Foot Training and Where Warm-Ups & Cool Downs Go Wrong w/ Joel Smith Part 2 (SSOF Ep 165)

Joel Smith2:31

That's for sure. Actually that's actually a good segue. I'm just going to go straight into this and give it a proper intro. We can start with training the feet. Because I was going down this rabbit hole maybe a few years ago.

And I was really trying to figure out is it worth the investment to specifically try and target and strengthen and train the feet in a way that is, say, because we do things like plyometrics. You're still training the feet, but obviously there are other ways that people kind of like doing toe exercises or arch stuff or whatever else.

Do you find, do you think there is value in doing something like that in terms of, I mean, we could just keep it general in terms of athletic performance. Is that something that's going to move the needle for most people? Or is it just the fact that you're doing jumping plyometric work, you're going to get a lot of stimulus anyway?

James de Lacey3:20

Yeah, that's a good question because I know I've seen a lot of opinions on both sides of the spectrum. You know, feet, maybe have some fascia ideas in there and that's everything. It's huge. It's what makes the athlete. And then on the other side, it's like it's way overblown. It's not that big of a deal.

I think it's a little bit of a case-by-case type idea just because if you're playing a sport, your feet are getting an unbelievable amount of stimulus in multi-directional the forces required and all that stuff. And so, the individualization piece is how well do your feet navigate the ground?

And maybe a good parallel or like an analogy that I think could be helpful. I was just thinking about this this morning. I tripped on something this morning. I was going out to move my sprinkler in the garden and I sprained my SI joint doing a lateral K box squat with a buddy going for power the other week and so I've been on the edge with different activities for a week as it heals.

And I tripped over this like a rock. And my body just so quickly spun the foot into the perfect position to cover.

And I was like, "Well, thank you, body, for doing that. I appreciate that." But if I was someone who had a little slower reactions, I could have hurt myself or injured something. And it's just that split-second reactivity that could be the difference between like being healthy, safe, making the play, or getting injured and not making the play. And that also exists on the level of the foot.

And if you watch athletes do things like slant board hops, I just actually got this cool like half pipe

Joel Smith5:31

I saw what you posted there.

James de Lacey5:31

from Simply Faster. And I haven't been able to use that yet. And I've been using that with training partners. It's just early on. And even that my kids jump on it and stuff. And you see very quickly how like my strength is my feet. Like I can hop on that thing and be very stable and confident in control in different spins and stuff.

But you'll see someone who doesn't have that ability, who can't stick a landing, who can't stick that odd landing. That shows up because similar to okay, I tripped and saved myself on the micro level. That happens every step, every cut with someone whose feet aren't reacting as quite as well. And so, when that happens, well, you're going to compensate. You're going to go to the next thing up the chain. Maybe my calves do a little more work.

Or probably my thighs and my hips or upper extremities will do a little bit just a little bit more work respectively. And I do think there's that optimal oh, the natural athlete, right? Like your feet are they are fully working. And I don't like to say you must do this because I think the athletic body is good at compensating. It's good at problem-solving.

Joel Smith6:45

Isn't there a picture of like LeBron's feet where his toes are like over each other?

James de Lacey6:45

Oh, they're all messed up. But here's the thing is that LeBron's feet are actually more functional than people would think. Just because they're the perfect paddle to push off of. His pinky toe is like is curled and mushed up in a way that it actually if the pinky toe is kind of up, I mean, sometimes it's it's just another compensation. And I think for him it is. But that actually can give a little stiffness to the transverse arch or the forefoot.

So, someone whose pinky on the flip side, someone whose pinky toe is curled underneath, that's a question I use in my assessments. Is your pinky toe curled underneath or is it up? That's an indicator of that transverse arch stiffness. And I think part of the reason amongst many that LeBron has such longevity.

Now, if I wanted to make a viral social media moment, I would say it's because of his pinky toe. And if you don't do this, you're screwed. Like, no, I think part of the reason of his longevity is his push is so efficient. Because his feet are designed just for maximal compression and push and energy return. And they've adapted to that over time.

So, and it's just funny because if you watch his weightlifting, it's kind of a joke. I mean, it's, but he is entertained by it and stimulated by it, so great. But a lot of his power is one just being a natural beast, and two, he just pushes very easily. And his spring comes very easily.

So, if you can do that, you're going to be able to repeat that more over time. So, just all this to be said, if someone lacks forefoot and midfoot strength, they lack the proper reception precision of the foot, and they lack the ability to integrate that up the chain, then yeah, there are things that can absolutely be helpful.

I just think that the way that foot training is often portrayed is highly clinical, which isn't bad necessarily. I think that's a good thing. Like if you don't have strength in the foot, yeah, get strength. But at the end of the day, the idea of training at the highest level of complexity, well, we should be able to get on those Polish boxes or whatever your setup, even just basic hops, and have and demonstrate not just being able to do it and say, "Wow, look at this category of exercise we're doing." But actually do it well.

And I think that's the missing thing is the ability to actually progress these things, coach these things, gamify these things. And I think that's what can move the needle really well with the feet. And so obviously I have a course, Elastic Essentials, a ton of foot stuff, so I'm going to be biased.

But I also will say I don't want to make the process more complicated than it needs to be either. And I don't want to say oh, you have to have this or you're not going to be a good athlete. More so, let's know the things that do nurture foot and the related elasticity. And who needs more of that and who's probably got it okay. And then we can go from there.

So, I'm also I got to turn a light off. I have this UV light that I got to in the back. It was messing with me. Ah, there we go. Okay. It was a slight a lot better toned angle.

Joel Smith9:14

So, you talked about how these foot training can almost come across as clinical. So, do exercises like band eversions, inversions, and dorsiflexion, plantar flexion and stuff.

James de Lacey10:04

Toes up. Does that fit at all, I guess, within your foot training paradigm or is it kind of like, "Hey, it needs to be put into context within some of these like slam board, pulse box kind of jump?"

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You're talking like kind of like banded inversions and eversions.

Joel Smith11:10

I mean, I think it's okay. Like if you were doing accessory work and just doing that kind of thing, I mean, I think that is fine.

I think especially if it's a very injury prevention-based program, athletes are getting a ton of reps on the field, you're really going to have to validate doing extra. I think if instead of saying, "Hey, we're going to do some slam board, some polish stuff." and you've already used up the tank of contacts, yeah, just going in and doing some clinical stuff I think is fine. Like I think from just that remedial injury prevention, let's just make sure those tissues are healthy type perspective.

But, for me, if it's the off-season and I have athletes who need more elasticity, they need to use their feet better, that's when I would probably not do as much of the remedial stuff.

Most of my sessions, it's rare that I do much sweet hammer strength shin developer, tibia developer. And it is funny because I think the whole like tibialis training, I think there's actually a lot of merit in it.

It's funny, people like DJ Murakami have talked about this because Ben Patrick and Athletic Truth use such like trendy markety stuff. That just soured people to it because the marketing was just I think very viscerally just kind of blah for lack of a better word for people who are really in the field.

But the truth is though is that training is actually helpful. Like I mean, it's not going to solve all your problems, but back when I was a track coach, start first starting out in the mid-2000s, there was this thing called the Tib Bar, which is basically a tib trainer, and coaches were saying all over the place, "Hey, this is really helping our shin issues. This is really giving us healthier lower legs. Like this is good." And then it's just now it's just such a weird world with all that stuff.

James de Lacey13:09

Now it fixes every lower body problem.

Joel Smith13:11

Yeah, now it fixes everything, and that's just the problem is we actually let ourselves get soured to good training because some trainers said it was so good. Some trainers said it was just the kingpin of all training and your knees are going to fall off if you don't do this to you. And when hey, no, it's just a nice accessory. We should do it.

But it's just I think it's and that's I think why I brought that context with the foot into like where you have this spectrum of people who are like, "Oh yeah, foot and fascia, this is everything and you're fascial driven and blah blah blah." and then you have people who would say, "Yeah, it's overhyped." And I just think the answer lies in the middle. I think there is just good general practices though.

I do think polish boxes are like one of those best things from the '80s that just need to be brought back. And if you don't have polish boxes, I think I mentioned this too. There was an article on Sportsmith I contributed to and I just think jumping rope, jumping rope single leg. Why do we not see people doing that stuff too much anymore?

Now it's all these old extensive plyos and left and right and forward and back. And okay, yeah, there's value to that stuff, but I always want to do the complex simple thing. Like, I shouldn't say it's not that complex. Jumping rope is more complex than hopping on a leg, but it's also you have a rhythm. You have something that times up the whole thing. You have something that makes it interesting.

You can do it multi-directions. Why did all that stuff die out? I don't know. But yeah, it's interesting how things get steered in a way that they get more complicated than they need to be or it's just it's so black and white because of what people social media. And yeah, it definitely doesn't have to be that way.

James de Lacey14:29

Yeah, you can also throw energy system development into that into that idea. So, people make it way too complex and isolating systems and stuff.

Joel Smith14:29

Yeah, it gets crazy.

James de Lacey14:29

And you mentioned around tripping over the sprinkler and you kind of recovering. You made me think of I guess Bosch concepts of like stumble extension reflexes and training that.

So, I actually did use that quite extensively within some of my athletes. And I just think it's an interesting concept around being able to play in I guess what they call like the options position and be able to run upright, upper lower dissociation, and not cuz I found so, especially in the States, right?

Cuz you have a lot of players that come from track backgrounds or football, but well, football backgrounds, but maybe not to the same extent in terms of running style, but the track guys will come in and they run with the ball like they're sprinting. So, they'll be in these like acceleration postures, head down, like almost I guess you could say in that stumble position.

So, when they have a defender come up, their only option is to decelerate in a straight line and then look at to see what they're going to do versus that option thing. And so, I'd do a little bit of that stumble extension. I'll be interested to kind of hear your thought on training reflexes in terms of Bosch concepts. Is this something that you've done, do, believe in, think it's complete bull crap?

Joel Smith15:32

Yeah, well, that's the funny thing. So, for me, like I mentioned like hopping to save myself, like that stumble reflex is built into everybody. Like that is the thing. So, the question is, well, how much can you train something you certainly already have?

I remember Aderian Barr reposting a video he found of like someone just set up a camera by the sidewalk where like, you know, one brick is higher than the other. And one slab is a little higher, so it's a thing that everyone's going to trip over. And so, somebody thought it'd be funny to set a camera up next to this spot everybody tripping over the sidewalk, but it's just average Joes and Janes, people off the street, and they're stumbling and saving themselves. That reflex is built in.

And so, the question is is do you need to strengthen the signal?

I know for myself, I think I certainly have a lot of athletic weaknesses, but one of my strengths is like I think that reflex is heightened for whatever reason. Like even if something drops off the shelf, like my hand shoots out to catch it before I even know it fell like a lot of times.

And then I think, well, "Man, how do I train using more of this?" I think that's just it is for me, it's not so much we need to strengthen that reflex, but more, "Hey, let's maybe put that reflex into training."

So, for example, if you had that like sidewalk and you had someone just bust into a sprint after that, right? Like you're all of a sudden you're in your instinctive side. You're in it puts you in more of your reflexive mode.

And so, one thing Aderian would just do is like basically say, "Stumble on purpose coming out the blocks and then deal with it." But, you could also I mean, other ways to do that would be like if I'm resisting a partner and they're a band and it's resisted sprinting, just offering like a little perturbation, like just kind of let them go or be sneaky a little bit at some point in that and then try to have them adapt to that.

So, now you're not running it just fighting a partner, you're also tapping into more reflexive pieces. And I think that's a really that's like a missed part of training because so much of training is it's force and it's this times body weight. There's that window that and it's a very popular window. It's probably the most popular, to be honest, because if you start talking about activities and how many body weights you're absorbing and oh yeah, this is it.

But, it's not just that, it's also reacting. It's reacting with your environment if you look at the ecological lens. I think as soon as we talk about anything like that, people check out cuz now power is somehow out the window, but it's not because acting in harmony with a rich environment is one of the most powerful yet coordinated things an athlete can possibly do.

And I think that's almost the next level of training as I see it is where we need to go to is we're living in this very rules-based, everything's force. And to actually start connecting with what happens on the field. And maybe the coaches are on the other end, where they see the other side of it. But, how can we paint this full picture and meet? Well, the next level is it's reflexes and reacting to your environment powerfully and without inhibition.

Yeah, and that is athleticism. If that is where speed and power really comes all the way around. So, I just think that having those dynamic perturbations and there's all sorts of ways you can do that in a closed environment. I mean, games are going to get you a lot of that automatically.

Games where there's a higher chance of collision or contact or perturbation I think are innately helpful. Even stuff where, if I'm doing hops and someone has a physio ball and is mashing me different ways, but then there's a sprint command out of it. Maybe it's a you hit the person, they're coming off balance a little bit, and then that's a sprint command. You hit the ground in an odd position and go.

And people would say, "Oh, well, it's just training odd positions. That's great." It's just but that's you can it into it's only an odd position. No, it's not. It's an opportunity for your body to react on a very high and innate level that bypasses you thinking about what to do because that's where that ultimate athlete actually lives. If we're talking reactivity, applying sports more quickly, that also is wrapped up in there.

And so we miss that. And so anything that really digs into that because the but that happens in sports. Sport is so is full of that. Then the question is, well, how could we isolate that and actually magnify it in a more close setting? And so those are some elements that I think are really helpful. Just uncertainty and perturby per perturby I was going to say novelty. Novelty and perturbation into one word. Maybe it's a new word.

James de Lacey20:23

That's a new you're coining it. Perturby. You're first.

We used to do that exact exercise with my rugby backs. So, I'd have guys standing. They'd have about a 10-meter window to sprint. They'd have their partner behind them somewhere. And they would do a vertical jump. But I didn't want them to stay in place because then they knew the direction they'd be pushed.

So, I just had the guy move anywhere. And then push them any direction from 180° from behind them. Push them, and then they just had to land and sprint. And you'd see the most awkward weird positions landing that you'd probably see within Try if they're going up for a high ball and they hit someone and hit the ground. Like they're going to have to negotiate that landing regardless.

So, we were just doing a lot of that as part of their as part of their gym training cuz we had the space. So, we'd do that, too. I was Bill Knowles talked about He changed the way I would end jumps and things like hurdle hops. Where May also well sing your podcast too. It'll probably make more sense here, but basically I never want to have stuck You know how they tell you should stick your landings on your squat

Joel Smith22:01

Oh, yeah.

James de Lacey22:01

Perfect landings. And I'm never going to happen in a game anyway. Doesn't matter. So, I would always have a task after the last jump. So, typically they'll be turn back and touch the hurdle. So, you're hitting the ground and having to change body to go back to the hurdle. Or it could be hitting the ground doing a forward roll, hitting the ground sprinting, whatever it is. But it just takes it out of the perfect landing idea of he must land soft feet, bent legs, or

Joel Smith22:25

It's the worst. It's the worst. It's a rule, but it's a rule that's meant to be broken very quickly as soon as you can do it. I do value I don't like perfect form. I really don't like that word. I that's another social media and YouTube thing that we're just inundated with is here's the perfect form for this. And of course, everyone who's

James de Lacey22:45

Comes from bodybuilding, I think, a lot as well.

Joel Smith22:45

Yeah, I think so. And maybe even an optimization thing like, "Oh, if you found the perfect form and you do it this way, then you too will get the results." When it's really dynamic here and a very differential experiencing a different variety of things and finding your perfect form.

But the I like silent landings to start just cuz there is a little bit of a there's a little bit of a freedom in that. It's not necessarily hit this position, it's make the landing silent because the constraint is to use the foot as a damper as a proper dampener. Even the toes, honestly. You're going to have a hard time talking about the foot. You're going to have a hard time landing silently if you aren't using your toes as a good dampener.

I mean, you can. If your toes are terrible, you'll find a way to do it. You freak a lot more down. But after that, then you really have to find ways to make it exciting and just children watching children play is a thing a lot of those coaches could get a hefty dose of cuz if you watch them jump off rocks or

James de Lacey23:50

They're going to jump off everything.

Joel Smith23:50

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. My kids jump off every day jump off this the bottom of our staircase railing onto the couch like parkour. I'm like, "That is so much better training for landings than if I said, 'Hey, jump off this and land in a perfect position.'" Because it's just there's it's so much more rich.

And that's just if you think of training as is it a gauge of how rich is this training. Land off this box and do a snap down is very dull. It's not very rich. It can give you something, but it's going to quickly not be rich enough to transfer to the layers of sport itself.

James de Lacey23:50

Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you there. And I'm going to go through some of my most pressing questions that I want to ask.

Otherwise, we're going to spend half an hour on one topic. I'm not going to get through get through two, which is good. Which is good cuz I love the depth. But I wanted to cover Let's go with this one. Cuz I asked I was talking to you about it after last podcast about performing Not That's okay. Let's just say let's just use jumping as an example.

Being able to jump higher or feel really good jumping at the end of a session versus doing it at the beginning. So, typically obviously for anyone listening, you usually do your speed power work at the very beginning cuz that's when you're freshest, and you move on to your heavier stuff. For I've always said on this channel as well for older people older people older quote-unquote or more beat up, I had to reverse that order.

You squat heavy first, feels really good to jump. But I think you mentioned it on your podcast once about at the end of a session, you'll often be able Like you could do an hour and a half session, you can still be able to jump etc. And I think most of us probably experienced something similar. Do you have any theories of what is going on there?

Joel Smith25:22

Yeah. So, I do think that athletes like an athlete with adequate capacity should be able to jump pretty darn high at the end of a training session. And I say that for a few reasons, but I think I talk about observing children and jumping off playgrounds and railings. But if you look at just basketball athletes or one athlete I was I did an Instagram post recently on rotation and jumping, and I was comparing some actions of a triple jumper who won the world championships to this 5'9 jumper dunker street baller, Terry Cournea.

He goes by T Dub. He's 5'9. He could get his chin up to the rim. How high is that? I just just unbelievable. It's It's fun watching the videos people watching him. You just feel what they're feeling. Like this 5'9 guy is doing superhuman stuff, and it's just that that sense of awe. You can it's tangible in watching the videos.

And it was funny, too, cuz that was back in the era before social media. It was when YouTube was getting popular and stuff, but social media hadn't hit yet. And anyways, all that guy does, didn't lift weights, didn't train. He just plays basketball and dunks. He's like, "Yeah, I'll just play basketball and try to dunk in the games. And I'll do some dunks between the games, and that's pretty much just his whole training." And that's how he got I mean, the guy at 5'9 his chin over the rim.

I don't know what that is for a high touch, but I mean, that guy that's unbelievable. And of course, there's certain genetics that you need to be able to pull off that training modal you have to have all the pieces, and then the play brings that out. Most of us mere mortals need the pieces put down, and then but I think that type of idea, you should be able to play and get tired and be better at the end of it.

And I think the standard way of going about it is just so fragile. Like oh, your nervous system's the freshest, so we got to do speed first cuz God forbid we do it at the end when your nervous system sucks. And it's I think that sells an athlete really short for one thing because the we're so much more adaptable than that for one.

Two, we should have some capacity to deal with some other things first. So, that would be the second. And I'll also just say that maybe I mentioned this on our last show. I know I've said it probably too many times, but the highest I jumped in high school jumped 10'6", 10'7" high touch. So, well over 40-inch vertical was after a whole basketball practice, and then sprints at the end of basketball practice, and then I felt good and warmed up, and then I did it.

And I think I was a hustle player. My capacity was pretty high. I wouldn't expect everybody to be able to do that. And I also think I appreciated hard training, too. Like there's that. If you don't appreciate hard training, you're probably not going to be able to do that. But I'd also had similar I mean, I remember after a basketball game that year I just mess around and doing a 360 I just 360 dunked my t-shirt off two legs.

I'm 6'1". So, it's not like amazing, but there's guys who do way better than that. But for me, that was pretty good. And I mean, that was after the whole game. And I think it was overtime, too, or something. I mean, it was a long hard game. And we didn't have a small rotation. And so those experiences I think put the seeds like, "Yeah, you can do more and be okay."

And so anyways, the third thing outside the capacity. So, there's the antifragile, there's you should have capacity, but then the third is kind of this thing of this is something that I really if I can steer all the knobs in a training session, I like to think of a training session like music. Like in a song, you don't come out right away with the banger.

The beat doesn't drop instantly. You want some sort of build up, and I think we train we just disconnect training from life on all levels so often times. And one of the coaching mentors I have is Paul Cater, and I had the good fortune to train with him when I was on the Central Coast of California a few times. And I talked to him a lot, and he runs his sessions like that.

His whole first like 2/3 is an improvised build-up of a lot of rhythm and a lot of very coordination-based work, a lot of task problem-solving. And it just is so immersive. And then he gets to whatever it is, the highest jumps, the fastest sprints. He'll do the heavy lifting at the end, but it's always it always builds into whatever the most intense thing is. Versus I think we kind of come out with a short canned warm-up.

Let's do the fast and quick. It's just all based on a construct of neural and force. And we just live in those variables. Versus hey, let's build this thing up. Let's start by exploring. Let's work with rhythm. Let's have some fun. Let's really get the temperature going. And then let's hit that peak.

And so I think that's just another thing is we just tend not to do that. The last thing I'll just say that goes along with the antifragility is maybe I mentioned this in the last or recent podcast was Lawrence Seagrave, I believe, who was coaching Dwight Phillips, who's a top five, I think, American long jumper in history. And he said one of the big switches they just did to simulate more gains at some point was they used to go sprints, plyos, lifts. And then they switched it one day.

Let's go lifts, plyos, and sprint. And that unlocked new gains just because it's switching the stimulus. And you should be in good enough shape that that's not going to wreck you. Like if I have a beginner and I do that, yeah, they're probably going to be messed up for the speed. If I have someone with anywhere good capacity, you can do that stuff. And that's part of the fun of it. So, yeah. I'm sure I talked a lot about that, but hopefully that gives some good conversation and helps answer that question.

James de Lacey30:56

Yeah, it's good. It's funny cuz I've been training for another weightlifting competition recently and I would always do the lifts first and you do pulls and squats. And just recently, cuz I've had some neck stuff going on, I would squat first before the sessions. And after squats, man, I'm ready.

Everything's sorted. Pains are gone, my mobility's good, everything's good. I'm like, okay, I'll just keep doing this. I'll just keep doing this thing. Squat first and then just go do everything else. And it feels great. It feels great. And definitely worth experimenting with for anyone out there.

Joel Smith31:43

Yeah, I think whatever your superpower is, too, or anything in the realm of your superpowers athletically is it's good to start out with that a lot of times. Or at least have that. For me it's a depth jump or a plyometric type thing. If I do a single leg depth drop, that's the juice. Instead of just saving it for the end cuz it's less coordination. Use it to warm yourself up or put it in a circuit or something. There's so many ways we can do these things that is really helpful.

The other thing that just came to my mind, James, was that Ronaldo header where he jumps 9 ft 5 in at it or whatever, however high in the air. And what point what minute in the game did that happen?

James de Lacey32:39

I don't know. I don't know. I can't remember. I'd be curious.

Joel Smith32:39

I'm sure it wasn't minute two cuz they're still warming up. The way our soccer players typically get on the field, they're walking most of the game.

So, it's just I think that stuff is just so, or Vince Carter's dunk over Frederic Weis. I wonder what that I think maybe that was right after half time. I'd have to go back and check, but I think there's something I doubt he would have just come out minute one of the game and done that. There's something there's something about as the game escalates and as those, everything starts to move. I just think we undervalue the value of a game to warm up and everything that goes with it.

James de Lacey33:22

Yeah, for sure. And I don't know if it was your book that mentioned this, but I know Vern talked about the body he has a theory of the body remembers the last thing it did in a session. So, he's very against, obviously, cool-downs and jogging and things like that. And I'm definitely on that board.

And I'm sure it was your book that also had a section about ending a training session with speed. Cuz I still I don't know, for some reason my mind have connected it somehow. And I used some of your exercises at the end of a session before. But regardless, be interesting to know your take on that. Is that something that you employ at all within your training programs where you're deliberately trying to doesn't matter, I guess, what the session is. Maybe you're starting with some speed stuff, doing some strength work, but then ending with some kind of speed-based work.

Joel Smith34:09

Yeah, yeah, I think that's an awesome idea. I've seen it done well in distance training and then just from that perspective of going into the next session. I think if it is both speed and then things that re-expand. So, if you're getting after it in a session, you're moving from a warm-up expansion, hopefully. The main rivet or the main bottleneck of the session, which is more compressive. Let's just say you're going for some shorter sprints that are hard or plyos or heavier lift and you're starting to compress the system a little bit. But then how can I re-expand to go into the next session?

And that's where I think that I just think to me it's more things that make sure we re-sync the rhythms. We re-sync the rhythms, we make sure we're expanded out.

And I do think things that are quick, but I don't think it necessarily has to be super fast. I just think it's things that are that are expansive and rhythmic. So, for example, I will use at the end of lifting sessions or lifting days a lot of times. If it's if I didn't do a lot of sprint stuff before, I would just do striders on the field. Hey, go out and do 5 by 80 m sprint striders barefoot. So, it's all 60-70% and to me that it re-syncs and re-expands the system.

It's not even just fast, it's also something that's expansive. Because it's it's not overly compressive, it's sprinting, especially easier paces, is a little bit more external rotation, which opens up movement options. Even doing extreme isos at the end of a session, though. That's the thing is it that's expansive.

An extreme iso hold is expansive as long as you're not cranking yourself into full anterior tilt. Most of those by design don't let you compress yourself too hard. They re-expand and reopen. So, people will say, "Hey, I did a 2-minute extreme iso hold at the end of my squat session and it felt good." Like a lunge, iso lunge. Yeah. Felt better the next day.

I remember coaching college track, we would do before I got into extreme isos, we would do loaded stretching at the end of the sessions and the athletes felt good. For 20 or 30 or 40 seconds. And I just feel probably historically people just stretch at the end of sessions and I But I think that that doesn't give you really the pattern and the rhythm so much. It's that's trying to get you the re-expansion, but it might not be as expansive as you hope depending on the kind of stretch you're doing.

But then yeah, so things that involve rhythm and expansion to me are the ultimate. Like a sprint strider or anything that's kind of coordinated. I got onto this last year, a lot of backwards running and backwards hopping. I did this circuit with the high jumpers that was really good.

And I stumbled onto it because I had just done a podcast with Bob Thurnhoffer, who's a jumps coach at Louisville and a big Boost Oxygen influence on him and all the general strength ideas. And so, a lot of that general strength is reverse work. Like backwards running, backwards hopping. I just saw a lot of his days, I think he cooled down, Bob did, with a lot of backwards work.

And so, I was doing some hill sprints one day and I had a 1 km run home. And normally it'd be a 1 km jog home after my hill work. And that's a little long for me after the hill. It's a kilometer, but so I started just probably about 600 m of that I did backwards running, backwards jogging, backwards skipping. And man, the next day I felt so bouncy. Like so bouncy.

And it's like on one end of things, you could just say it's you know, just reverse, so it's good for you. Like that's kind of this the... No, it's just do it backwards. Just, you know, like Ben Patrick's stuff. Just walk backwards. Just do it... I think there's a difference, for sure, but like when I think the thing that I actually see and that is... yeah, just backwards is great, but you dig into it and it pushes your center of mass. Like if sprinting pushes your center of mass forward, it's more compressive.

So, if you go backwards, you're actually pushing your center of mass back, so it's restorative. So, you have this yin and yang naturally. But then something I've been thinking about even more so is the forefoot. So, there's midfoot and forefoot.

And Romain Tillon from France, he's a foot clinician researcher, does a lot of good stuff on the foot. If you talk about clinical foot, go for that guy's work. It's awesome. And the thing I started to realize, backwards running, backwards skips, this is hitting your forefoot way more than forward work. Because forward is a little bit more midfoot ending with forefoot. Whereas backwards starts with a forefoot and ends with the midfoot.

And so, you're getting your toes into that max flexion. And you really every step is more of a load there. And so, you're doing skips and hops and backwards.

And I think that's part of the reason the high jumpers I worked with liked that so much. And I tell you adding that this year helped us I feel helped our longevity later into the season where a lot of athletes kind of hit that conference meet later in the year and then peak and fizzle a little bit. There's a lot of reasons for things, I don't want to say it's just one, but I really think that genuinely we did a lot of that.

Like one day I did too much on accident. I had just done that really long 500 m worth on the way home. And I was like, "Oh, I feel really good." And so, we finished a workout a few days later with the jumpers and I was thinking about the cool down and I was like, all right, I'll give them an easier version.

So, I said, all right, you're going to go down the football field 100 yards. You're going to alternate backwards run skips, hops, and then you're going to come back. So, 200 yards of this. And one girl looked like she had just hit a max squat workout, was dying. And I was like, oh no, I made them do too much. Oh no.

And but that I'll tell you what, she came back and she jumped great 2 days later. And so, I just think anyways, there's something to that backwards expansiveness too. So, where I love thing to sum it up, I do think something fast but probably more specifically things that are probably semi-max speed rhythmic expansive. Those are the things I like finishing sessions with that I feel kind of set you up pretty well as also into the next session of work.

James de Lacey40:34

Yeah. I've got a few thoughts on that. I want to see if I can say them before I forget them. The first one, yeah, from the influence from Vern again with the last thing. I think he mentioned on the podcast, on my podcast about finishing with for example, if you're an orthodox boxer, you do a cool down as a southpaw. So, that would be kind of like your backwards running forwards running. So, that would be another option of it.

And then with the cool down thing you mentioned as well, I think the other benefit you get from doing stuff like this is everything's kind of connected together. And we I think can sometimes think too isolated in today's session and then tomorrow's session versus everything could should kind of as you mentioned sing together.

Like your warm up leads into what you're doing in the session. Your cool down might lead you out of it but your cool down's going to prepare you for the next day's session. Versus sitting and stretching where or starting stretching finishing stretching, you've kind of got these end points on that session. Which it should all kind of come together.

And I think that's where I think that's where a lot of probably not to say get it wrong cuz it's not the right way to say it but I think it's just a missing piece where I mean you don't even have to do the cool down. Often the last thing you do in the session anyway is going to potentially help lead you into the next one.

But I think you can go wrong when you're just doing these slow jogs and sitting there stretching and stuff like that where you could be doing something that is at least helping you prepare for the next session or maybe even touching on things that maybe you didn't get done in the session or reinforcing certain things in that session versus kind of stopping it and that's it.

Joel Smith42:06

Yeah, I think mentally how you mentally cap it off too, I think matters. I remember we... I mean I think there's a lot of things that matter, and each of them give you something else but I remember my college track coach would have us finish if we ran 7 200s or something as a tempo a low day.

A lot of times he'd have us do the last one or two, he'd just call them cruise where it's just you make it as effortless as you can. Maybe it's 3 seconds slower but it's as effortless as possible. You leave feeling like you were able to run semi-fast but effortlessly and you have that feeling in your system.

So, yeah, I think that there's that but the southpaw thing reminds me too a lot of times I'll finish high jump practice with you have to do 10 scissor jumps off your opposite leg or something.

Like that's the cool down. That kind of thing. Cuz it's also fun. It's still engaging. Yeah, I think that I think it's honestly just anything but things that kind of dump more fatigue. Like you know, if you talk about the... I mentioned that reverse that backwards run. That was a little bit too much fatigue I was hoping for that day. But things that just make you that are I just kind of plotting I guess. Like the... it's where your mind checks out. Default mode network plotting fatigue not related to things you're working on.

So, but I don't know. I think as well Andy Eggerth is a track coach who had kind of... track coaches have had this for a while they call parasympathetic cool down.

So, it's like a circuit of things that gets you a little bit of lactate but it's purposeful. It's a movement pattern that's helpful and important. That's kind of what I think I got with the reverse stuff that I did too much of. Like there's light lactate. I think it's just mindless stuff I think is maybe the thing that is maybe not so helpful.

I don't know. I think there's a lot of ways to go with it but I definitely agree with you. I you just have my wheels turning on there's so many things athletes do, right? There's so many different cool down protocols. What are generally some good things? What are generally some bad things, that kind of idea.

James de Lacey43:35

Yeah, we used to do a mini band cool down.

It's stole straight from the from the game conference where it would be prone stuff. Kind of like that push pull with the legs, quadruped. I can't remember the whole set we used to know it off by heart. Cuz it's been a while. But yeah, that was that was an interesting one too. I quite like that as as you mentioned, it is kind of switch off but you're still doing something that's going to prepare you for the next day cuz you're going to still feel good some mini band work with the round your feet in those positions.

Which takes me to probably what will be the final question to be on time but specific strength training because I I tend to try and ask this question a fair way cuz I think I guess many coaches have different takes on it but you I think there's a trend now at least on social media where everything is GPP and nothing is specific to the sport and you can't and the only thing that is specific to the sport is the sport.

I'd love to know your take on that current, I guess we'll call it a trend.

Joel Smith45:07

Yeah, sure. You know what's funny, I almost when you ask that question at least from my sphere, sometimes I feel like I see the opposite in some regards. People who, the one that gets me is that the Yuri exercise. It's this, you're... it's called the Yuri exercise. It's a you got a band and it's hip height and you're trying to push through and drive.

James de Lacey45:33

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joel Smith45:33

And I just... I do think sometimes I don't know, I think because we live in a very sectioned off world sometimes. We got the speed coach, a speed coach and a strength coach and a sport coach and things. My go-to is at least on the base level would be to start with very general and then very specific. So, the general is the sports, the GPP, and but honestly, can you split squat?

And this is where I think Jay Schroeder was onto something with this. I mean he, Jay was the ultimate only do general and then play your sport person. He did nothing specific in his program at all. Zero. It was all the most general thing you can imagine and by general, I'll just say a couple things I think are interesting is extreme slow wall sit.

That's a very general. I mean you start high and you slowly creep down over five minutes to a bottom position. Well, why would you do that? I mean right? It's like, oh gym class or something when I'm in eighth grade and the teacher's making me do wall sits. That's a very expansive thing because you're pushing back into the wall, right? Push forward, push back. Push back.

Breathing also, Jay would do a 4-8 breathing. Four seconds in, eight seconds out through the nose. If you're doing that slow breathing, yes, it's parasympathetic but it's also good for the rib cage because it gets you conscious of air flow through the rib cage so you're getting this restorative experience. You could say the same thing for an iso lunge if you do it well or anything like that. So, you're basically doing very expansive things that set the stage very well for you to then use that in your sport.

The question is well, what if you can't do it very well? What if you need more bridge? What if you need more bridge application? But then it's almost like ends to middle I look at. I like an ends to middle approach because I think if you just go straight to the stuff in the middle, it can be a little more difficult to say, well, this is needed, this is noise, this isn't.

So, and that's how I tend to work. My sessions are very much we do a lot of athletic stuff. We do a lot of athletic stuff. We use a lot of also partal stuff. Sticks and tennis balls and a lot of very athletic outcomes. And then also doing quadruped hops and slant boards and I'm excited to get bring in the half and just a lot of very immersive athletics and then on the other side it's like hammer strength machine, split squat, maximally expansive gets you to get depth without compensations.

Those are the main things and even basic jump roping and just very GPP stuff. I think where the next layer of where I would get specific is then oscillatory and that's what Jay did very much. It's okay, you got the iso split squat position down and you could hold it for X amount of time. I think I mean, I do think five, we've talked about this. Five minutes is rough. If you could do, okay, you could do two or three and breathe well.

Okay, now let's do some switches. Now let's do some pulses and oscillations and that's the next layer. And I think if you can get through that with all joints, hip flexors, lunge position, altitude drop legs where you're basically standing like the Karate Kid on a box, jump in the air, bring both legs together and then they both come down land powerfully.

Those things. If you can do those things and you're running in sport and you're playing sport and have a rich sport environment, even parkour type you could say, you know, okay, now what's left in the middle? Right? Now what do we have that we can still do? So, I think for me that the most specific I probably get with speed stuff would be an oscillatory isometric split squat and then hip flexor work. Those and I do those things.

Beyond that, I think once you start to do stuff in the weight room, it can get the timing is just really hard. A lot of the boss stuff, like a boss clean, like a single leg clean to a box, I get it, but the timing is not going to be representative of what you're doing in sprinting.

It's just going to be off. The levers are not going to be right. I know I can say you're not going to get anything out of that. It's just probably going to end up as noise because it you would just be better off doing a flex leg bounding with resistance or something or a weight, throwing Lycra microweight and such a rich... I just think there's such a rich world on both ends of the equation that we miss.

There's a lot of richness in motor learning and rhythm and support itself and movement and there's a really rich world as well, I think seated by Bill Hartman and then also Jay Schroeder in his own way where we're trying to re-expand the system or we're getting joints to work properly and we work on breathing and even I almost call it the green zone and the new course athletic fusion I'm working on I call it the green... and you treat it like green because it's very expansive and we tend to I think we just rush to the middle very quickly because of because athletic performance is sectioned off.

It incentivizes, I mean I've seen a lot, I've seen weightlifting sessions with just an insane amount in the middle. That's way too much. I'm like these kids do not need this much in the middle. They need more green zone and they need more of a wrist sport experience.

James de Lacey50:58

It all the time. It's sad because you see these parents pay a lot of money for the sessions and you look at what the kids are doing. I saw, was it last week? He must have been a baseball player. He was being made... he was sitting on a bench with a must have been a five or eight pound dumbbell and he was standing up and swinging the dumbbell. Nice. And then sitting back, doing stand up swings with the dumbbell and I was like this kid is, okay this kid is eight years old.

And I'm just like how can me... like that's so sad just that that's going on. These parents don't know any better. This kid is doing [expletive] dumbbell swings.

And then obviously a bunch of other random stuff that could be doing, you probably could get just from playing a game or from his living room at home, stuff like that and they're paying good money for it and yeah, it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate that's how it happens at the youth level.

Joel Smith51:41

Yeah, it's kind of like, I like links to ecology a lot. Old growth forests. The world's old growth forests are decreasing which is forests that take decades if not centuries to fully develop, the undergrowth, all the little fungal networks and it just looks ancient. And it's almost like and so many ways building an athlete is like that. To build all the network, all the neural networks, all the connectivity, it takes time. And it's not something that you get just by swinging a dumbbell around.

And it's almost like it's almost creating the perception. It's almost like someone going in with a forest that's been really just stripped dry and putting a few plants up to make it look like that. But under the surface, there's no richness of the soil or the network or anything like that. So and it's just we just do live in a world that incentivizes that shortcuts and well you're paying for time so we should be able to do this. When in reality and scholarships...

Yeah, and scholarships and all that. When in reality the boring stuff. Can you just can you jump rope for three minutes without stopping? Can you jump rope on one leg? Can you do the extreme iso wall sit? Maybe for not five, can you do it for three?

Can you breathe the whole time? Do you have tolerance to boredom? For that, that's a big one. I mean I like gamifying things, but if you have to gamify every single thing, that's probably also a problem. So there's just so much more richness that we leave out because we're incentivized to not take our time with richness or those more subtle pieces.

I love how you reference the gain conferences and just all the pieces of rhythm and finishing southpaw and stuff that's more athletic, but it's not necessarily going to move the needle like you are hoping probably in three weeks. It's just something that adds to the richness of the whole system and it takes time and if you keep doing it consistently, it's going to show up and you're going to see it, but it's like we I think we're put in this pressure situation to make it look like we're doing something so quickly.

And then we start believing that that thing we're doing is doing something. And it's just a lot more complex environment for sure.

James de Lacey53:59

Everything's kind of integrated. I want to get you to come back to that that Y step you mentioned. Is there a world where you see any value in something like that? Like be able to maybe project horizontally. It could even be quote unquote specific force application. It could even be maybe I don't know developing force speed or power in that kind of direction. Is there anything that you kind of see as a carryover or is that kind of just go sprint or maybe just do resistance state sprints.

Joel Smith54:37

I would always say with all and that's the thing with specific stuff is I would always weigh it against something like that I would weigh it against a resisted flex leg bound or a resisted sprint or a resisted hill sprint even like a tire pull up a hill. And because again, it's almost always this is the thing it's like the old growth forest it's like sticking a couple trees up in the old growth forest to make it look like it's coming alive. It's like the substitute for the trees in the weight room is the position.

You see a knee drive. Oh, it's a knee drive and I'm pushing my hips forward and I see these positions, but the thing is what about the timing? Is it the same timing as the hip extension is going to connect to the knee drive in sprinting? Probably not. It's probably going to be subtly off. You have to because you have to push the band. The one thing that's giving you is it's giving you more reference to the hip extension.

So that's the thing is like a flex leg bound and I the thing is is I would rather do a flex leg bound and if someone can't do a flex leg bound well, I'm going to start slow. I'm going to say do a shuffle flex leg bound and I'll give them some analogies on their legs and keeping the knees at a certain lock level and I could hold a band behind them and if you could do a shut almost anyone who can walk and chew gum who's ready, ready to formally train that you're at least 14 and you have some sport experience under your belt, you can at least do a straight leg resisted bound shuffle and then we can turn that into just say hey squat down a little bit and try to keep your knees fixed and we can do that.

And then we can build out from that because now they also integrates the feet and the whole system and you can build it. You could do a build up. So you just have to question okay, well a Y drill I mean the weight room, I'm not really doing a lot through the feet per se. I've seen that exercise done where the angle of the knee as the hip passes over it does not represent sprinting very well.

It just becomes all about the knee drive for some people and then I would say okay, well wouldn't it be better just to do a cable hip flexor? Why don't you just do a cable hip flexor and build that up and then go sprint, so you have to ask what specifically in that is getting overloaded to the point that it's beneficial.

And context is always king. So if you I'll tell you if someone did that in a series in a circuit and said man, my athletes feel like their glutes are hitting harder, their times got better. So they're going to learn to get back into sprint. I'll be like okay, I take back everything I said. It's a good exercise. I just from what I see I just think it doesn't it just doesn't seem to reflect the timing needed in sprinting properly.

I could see it if someone lacks co-contractions to use a fancy word around the knee and hip in that extension push off of sprinting, I could see it used to teach those, but I don't know I would want to use it almost as an isometric. Like I would say push in hold the peak of the push off, feel the glute, feel the knee staying, the delayed knee extension feel the push off. Feel your ankle solid on the ground. Cool. Okay, maybe we'll do a few of these and then do a couple rapid reps to finish it off.

But ideally I want to know that that's showing up in your sprinting. And I think Cal I Cal mentioned that like athletes feel in their sprinting, but I've seen it to the point done to the point where I do not see athletes feeling how they're doing in their sprinting. I don't know what you're going to feel in your sprinting with that type of rep, but I just think we just rush to special exercises when like I would I would try to air on finding a locomotion drill that could be scaled first.

I mean heck even sprints jump like skips for distance, skips for height. Like split squats, flex leg bounds, resisted sprints. Like let's try to get this first, but I just think again because we're put in a system where we're in the weight room, athletes in the weight room for an hour, we're expected to make gains. Well, let's okay, let's do this thing, but that's a little noisier in my opinion than just going for on field application or actual speed training application.

James de Lacey58:24

Yeah, that's a good take. I like that. And just to round this out, a real quick one. Training rotation because I don't know if you've seen online as well. There are some thoughts of there's no such thing as rotational power etc. etc. You basically just get stronger.

There's actually a good paper recently Dr. Andrew Brachada out of the I am IMG Academy where they had their top 14 year old golfers do an isometric tie pull and a countermovement jump and then correlated that with medicine ball speed throw of the seated and standing rotational throw and they found they were pretty much separate qualities. So that's cool paper. So it kind of looks it kind of suggests at least reinforces the idea that hey you should probably do some rotational movement or throws and stuff like that if your sport has a rotation in it.

So we've seen kind of go through maybe how you kind of see rotation, maybe how you look to kind of train some of that quality.

Joel Smith59:09

So yeah, I that's awesome that study came out because I was just having a conversation with Mike Scofield who's a throws coach and sports science researcher from New Zealand and he was basically saying here recently. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, he's great. Yeah, we were talking about basically the same thing and so I just remember just from a personal anecdote when I used to play disc golf or frisbee golf all rotational and I was throwing my farthest seriously when I just stopped lifting for 3 months.

I stopped doing all training honestly outside of playing frisbee golf and I was throwing farther and I think there's so there's the big the biomechanical reason that you would say that's different is because things that are upright and rotational are very much you're not really putting force down into the ground like in Bill Hartman's model you have early stance mid stance and late stance. Mid stance is that point of internal rotation where you put force down into the ground and the mid thigh pull is pure internal rotation capacity. It is all about how much force you can put down into the ground.

But if I'm throwing something let's say I'm throwing a frisbee or even pitching a baseball or whatever like any the force down into the ground is only enough, it's just enough to stabilize the system but I am not rewarded by putting more into it. Rather I'm rewarded by range of motion elasticity coordination. These are all early stance is how much energy can you store there in the rotation. What's my max storage potential you could say it's hip shoulder separation. It's extensibility of the tissues.

Even like subtle joint differentiation like I've been working with the 3D strap or what's that strap and they do a lot of wraps where you kind of have it where you can feel the rotation of just one thigh on the femur and and you get off and you're like oh yeah, I feel a little bit more there. So I'm maximizing early stance totally independent of IR putting force into the ground stuff and then late stance kind of takes care of itself through the coordination. You whip through.

But yeah, I just think it is funny. I mean people talk about long drive in golf and all you got these lifts and yeah, I can see it but maybe I mean maybe there's a little bit more of a downswing piece to it there. I don't know but I just I do think you're going to be limited. I remember David a guy I had I can't remember his last name. He invented this thing called the ballistic ball. Medicine ball with a speed meter in it. He was saying how he had guys driving the driving real far. He's like yeah, their vertical jumps aren't that great.

So I just think this there's always going to be some level of coordination for some of those more forceful things with rotation but you're going to get to that point depending on what you do where it just doesn't matter so much anymore and so yeah, I love all medicine ball work just from a track back background. I love chaotic fun dynamic stuff too.

I just think a lot of times I see medicine ball work being done very casually like oh, if you just do these throws this is it's rotational training but it's like did you do that throw with the same intensity that you would have played in sport if you're a tennis player? Was it the same like I see you on the tennis court hitting the ball and I see you doing these throws and it is a different story.

You have to harness that intensity and again, that's where I look at Jay Schroeder's stuff. I don't think he did any med ball stuff but they did like very aggressive trunk twists like extremely aggressive trunk twisting exercises.

So I just think a rule of thumb is you either A are doing something that just you get into the noticing the awareness like what's that strap like subtle hip dissociations awesome.

But then if you're going to be doing some of that rotational stuff, don't just treat it as, oh well, science says we need to do rotational work. No, you have to have a level of intention and specificity that really brings that to life. And so I think those are some keys with those types of setups.

And then also I will say if you're really rotational, like a pitcher and even tennis and all that stuff, there can be a point of degradation by too much internal rotation work, like too much hex bar deadlifting. Bill Hartman gives this example. The hex bar deadlift is a lot of top down pressure. The body squeezes itself like a tube of toothpaste from the top to the bottom. You do too much of that and you're actually going to reduce your ability to rotate effectively, load early stance. And people, I've done that to myself.

James de Lacey1:03:44

I grew up as a, I was tennis was my main sport, coached everything all through to my early 20s, then just going to competitive weightlifting and stuff and was doing a lot of that. And obviously traveled with strength conditioning, you don't really do other sports, so you just do weightlifting. Now I come trying to do some other things and holy [expletive] have I lost everything.

Joel Smith1:03:44

It is so humbling. But it's just, I think that's just why if we're in athletic performance, I look at the curriculum and it should be letting time in different activities like go play. Just the idea of a bunch of strength coaches playing tennis, I think it would just be funny. But I think it would be so valuable because you really learn.

And that block would be only tennis, only 3D strap work, only medicine ball throws, that's all you're allowed to do. Maybe you get one weight exercise, like something that's more expansive like a heels elevated front squat or searcher or something, and that's it. And you learn the game that way or you learn that series of movements that way, just lest we paste our own preference over everything for every sport. Rotational sports are so good to humble us from that perspective.

James de Lacey1:04:31

My dad is funny, my dad could drive a golf ball a long way and he was not a powerful athlete, not at all. And so, and I'm pretty whippy too. I think I'm like him but with a little more power. So it's such an interesting area.

Well, that was a, well, I probably should have gone forever honestly, but let's wrap this up. Where can people find and follow you Joel?

Joel Smith1:05:16

Yeah, justflysports.com with all dashes between the words, and Just Fly Sports on Twitter, Instagram. Just Fly Performance podcast is...

James de Lacey1:05:16

Oh, and you said you have a new course coming out?

Joel Smith1:05:16

Yeah, trying to work on finishing it up now. So it's called Athletic Fusion, and so it's a lot of these things that I mentioned, like the separateness of a lot of the containers of sport. And it's looking at brain attentional networks, the way we lay training out for athletes, why some athletes seem to like the more balanced and gamified type ideas and how that fits with the brain activity, and how to mesh it all together in a way that's engaging and moves the needle for athletes and athletic performance.

So yeah, I'm excited about it. It's been really fun to put together. And I always think it's going to be out sooner than I say, but I really release it within the next couple months. It's definitely getting down to that point. So I'm excited about it.

James de Lacey1:06:06

Perfect. Perfect. Well, link up all your stuff down in the description for anyone who wants to check it out, but I appreciate you coming on for round two.

Joel Smith1:06:06

Yeah, thanks for having me James. It was great talking to you.