumping or even just my higher block Olympic work comes into play. Stiffness is going to be a huge one, which is kind of where some of those duration longer duration or even higher loaded isos going to come into play, are big qualities that you're really looking for. And even more so now, anthropometrically, there's more certain body types I think from a recruiting standpoint who we're looking for based upon the...

James de Lacey24:31

Interesting. What are you seeing there regarding anthropometry?

Colton Razo24:35

A big one that you see, so your best accelerators are generally going to have a pretty significant, a shoulder to hip ratio of 1.6 or more. So, they're going to be really broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip. Your better accelerators would be more along that line. I've even saw where, so, they do muscle bone ratio testing. I want to be able to do this. I'm looking, I'm trying to get certified in it.

Muscle bone ratio testing, and so that's a pretty comprehensive scanning. So doing basic bone measures, you're doing width and breadth measures. And the person that's really kind of leading the charge now is Aaron Womack. Aaron, when we talked, he's like, I honestly, I'm getting to the point where I'm not sure if you can even play defensive back in the NFL if your shoulder to hip ratio isn't at least 1.6.

Your ability to rotate space and just how to handle that change is, I might have to be, I'm getting to the point where I might draw the line and say you almost have to have that.

James de Lacey25:36

And it makes sense genetically, right?

Colton Razo25:39

Yeah. You can't do anything about that.

With obviously just the sporting system itself, college sports kind of being a filtration system for it. And those are the guys that end up just kind of rising to the top. Pretty much all the sprinters you see, you look, a lot of your better sprinters, their shoulder to hip ratios. Swimmers is another big one where you see those shoulder to hip ratios. But it's really pretty interesting and even just the incidence of the increased incidence of soft tissue injury if your muscle to bone ratio gets over a certain point depending upon sporting event. It's pretty interesting.

James de Lacey26:14

So your muscle to bone ratio as in you become quote unquote too big for the sport? Is that what you mean?

Colton Razo26:21

Yeah. Too muscular for the demands of your given event or position.

James de Lacey26:27

Interesting. Is there a concrete potential threshold number for that or is it kind of just still up in the air?

Colton Razo26:34

There's quite a bit and so the testing itself, it's a five factor system. So you get muscle mass, organs, skin, fat, and organ. Oh, did I say organ? And so you get all five factors. And then so from that you get skeletal load and then muscle load. Then obviously if you're a 220 lb skeleton, 100 lb of lean mass or muscle tissue, actual muscle tissue, you have a muscle bone ratio of five.

And so there's an upper limit, naturally, upper limit. Where Caucasians it's about five. Polynesians are around 5.5. And then blacks, African Americans, it's six. And so within that, depending then upon your position, so let's say NFL's done the most comprehensive research on this by far.

Depending upon that now, if you get over a certain amount, incidents of soft tissue injuries starts to climb. And so for wide receiver it was 4.6, 4.5.

James de Lacey27:41

Have you ever—I don't know if you're doing this now, but if even if not, if you saw this in someone, would you try and change the training to reduce muscle mass?

Colton Razo27:53

And so I had sprinters that were a little heavy and the average weight loss for them this past year was about 10 lb. And our incidence of soft tissue injuries was reduced significantly.

James de Lacey28:05

So how did you go about that in terms of the strength training?

Colton Razo28:09

Just reducing volumes. Really not having them in any sort of repetition effort hypertrophic kind of rep schemes. Just overall kind of looking at that. Getting a college kid to change his diet can be a hassle at times. Well, here they have resources to do it, but it's a matter of getting compliant with it.

And so I think that in of itself was actually kind of big this year for us as far as just being healthier for the long term. Cuz I mean you're competing. It's a long season. And so that I think in of itself sort of anecdotally was big.

James de Lacey28:42

Did they get all the meals and stuff provided?

Okay. So, it's like a food hall and then they have a fridge full of all the sponsored drinks and whatnot. And meal replacement?

Colton Razo28:55

Yeah, there's fueling stations around campus, but then there's also a cafeteria that's only for the athletes. Yeah, it's pretty sweet.

James de Lacey29:04

Is that for coaches, too?

Colton Razo29:06

Yeah. Yeah, actually it is. We have to pay for it, but you know.

It's kind of for coaches.

James de Lacey29:16

That's good. That's good. So, I think we mainly touched on the as for the beginning of your season?

Colton Razo29:25

Yeah. So, basically the whole fall semester, we essentially have 12 weeks of just unattached training where we're not competing.

James de Lacey29:32

Got you. So, that's when you're going hard on all the stuff we mentioned earlier in the podcast. So, what happens then when you start getting in the season and the competing? Are they competing relatively often then? My track and field knowledge is so bad.

Colton Razo29:45

So, basically we train for 12 weeks, they go home for Christmas for a week, 10 days, kind of depending. And then when they come back, they literally compete that weekend. They come back Monday, we're just competing on Saturday.

So, what happens over the break then? You're giving them things to do? Hopefully they do it. Yeah, hopefully they do it. You find out pretty quick.

And then as far as competing, track is tough, so the first couple meets are kind of important, especially if you're a freshman or a newcomer. I guess you haven't competed at college. Cuz a lot of the meets you really want to compete in are invites. And so, in that first meet or two, you want to hit a mark or get a time or kind of whatever your event is, but then allows you to get into the rest of the meets.

Cuz meets don't just take everybody. They're only going to take top so many entries. And so, if you fall below that, if you don't have a good enough mark, you might not get in.

And so, there's kind of been a pressure early on if you're a freshman or a newcomer to hit a mark in those first couple meets and then that will really dictate what their best of your season's going to look like cuz it's going to dictate whether you're getting the meets or not. On average they're competing twice a month maybe three times a month in a more dense month. They're always in the weekends. And then it creates travel.

James de Lacey31:05

Okay. So that is pretty full on. So how does the program potentially change then from that initial 12 weeks where you kind of got free reign almost to now they're in the competitive season it's after Christmas. What happens now?

Colton Razo31:19

Well, a lot of the max strength—well, the the choices I make as far as for your max effort for exercise categorizations, a lot of the heavy full range squatting is gone. They're the strongest they're going to be in that probably around January. Late January. And then that kind of begins to dissipate goes away.

And then a lot of their kind of squatting patterns become either high force or high output to dynamic effort intent or their loaded jumps. And then their heavier max effort loading will then come more from their Olympics Olympic derivatives. And then even within that it gets really slim what I'm doing with them around May late April where now we're kind of in championship time frame. I'll take away spinal loading almost entirely.

James de Lacey32:06

Yeah. Interesting. And then that means you're doing more kind of single leg work I guess dumbbells. I don't know if you have any—Oh you you got a you got belt squat machines, all right?

Colton Razo32:18

Yep. Yep. Belt squats. Yeah, they'll do much more almost like loaded jumping and then Olympic derivatives and things like that once we're kind of in that phase of things. And then plyometrics when they're at practices. But yeah, around that time they're with me for 30 minutes.

James de Lacey32:35

It's interesting as well when you look at the research around lifting and kind of I guess muscle fiber type muscle architecture stuff. General strength training is not particularly favorable to speed adaptations. You're looking at shift type 2A from type 2X. You're looking at increases in pennation angle, shortening muscle fibers and all that kind of stuff.

And then what's even more interesting is when you take time away from lifting or greatly reduce the volume, you kind of see this overshoot. And there's adaptations back to speed. And it's kind of like you're looking there within the season. As you get through if you just back off enough, you may even just see more speed adaptations out the other end.

And I don't know if that's something that's in the back of your mind when you're kind of getting down those cuz I know there's probably a lot of coaches that get to a point like that and they go, "Shit, are we doing enough?" And can you kind of almost shoot yourselves in the foot with volume.

Colton Razo33:37

And all right. At that point the hay's in the barn. You're not going to—I'm not going to shave a half second off of our 100-meter guy or even a tenth of a second by some two-week-long weight room construct. It's not happening.

James de Lacey33:52

So no massive good mornings the week off?

Colton Razo33:56

You know, or you'll get—or I think coaches sometimes just inherently maybe get a little anxious. Or on the times they go, "Oh, I saw this. We're going to do this." All of the sudden now we're going to do this thing they have not yet done before. And no. They're going to do 30 minutes and it's dynamic. It moves really well.

Any sort of at that point we're in championship times, our roster's reduced. Any specific interventions that I need to do on the floor, we do. That's not the time to add in novelty in my opinion whatsoever. Yeah. And it's—yeah. Reduce it. Kind of it's almost like keeping the rhythm of it. You maybe get a little bit of potentiation effect. Within within that I think there's probably some—it depends. It's very contextual as well. But yeah, I know they're with me for 30 minutes.

James de Lacey34:43

Are you ever—you mentioned that potentiation effect. Are you ever looking I guess does anyone fall under kind of a a pre-competition primer? Maybe the night before or the or even the morning of? I don't know if there's anything being done there.

Colton Razo34:56

Kind of that day before.

James de Lacey34:57

The day before.

Colton Razo34:58

Generally. So it is a primer. Throwers are probably a little more regimented in that. This is I'm going into my fourth year now. Our throws coach here, they do their three lifts a week with me. And he is pretty adamant that we're getting that third lift in cuz that is a primer lift.

And I think just to keep them in that schedule, but we've just seen really good consistent progressions with it and consistent performances with it. And so I think it's one of those things now where we're pretty—he's pretty certain that matters. He's just like, "Love it. Thank you." But that's something that is pretty important within them especially.

James de Lacey35:37

What have you seen regarding primers? Do you find maybe your throwers like heavier lifting that day before versus the more dynamic work?

Colton Razo35:47

It'll depend. So mine that are a little more I would say—I kind of classify them kind of crudely as you're almost more of a dump truck or you're more of a Ferrari. So mine that are more volume based with heavier loads, higher volumes kind of just in general will keep it a little heavier. It's more of dynamic effort if I was, you know, put a broad label across it.

But I might modulate a little bit as far as kind of the loads or maybe what sort of certain warm ups look like, things like that. So if there is dynamic effort squatting, maybe we do dynamic effort squatting, but in the warm up to get their dynamic effort squat as a potentiator, maybe they hit a single at 80%. And then we strip, set it up, boom. Now we're doing that. Or I'll keep the volumes a little bit more, or maybe I keep in a little bit more heavier a heavier little Olympic derivative in there. It can take kind of a few different forms.

But interestingly with the throwers, we've noticed this now, I guess we have 3 years in season, it's like 2 weeks up, 1 week down. 2 weeks up, 1 week down, with how me and the coach program. That second week, so their highest week, is when they always throw the best.

And so we obviously start from championship and work back. And so sometimes it's like and the throw and they kind of picked up on it now, too, since it's the third year in a system going into the fourth, where well, my family's going to be at this meet. But it's week one, or it's like a deload week.

I'm not going to throw well. I was like, oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Like, either you got to get out of your head, or like accept that might be the case. But that second week is when they always throw really well, which is like a heavier loaded week, their max effort week, high force week, and so we've kind of constructed it now that way.

James de Lacey37:36

So do they compete on that week one, week two, and week three of that cycle? Because you mentioned obviously they throw further on that second week, and they also throw on that third week deload or is it usually

Colton Razo37:49

It changes. The meet schedule changes. So we always plan, so we know when the championship, when the big meet is, and so we're planning on that, and then I should backtrack, get back lines from there.

But he'll strategically put meets on that second week, where he knows they're going to be really ready to go, and it's usually meets that are also just good competitions, so we can really get some good throwing. But yeah, it depends.

Our home meet this year was a down week. And so like, man, if I was going to be here, it's like, you know, and some of like they still throw well. It's not like all of a sudden they fall off a cliff. It doesn't work like that. But, they generally will throw better on that second week.

James de Lacey38:28

That's interesting. So, what does week one loading look like versus week two loading then in this instance?

Colton Razo38:35

Week one loading is really So, if I'm going that week one to then three is a slight down. That third week, that deload week, is about a 10% drop and about a half volume in intensity and then volume from that previous. And then we kind of cycle it back up.

And so, it's really about the volume stays about concrete from week one to two, but the intensity goes up. And so, on that second week is more where they're hitting like singles, clusters, things along that lines of relatively high intensity. And it will actually be a week where they'll usually PR in the given derivative that they're doing. Whether that's like their high block cleans, some sort of box squat derivative, whatever it is, they'll generally PR that week.

James de Lacey39:20

Do you see I don't Have you also done this with your track guys or sprinters? Do you see this a similar trend or is it typically like these big throwers that benefit a lot from this?

Colton Razo39:32

I see it as a bit of a mixed bag with sprinters because I think that system works better for more Sorry, if you're like more muscular driven, like wide ISA kind of like more power driven type of sprinters. But, then you're more or most likely of narrow

James de Lacey39:48

Twitchy guys.

Colton Razo39:49

frail, more elastic guys, they'll crush them. Doesn't They don't do well at all like that.

James de Lacey39:55

So, how does that potentially change for them programming wise?

Colton Razo40:01

For the sprinters?

James de Lacey40:02

Yeah, for for maybe more twitchy guys that they can't handle that kind of heavy loading going in.

Colton Razo40:08

I think you have to then adjust how you kind of handle their competitive season and maybe you don't completely abandon certain lifts, but I think you really need to greatly modulate the volumes you're allocating to the given lifts. And those people generally do better with either more unilateral work and then more work Olympic heavy and like plyometric work.

So, when I was in Houston, I had two sprinters that were And it's the best example because it's the biggest stark contrast. One of them was like a 10 flat 100 meter guy. And he was like 5'6, about 50, just like a ball of muscle. Just a ball of muscle. Squatted to depth 405 at 155 lbs. And just incredibly strong.

And then I had another one who ended up where he ran 9.8 at his PR when I was there. And couldn't totally different build, like 6'1, probably 165, 170 lbs. Just long, limby guy. I don't know that he could back squat 315 at that time. I don't think he could.

However, then you take them in that context and the one with like loaded jumping, so if you took 30% of their one rep max on back squat, they did like a jump. The more short, stocky, muscular guy had a really hard time. We had to build him to where he could hit like 2.4, 2.5 peak below at 30%. That took him a long time to get there. The other guy was hitting like 3.1 peak below at 30%.

And then their dead jump numbers were completely different. Like total different, like almost universes. And so with in that, I would do interest intensity for like your big kind of neurological days, intensity for the more long twitchy guy was more like dead jump and Olympic based. Whereas the shorter muscular guy was more sort of like force from the standpoint of like loading. I'd load him. He would do like heavy quarters, heavy box squats, do like Olympic things a little heavier.

James de Lacey42:15

So, they're leaning into their strengths, basically.

Colton Razo42:17

100% Whatever their superpower is, you need to lean into it.

James de Lacey42:21

That's already That's already an interesting way of looking at it, too, because I think a lot of coaches will look at that and be like, "Well, their weakness is whatever the other guy the opposite." And then that would load your five sets muscle guy with a lot of plyo work, jumps, and then your lanky guy with a lot of heavy loading. But you've looked You've seen it opposite. You just I get this is your strength and this is what we're attacking.

Colton Razo42:42

That's what the off-season's for. You bring up weaknesses then when it's competition time, because I think they also know it inherently. And so, it's like, "I'm doing things I'm not good at when I need to be at my best." And they usually like that lift because they feel that it translates better or it makes them feel like they run faster or jump higher or whatever the event is. At that time, you need to lean into their superpower.

James de Lacey43:05

It's funny as well you mentioned I was with the I guess throwers in the lifting before competition. Like I just run front row many years ago in rugby. And he was from Georgia, so he was like Georgians are just crazy wrestlers, I guess. And he's like the day the afternoon before the game, so Friday afternoon, game Saturday, and he's like loading up heavy squats in the rack, almost maxing out.

And I was like, "What the hell's like I was a lot younger then." I was like, "What the hell's going on? This guy's just doing heavy ass squats before he's got to go scrum and everything." But he's like, "That's just what they do." And it's obviously what they feel feel good doing. They get to move some heavy tin.

They got to have you loaded in the back. They're going to be doing the same thing just horizontally in a scrum the next day. So, for them it's probably, it gives them a nice little boost and like I feel strong. It's always like a psychological boost on top of it.

Colton Razo43:56

And I mean it's just like the classic example is like Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis. Like Carl didn't touch a weight until he was like in his 30s, until kind of out of his prime. He didn't touch a weight until then. It was all plyo or sprint-based. And then Ben was like a weightroom freak.

Like I've heard stories of like Dan path told me a story one like he saw Ben Johnson he swore he's like he was squatting like a like high box where I like 900 lbs like an hour before he was going to run, in a warm up room. I was like dude. But then you would see Ben like his start it was like this broad jump out like this crazy kind of leaping start that he had. Yeah, just a totally different animal.

James de Lacey44:34

Yeah, with the coming back to actually the different metrics and stuff you're kind of mentioning were important for track and field. Are you measuring a lot of those with force plates? Or do you have access to force plates and stuff to measure all that stuff within the gym?

Colton Razo44:47

Yeah, we do. So force plates I've gone back and forth on force plates to be honest with you and even like jump testing. And maybe it's just like how frequently do you do it and what's the purpose behind it?

So my first two years here every Monday we would do a jump test battery with the sprinters, jumpers, and the throwers. And so we do it Monday before practice. So Sunday was always day off and then we kind of like standardize the warm up and then we would do a jump test battery. And then we do countermovement jump countermovement rebound so two countermovements in a row and then five pogos.

And so we're kind of looking at there I guess along the cascade of fatigue essentially. So more temporal elastic base so the pogo is going to be the most sensitive to fatigue and then rebound and then the countermovement jump. And I was doing that more as almost like a fatigue diagnostic just kind of see like where are they? Can we see any sort of translation of performance? Things like that. I never saw like a high ability for me to predict much from it.

But then it's hard to tell is it from them just not testing fatigue or they just sick of doing the test? And at times we had two or three plates running and I'm at this plate and I have an intern and maybe a sports scientist and the other two and I didn't see maybe all those jumps. So, okay, would I have had them redo it or kind of what have you?

And so, I think at that time it's okay, we're data rich but decision poor with this protocol. And so, I kind of quit doing it. But now I'm kind of looking again like, okay, if their breaking metrics are bad, would an eccentric bias intervention maybe make sense? Is this athlete eccentrically weak? If their stiffness measures are bad, do we need to bring in more duration isometrics, heavy isometrics?

If their accelerated propulsive measures are bad, is that maybe a pure strength problem or rate of force development problem? So, I'm kind of retooling and maybe looking at maybe a different sort of way of bucketing it to get better at it. But that's my long winded answer for the force plate.

James de Lacey46:56

No, no, I feel you. And I think it's hard. I mean, I had access to just a jump mat. Obviously, jump height doesn't tell you much because you can do it in so many different ways, but you kind of come off a day off, they're tired on the first day of the week of training and they come in the morning and then they haven't really gotten to the rhythm of training. Even a standard warm-up or whatever warm-up is done is typically still not enough to get them ready.

It's usually by the afternoon when they have a second training session, then they're good to go. Even if guys are not good in the morning, by the afternoon they are. So, you kind of like what are you really diagnosing in the morning once you see them in the afternoon and they're kind of okay.

Colton Razo47:36

And maybe that was on me because they're okay, so now I'm testing you and you're the most sympathetic or most parasympathetic because you had a day off and you didn't have it probably done anything. And so, was that a mistake? So, should I have done it at the end of the week where you're super ramped up and would that have given me a more accurate measure? I'm not sure.

But I see them like guys come in and like Yeah, maybe I'm sure yourself that you go in you got to train today and you're like, man, I kind of feel like [expletive]. But you lift your face off. And it's like maybe your recovery measure on your aura is bad. But it's like yeah, but you're sympathetic. You're probably fixing to have a great session because you're kind of wired up.

Whereas if your measures are super good, if your safe score is really high, and it's okay, I should good today, but you train like [expletive]. It's like yeah, you're maybe you're too parasympathetic.

James de Lacey48:23

Not enough white monsters or something. That's always the solution. More caffeine. Now, perfect. I appreciate you coming on this, Colton, and even having us at your gym there in Ohio. But where can people find and follow you and keep up with what you're doing?

Colton Razo48:42

Instagram is probably the best place. I post quite a bit on there. Quite a bit on Absolute. I've kind of partnered with them a little bit here in this last year or so with John Quinn. So their website, I've got some stuff on there on their Substack. Yeah, that's about it. That's the only social media I have. I'm kind of social media sparse.

James de Lacey49:03

No, I'll link that stuff in the description for anyone who wants to see what you're up to. But I appreciate you coming on.

Colton Razo49:08

No, thank you for having me. It was a privilege. Hopefully we'll talk again here soon.