How To Squat 3x BW & Get Faster Simultaneously w/ Lachie McPherson (SSOF Ep 183)

Lachie McPherson2:47

Yeah, I'm definitely a little bit bigger now, which is good. I'm sort of sitting around about 83 kilos, looking to go up to about 85. A lot of what I was doing last year, I was sitting sort of in that 80 kilo mark. And I mean I was pretty lucky to hang power clean 170 kilos. Bench press 182, back squat 250.

I'm running around about a 360 and everything sort of come together. I think my broad jump's somewhere around that 320 mark. So it's a lot of very strong power metrics. Depending on if people are utilizing Kaiser, like I've had a couple of 5,000 watt outputs on the belt squat. Mid four on the squat pro.

Yeah. A lot of different jumps. I mean, trying to think counter movement jump like with hands, I think somewhere around 98 cm. Without hands, something like around 78 to 80 cm. So, decent pretty decent metrics.

James de Lacey3:55

Yeah. Yeah. Just decent. We'll call them just decent.

Lachie McPherson3:58

Yeah. I definitely want to improve upon them. That's sort of why I probably look at them as decent.

James de Lacey4:02

Dude, those are nuts numbers at 80 kgs body weight. So what will be interesting is going through, we can go through even just kind of phases of training and how that looks. And I'll come to the question in the chat because it'll kind of lead in after this. But obviously bobsled I guess we'd class as almost like a pure power sport like almost like a short sprint I guess.

Lachie McPherson4:24

So it'll be interesting to kind of hear, I mean you just finished up that qualification period. So even this period now which would be maybe considered more of a quote unquote preparation period, kind of how that looks, what you're looking to do in this period and then maybe the adaptations you're trying to gain out of this period and then how that kind of changes as you get maybe closer to competition.

James de Lacey4:24

Well, and it's a great question, especially I can sort of delve into it in very high detail. You know, the reason that I work with Brandon is that we're able to sit down and look at things not just in that block to block or year to year, but we're looking at the next four years and very much this year is heavily focused on that general physical preparation for what we'll set up three more years after it.

Lachie McPherson4:24

So, a lot of the volume has gone up. The intensity is still quite high, but we're just aiming to build a lot more residual tissue that can handle the training demands. We're still trying to keep in those elements of strength as well as power, but they're just not as heavily focused as they were leading into season.

So, right now, it's we call it triples prison. So, I can't do anything less than three reps on any of my major lifts, which is it's good and bad. It's holding me back from doing anything super heavy right now. And it just means that I'm building a lot more of that residual strength or that general strength that's going to pay off later in the track.

And depending on sort of how things plan out this year, there'll be a couple of competitions just with weightlifting and that's more just for fun. It's just to keep that competitive element in for me. A few training camps overseas to work on some technical elements of pushing for bobsled. And then potentially going on season and I think if we do go on season the aim's to qualify for world champs next year in Norway.

Looking at that compared to how maybe the next few years might look, that's where things will obviously become a greater emphasis on the strength element and then the power element and then going into that next Olympic year going more toward my speed again. So, I think where a lot of people will often talk about having all those factors in training, we still do that, but in terms of the time that we spend on it, especially as I'm getting a little bit older, like I'm only 28, but we know that we can take a lot longer with it now knowing that the end point is 2030 for us.

So, I can spend 6 months to a year working on building more of that residual tissue that's just going to help. Especially with bobsled, it's not so much the thought process that a track sprinter would have where it's about that reactive ground contact. We're trying to have long ground contacts and ultimately our mass is what's going to dictate how well that sled moves. So, if I can be bigger and move just as well as I do at 80 where I'm 85 or 90, then we're going to be able to see that sled move a lot better.

James de Lacey4:24

Yeah, that was actually going to be one of my follow-up questions there because yeah, as you mentioned, the difference is you're having to push a relatively heavy implement and get that thing moving. So, I mean, your numbers are, you're like over three times body weight squat, over two times body weight hang power clean. I mean, these things, I guess you could say in the team sport world would be like, in fact, you probably typically don't really find people in the team sport world with numbers like that.

And you often see, you know, once you kind of hit like a general strength standard, it's kind of like pushing that number further, maybe isn't going to give that athlete what they need on the field. But for you, that seems like a different story just because of just because of the sport itself.

But it'd be interesting to know maybe even from your own experience or even experience with athletes you have, like what have you seen or noticed as like the strength ceiling? Is there even one? Because as you mentioned, you're still looking to push that squat further up. Are you just trying to push everything up and then get as big a number as possible on the Kaiser with the peak power? Is that kind of the KPI? How does that all look and come together?

Lachie McPherson8:13

Well, I think it molds back into that thought process of we take a lot more time with our training. So, everything that we look at now and often you hear a lot of those debates about is there such thing as too strong and to be perfectly honest, I don't think there is.

You know, we look at some of the elite powerlifters and the weights that they're able to obviously move. Now the difference there is that we look at those other qualities like power, the ability to have a high rate of force development, the ability to create a reactive speed aspect. They just don't train that. So they are pure strength and that's where they can see those strengths.

I think a big part of it is mindset as well with athletes. Some athletes come in and they do want to train and they want to train well, but they don't necessarily understand. And I think when Brandon spoke to you, a lot of it is that the athlete needs to be a student of what they're doing. And it doesn't necessarily mean that they need to look at it from a coach's eye, but they need to understand that these phases take longer or sometimes the goals that we're trying to achieve aren't going to happen straight away and they might take two to three years to occur.

So for me, it's understanding that this year building that residual tissue is going to be a massive part of being able to be a lot more stable when I develop strength. So, especially if I want to push to a 600 lb squat or even closer than say like a 300 kilo squat, it's a matter of being 80 kilos, I could do it, but the risk of some type of tendon injury or skeletal injury could be a lot greater compared to if I have a little bit more mass on my body.

And the pushing of that to those points, it's sort of that mass moves mass. So, if I'm able to squat 300 kilos when I'm still able to run, say a 3.6 30 m sprint, I imagine that my wattage on a Kaiser is going to be a lot higher and they're all going to blend into each other.

So, I think sometimes we look at it as stepping stones when realistically they're almost like sliders. And I guess when you look at it that way, it means that everything can still be progressed over time. I think people just often look at it in a very small window. So, if you can trust that, then the results can kind of speak for themselves. I guess I'm a testament to that.

If I can hang power clean 170 at 80 kilos and then I can go and push a bobsled and be ranked as the number one pusher for Australia, it's clearly working.

James de Lacey10:31

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For sure. For sure, you can't argue with those numbers. At some point then, are you looking at, are you looking at to see if the increased strength or mass you're putting on is transferring, or what are you looking at as maybe like that key KPI for transfer? Because as you mentioned, your squat could go up, maybe your hang power could go up, maybe your Kaiser power could go up.

Are you looking at that sprint time to go up or you looking at a specific push start during bobsled to go up? Like is there some kind of field metric that you're looking at that where everything kind of comes back to?

Lachie McPherson12:02

The number one metric for me now would 100% be the push time. And I think as I said, being more of a student as an athlete, understanding that the sprint time itself isn't going to necessarily dictate the success of that push. So, a perfect example would be that there was a Czech Republic brakeman, or I think he pushed for Israel last year, but his 100 meter PB is 10.1. And looking at his push times on the ice, I was beating him and I think my best ever 100 is 10.6.

So, the difference there is I'm carrying a little bit more mass. I've got an ability to generate force at a higher rate over a shorter period, but he probably has a lot more of that mass velocity aspect that isn't necessarily relevant to the bobsled. So when I look at all my factors, we almost want them to culminate together. And I think that's where trusting in Brandon, I've always looked at my training, especially in the past, there's been periods where I've squatted around, you know, 220 to 230 kilos, but I haven't been able to bench 180 kilos.

And the same going where I've been able to power clean 150 to 160 kilos, but I haven't necessarily been able to squat over that 220 mark. Whereas coming in and working with Brandon, I've been able to squat 250 kilos whilst hang cleaning 170 whilst benching 180 while seeing those Kaiser numbers go up while seeing my sprint times go down and my push times go down. It's a matter of having that ability to consolidate those factors and probably more so plan how your training is actually structured week to week.

James de Lacey13:36

So what were the changes that were made that allowed you to be able to kind of have all those simultaneously? Like what would be, I guess what would be a typical week structure and how did that differ to maybe when you couldn't say bench 180 and also power clean that 170 etc.?

Lachie McPherson13:50

I think having that outside voice, that's probably the big difference that sort of came. Like Brandon sort of controlled a lot more of what I was doing and how I was going about it. So where I would in the past, especially as a young athlete, you just want to train the house down. So, I've had periods where I was front squatting 5 days a week and, you know, my front squat went up a lot, but same thing, it's taking a lot of energy away from the bench press or from my running or from other factors for that have to recover from it.

And especially listening to other coaches like Maxi, I think he went away and trained with the Bulgarians. He talked about he squatted religiously almost every day for years and years and years. And he knew that even if he reduced his frequency, he could probably increase his intensity of those sessions and still see the same results. So, I think really what's changed a lot, especially in the last 12 months for me, is training's become a lot more consolidated where I only power clean twice a week.

I only snatch maybe one or two times a week. I'm not even really jerking at the minute. But I'm still seeing that number go up solely from having that really good training base.

At the moment we're on Kaiser twice a week. I sprint twice a week. In terms of squatting, I only back squat once and front squat once. So, I'm still seeing all my numbers go up. And I think that just sort of shows that if you're able to approach training in a way where it's structured and controlled, you can then know and trust your program and actually come at it with a higher intensity.

And I think really that's the big part is just seeing those outputs increase every single session rather than having your good days and bad days. Every day in my week is essentially a good day of training.

So I mean when I look at like my weekly structure, Mondays are normally at the moment I hit like a clean complex. I do a back squat. I do some bench and I sprint. Tuesdays are normally a pretty light day. I kind of just go and do some machine work and some hypertrophy. Wednesdays, I normally do like a block snatch and a front squat, maybe some back accessories. Thursday, I'm on the Kaiser. Friday is kind of an easier day because I'm back on the Kaiser on a Saturday and then Sunday I rest.

So, it's not a very exciting program. It's, you know, I think everyone expects that, you know, you're in the gym twice a day every day and you're sprinting every day and it's you just can't do that, especially as you get older. And I mean, especially as I push those weights higher and those wattages higher, it's more that my body has to recover from.

James de Lacey16:19

Does that structure and do those kind of exercises change as you go through the season or these kind of like you stick with these and the set reps and maybe load changes throughout the year and seasons?

Lachie McPherson16:31

I mean from a exercise selection, it doesn't stray too much. The difference will be within rackage and then also the weight and that's really the big thing. And I mean when we got closer to season I know I was on the Kaiser three times a week. Brandon had me squat once a week outside of that. My sprint frequency stayed at two times a week for pretty much the whole time. Sometimes we would do a third but it wouldn't really be a true sprint session. It would kind of be more of a resisted element. So we weren't going at top speeds.

And there'd normally be like some plyometric elements to that, but the 90% of what my year looks like is pretty similar. It's just sort of that 10% where I'm on season or maybe I've got a little niggle or I've got a social event or something where life's just a little bit different that week.

James de Lacey17:25

What you mentioned as well with the, so you sprinted on Monday. Do you mean the order you gave it? Were you sprinting at the end of that session?

Lachie McPherson17:34

Well, it would be a separate session. So, normally, especially with my life at the minute, I'd sort of run the morning shift at work. So, I'll be coaching from 6:00 a.m. through to about 10:30, 11:00, and then I'll go lift from about 11 till about 1:30, have lunch, coach the second session, which is sort of that 3 till 7. Sometimes I knock off about 5:30 and I go to the track and I'll maybe run from 6:00 till 7:30 and that's a day and it's more just from a convenience for me.

I'm pretty lucky where I live. Everything's really accessible. We don't really have traffic. It's the perks of living in a small town and it just means that I can still approach my sessions appropriately. I'm still able to eat in between. I'm still able to have time to relax and de-stress. I think everyone does get quite hung up sometimes on those principles of, you know, they want you to sprint first and then lift.

And the reality is I'm not a full-time athlete. I still have a job and I still have a life and I have to kind of fit things around. And I mean, it's worked for me so far. So, I'm pretty fortunate for that.

James de Lacey18:40

Are there any considerations you make in that morning session then because you know you have to sprint in the afternoon?

Lachie McPherson18:47

On a Monday, definitely. I normally do a bit more of like a structured warm-up. Brandon has like some key movements that he wants me to do that just allow me to open up my hips. And one of the big things that he sort of sees with me is that I lack a bit of hip extension. So, we do a big focus on that. Realistically, if it's a training session, I try and go in as tentatively as I can. So, if I've got to squat 250 kilos for a back squat and then I've got to go sprint 4 hours later, I'm still going to do it.

I think I hate to use the genetic card, but I think I'm able to at least have a decent turnaround from that. I don't often see much of a drop off in my training. And I think part of it is I know when he spoke to you, a lot of that long-term athletic development model. So, I mean, I've done sport all my life. I've been active. I grew up on a farm. It's not unfamiliar for me to have to just have to do hard work quite frequently.

I know especially when I started coaching and especially when I went into my own business, you know, I was doing 16 hour days building the gym, coaching within the gym, programming, and then still training on top of that. So, I think part of it is again back to that what you're familiar with within your environment and probably also that genetic disposition.

James de Lacey18:47

Those morning sessions as well actually act as like a really nice warm-up even though it's a way earlier session which I think I don't think some people maybe don't realize but it's just like, like even within pro sport you're training multiple times a day and your morning session is just like by the time it's the afternoon your warm-ups don't have to be the same as what they would have to be as that morning session. They can be really quick because you're just, you've done something in the morning already and you feel it's almost like a primer I guess you could say.

Lachie McPherson20:32

Yeah, 100%. And I mean, yeah, it's the beauty of coaching semi-professional athletes is same thing. They live lives. And some of our guys will if they don't have to work on that day, they go and play golf in the morning and then they come and lift. And I mean, especially when that's sort of the scenario, I sort of say to them, you probably don't need to do your warm up. You've just gone and played nine holes and you've been rotating. And putting out some good outputs hopefully.

Sometimes I have a bad game of golf and they're ready to lift pretty heavy. So I think in a world where everyone often looks at training as as almost one of those optimized facets sometimes we have to revert back to you know what we're just we're here to train and if you're going to train you might as well train well.

James de Lacey21:12

Yeah. No I agree with you there. I'm going to come to the question in the chat before I go to the rest of mine. famous music. He's asking you, "What do you think about micro doing power or speed training like Derek Hansen has suggested for daily low volume sprinting, midball throws, lighter snatches for speed, etc. that aren't fatiguing?"

Lachie McPherson21:30

I'm all for it. I mean, especially we we have a big dominance from the modeling that we use with our athletes is very baseball ccentric. So, having worked with with baseball and a few of my colleagues have also worked in professional baseball, just seeing how we can implement things of lower natures where the speeds maybe aren't at that maximal capacity of the body.

Throws are a fantastic one. Loaded jumps are one that I think often you can look at it in two different ways where especially dependent on the load, you can make it more of a reactive tendency or you can make it more of that muscular drive. It really depends what you're obviously trying to achieve.

And same with the Olympic lifts. I know when I'm in season, I'll often use a lot more of the bounce variations just due to that that high rate of force development and that short stretch shortening cycle occurring at a greater rate. So the load is obviously a lot lower. So the the muscular fatigue is a lot less for me, which is good because I'm getting bashed around in a bob sled versus when I'm out of season and I'm not necessarily in the sled, I can often go to those those higher weights and and really go after it.

But I mean, one of the big things that was definitely a good learning lesson for me was I did see a drop off in what I was able to do as an output on season. It was a almost a little bit more sporadic dependent on how well my body was handling competition. So where I was going into season pulling 160 for power clean doubles, I could barely pull 140 150 off the floor come 3 4 months later. And part of that is that we're getting ahead knocks. Our body's getting bashed around.

I think one of the things that people don't realize with bobsled is you're basically an athletic mechanic. You know, we have to assemble and disassemble the sled every day. We have to carry the sled. We have to load it places. We're in -20 for most of the year. So, it's it's not necessarily an easy environment to be an elite athlete in, but again, it's you still have to approach it and and do as well as you can.

And I mean, the one thing I saw was as soon as I finished season and I gave myself that week of just back to normal training, the numbers started going back up again because my body was recovering. It had less impacts on it.

James de Lacey23:42

So, is that is that micro doing approach with power and speed up? Is that something that you have used or would use in season or even out of season? just like almost like doing a daily I mean you could I'm not going to say you're doing it now but more like a lighter maybe power cleans and jumps I guess most days of the week even in season just to kind of keep that ticking over or you you're you're kind of found the way that works for you now where you've kind of got that set I guess more of a set structure where it's not so much micro doing it's actually full sessions.

Lachie McPherson23:42

I think there's definitely a formatting to how you could go about micro doing. And the hardest part of it is understanding the athlete that you might be implementing it with. So for some people, micro doing might actually be a maximal dose if they're not used to that exposure. So if you're giving someone medball throws every single day of the week and they don't really have a background in speed and power, that's already going to be a really potent stimulus. So would it necessarily be as effective as if I just gave it to them three times a week?

Whereas some better trained athletes, so maybe like myself, if I'm doing an Olympic variation twice a week, I could probably micro dose medball throws and loaded jumps on those days that I'm not doing them just to keep that system active. But obviously the intensity of it is going to be far less than if I actually had that stimulus from an Olympic lift.

So I think it's a hard one to really say if it is effective or not because it really depends on athlete to athlete. You know, if you had a a team setting and you use that as a micro dose implementation, unless it's say like a baseball team or a football team where it is probably a little bit more power driven, it's hard to say if it would actually be an effective I guess tool that you could use for training.

James de Lacey25:27

Yeah. Nice. You also you mentioned about the jumps and players in your program or your kind of structure now. I don't think you mentioned jumps and players in there other than the sprinting. because the rest was kind of Olympic weightlifting and and your general strength stuff. So, it'd be interesting to know does do those I guess do general jump applytric exercises make it into your program at some point? If if or if not, why or why not?

Lachie McPherson25:27

We definitely use them. I probably use them more when I come out of say like a general physical preparation phase just because there's already so much volume on the body and when we look at the dominance of the systems that are getting used, we're looking at that muscular system already being tested quite highly due to that increased volume.

When we look at like endocrine and hormone function, we're already putting the body under so much stress that we're not necessarily going to see an effective recovery from more of those reactive tendencies if we're already sprinting. So it's almost that stacking effect of do we necessarily want to stress every single system in the body or do we want to just training focus on a key element and develop that well before introducing a new element.

So I would say when it sort of rolls around to winter in Australia that's where I would see a lot more implementation apply metrics and I mean it's not like it would be a very exciting element. And it would honestly be just a few sets of repeat broad jumps, maybe a couple of bounds and some depth drops. It's not it's not the the Instagram influencer workout where you've got six different plyometrics and you're doing over 100 ground contacts.

I probably only do 30 reps in a week. But again, if I'm sprinting twice a week and I have all these other elements that are done at I guess an elite level, it's not necessarily smart to continue to add more to that.

Yeah. Nice. And in and the jumping aspect as well. So obviously you use a lot of the Olympic weighting variations. Is it something that you prefer over say loaded jumps or is it something that maybe you just find that the the weighting variations just tend to transfer better over for you. Maybe you just enjoy doing them. It'll be interesting to kind of hear your take on on that.

I think the easiest answer is I just really enjoy doing them. But I guess that's as simple as it goes. I mean, at the same time, I've done plenty of loaded jumps and I've used complex method where we've done some kind of loading into a loaded jump and I've just found that for me, I'm probably a very simple person. I just like doing very simple things. So most of my year I'm doing doubles and singles and I'm I'm quite happy doing them. And I think especially a happy athlete is is a well-performing athlete.

So some of our athletes here wanted to start doing Olympic variations and I saw no reason not to do that. I felt I could teach them and we just have to understand that there's a learning phase of that and and they understand that and it just means that they're training well. But for a lot of them we still use jump variations, we use movement variations that are going to be explosive.

I think Zach Vner said it really well once where the best availability is just having tools to your disposal. So, especially at Adept, we use jammers, we use belt squat, we use a lot of different banded variations. We basically try and figure out how can we have every single possible tool available to us and we only really need to use one or two for an athlete.

And I think it's the same with within my own training. It's, you know, I already have a very explosive element from the Kaiser. I already do Olympic variations and I'm already sprinting to to add in more to that seems a little bit frivolous. The scenario I would use where I might use more loaded jumps would be a a situation where maybe I've broken my wrists or something's injured and I'm unable to get into those positions that are are safe. And I might just be using them to try and maintain that quality.

James de Lacey29:01

Nice. Are there any specific weightlifting variations that you just you just gravitate towards maybe most of the year or maybe when you're getting closer to competition?

Lachie McPherson29:38

Definitely the power clean. I think for me the hang clean is probably more relevant in the regard to bobsled just from the ability to generate a pre-loaded position into an eccentric and then a very high concentric output. I just like doing power cleans. It's a very simple way of looking at it.

From the snatch, we at the moment use the hip snatch, we use hang snatch. Eventually, we'll just go to a power snatch from the floor, but there's never really been a need for me to do snatch balances or like a pause at the knee or anything in that regard. And it's not—I think it's just like anything, you can't really have an absolute and say I don't need them. At some stage in my life I might need them or at some stage of my training it may be more relevant, but right now things are working and we can see that performance metrics are going up.

So if we can have that in the simplest way, if I could come in tomorrow and someone said you're going to be stronger, faster, put on more muscle, your body's going to be super resilient, and all you have to do is a goblet squat, I would probably just do a goblet squat every day for the next four years. But unfortunately that's just not the case.

So if we can have this really simplified training library for me and it's relevant to my sport and it can have me at a point where I'm at an Olympic standard, then I'm probably going to do that. I don't need to go looking for that holy grail of the next movement that's going to make me feel like I'm more athletic.

James de Lacey31:08

Perfect. And I think it'd be interesting as well to go down the rabbit hole of almost—we can go down the rabbit hole of specificity. Because if we were to look at this from a lens of what people would say would be general, specific, etc., this would be all kind of general training. And if people kind of think about bobsled, okay, I'm pushing a heavy implement and trying to sprint with it. The specific exercise might be like resisted sprinting.

You mentioned a little bit of that before, but maybe you would spend a lot more time, I don't know, pushing a heavy prowler or something like that. So be interesting to hear kind of your take on where does this idea of maybe specificity fit for you, I guess, within your training philosophy and within your training specifically for bobsled.

And do does some of this potentially come in later down the line, or is it just a matter of, hey, if I know I get stronger on these things and I'm weekly or whatever pushing the sled and doing my sprints, then I know it's all going to come together?

Lachie McPherson32:04

Well, I think the first part that I look at straight away is just training age. And I think when we look at training age, you could look at your general training age, which is, you have your foundation of can you squat, hinge, push, pull, you can do Olympic variation, you can sprint, and then there's the specifics of your sport training age.

So if you were a soccer player and you've played soccer for 10 years, from a technical side of your play, it's probably not as glamorous again as people would imagine. It's probably more of the understanding the tactics and where you need to be, because you know when you're in those positions, you'll be able to execute what you need to do.

And I mean in reality my training age with bobsled is still quite low. It's really within a 12-month span and I look at that and go the number one thing for me is I need to push. So if I can push a bobsled and I can push it on ice, that is the best training that I can do right now.

As I get older and let's say it's 4 to 8 years from now and I've done thousands and thousands of pushes and my technique's refined to a point that this is what I do, then it almost becomes back to that more remedial and general side where we go, I know if I can be pain-free, if my body's moving well, and I can, let's say, I don't know, power clean 140 and squat 200, I'm going to push this time with the bobsled because from a technical side, that's already done.

So when I look at things that I can do, especially living in Australia, we don't have access to ice houses and the ability to really push a bobsled. The prowler comes in as probably the number one thing that's closest to it. So if I'm able to get out on the track, and at the moment it's more about refining the technique of how I sprint, we'll then move that more toward utilizing the prowler as a primary motion in the sprinting. And that's going to at least have a more positive transfer where we have that frontal element that is resisted, which is exactly what bobsled is.

It's not the exact thing that we want, but it's going to be the closest that I could do here. And that's a big part of especially when we look at the training calendar. I need to travel overseas to do training camps with other nations and be able to actually push in that specific way with a sled on ice. And I think as I get older that'll become less of a demand, but that'll also mean that again that training age has increased.

James de Lacey34:22

So does that mean you're pushing the prowler then regularly currently in your training as kind of like that technique work?

Lachie McPherson34:28

That will sort of be the next step within my training. So at the moment it's been just returning from season, just going back to general sprinting. So at the moment I've just been sprinting on the track twice a week. We kind of keep it between 10 and 25 meters.

We're going to start bringing in probably a pull sled first to again reintroduce that resisted element before we go more into that specific element of pushing the prowler. So that will sort of be the main end goal of the general physical preparation phase before we go more into that specific preparation, which is those training camps and competing.

James de Lacey35:06

Gotcha. And then within the sprint training itself, are there any modifications you make I guess technique-wise to I guess better reflect bobsled? Because obviously the technique may be slightly different than an unresisted sprinter doing 100 meters. Same thing like with skeleton where they're kind of bent over and they're holding their little board. I don't know what you call it. They hold their little boards and kind of sprint down the track. That's different as well. Also, are there little things that you change there that maybe a normal sprinter may not do?

Lachie McPherson35:38

The big thing for me, especially working with our team coach over in Canada, is just looking at that first phase of acceleration being a lot more heavy on greater ground contacts. So again, we look at the surface compared to track, it's not as reactive. It's ice. So we're essentially ripping through it. So we have to create more of that propulsion motion. And we know that we're not going to get a great return from the ice.

Probably when we look again at those later phases of sprinting—so when we look at acceleration transitioning into max velocity, the key bit is that the transition period still reflects a greater ground contact time than what we would see from a traditional sprinter that is seeing that reduction in ground contact. Because as soon as we start losing that, we're losing the ability to put more force behind us and move that sled. Because at the end of the day, the sled's not getting lighter. And if I move it faster, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to feel easier to move either.

So the big thing for me is having a bigger emphasis on being connected with the ground and putting everything to move me forward. Compared to what you might see with a sprinter, I know within the book Feed the Cats they talk a lot about like the foot starts in a bit more of a pronated position and moves into that supinated position as we move into max velocity. We're not necessarily looking for that supination. We want to be as grounded as we can. We want to be as aggressive as we can and we want to continually rip through the ground.

James de Lacey37:05

Are there constraints then that you add to those sprinting sessions? All I'm thinking is it seems like adding some kind of resistance would almost be like almost every session would be almost the thing to do to essentially just make it that you're essentially forced to have longer ground contact times. I guess how much of that is actually being added throughout the year versus your unresisted stuff, or is there something you're doing in the unresisted sessions that allows you, or is it just like a mindset thing while you're trying to do it?

Lachie McPherson37:34

Definitely a little bit more of just sort of that mindset. I think for me, especially even when I've looked at the periods of the year, we have like a national combine where they do test our 30, and I guess I almost contradict myself and sort of cheat the system where we go, when we go into that 30-meter test, I want to be as fast as possible. So I'm probably going to lead into that period treating myself more as a track sprinter and I'm going to adjust how I run for that.

And in reality, speed training is speed training. We want to make sure that if we're sprinting, we're sprinting correctly. So when we have resisted elements in there, the key part for me is that that is where I almost have to sort of shift that mindset and go, okay, this is more relevant to what we're going to be doing with the sled, compared to when I'm sprinting.

There's elements there that we still want to ensure are, I guess, more natural or grounded within the base. So just like general training, if you want to get better at squatting, you can squat, but the squat's also just going to make you generally stronger. And I think that's the way that I sort of look at it with the sprint work as well, is there are specific elements that if I want to get better at pushing, I need to push sled. But if I want to look at just developing my speed, I need to sprint.

So it's almost like you have this duality within your training and you just have to look at or be able to sort of switch between those two mindsets dependent on the elements that are present within the session. And I guess when we look at like resisted running when we're leading into season and we're over in Calgary and we're pushing in the ice house, there's obviously a greater demand where we're often pushing in the ice three times a week, and we're pushing with like a sort of a skeleton frame of a sled which we can kind of modulate.

So some days we're only pushing 150 kilos, some days we're pushing a 200 kilo sled. And that's often with a team. That's not just by myself, thankfully.

Whereas the resisted elements at the moment, if I'm pulling a sled, I'm only pulling 15 to 20 kilos just because I need to keep that element of speed. I'm still so far from pushing a bobsled again that we can't necessarily just hammer that heavy resisted element. I mean, it's just like trying, again, I always use the squat because it's fantastic because it's a very controlled environment.

If I was to just do heavy squatting and I'm continually doing this long sort of concentric phase where the output is really slow, that is going to reflect within my squat, especially as I move to the higher weights. But if I have periods where my output is higher and my weight is a little bit lighter, then obviously I can keep that element of speed. I mean, that's why people use shorter range of motion variations where they can obviously produce greater force at greater speeds under bigger loads, because if they went to that full range of motion, they'd just be slow.

James de Lacey40:17

Nice. You mention obviously when you're in training camp, you're pushing almost two times a week on the ice. So, how does your weight training then change for those periods?

Lachie McPherson40:17

To be honest, it was a little bit more of a boys trip in the regards to how the training actually looked. So when we live in Calgary it's not fantastic. We live in a basement with five guys and

we often would be sitting around going, what are we going to do today? And really it just meant that we would go to the gym six days a week and lift six days a week. I would say on the days that we were pushing on ice, and again that was often that period where I could be a professional athlete, so we would push first and then we would lift second, and the intensity of those lifts and the weights of those lifts would be a lot higher.

Whereas the days in between would generally be a little bit easier, a little bit lighter, do a lot more of our accessory work and just make sure the body was healthy. So they would often be the days where I would do a muscle snatch variation, probably some hinging. We'd often use the reverse fifer pretty heavily and then just do a lot of our hypertrophy work. So the elements that we would do on those push days would be more of our strength and our power, whereas the other days would be more about just trying to look after the body.

James de Lacey41:35

Nice. And in terms of conditioning, is there much of a conditioning element that you go down for bobsled?

Lachie McPherson41:35

Apart from, when I work at Brandon, we do a metabolic conditioning session and that's really just a loaded circuit where we just do a number of machines over time. I look at for me especially the amount of training that I do in the week because it's so continuous. We do get a residual training effect where I'm still in the gym five days a week. I'm still running two to three days a week. That is building that conditioning base for me.

And I think sometimes I'll often look at, say, a zone two session or we don't necessarily do a whole lot of alactic work. And I think probably one of the things that we've considered is that maybe not so much this year but later in those years where we're out of that general physical preparation phase and we have a little bit more bandwidth for our training, we might look at addressing some of those systems in a little bit more depth.

So building the base of the aerobic system a little bit more just to help obviously recover but also those physiological factors where I'm getting bigger. So I need to make sure that I'm managing my heart health and my respiratory health. When we look at that alactic, so again as much as we only really do two to four runs in training when we're actually going down the course, being able to just process within that system as well and be able to sort of just recover from those really high intensity outputs is a really important factor.

And again, it just all stems into that long-term athletic development. I'll still be developing into my late 40s, I imagine, solely because there's a consistent training effect there.

James de Lacey43:17

How long do you typically have between runs?

Lachie McPherson43:21

It's about an hour. So often

you'll warm up about half an hour beforehand. You'll do a push and go down the run. The run lasts about a minute, hopefully less. And then you load the sled back into a truck and you go back to the top. You wait for about an hour and everyone does their runs. Then you do your run and that's about it.

James de Lacey43:25

Got it. So what have you been, I guess, thinking about in terms of that kind of alactic conditioning, I guess after general prep periods? Is there anything in particular or specific that you've been looking to implement in those sessions?

Lachie McPherson43:25

For me, I think the key bit is going away from often what people would redeem as sort of the norm. So, people would often think, oh, we might go out on the track and we'll run efforts that might be 20 seconds or 20 seconds plus and at that really high intensity. And for me especially, again, understanding I'm a smaller build that is trying to get bigger, that's a lot more impact on my body.

So, for me, it'll be a lot more of the off legs measures. So using the rower or the assault bike and doing sort of within those 30 to 45 second efforts with large recovery periods, and I think again it takes a special type of athlete to actually understand how to do that training properly, but just letting that lactic acid effect pool and just feeling awful. But understanding that I'm probably only going to do three to six efforts and that's all I really need to do.

And I think especially when I look at the young athletes that we train here, they expect that they're going to be training for one to two hours, and sometimes they come in for 30 to 45 minutes and it's you come in, you do your work, you go home. And some of the sessions that we do, especially as you move into that elite standard, we've talked about with intensity, the bigger and the stronger I am and the more powerful I am, the worse those alactic sessions are going to be, because I'm going to be able to obviously create greater outputs with my body, especially in an off leg situation where I can have a lot more control.

It's not going to be as environmentally dictated. It's going to take a toll on the body, so it can't necessarily be a big session.

James de Lacey43:25

No, I got you. I got you there. That was actually everything I had for you, Lachie. I was cool. I was geeking out just over a pure power sport where it's just everything's just geared towards max output. Don't have to worry about anything else. Just get as big, strong, and powerful as possible. So, it's awesome to dive into all of that. But for anyone who wants to find and follow you and see some of your crazy lifts, where can they find you?

Lachie McPherson43:25

The easiest place would probably be Instagram. So my Instagram is Lachie McP, L A C H I E MCP. It's always great, I do get a lot of people that sort of just send me messages and ask questions and I always try and answer them. So, I think especially in this world, there's people that are very curious and I think that's fantastic and I wish that more of them would ask me more questions because there's so much information in the world.

And I think often people feel that they can't ask people questions and I think that's just one of the big things that I want to try and do more. Especially I love to train and I love to talk about training and it's always funny, I feel like I can get a bit caught in that sometimes and ramble. But the more people that can connect and see that there's like-minded people or understand that especially to be a pure power athlete, it takes a very special type of person.

You've got to be quite comfortable with some very arduous training and probably also putting yourself in some very compromised positions that could risk you getting hurt. So, I think I like to think I have a very calm composure, but if you ever meet a bobsledder, they'll probably tell you that I'm not super calm when I'm leading into a run. I'm generally quite aggressive and quite hyped up.

James de Lacey47:22

But before we go, actually, what drove you to bobsled versus Olympic weightlifting? Because with your numbers, you'd be representing Australia.

Lachie McPherson47:30

Well, that is sort of a bit of a sub goal for us at the minute is Brandon sort of has said, he wants me to be a bobsledder for the next four years. And really the team I have is unreal. The guys that I push with are some of the best dudes in Australia and unreal athletes as well. But Brandon sort of calmly said, if you hit the World Champs total this year in weightlifting, then we might consider the '28 Olympic Games. And I was like, oh, okay.

But the mindset for me is bobsled, and I think it's just nice being part of a sport where I can openly express myself as an athlete, and that's with pure aggression and pure power. And I think that's just the big driver for me. And the people that got me involved with it were some really supportive people. So, it's not necessarily that I owe them anything, but I do enjoy getting myself hyped up with the boys and going in the sled.

And I mean, every time I'm sitting in there, I'm like, man, are we going to die today? And thankfully, we haven't. I've only crashed twice, which is good. But even, and I never told the pilot, but when we crashed, I kind of enjoyed it. So, that probably paints a bit more of a picture of my mental

James de Lacey48:46

I understand now. You got you got a screw loose, so that—

Lachie McPherson48:49

Oh, I got a few screw looses. Yeah.

James de Lacey48:52

Yeah, there's definitely one or two. Oh, awesome. I appreciate you coming on, Locky, and chatting and we'll stay in touch.

Lachie McPherson48:55

No, absolutely, mate. Thanks for having me on.