Athletic Performance Podcast
The Athletic Performance Podcast: we discuss all things performance-related, with a focus on pushing the boundaries of speed, power, and strength.
Athletic Performance Podcast
016 - Thomson Remo on Iso-inertial Training on the Exer-Fly
Thomson Remo is the Central Territory Manager at Exer-fly and a Lead Educator for both Wattbike and Woodway USA and a competitive powerlifter boasting over a 700 pound deadlift
Here's a quick overview of our show:
✅ Iso-intertial training for athletes
✅ Variations in eccentric contractions with the Exer-Fly
✅ Using the Exer-fly for conditioning rather than just power
✅ Return to play considerations for post-op ACL-R
✅ ..and much, much more
To follow Thomson on the socials, please visit his instagram @thompsonremo. Follow us on instagram @coachryanpatrick for more content and athletic development solutions.
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Ryan Patrick:Hey, what's up everybody. Welcome back to the athletic performance podcast. Today, my guest is Thompson Remo. And, uh, for anyone who doesn't know you, can you start by telling everyone a little bit about yourself?
Thomson Remo:My name
Ryan Patrick:is Thompson Remo.
Thomson Remo:I was a former international level cyclist turned strength and conditioning coach. And for the last several years, I've been the global lead educator for Wattbike and Woodway treadmills and currently working with ExerFly, the flywheel and inertial training company that provides the only motorized resistance mechanism on a flywheel training device.
Ryan Patrick:Perfect. So I think our, the scope of our discussion today is definitely going to center around flywheel training and its application to strength and conditioning for coaches like myself. I want to talk more about the ExerFly specifically and what's unique about that device. But, um, before we get too much in, can you start by just. framing the conversation for us with respect to, you know, the muscle contraction type and the outputs associated with flywheel inertial
Thomson Remo:training. Unique in the sense that the resistance is completely variable. So unlike dumbbells and barbells, it's all about how much energy you're putting into it. So with a flywheel training device, you have a wheel that you wind up. So by you exerting force upon that wheel, through a rope type mechanism, you're basically getting that wheel up to speed. And then as it comes back down, or as you're going into the eccentric phase of the movements, you're responsible for decelerating that fly wheel. So if you just put a little bit of effort into it, it's only going to be spinning. Relatively slowly, and you'll be able to decelerate it relatively easily. However, if you put a lot of intensity into the movement, it's going to be much harder to slow down. And with extra fly, one of the unique things with us is that we have a motor that can amplify the eccentric portion of that movement. So it can make it even tougher to slow down than it would be with just an ISO inertial training device on its own.
Ryan Patrick:Yeah. I think that's one of the misnomers that I see a lot of coaches kind of throw out there is they talk about certain types of training as Accelerated eccentric and in many cases, that's not really what's happening. So talk to me a little bit about the motor and what accelerated or accentuated eccentric training actually is.
Thomson Remo:Yeah. So a lot of people refer to typical inertial training, uh, as eccentric training, uh, with a normal flywheel that doesn't have a motorized component. That's not the case at all. The only way that would be the case is if you're doing some sort of, let's say, Hatfield style movement, where you're using your arms to pull yourself up in a squat, and then you release and let your legs do all the work on the way down. Then you may get some accentuated eccentric stress during the lowering phase of the movement. But The reality of the situation is you just get that flywheel spinning by exerting into it on the concentric phase, and then you're responsible for slowing down whatever velocity you got that flywheel to. And typically due to friction and some other mechanical constraints, it's actually not even a one to one ratio. You're still getting a little bit less stress on the eccentric, unless you have really, really good technique. And by that, I mean, you as the lifter athlete are able to time your deceleration well enough to create more output and to drive more force into the platform than just lowering the load under control all the way down. So if you can apply the brakes quickly, sure, you can get a little bit of accentuated centric stress just through technical considerations, but not necessarily through the nature of flywheel training on its own.
Ryan Patrick:Yeah. And again, like when, when we're looking at the physical development of an athlete, there's a lot of benefits that come by training on this eccentric side of the continuum. We don't really have the option to do that. I mean, there are bands that can kind of accelerate people that do use the, uh, the bar hangers where you, you know, you have a overloaded eccentric. Uh, but it's not really magnifying the speed of gravity. What are some of the, I guess, training adaptations that really come from this kind of unique resistance that, that we're using?
Thomson Remo:Well, so you mentioned weight releasers, which are the hooks that hang from the bar that you load additional weight on. So when you're lowering the bar down, you have more weight than you will have on the concentric. When you get to the bottom of a movement, like a squat or a bench press, those weight releasers pop off the bar and you'd stand up with less weight. Now, the problem with that is unless you have two people next to you to put the weight back on on each side, you're only going to be able to do one rep with that accentuated eccentric stress. So it's a great training stimulus for one rep, but if you want to do more than one rep, it's going to require a team of people around you to make that happen. So the beauty of being able to use a motorized flywheel device is that you're able to overload every single rep. So let's say you're doing Two reps, three reps, or working for two or three entire minutes at a time. It's going to overload the velocity of the flywheel uniquely on every single rep. So let's say you stand up at 1 meter per second, we can overload the eccentric phase by up to 80 percent additional velocity. Meaning we can get that flywheel spinning at 1. 8 meters per second, which you are going to have to subsequently decelerate on your own. So 80 percent is very extreme. Not many people are even playing around with that. capability is there within our product. Most people are spending a lot of time between the 10 and 30 percent range, uh, with some elite level athletes pushing up to the 50 or 60 percent mark. But when you think about the eccentric capabilities of your body, uh, the traditional rhetoric is always, you're about 30 percent stronger eccentrically than you are concentrically. So, if you're training with normal isotonic weights, barbells, dumbbells, and it's just straight weight, so no bands, no weight releasers, when you're standing up, you're going to be stronger on the way down, so you're capable of decelerating more weight than you stood up with, so you're not truly taking advantage of the full repetition process. So when you train with true eccentric overload, you're able to capitalize on each phase of every single repetition to get the most out of your workout. So you can accomplish a lot more work, meaning in a lot of cases, you can remodel a lot more tissue in a much shorter amount of time. So you can get more. Work done that's going to have a remodeling effect with fewer repetitions and a shorter overall workout Which allows you to do a lot more throughout your competitive season Or allows for faster entries or returns to play for athletes leading into the season.
Ryan Patrick:Yeah, I can attest to This additional I got to play around in the exerfly and I think they set it to the motor to 10 And it was alarming how much? Uh additional force 10 percent felt like now I was I was trying to go decently hard on that but you could You could definitely feel that difference and I think you touched on it is, you know, everyone goes back to like A. V. Hills, uh, the force velocity curve, right? And there's not many opportunities for us to spend a ton of time on the other side of the spectrum working on these eccentric contractions. So we've tried things like, you know, the shock method from Verkhoshansky where we're jumping off these high boxes and trying to absorb force. And the impact of that is just. Absolutely crushing because you don't get a ton of reps or a ton of opportunities to do that, but I can tell you right out of the box with the extra fly. I mean, I could hit a set of 10 or 12 pretty quick, you know, or get in the 10 to 20 rep range without much effort without any of that impact. And wow, what a difference it felt like.
Thomson Remo:It's exactly like doing a depth jump or a drop jump, except you're able to do more repetitions much more quickly because you don't have to reset and go back onto the box to fall off of it again. You can just crank out those repetitions and replicate the magnitude of the impact or the impulse, or the eccentric power output that you're producing much more quickly and repeatedly. And you can control and monitor everything much more closely. We are capable of gathering all these data parameters. So force, velocity, power, output, impulse. And about 40 total metrics, so the information is there and you can make sure that you're monitoring that closely. So, you know, exactly how much stress to provide, whether it's using the flywheel on its own, or adding that additional accentuated eccentric component, we can make sure that we time the training and target the training perfectly to match the demands of what you're trying to accomplish. Now, with Wattbike, my big responsibility was force velocity profiling and showing teams how to develop those force velocity profiles over a variety of different working durations. So everything from very short sprints to longer, more aerobic dominant tests, like a VO2 max test, but with cycling, it's 100 percent concentric. So you're always pushing on the pedals. Uh, it's a 360 degree continuous concentric cycle, whereas with flywheel training, there is obviously an eccentric and a reversal component. But in America, people tend to refer to the term power as a physical quality. So they refer to something that you develop. So we say we want to work on strength, we want to work on speed, or we want to work on power. But the reality of the situation is power is a metric, and it's measured in watts, and it's something that can be measured whether you're working on strength, or you're working on speed, or you're working on power as a quality of its own. And when they say power as a quality of its own, it's basically the range or the perfect combination of forces and velocities that allow you to produce the best in watts. So, Even when you're going heavy, so let's say you're lifting a heavy barbell or working with real heavy inertial loads, you can still quantify power when you're working on speed or when you're working with really lightweights or light inertial loads, or even just doing biometrics and ballistics, you can still measure. Power in Watts. Now you can work everywhere in the middle, obviously, and that's where it might be your hypertrophy work or just moderate load work focused on development of power and more pure sense with fewer repetitions. Those are all things that you can compare to each other. So you can compare your power output. at a light inertial load and a high velocity. You can compare your power output to a heavier inertial load with a lower velocity and compare it to whatever's in the middle and see where the athlete is producing his or her best power output. And then make decisions in training based off of that. So if you have a strength dominant athlete who obviously lapsed speed, if that's where they tested most poorly when they were completing the force velocity test. Obviously, you know, that's a direction you want to trend in, especially if the athlete's sport is a faster paced sport. Conversely, if you're working with, let's say, a power lifter or a strongman, I've already mentioned that you're competing in a bunch of strongman during your session with WETAFT. So, if you're competing in events like that, where strength is more of the emphasis, obviously you can trend the train in that direction. Make sure that as you continue to increase your strength, your power output is continuing to improve as well. A lot of coaches will often ask how strong is strong enough. And it seems like these days, more coaches say, well, there is a definitive limit of strength that you need for each sport. And then it's, you know, just maintaining whatever quality you do have from there and keeping the athlete healthy when the reality of it is you probably can continue to develop your strength indefinitely. As long as your power output is continuing to improve within those other qualities as well. So within the power velocity realm and the speed velocity realm. So it's never too late to continue trying to get strong. You just want to make sure that you're smart about it. And then you make sure you're not sacrificing other physical qualities at the expense of it.
Ryan Patrick:I like, the perspective that power is almost this manifestation of how force and velocity are interacting with each other, right? It's not a standalone physical attribute, but one of the things that you alluded to that I think is is really valuable. With this device, and maybe I didn't even understand the magnitude of what metrics this thing is capable of capturing, is one, of course, like, getting an FV curve and testing these different inertial loads is very valuable, but this is going to be looking at this stuff in real time, so not only can we test on the front end, but we can actually train at the same time And make training related decisions while while we're using this device, at least that's the way I'm understanding you describe this. And so I'd love for you to touch a little bit more on that concept. And then some of the metrics and things that coaches can use in real time to kind of assess performance.
Thomson Remo:Absolutely. The 1st step to go through on any inertial train device or cycle ergometer or a bunch of different methods, even force plates. If you're doing some jumping would be to create that preliminary force velocity profile. So typically, the initial baselining session will involve. Using three different inertial loads in our case. So a light inertial load, medium, bigger, more significant one, and seeing which one the athlete produces their best power output on. So it could be a squat, it could be a high pull or upright row. Could be an RDL, but you can use one exercise and use a set exertion duration. So typically, if you're not trying to wear the athlete out too much, it's going to be a lactics. You're looking at somewhere between four and eight repetitions, and you'll evaluate the power that they're producing in each one of those scenarios or under each inertial load. Now, when it comes to Movements with both a concentric and an eccentric component, the number of reps could change slightly if you're going for a specific exertion duration, but these qualities are measured in time. So it's your power output over a certain amount of time. So if you're doing a really, really light inertial load, you might need to do a few more repetitions to get that same exertion duration. As opposed to a heavier inertial load, where you take fewer, but you're still straining for the same amount of time. And when you look at those 2 movements or 3 movements, you're basically going to compare the power outputs. And typically, the easiest way to do this on the front end is to compare the concentric outputs. Because as I mentioned before, if you're 30 percent stronger eccentrically than you are concentrically, We evaluate with no motorized accentuation on the eccentric, so when we're profiling, we're doing it with just pure flywheel training, so meaning no additional eccentric overload, just normal technique going through the movement pattern, and then we use the motorized eccentric overload as the intervention or the training. Cycle, so you can wave your motorized eccentric overload. Let's say 5 to 10 percent during the 1st week, 15 to 20 percent the 2nd week, 25 to 30 percent of the 3rd week. So you're keeping those same base inertial loads for the concentric components, and then you're overloading by additional percentages every week throughout that training cycle. To capitalize on your opportunity to provide additional eccentric or accentuation.
Ryan Patrick:Yeah, this is huge, because, you know, the old, the old way we had to track progress was to just put 5 pounds on the bar and it could be, uh, irrespective of time. Uh, duration of contraction, how long it took the bar to get up. It's just, did you lift more? Whereas now I have a battery of metrics that are valuable that can still, um, tell me a lot more detail than just, you know, did I move this set inertial load a number of times? And I think this is, this is really where we have to trend the strength and conditioning coaches, you know, in some respects it's. When you have large groups, it can be hard to implement something like this, but for many of the coaches who listen, we work in the private sector. We have access to funds or, you know, a smaller group of athletes where we can implement this kind of training. And I love it. So, you know, I love my force plates, but hearing. What you guys are able to accomplish in real time and look at this is so. is so unique. And I would like for you to keep diving into some of these metrics, um, like the app and the dashboard and, and even a little bit more about the exerfly itself.
Thomson Remo:Yeah. So velocity based training has been the latest phenomenon. So just about every college and pro weight room these days is using BBT devices. And even the vast majority of higher level private performance facilities are using BBT as well. So the athletes are becoming more familiar with. using velocity targets during their lifting. So it'll be, if it's a back squat day, working up to the heaviest weight that you can use for three reps at 0. 8 meters per second. So that part is starting to come along, but the power component of it is a little bit further behind because it is tricky to quantify the eccentric power outputs. And by tricky, I mean, it really depends upon the athlete's technique because to produce your best eccentric power output, you have to be able to. Use the heaviest load possible that you can lower at a controlled, but relatively fast rate, and then make it change direction to stand back up with really, really good technique and with completely collapsing. So, to evaluate the eccentric power outputs, it basically takes a phenomenal lifter, someone who really knows what he or she is doing, but to quantify the concentric, it's easy to just stand up as hard as you can, or. Push as hard as you can so we can get that component dialed in and then use the eccentric accentuation as an opportunity to overload and provide additional train stimulus. So with the extra fly, we have two primary units. We have a floor platform, which is kind of your more traditional flywheel train device that everyone sees where it's a platform that you stand on. And you can squat, you can RDL, you can do all these things. It's basically anything that you could do with a traditional belt squat machine, but instead of using isotonic weight, you're using a wheel that gets up to speed and then you have to slow it down. And then our motor provides a little boost, just as you're nearing the top of the concentric phase of the movement, which gets that flywheel spinning even faster. So as you start to lower yourself back down into the next rep, you have to stop it with even more velocity. So with the platform that we have, it is very large, uh, large enough to do a very wide sumo stance. Uh, so you can do sumo deadlift, uh, and you can do a wide stance sumo squat, or you can do a real long stance, long split lunge. So you can get the feet sprawled out pretty far, especially if you're a taller NFL or NBA style athlete, where you need a lot of footprint to move over. We also have a rack mounted unit. Which allows you to mount a flywheel train device to anywhere on a power rack or any beam, and that'll allow you to do anything that you would do with a normal cable machine. So you can row, you can rotate, if you mount it high, you can do lat pulldowns, tricep pushdowns. If you mount it low, you can do your operating rows or angles. And basically, like I said, anything you can do with a cable machine can be done with this inertial training mechanism. And the beauty of that is it allows you to make those sets last for longer and If you're in a multi athlete setting, you can preload some of those devices with set inertial loads, and you can work across a large pool of athletes relatively quickly, because you don't have to change the weight as precisely as you would with a cable machine. You can just preset it with an inertial load, and that athlete puts as much energy as he or she can into it, and it's only going to pull them that hard or that hard plus the percentage that you set it to with the motor.
Ryan Patrick:Yeah, this is what happens when some of us meatheads get a hold of the research, because, as I understand it, inertial flywheel training was originally for, you know, looking at space and non gravity uses of how to sustain muscle mass. So it's almost, it's almost like an analog to. You know, we found out about blood flow restriction training and then all the bros were like, you know, making tourniquets out of their T shirt sleeves that they cut off. Um, but this is obviously, something that we have found from research that is proving to be really, really useful. These inertial loads are really helping not just, you know, the power outputs. But muscle mass as well. And so you've already alluded to a few of the exercise selections. And I think most people, at least myself, when I look at this, I'm like, okay, there's, you know, your squad and in the varying stances, I've got split squats and some of those stances. But with the platform specifically, I believe there's a lot more exercises that can actually be done with that. And I would like to, for you to just touch on the breadth of what you can actually accomplish with, with these units. in terms of exercise selection.
Thomson Remo:Definitely. I think going back to the drop jump section, you know, this can be used as a very good compliment, or even in some cases, a substitution for a lot of plyometric activities because you can manipulate the loading, but you can get a very similar training effect. So a lot of the tissue in your body is non contract. So tendons, ligaments. All these things that are responsible for that elastic component that we refer to, those are things that need to be developed. They have low blood supply and require a lot of repetition to really mature. So in order to develop those portions of tissue, you need to be able to accentuate the stress of certain phases of the range of motion. And the beauty of flywheel training is it hits a really hard target. Certain part of the range of motion that you can't really hit as well with barbells, dumbbells, or traditional resistance training mechanisms. So with flywheel training, the majority of the stress happens at the bottom of the movement. So let's say we're referring to a squat. You're going to get the majority of the stress as you're all the way at the bottom of the movement, changing direction, getting ready to stand back up again. Whereas if you're working with a barbell, the majority of the stress is going to be, you know, kind of evenly distributed across the board, unless you're using bands and chains, in which case the majority of the stress would be at the top end. And the reason people use bands and chains is to accentuate the portion of the movement where you are in the position of best mechanical advantage. So as you get close to the top, then all your levers are in good alignment. You're able to produce more force here. So you want to slow the bar down to make sure that you're still getting an adequate amount of work done in that section of the movement. So flywheel train is like the perfect contrast to training with a set of bands or chains, because it allows you to hit the exact opposite end of the range of motion. So if you train with bands and chains over a bar, and you train with flywheels, everything else in the middle is kind of taken care of, because you're already, you know, Polarizing every repetition, so you're hitting each opposite end of it to a very, very high magnitude and everything in the middle. It's going to get worked regardless.
Ryan Patrick:So, I'm going to go back to what I know with force plates. I see an athlete do a counter movement jump and I think about 3 phases or an athlete going into a cut. There's obviously the eccentric or breaking portion of this movement. There's the transition or the amortization phase. And then we have the con center. And it sounds like what you're saying is that, you know, our traditional isotonic training methods are, are kind of addressing the latter half. Of this, you know, forced a lot or this, this sequence, the stretch shortening cycle, if you will, whereas the flywheel training is going to have a big impact on this first two variables, is that fair to say, absolutely. Yeah,
Thomson Remo:you're really going to get a ton of stress from the breaking phase and the eighth phase of the reversal phase. That's where the majority of the stress is going to occur in any flywheel movement, which it's something to be conscious of. So if you're using it for hypertrophy. You have to be conscious of where you're applying that stress. So if you're going through, let's say, a full range bicep curl, all the stress that you're receiving, it's at the bottom end of that bicep curl where your arm is fully elongated, whereas with a barbell with bands on it, if you're curling up, all the stress is going to be at the top end, and that's going to feel like peak contraction. That's going to feel where the muscle is shortened to the highest degree and feels like you're squeezing the hardest. So you need to be aware of that as you're Obviously, including this in your strength training regimen, because it isn't going to be an end all be all. We're not saying that flywheel training is the only way to train. Obviously, there is a whole different section of movement that you do need to address through other modalities. But for the braking phase and the reversal phase, this is going to be hands down the best way to hit that impact. Probably the only way to truly hit it as hard as you can outside of biometrics, which, as we mentioned, there are constraints because you have to reset. There's a lot of impact involved, especially skeletal. That's where we see more injury than benefit in some cases. If you start to overdo it, whereas with flywheel training, you can replicate the same forces and the same impulses without that hard musculoskeletal stress.
Ryan Patrick:Yeah, we've kind of backed into this question about, you know, where does flywheel training fit into the overall development of an athlete? And so one of the things I've realized recently when I'm looking at young athletes who are testing in on our force plates, they are in massive deficit when it comes to the breaking and transition phase. They just lack the ability to produce force through these eccentric ranges of motion. And ultimately I think about if you are ineffective. ineffective at loading, you're going to be ineffective at exploding. And so you'll have to load to explode. And so I want to talk specifically about a young athlete who maybe doesn't have a good set of brakes yet, who is really trying to build a foundation of strength. Is there a place or a role for inertial flywheel training in the development of an athlete like this? Absolutely. And I
Thomson Remo:guess we could back it even further back to, um, the non athletic population where in a general physical therapy setting, if you have someone who's either geriatric or just has a very low or non existent training age, and they need to get back to functioning, this is a modality that you can intervene with because it is energy based. It is about how much energy you're putting into it on the concentric to drive that eccentric stress. And you can accentuate that stress. On the eccentric phase by either adjusting your technique or by adding motor is eccentric overload component. So if you are, let's say, a geriatric individual who is just trying to get back to regular function and wants to start really lightly, you can crescendo your intensity. As you start to get more and more familiar with the movement pattern that you're trying to push yourself through and as a consequence, you are going to be able to see not just more power output on the concentric, but more output on the eccentric, which will allow you to again, remodel more tissue over time. And as you go through that, let's say you run into a scenario where you are getting tired, you're not going to be producing as much force concentrically, which means you're going to have to absorb as much eccentrically. So you can take someone with a very, very low training age and put them into this safely. Now, with the eccentric overload with the motor, it does take a little bit more careful guidance because obviously there can be limits to the stops and pull tabs and everything else to get yourself out of those precarious situations. But we can say that flywheel training in general is very safe for all populations. Training with the motor is something that's very unique, but is definitely, um, reserved for, uh, work under the guidance of a skilled practitioner for sure.
Ryan Patrick:So let's say a, a young athlete or even a, a geriatric ger, we'll say people over 40 I just kidding. Uh, just'cause I'm, I'm, I'm knocking on the door. So let's say we've got a weekend warrior, a gen pop person who's using this, and they're, they're slow to. Uh, integrate themselves with really just ripping that flywheel. Are they going to get some kind of feedback after the set about their power output, the velocities that they're using, and be able to track, okay, I put a little bit more force slash effort in this week, and I can see comparably what these numbers look like. Absolutely,
Thomson Remo:right now that gives you a lot of data and it's only getting better and better. So we have a team of people working on validating additional metrics within the app. We have a team that's responsible for designing user interface to make it clean and accessible and user friendly and then the data export feature, which many coaches of especially large organizations are interested in. Want to be able to wait and sort, uh, athlete profiles and dump those into their overall athlete management systems. So those are all things that we're either working on or have at least part of already. And as I mentioned, it'll continue to improve by summer. We should be just about completely ready with the things, the base things that most coaches have been requesting. And from there, it's about starting to innovate and things that are going to be a little bit unique.
Ryan Patrick:more unique in the final space. I'm looking forward to that. I want to ask you one question, you know, we've talked about the, the injured athlete rehabbing. My gym in particular, we have a number of kids who are coming back from ACL reconstruction and they're one of the big concerns for me before their release is that they have to develop a set of breaks. They have to be able to slow their body down efficiently. Effectively and confidently so that they're not worried about their knee, right? It's like, um, I have a scar on my leg. It's, it's something that happened in the past, but I don't want to think about how it's going to affect this next athletic maneuver that I'm going to do and I think you've already touched a lot on some of the, the reasons that the flywheel training is important. going to benefit these populations. But I'd love for you to just address that population specifically and talk about how this type of training can be very powerful for somebody who's coming back from an injury like this and really has ambition to get back and play at a high level.
Thomson Remo:Definitely. And especially with the VBT phenomenon these days, and most organizations using that, they're used to projecting the velocities that athletes are hitting up on a screen. So they make competitions out of it where they say, okay, you know, who can either move this way the fastest. So let's say you're working with 225 or 315, trying to move it up as quickly as you can, who can hit the top speed for the day. Or they'll look at power outputs, which would be the ideal way to do it, but the data is a little bit more granular. So you can see really big differences, which makes it. A little bit more challenging to perceive in some cases, at least with VBT, you're working with smaller numbers, so we can do the same thing with flywheel training, where you can project the eccentric outputs up onto a screen. So you can look at peak eccentric power or mean eccentric power onto a screen. And see if the athlete can teach herself how to break more effectively because a higher eccentric power output is going to be associated with being able to apply breaking forces much more quickly and much more effectively. So if you can make it a competition with the athlete himself, individually, you can teach them how to manipulate their technique and see those manifestations of technique in real time from rep to rep. So every single rep throughout, let's say 20 reps of squatting, you can see that eccentric power output right in front of you every single time. And you can see in real time of the changes you make mechanically, or just in terms of timing and coordination being affected. Always live feedback is everything.
Ryan Patrick:That's amazing because these metrics do differ for that athlete coming back. Right. And I think just being able to see a trend over time of what these outputs look like is going to translate directly to confidence in terms of, you know, reintegrating change of direction. Actually throwing the brakes on and having, you know, high rates of eccentric rate of force development. Those are just super critical, to kind piggyback. My, my mind's going in another direction, but. One of the things that I think is often associated with eccentric training is the delayed onset muscle soreness, this, um, slow recovery, but having used the flywheel, I can, I can tell you, it doesn't quite feel as demanding as, you know, a six second eccentric. And so for an athlete, who's in season, who has a lot of competing commitments, games, tournaments, and other things, what. How can this type of training be beneficial for an athlete maintaining some of these force and velocity outputs leading up to the start of their season?
Thomson Remo:So that again goes back to the portion of the movement that the flywheel training is emphasizing. So if you're emphasizing the breaking phase and the reversal phase, but you're not necessarily getting as much stress during the top end of the concentric or even the top end of the eccentric just because. The flywheels moving at as high as velocity already. So you don't have to apply as much force there. You're going to see more stress through the connective tissues than you probably would through traditional resistance train, but less cumulative muscle stress throughout the entire repetition. So, while you might think that the forces are high. And you're able to do similar movements that you would do with a barbell dumbbells or traditional weights the way that the movement range of motion is accentuated doesn't necessarily impose a ton of direct muscular fatigue. I mean, obviously, you're going to get some and you can use it for hypertrophy. But not as much as most people think they hear the term eccentric, and they immediately get scared because they say, oh, eccentric. I'm breaking down a bunch of muscle fiber and that's going to be slow. It's going to take a long time to rebuild, which is true, but not to the extent that you would believe.
Ryan Patrick:I actually never thought about the connective tissue behavior at the top of the left where you don't really it's completely different than a bar, which I'm loaded. equally throughout the entire range and a flywheel is going to function a lot differently.
Thomson Remo:Exactly. So if you're trying to, let's say pump up your arms, you're probably going to get a better overall pump and be able to create more true soreness just by using traditional resistance training or, um, accentuating that with resistance bands, because then you're accentuating the portion of the muscular contraction where you are damaging a lot of muscle tissue itself. But when it comes to that bottom end, when you're in that fully elongated position, let's say a bicep curl, you are getting a lot of connective tissue stress. So you're doing the work to push blood flow to that area to help with that remodeling situation, uh, which will create strong tendons, ligaments, and strength through the muscles in that end range of motion. But it's going to be very different than training with traditional way. It's very cool.
Ryan Patrick:Now, I know you've got a background in cycling and certainly, you know, fatigue, uh, mitigating fatigue is going to be a huge issue. Are there uses from a capacity standpoint or improving some energetics with the inertial flywheel training? Or are we just thinking about it for, you know, power development?
Thomson Remo:No, you can definitely use it for everything across the board, which is the beauty of it. So with variable resistance training, you can make a set last for minutes or an hour if you really wanted to. Uh, because it's all about what you're putting into it. So as long as, you know, if you're hanging onto the handle, you can keep hanging on to it and you'll be able to continue doing work. Same with squatting. If you really wanted to, you probably could squat for an hour, not that that's going to provide the best training stimulus in the long run, because you're probably going to dig a very deep hole. So that's where the metric tracking does come into play. You have to be conscious of what you're doing, which is where I always go back to. You're evaluating your power output over a set duration. So the common durations that we'll use are, let's say, 10 seconds if you're looking for something that's predominantly a lactic. Uh, 30 seconds. If you're looking for a little bit more of the aerobic capacity, uh, capabilities of the athlete or even 60 seconds. If you're looking at a longer anaerobic capacity, the athlete now, once you start getting to 234 minutes, obviously you're starting to get into something that's much more aerobic, but it's going to be different than, uh, let's say running for three or four minutes because you do have more continuous tension applied. You know, when you're running, you have a lot of dead time. Yeah. When you're cycling purely on centric range of motion, so if you're exerting for 4 minutes, where you have both concentric and eccentric with a reversal in between, we're going to see stress. That's very different. So you can use it for capacity developments and say, compared to those 2 modalities. You will be able to drive a lot more localized blood flow. And one of the ways you can monitor that is through devices like the near infrared spectrometry devices that measure localized muscular oxygen saturation. So if you're doing squats and you put a, an oxygen saturation monitor on your quads, you will be able to see how low you can get your oxygen saturation to plummet in that particular muscle group. And that'll allow you to see the training effect that you're driving. So you can even structure intervals that way. So you can put the oxygen saturation monitor on, you can exert for a certain duration until you get your oxygen saturation to drop to a certain level. Stop moving, allow yourself to resaturate and go again. When I was referring to the differences between, uh, the pump that you might feel between the flywheel training versus traditional weights, that's one of the ways you can also validate that when you come into the soreness conversation, where if you look at the saturations that you're able to get yourself to drop to in the localized musculature, you will be able to create. More significant drips in oxygen saturation with safe weights or with weights with bands because of where the stress is being accentuated throughout that movement. Whereas with the flywheel, you won't be able to see the same, uh, steep, sharp, and deep drops in oxygen saturation because of where the stress is being applied. So even though you can do 20 reps with each and you can do them at the same velocity and the same RPE or perception of resistance, you won't You'll see 2 different scenarios when it comes to the actual saturations that you're going to get the
Ryan Patrick:oxygen level to drop to. Wow. That's amazing. I've learned so much today. This went in a number of direct. I can't enough for sharing your insight on all of this. I'm, I'm super excited. I know we've got an extra fly on the way and I'm definitely going to be playing with so many of these protocols. We're going to be integrating our force plates with it. Uh, it sounds like I need a moxie now so I can test my test. These saturation levels, but. You know, to wrap all this up. So if I'm a coach listening, what, what in your mind, what would be the biggest things that we're missing out on by not having access to XRFly?
Thomson Remo:I'd say the biggest things are the ability to just do way more work way faster. So remodel tissue much more quickly, especially in the return to play setting. But also in the in season setting, when you are trying to, let's say, microdose your training sessions over very short periods intermixed with a lot of competition, you can capitalize on both phases of the movements in a way that you're not able to with traditional weights, and you're able to do so without inducing as much fatigue. So there is a time for imposing that fatigue. Obviously, if you do a little bit more time between competitions, You certainly do want to use traditional weights and weights with bands and chains, because they will need to continue to keep your level of muscle mass high, which has metabolic implications and hormonal implications. But at the same time, sometimes you just need to accentuate one particular phase of the movement. And that's something that only flywheel training can do. And by being able to take more advantage of the eccentric phase, that's something that only extra fly can do.
Ryan Patrick:Awesome. All right. What is your favorite flywheel exercise?
Thomson Remo:So, uh, after my cycling career, I got into drug tested power lifting. So I've been competing at a high level in that current North American champion in the devil. So my go to exercise, it's going to be an or a row and with the row. And typically, I like the unilateral or isolateral variations. But I also love doing rotational core in there. So I'll use our rack mounted unit for a ton of torso rotations. I like doing a lot of work standing. So that's been a go to for me, especially for stroll development. From a lifting standpoint, the neck harness, good mornings with the rack mounted unit have been great for developing the back. So, I mean, the sky's the limit. You can do anything you want to do with it. Anything that you would do with cables, or even with a barbell, but you're able to do them in a way that allows you to essentially with RDLs, you know, I would stand on a box inside a power rack with basically a monolith. So I would stand up with weight releasers on the bar, lower the bar down in an RBL, weight releasers, and then you stand back up. You can only do that one time. With the XtraFly, you can do it for as many repetitions as you want, and you get something totally unique that most people don't even have access to, so it gives you a massive competitive edge. Wow.
Ryan Patrick:Alright, so what weight class do you compete at? 110
Thomson Remo:kilos. All right, what'd you pull? So pulling high sevens in competition, low eights in the gym, so we're getting there.
Ryan Patrick:That's impressive, dude. That's amazing. All right, what can we expect next for XRFLY?
Thomson Remo:So, I mean, we're down to our 2 premier products, and right now we've just switched all of our manufacturing from New Zealand to America. So now everything's American made. We have a full American team. We have all coaches, sports scientists, athletic trainers, and physical therapists on staff. So we have a staff that's extremely well versed. Everyone's come out of either high level performance in the pro or collegiate setting, or as years and years experience themselves. With our products, we're focusing on one, refining those, which at this point, we've done a really good job of making sure our hardware is more robust than anything else out there and is capable of withstanding the forces from the world's biggest, most powerful athletes. And then next is just about making sure that those products are dialed in and getting the word out there to the world. Um, while we've been around for a while, it hasn't been pushed as hard in America as it will start to be over this upcoming year. So we're making a big push to show people that there is a different way to train out there that can be extremely beneficial in a wide range of situations. So we're excited for a, a big 20, 24 and beyond.
Ryan Patrick:Yeah, man, I'm really excited. I'm, I mean, I obviously have heard about this for several years, but your presence has been, uh, I guess I've kind of felt this, uh, American invasion, if you will, because it seems like you guys are popping up in a lot more places. So for, for a coach who wants to find out more, what's the best way to maybe reach out to you and or x or fly?
Thomson Remo:Yeah, so the best ways are going to be social channels at XRFly, uh, XRFly. com is our website, which will allow you to get in touch with myself and the other territory managers and sports scientists. Um, many of our sports scientists and myself actually started as customers of XRFly, so this is something that we believe in. Uh, we've been using the product, we've figured out the ins and outs of using flywheel training and have seen the evolution of the hardware. XRFly. com Um, it's great hardware, but it's even better when you know how to use it real effectively. So feel free to reach out to any of us through the extra 5 website or the social channels, and we'll always be glad to chat. We'll also be at the vast majority of the strengthening conditioning related conferences throughout the remainder of the year.
Ryan Patrick:That's awesome, Thomas. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for carving out the time and space to do this inside of your busy schedule. This was a, this was a really interesting conversation I appreciate you sharing your knowledge, your insight, especially from the sports science side. So it's different. It's a different perspective than we get from a lot of coaches. And I think a lot of people are really going to find this valuable. So, man, thank you so much.
Thomson Remo:Thank you for having me. Pleasure to be on. And thank you for your interest in extra flight. We look forward to keeping the conversation going.
Ryan Patrick:Yeah, for sure. Take care. You too.