027 - Zac Cupples on Demystifying the Gap between Assessments and High Speed Actions

Coach Ryan Patrick is back with a new episode, joined by biomechanics and movement expert Zac Cupples. Together, they explore how coaches can bridge the gap between athlete assessments and high-speed actions like sprinting. They discuss the real-world applications of biomechanics, practical assessment methods, and why simple, foundational principles are key in coaching athletes for high performance.

What to Expect in This Episode:

• Insights into Zac’s Human Matrix course and its approach to making complex movement principles accessible to coaches and clinicians.
• How movement limitations and compensations impact performance, and ways coaches can better identify and address these issues.
• A discussion on prioritizing bottlenecks in athletic development and Zac’s views on how physical limitations manifest as movement compensations.

Key Takeaways:

• Why understanding biomechanics is essential to progressing athletes in their high-speed and high-intensity activities.
• The importance of applying foundational skills before complex strategies to ensure athletes perform effectively and safely.
• Zac’s actionable methods to help coaches refine their assessment skills and improve their athletes' movement competencies.

Connect with Zac Cupples:
Website: zaccupples.com
Social Media: Instagram & YouTube: 

Transcript

M-2-peakfast: 0:05

Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.

0:20

Hey, what's up fam? It's coach Ryan Patrick. It is so good to be back with a new episode of the athletic performance podcast. I've been on hiatus for about four weeks. Um, I've had a vacation in there. That's been a long, long term trip that we planned for my wife. And then I've been launching my new program called the total coach OS mentorship, which is really built around helping coaches get Get a systematic way to efficiently effectively and easily coach and improve speed for their athletes And so there's been a lot of a lot of buzz in the background there's been a lot of new challenges with that, but I'm excited to be here today because My guest, Zach Couples, is an absolute titan in the industry, especially when it comes to the world of biomechanics. He is a guy that I have looked up to for years and years. I went to his Human Matrix course well before COVID, and I'm still following Zach years later, and he's still continuing to improve. And one of the things I wanted to bring Zach on today for was to talk about how he can use his coaching eye and his movement assessments to really see how some of these Um, aberrations might actually impact high intensity actions like sprinting and change of direction. And so, this is probably not something you have heard Zach talk a lot about, but if you don't know his history, Zach used to be in the NBA working with guys at a very high level and so he's got great insight into this and I think you guys are really going to enjoy this episode. So if you don't follow Zach, you absolutely have to and if you haven't been to his Human I can't recommend it enough, but I don't want to delay this podcast anymore. I think Zach's got a ton of information and if you are a sports performance coach who is really wondering how to kind of meld, uh, this gap, this seemingly huge gap between, you know, what we might see in a movement screen and what an athlete is actually able to produce out on the field or even in a test, I think this episode is definitely gonna clear up a lot of things for you. So I hope you guys enjoy it. It's great to be back and if you get anything out of this episode, please like, share, comment, rate this. five stars only. If it's not five stars, email me at athletic performance pod at Gmail and tell me what's up so that I can make it better. I really just want to get great coaches in front of you guys so you can get some great information and really just improve what you're doing. And if you're interested in more, you can definitely check out my total coach OS mentorship. Love to have you inside of that and really help you improve your speed game. So without further ado, fam, here is Zach couples.

Ryan Patrick: 2:51

Oh, I, here, for sure, like I could grow a mingo tee, like a Fu Manchu, for sure, pretty quick. But, uh, the cheeks, man, they're just a little thin, it's, it's emasculating.

Zac Cupples: 3:05

Well, you know, it's like, maybe for your course, you grow the Fu Manchu and then you're up high and you're watching people do speed work and, no! Yeah, it's like one of those

Ryan Patrick: 3:19

kung fu movies where my mouth is off with the actual audio.

Zac Cupples: 3:23

Yes,

Ryan Patrick: 3:24

I think that would be something I feel like you're the guy who would know how to help me do that too because the videos You put out are so amazing. I always watch them. I'm like,

Zac Cupples: 3:30

man, Zach's so good at this

Ryan Patrick: 3:32

stuff

Zac Cupples: 3:34

It's just you know, I have a good team Carry out the stupid stuff that I want in some videos Yeah, yeah, like I always appreciate your idea. I did a land. I just your humor. Yeah Yeah, like a ninja whoo, and then I had me ninja That's awesome.

Ryan Patrick: 3:55

I haven't watched that yet, but I always, I always left my man's ex always thrown his little like quirks and they're just probably for his own, like, satisfaction, you know, just to keep them, keep it light hearted. But I appreciate it, man. I find your, your humor quite entertaining. So, um, well, let's actually like, talk about something meaningful here. Here, you know, let's, let's do a podcast on some actual content. Uh, but for anybody, for anybody who doesn't know you, man, can you give me a quick introduction to who you are, what you're about, what you're doing now? Um, just bring us up to speed. However, whatever depth you want to take this.

Zac Cupples: 4:32

Sure. Um, well, my name is Zach couples. I'm a physical therapist, uh, and a strength coach. I work out of Las Vegas, Nevada, out of, uh, my own, uh, My own company, um, and that's part of what I do. And the other part of that involves, uh, teaching in person seminars. Uh, my seminar is Human Matrix, which I do all across the world. Um, and it's a biomechanics seminar where we basically do 2 things. We give people more motion and we, uh, teach you how to use that motion under load, uh, so you can both stay healthy for as long as possible and maximize all the fitness qualities that you want to develop while minimizing trade offs. Um, and it's about really creating a, an all encompassing approach event in that regard, uh, to ideally get there in the fastest, uh, amount of time possible. And, uh, you know, I try to also teach a coaching style that I think applies to not just rehab exercises or even in the gym, but through movement in general. Um, and then when I'm not doing that, I am working with people remotely, uh, through either training. Um, sometimes movement sessions where we're dialing in a bit more on, uh, just the mobility side of things. Work on mentoring as well for, um, movement professionals of all kinds and, uh, then I'm just producing a lot of content so I can educate as many people as possible on the wonderful things they do movement wise.

Ryan Patrick: 6:09

Well, you know, I told you off air, I have a healthy appreciation for the length of time that the human matrix has been running the amount of times that you've had this courses and updated it is I can't even imagine because I think I came. Before COVID, when I actually did the human matrix. So

Zac Cupples: 6:29

it was when we didn't have the projector.

Ryan Patrick: 6:32

Yes.

Zac Cupples: 6:33

We had to buy a projector.

Ryan Patrick: 6:37

There were, yeah, there were some hiccups, but still a great event. I took a lot from it. I even pull out the manual that I have from back then from time to time, because you know, one of the areas that I really love and appreciate about you, man, is that you can take some very complex. topics and make it very simple and digestible. And I think especially with some of the, the newer perspectives on movement, a lot of guys, especially in the strength and conditioning world get little pieces of this or they, they watch somebody's Instagram and we don't have the entire picture of what we're trying to accomplish. And we end up very, very confused. And at the end of the day, we need some simple. Applications of this information. And so I guess as a starting point, you know, how do you think about this information when you're presenting it, especially to guys who are not clinicians like me? What, where are we going wrong in terms of what we're seeing that's out there? And what's just kind of shape this for me so we can get an understanding of how you approach some of these complex topics. I think the biggest mistake

Zac Cupples: 7:47

that we make with this, with material like this, or just anything, is we spend less time deciding and mastering what the fundamentals are, or the basics, and we get to the really fancy stuff way too fast. And that's from a learning standpoint, but also from trying to implement this with our Um, if, if there's any time that I fail with someone and I, and I still fail to this day, it's because I've skipped too many steps. And a lot of times doubling down on those fundamentals is, is the key piece. You know, I'll get people who've either tried this stuff on their own or they've, or similar stuff or they've worked with someone who's done similar things and on, you know, on the low intensity side, they're still inhaling really loud and full, you know, and it's like, well, why, why are we not? Maximizing this still. And so if, if there's anything that I, I do when it comes to teaching or understanding this, it's, I want to make sure people spend way more time on hitting some of the fundamental pieces and foundational concepts, whether it's executing with people or learning, because if you don't have that, when you get to the fancy stuff, you're going to fail. Um, and, and I think we, we, we get to the point too, where it just, It gets too complicated for people on many levels. I think, um, I think the concept of graded exposure applies not just to the To implementing this stuff, but also in taking this stuff from a learning standpoint, you know, if if someone has never Been to the gym, you're probably not gonna do day one one rep max back squat Like I hope not because people just aren't they they don't have the skill of knowing how to back squat And they probably don't have the ability to tolerate that amount of load I think we got to apply the same thing when it comes to not just teaching people low intensity activities to try to create motion, but also understanding this material. And so when I'm teaching people, I am intentionally withholding a lot of information, or I'm trying to meet them where they're at. And I might take a concept. Say, external and internal rotation, and I might talk about it in a way that I know that they understand, but long game, I want them to be able to understand it in a different way. But if I lead with that, I'm going to lose them, because they're going to be confused. It's just like learning a language. You know, if I'm, if we're, we're going to speak Spanish or something, I'm not going to start with the most complicated part of that, because it shows how much Spanish I can speak. Um, and so I, I think that's, that's the missing piece. And even, even is true with, with content. You can't, you can't, especially on, well, short form, you can't have any nuance whatsoever. And so with that, you have to hit people with, with where they're at. Like, one thing that I've changed in, in my content is I don't talk about the sacrum. And I think it's super important, but it's going to confuse people. People don't, people can't. The masses, I want to say, can't appreciate that there's a little bit of movement there and changes within pelvic floor muscle activity and gut dynamics and all that stuff. It's super important, but they're not there yet. And that's okay. Even with long form content, you know, I, I kind of mix and match going to try to hit content that's built more for people who are, you know, dealing with movement issues or pain or what have you versus clinical or coaches. And even with that, it's like, I, I try not to get into the weeds because you, you have to have a foundation to understand the weeds. But if I can at least get you a little bit closer to where I'm at, then, then I think as you, you know, whether it's taking my free course or working with me, or not even just with, with me, or, you know, taking a seminar with someone else, you'll get that much more out of it. And I think that's, that's the underappreciated thing.

Ryan Patrick: 12:09

I agree with you. There, I can, I can count a number of times. Where I've been under the tutelage or mentorship of somebody that I just have tremendous respect for in the industry. And when I've gone to, to see them coach in person, this is going to sound like I'm being critical or, or I don't want it to sound disrespectful, but I've been a little bit underwhelmed. By what they're doing. And it reminds me of the old Bruce Lee quote, right? In the beginning, a punch is a punch. A kick is a kick. Then you learn all these variants, you know, flying kick, high kick, low kick, roundhouse, whatever it is. And then when you're a master, it's like a punch is a punch is a kick. A kick is a kick. And I think hearing you discuss this in that way, it's trying, you know, in the beginning, I would say, you know, when you're, let's, let's just call it a white belt. It's simple in a very simplistic way. And then you get to this middle zone where I feel like it's the confused complexity. And there's a lot of things and we're trying to, to really orient ourselves. And then when you become like a black belt, it's simple again, but it's like elegant and distinguished, right? It's simple in a very profound way. And so when I hear you discuss this, that's just, I kind of get back to the spot because, you know, I get interest in something and then I dive deep and I'm like, wow, like there's. Like, I don't even know how to defuse this bomb, like which, what do I need to cut here? But you do such a, a seamless job, job with that.

Zac Cupples: 13:59

Well, I think, I think you have to, um, because even if you've coached a squat for the 10, 000 time, that doesn't mean that your patient and client is going to be able to tolerate something that's more than that. You know, or be able to perform it well. And so I think, uh, and maybe it's, we get a little bored or we have some people who we do want to help, who maybe have a lot of other things going on. And we think more information is, is the best way to do that. Or more advanced things is the best way to do that. But you have to meet people where they're at and movement competency in general is on the low side. And so I think, I think it's a good sign if you do get a little bored with what you're doing. Yeah. Because it's like, I've seen that again, here we go, we're doing it again, but I'll tell you what, in a lot of other domains, you want that. Like I'm, we were talking a little bit off air, I'm, I'm getting prepped for jaw surgery. I want my surgeon to be bored with his job because he's done it so many times that it's, you know, this is routine. And I think we need to appreciate that if you've gotten to that point, like that's, that's actually a good thing. Maybe you have to find other outlets where you can. You know, not be bored, but I think with your job, it's, it's one that you don't want.

Ryan Patrick: 15:25

I had this conversation with a number of people and usually presented like this. I think training is really simple. It's not that complex. We can make it complex. I think there can be some complex cases for sure, but on average. Like I want people to squat. Well, I want them to split squat. Well, and I think sometimes it's coaches because there are a lot of smart people in this field, and we don't always use our intellect to its fullest capacity to do what we're doing. I feel like we go into these. Rabbit holes of exercise, physiology, nuance, or biomechanical nuance as a way to just kind of stay intellectually stimulated. And what we end up with is becoming worse practitioners because we're trying to use all this, um, for our own sake, but really majority of the people I work with, like, you know, I might, it might be their first split squat this week, but I've already seen 10, 000, you know, and I am bored. That's good.

Zac Cupples: 16:26

It means you're good at what you do.

Ryan Patrick: 16:27

Yeah. Right. Well, I do want to, I want to throw you a couple of layups here and maybe just, um, unpack some specific stuff that people can use. So I love sprinting. I love watching people go fast, but I'm always cognizant of. Uh, the relationship of, you know, what I need their pelvis to do when their hips are in a split position. So it could be a split squat, one leg in front of the body, one leg trying to go into extension behind the body. Some of the things I see, especially from the frontal plane view are a lot of lateral trunk flexion, varying degrees of hip hiking, and so maybe I'd like. To reverse engineer this so before an athlete is putting speed and power and load into this movement pattern fundamentally what do we need at the pelvis and some of the other joints to be able to get an authentic hip flexion and hip extension on the opposite side so that they're moving well.

Zac Cupples: 17:27

So, in, in the context of sprinting and anything, it's, it's a series of rotations through, through the body. Um, and so to flex one hip maximally and to extend the other hip, the spine has to be able to turn. It has to turn towards the flex side. Um, and then it, it turns the other way. And if you can't do that, then you start to see some of those compensations. And I'll give you an example at slow speed. Cause you had mentioned kind of the, the hip hike and the side bending through the trunk. Well, we see that in walking too. You ever see someone who has that waddling gate, you know, and their, their feet are laid out. Well, that's, that's someone who can't turn, who can't rotate through their trunk. And so in order to move forward, yeah, absolutely. And in that case, it's, it's intentional because that's useful because it makes me stable. You know, if I have a wider base of support. So I can lift heavy things. Or in the case of, you know, someone who's Gen Pop, you got someone who either has a lot of osteoarthritis or they're overweight, obese, they need to be stable as well, because if otherwise they could fall. Um, and, and so you, you can see that too when it comes to higher intensity. If someone can't manage the internal forces, so their ability to control themselves, the things moving within them, so, you know, whether that's the, the, the viscera, um, you know, the tissues within their body, air, all this stuff, they might have to do a similar strategy. They might have to intentionally, not intentionally, but. reflexively restrict the amount of motion that's available within their body so they don't fall as they're moving fast. And so that's where you can see some of these side to side actions. Another thing could be if they don't have specific motions, they might have to lock a bunch of areas together. to express a given motion. So, in the context of some of the lateral movements that you're talking about, I, I always ask when I see something that we, we deem, you know, not good, why would that be useful? So, in the case of a lateral tilt of the pelvis, what that really is, is it's an anterior tilt of the pelvis. It's just on one side. That's why it, it hikes up. Well, what does an anterior tilt get me? Well, I can anteriorly tilt the pelvis because it allows me to better put force into the ground. That force is internal rotation. And so, it's a way of getting internal rotation on one side. And so, when, when might I see that? Well, um, it could be as I'm, you could look at it really two ways. It could be because I need to slow the rate of the leg floating in air. That might be what happens when I get up to flexion at, you know, 9100 degrees. Um, but then on the down leg, it also allows me to get that last bit of external rotation that I need at extension beyond zero. Because that's also happening on the opposite side. Um, same thing with, with the trunk because you see the, the, the, the same rotations happening with the, the thorax. And so, that's all that it is. And so, how do we fix that? Well, it's. We need to assess our individuals that we're working with to make sure that they have that range of motion, access it to just at a fundamental level. And then ideally you would do some things to help them gain that motion, but then you also want them to be able to demonstrate that motion at progressively higher intensities.

Ryan Patrick: 21:13

And

Zac Cupples: 21:14

you know, the analogy that I give is I can get someone range of motion on a table and that doesn't mean that they're going to be able to use it when they sprint. You know, like I can buy, well, I can't buy you a Ferrari, but, um, you can buy a Ferrari, but if you can't drive stick, that doesn't mean you're gonna be able to use it. And so we want to make sure that we're getting them to express these motions at higher intensities. And that's where having that consistent framework coaching wise is. Is important, you know, a, a reach on a low level breathing exercise to gain rotation in the thorax. I want to be able to have them do that same reach or a similar reach when it comes to sprinting, and that's front side mechanics. So it's, it's the building that consistency throughout. But it comes back to what we were talking about earlier. You have to meet someone where they're at.

Ryan Patrick: 22:06

Absolutely. When I bring a lot of athletes into my facility, I always say, I want to watch you do a split squat. I want to look at your hip flexion. I want to do these things so that I can see what capacity you have available to you in a situation that is, that requires no speed, no load, and um, you know, no specific output, no fatigue, right? No speed, no load, no fatigue. And then we're going to do a variety of other tests. We're going to look at, you know, a more dynamic split squat where you're up. We're going to look at a skip, a March, a, a run. So I can see as we start to magnify the outputs, how do these movement limitations that we're getting on a table start to manifest? And so one question that I want to tag on to this conversation is that I'm not going to stop sprinting my athletes. This is a physical requirement for them. So let's say in the scenario of I've got an athlete who maybe has some, you know, aberrant movement or something that falls out of a bandwidth that I would deem as acceptable. They still have to continue to do these high force, high output types of activities. But we also need to kind of go to work repairing some of the baseline fundamental movement competencies. What is your suggestion or how would you approach this for an athlete who still has to balance these two things knowing that the high intensity stuff can potentially, um, kind of cement these, you know, less than ideal movement patterns?

Zac Cupples: 23:46

I think it's, it's still classical periodization in the sense that You have to look at what, what a person needs to go from the level that they're at right now to the next level, and then just designing a comprehensive program accordingly. Um, and so, you know, in that context, if we deem that we, I think when it comes to sprinting, we have to look at right now with where I'm at, what is the, the biggest bottleneck that's limiting me to go to the next level. And so. You, you would ideally design a, a, a program where you're trying to hit if we, we, we're deciding that movement limitations are a, a, a big factor in that, um, where can I insert within the program things that are going to allow me to bring that up while I'm still either maintaining or maybe even gaining speed. And so when I'm working with someone and we're, we're more on that side of things, um, cause I do, I do work with people who sprint as well, or I sprint myself. Um, a lot of the non sprint work is focused more on that, and that could be in the, uh, you know, in the, in the warmup or, uh, drills outside of training in general. That's focused on gaining motion where I don't have it, or demonstrating the, the positions that I need that I can't produce at a high intensity. And then, maybe a slight step below that, in terms of, uh, complexity, is a lot of my weightlifting. You know, you don't, you don't need a lot of force production at slow speed to sprint really fast. You need some, but maybe I can condense the amount of that, that I'm doing, and a lot of my other, uh, weightlifting based activities are more, uh, I don't want to say positional in nature, but they're working on something like a split squat. But maybe I'm doing certain things with how I'm holding the weight, or I'm constraining it in a way so I can drive some of those rotational adaptations at an intensity that's, that's Above warm up level and that's that's basically how I, I designed the program in that sense.

Ryan Patrick: 26:02

No, I think that's really valuable and you hit on exactly what I wanted you to. So good job. No, but it's I had a good because of some. Yeah, some of these, um, I don't want to sound critical hyper intellectual coaches. Oh, it's not perfect. We can't do this thing. We've got to fix this first and make it absolutely perfect. And then you can sprint. And that's just not reality. You know, unless somebody's, um, recovering from an acute injury or they have some chronic pain, but that truly is not reality. Limits their ability to do this activity. They still have to train. My athletes are going to go out and sprint and cut and do all the things. And if I don't physically prepare them for that, for that, I'm doing them a disservice. But I have to understand inside of that. There are some foundational things that I want to clean up. So it's like, how do we, how do we marry these 2 things? And move forward together in a very meaningful way where they're getting exposure to the forces and velocities that they're going to be exposed to in a game like situation, or also mindful of cleaning up some of these things. So I just, again, you, you said bottleneck and to me, I'm always looking for like, okay, I can't fix everything right now, but like. What's, what's the highest leverage point for an athlete? And so with that in mind, you know, when we're talking about somebody with maybe this inefficiency to create a split hip position authentically, what are some of the high leverage points or some of the tests that you're really looking to clear up in terms of like. Maybe a hierarchy or what would come to mind is the biggest priorities for you when

Zac Cupples: 27:47

it comes to movement. I, a lot of the things that I look at and I'm a physical therapist. Um, but even working with people remotely, I use a lot of either passive or active tests to look at isolated. It's not isolated, but isolated joint range of motion. So do they have the ability to express a given motion at One, you know, uh, this super low intensity, um, and that's the very first level that I make a lot of movement decisions for my patients and clients. And then after that, it's more dynamic stuff. So it could be a split squat, could be a squat, could be a single leg squat, could be a step up. Um, so adding a little bit more speed, a little bit more complexity, but still at a, a lower level. Um, and I can make a lot of decisions just based off of those. But then the next level is, like, you can use the, the technical aspects of sprinting or other things higher intensity to also see what this person needs. I mean, that's why we film a lot of stuff at high speed and we slow it down. It's like, oh, you still don't have that. And then it's a matter of determining why, why that is. Um, I think one thing in this context, if we go back to bottlenecks, that we, we don't think about is maybe there is some sort of physiological quality that we don't have that could be the reason why they're, they have to go to this strategy. Maybe their RFD is, is low. Maybe they, They can only, you know, jump so far on one leg, but then the other leg is off. And so we need to do things in that capacity. And I think those are things that we probably don't spend enough time looking at that are just as relevant when it comes to, um, determining why someone can't do a given movement, but it's, I think we also just undervalue seeing a lot of the fundamental things that you talked about, like, do these things look good, you know, and, and I don't know if there's a way we can objectify that, but I think. You know, you and I, Ryan can say, Oh, that is a good split squat. Oh, I don't like how that looks. Um, And, and, you know, there's, there's obviously the motor component, but then there's also the sensory component and I rely a lot on that more so than specific tests when it comes to beyond table.

Ryan Patrick: 30:17

Yeah, the split squad is one of my go tos. I mean, you get the flexion, the extension. I feel like it, it tells me a lot with a little, um, and I don't need any equipment to do it. Like I've got my coaching hour and the athlete can feel it, you know, if they're, uh, faking. A stacked position that back thigh is screaming because that rec fem is like getting pulled to no end. So it's, it's even, even when they try to cheat it, I feel like there are outlets that are going to expose them. Um, but one thing you highlighted that I don't think enough people talk about, you said maybe it's a lack of RFD or maybe just overall force producing capabilities. You don't hear too many times, and this will go back to you talking about like an anterior orientation of the pelvis, but I don't hear enough guys talk about when we think about movement related issues, um, we know to your point early on, like, if I try to squat somebody max, On day one, we know what magnitude related errors in a squat look like the trunks rounding over the knees are collapsing in. It's possible that if somebody lacks the physical prerequisites to sprint effectively, that they may have some of these magnitude related movement aberrations. And it's not an issue of Maybe pelvic stability or anything like that. They just lack the physical underpinnings to do this without creating these compensations. Um, so I don't really know if you want to add on to that, but it was just something that, that you said that I thought was really, really profound.

Zac Cupples: 31:54

Yeah. Well, it's when you stress a system at any point in time and you go to the person's physiological limit, bad things will happen. Will happen, right? And that's to anyone. If you put anyone at a one rep max of something, things will happen. I mean, I'm going to get a little weird out there, but even think about like emotional stress.

Ryan Patrick: 32:24

Mm hmm.

Zac Cupples: 32:24

Like if you put a bunch of people and you put them in a war situation, like, that's like, I can't think of anything that's more emotionally and physiologically stressful to someone. Like the system breaks. That's why we see things like PTSD among, among other stuff in that context. Right. And you know, the same thing applies when it comes to movement. And so you have to find compensatory behaviors to deal with those sorts of things. Mm hmm. Um, and, and that could be intertial, that could be trunk traction, that could be a lot of things. Um, and so if you can build your buffer to tolerate those things, you may not see those at very high intensities for that person. So there's, I think you have to look at it one of two ways. You can either push the ceiling up,

Ryan Patrick: 33:16

Mm hmm.

Zac Cupples: 33:17

and then when you jump, you're not hitting your head on the ceiling as much. Um, which is what we're talking about when it comes to rate of force development, or really just any fitness quality. Um, or you can raise the floor, and I think that's where gaining motion, trying to get access into certain positions, so on and so forth, is also useful. You know, um, I have a lot of friends, because I worked in the NBA for a while, who are still in the NBA, and they, with some of the stuff that they do, they don't spend. as much time on some of the positional stuff that we do because they have access to their equipment. You know, one of my buddies who's in the league, like one of his major KPIs for his guys is, um, you know, uh, being able to hit a certain amount of isokinetic force with knee extension or, and it's like, we're not looking at that, but in his population, that is extremely relevant. And That's been shown as the biggest predictor to reducing several injuries for his specific group of people. Heck, none of us have access to isokinetic equipment. Although, now they're not a sponsor, I wish they would be though. Um, you can actually get, there's a thing called the Voltra where they do have isokinetic, uh, um, it's like a cable system. That thing is like, probably the best thing to come out in fitness in ten years, I think in my opinion.

Ryan Patrick: 34:47

Yeah, we have a lot of people that go do the, the biodex, um, especially if they're ACL return to play and I'm like, man, I just need to get one of these machines here because these kids do it every, every month at like 80 or a hundred bucks a pop. I'm like, man, I'm in the wrong business. You just come and use this machine for 20 minutes. Like, um, but the problem is you got to buy

Zac Cupples: 35:06

like 10 machines. And so then you're spending, you know, 300, 000 on all this limitation with that is it's literally single joint stuff, but there's actually this Voltra. By beyond power. Um, they have an isokinetic function within their cable system and it's awesome.

Ryan Patrick: 35:24

Yeah. Oh, you know what? I I think I know exactly what you're talking about. Is it almost like a little box?

Zac Cupples: 35:30

Yeah box. Yeah Yes, they just added isokinetic, but it had overloading eccentric overloading concentric so you could do overcoming stuff Yeah, it's or accommodating resistance. Excuse me It's yeah, I I got it. It's the best purchase I've made in a while.

Ryan Patrick: 35:49

Okay, I might have to circle back on that I remember seeing it come out. I thought this isn't the real deal But if it really does assess because I mean if if I could you know, there's so much We're kind of shifting gears here, but there's so much anticipation and fear and just nervousness Uh, on my athletes part, when they go to do this ISO case stuff, because this has become like the thing that is going to clear them, which on one hand, I get like, we need certain physical prerequisites, right? You're guiding the NBA. Like I need this simple KPI, but on the other hand, I'm like, this is so far removed from like sprinting and changing direction that like, I don't know if it's enough, but if, if I had a way to test them to just kind of ease the, the jitters of like, you know, the pre test. You know, the, just the value that it's bringing to their, to whether or not they're getting clear, like that would be amazing.

Zac Cupples: 36:46

Yeah.

Ryan Patrick: 36:46

Can you, can you do any

Zac Cupples: 36:48

extension

Ryan Patrick: 36:48

on that?

Zac Cupples: 36:50

I have, I've been actually training myself with it. It's, it's pretty cool. It's, you gotta kind of rig it up funky, but so basically what it is like, take your cable column that you got at your gym and could you do any extension on that? Well, yeah, you definitely could. Um, it's just. It's the same thing because it's literally a cable system, but I think, like, if I, you know, if I ever were to open up a gym, I would get two of those and I wouldn't get a cable system at this point. It's, it's nice. To your point, though, regarding, um, you know, isokinetics and, like, uh, sprinting and all that, I think you, you have the technical aspect and obviously you have, uh, this complex movement that I have to tie together and put a lot of moving parts together. to, to do well, I could have an issue in one of the moving parts. Maybe I don't have the stuff within the musculature and connective tissues to do what I need to do in a given muscle. And maybe that is the bottleneck that I need to address to be able to do that. Or, I do have it, but I don't have enough of it to do it healthy for an extended period of time. And so, you really have to look at all of these factors to figure out what What are the rate limiting steps to get the person from one level to the next? You know, I mean it it's you could even extend that beyond the the movement context It's like maybe someone's doing everything right training, but they can't sleep And so that's what you have to address in order to get them to the next level.

Ryan Patrick: 38:29

People don't want these simple answers, Zach.

Zac Cupples: 38:31

I know. Well, and it's like, it is simple, but it's also complicated. But I think it also goes back to like, are you really mastering all the fundamentals as well as you could? Like sleep, food, training, uh, social. Like one of the questions I ask people who I train is like, Hey, how social were you this week? Like if you haven't hung out with friends or you don't have a social circle. Sorry, that's good. That's gonna have an impact on your inflammatory markers. Like, they've done, they've done studies where they look at, um, inflammation and immune response, uh, in, uh, people who are social versus people who are asocial. And the more social you are, the greater your immune system is. But the, uh, or not, yeah, the more social you are, the greater your. Immune system is and the less inflammation you have and then vice versa if I'm asocial I'm not around people I actually have a reduction in my immune system and I have an increase in my inflammation and it actually from an Survival standpoint makes a ton of sense why that would happen.

Ryan Patrick: 39:37

Mm hmm.

Zac Cupples: 39:38

So think about this Let's say in two cases you strain your ankle one. You're around people the other you're out in the woods by yourself Well in if I'm around people people can take care of me. I don't need as much inflammation You But, people carry germs, I could get sick, so I need a, a, a robust immune response. If I'm out in the wild, I need to heal as fast as possible, otherwise a bear or whatever is going to get me. And so I want inflammation to be higher because it's going to help the tissues repair faster so I can do what I want to do. But because I'm less likely to get sick, I don't need as robust of an immune response. But then if I, you know, have that. For a long, long time, that's problematic, right? Inflammation runs rampant, tissues get eaten, you get sick.

Ryan Patrick: 40:39

I'd hate to see my inflammation. I don't feel like I'm as social as I need to be.

Zac Cupples: 40:44

Maybe, maybe that's your bottleneck, right?

Ryan Patrick: 40:46

Might be. That's, that's the key to, to break in a 20 or 21 miles an hour or whatever it is. Um, shoot. I had a, Oh, I was going to share a story with you, um, on when you were talking about simple KPIs. I obviously. Uh, love data. I got the force plates. You know, we've got some other stuff we're using and it's all very fun. Probably part of this intellectually stimulating approach to what we're doing, of course, but I had a NFL guy, uh, 2 summers ago and my KPI for him was a single. Single leg hop over a six inch hurdle because he would have a very significant right side bend when landing on, on the right, on his right leg and not the same case on his left side. And so we would use some test retest stuff and I'd be like, hop the hurdle. Let's see how it looks. And when you sprint, when he was sprinting on our true form, you could see more of a crunching and a compression. Russian on that right side, and we could tell really quickly what stuff was working to help pop that side open and what wasn't. And you would think somebody at that level, well, we need like GPS data and you know, ground contact times on the right versus the left side. So we need to get some, you know, contact grids and all these other things. And, and honestly, it was just. Through observation and like watching, like, Hey, this, this is off. So I'm sure there's, there's many cases like that where you're just like simple stuff can really get at the root of what we're talking about in terms of movement, proficiency,

Zac Cupples: 42:22

simple before complex, a hundred percent. Yeah. I like now. Random. Yeah. And I could be totally wrong. Was this guy either a wide receiver or in the back, like, uh, Quarterback or safety running back? Interesting. Yeah. I was like, well,

Ryan Patrick: 42:43

I was like, I hope you don't need to like cut off that right leg upfield because he might get a little stuck. So, oh, shoot. That reminds me. We ended up using a few motion on him. So it's an AI software. So we looked at, we looked at his, um, 10 yard sprint. Or 10 meters. Can't remember. We looked at a fly, but then they also have a, uh, 10 10 05. So you run 10, you cut back five yards and his turnaround time and breaking capabilities on that right leg were significantly longer than the left side. I mean, He's still faster than me off both sides, you know, but, um, there, there was a difference for him. So I just thought that was really interesting how some of the data actually supported what we were seeing and something as simple as like, Hey, jump over this hurdle, which for him is like a effortless task.

Zac Cupples: 43:35

It, it, well, and then it makes you really think like, did you need the AI? Maybe not until you cleared the hurdle test.

Ryan Patrick: 43:41

Yeah, it was, that was mostly exploratory. We were just playing with it at the time. I'm like, Hey, you're fast. Like, let me see how this, this looks compared to, you know, a high school kid. And it just, after the fact, I kind of went back and dug, dug into it a little bit more. And I'm like, huh, that's, that's really interesting because if I had only had the AI, I don't know if I really would have. understood what was going on as much. The hurdle test for me was more revealing, if that makes sense.

Zac Cupples: 44:09

Did you see stuff, um, at an even lower intensity where you were like, okay, I could see him having this be that bottleneck at a high intensity.

Ryan Patrick: 44:22

Oh, the, the right hip, um, early IR, so knee at 90 degrees, I mean, it was a hard stop. There was maybe five, 10 degrees, you know, I'm like, Oh, you feel that brick, that brick in there. You know, and the left side, he definitely had a little bit more of that, that squishiness where his whole pelvis would, would kind of turn as you. You twist his leg. But man, that right side, I remember it just being rigid. It

Zac Cupples: 44:48

makes sense. And so then, then you need the side bend to basically break.

Ryan Patrick: 44:54

Like,

Zac Cupples: 44:55

and, and it makes sense why he would have longer ground contact on that. It's like, he can't absorb force on that side. And so I'm going to just do a hard break as long as I can. And then, you know, I mean, it's just like a car. Think about hard braking on a road and then you gotta accelerate. Like, it takes a little bit of time to get up to 60, even if you got a fast car.

Ryan Patrick: 45:21

And you can drive a stick in a Ferrari. Yes, which I'm sure he has. Well, this has been awesome. Zach, I kind of want to start to wrap up because we've been going 45 minutes here. I feel like you've, you've covered a lot. Um, I, I know guys who are going to come to your human matrix are going to get more insight into some of the tests and the things that we've talked about, but I really want to put a neat, pretty bow on this. And kind of recap some of the things that we've discussed that I think are really golden nuggets for people. And then I'll just kind of let you wrap it up expanding on maybe some additional thoughts or next steps for some coaches. But number 1, talking about the bottleneck. I thought that was huge because. You know, I think there is a reality where we have to address both sides of the performance spectrum with some low intensity movements to correct things that we see, as well as still maintain the physical, um, you know, training to support the. The activities that higher level athletes are going to do, or, you know, even your weekend warriors who are, are running and doing marathons or competing in whatever I do, jujitsu, I'm terrible at it, but, you know, whatever, whatever you do. Um, and then the other thing that I don't hear enough movement guys talk about, and I want to hammer home because this was awesome. But that, you know, if you have a physical deficit that can manifest as a movement compensation to try to cover. The deficits that you're experiencing. And so, you know, I encourage you to frame this towards strength coaches cause I can't put my hands on people and stuff, but you know, what, what are the next steps? So if somebody is hearing these things, what do they, they really need to do to take the next steps to maybe dive a little bit deeper into this and what are your overall thoughts on this?

Zac Cupples: 47:07

Well, so the, the, the bottleneck thing, which really is, um, there's a, there's a book called the goal. It's actually a business book. It's probably one of the best books I've read in the last, um, probably five years. And in that, um, he talks about the theory of constraints. And so basically what that is, what that means in simplest terms is if I'm trying to get a certain output, there's going to be things, keystone things, bottlenecks that will preclude me from getting that output. And it's funny, my, the guy who recommended it to me, my friend, Eric. He wanted me to, to read this from a training context, but actually in my sense, it was most useful for me in a business context. It's like, Oh, I need to address this, this, and this, if I want my business to grow to the next level, but really it's applicable to everything. Like, it's applicable in relationships. In fact, in the book that he talks about the bottlenecks of his relationship with his wife in, in, in that case, um, it's applicable to personal life, like everything. And so what I think you have to think about as a professional is what is your bottleneck from where you're at now to where you want to be. And so if it's, oh man, you know, with all my athletes that I work with. I am struggling with this. So then you want to devote all of your resources to figuring out how to solve that. Maybe it's rate of force development and you got to start learning things or you need to buy equipment to help better with that. Maybe it's, wow, I, I can't gain access to range of motion. And I think that that's the bottleneck that I need solved. Well, then maybe you need to consume information that helps you get better at that. Maybe it's human matrix, um, shameless plug, but, but I mean, that, that's like what I think about when it comes to anything and learning all that, you know, like in, in, in my case, I think my biggest bottleneck is probably things within, you know, the cranial facial region. So that's where I've spent a lot of my time learning, um, selfishly, but then also for patients and clients. So I think you just have to apply that to. your learning. And to me that's been much more efficient at consuming content because then, you can apply it immediately. And then that application is where you're gonna really solidify your learning. I think Early in my career, and I, I don't regret doing this by any means, but I think I took a bazillion different courses because I didn't know anything. So it's like everything was a bottleneck. You have to address all this stuff. Um, but I also think one limitation with that was you can only apply so much in a given, with a given patient, a given client, in a given context. And so you end up forgetting a lot. And so I think it's, it's much more efficient. And you, you learn better if you can stay really focused on a few things or the one thing, spend as much time trying to solve that specific problem. And then you move on to the next problem and you direct the learning that way.

Ryan Patrick: 50:34

That, that's amazing, man. I think destruction control is a huge issue for people and staying focused on 1 thing. I know it is for me, especially, um, you know, as you learn new information, you become excited about it. And I know in the past, even if I try to stay focused on something, the, the algorithm of social media might, tossed me something that just can totally veer me off into another direction, but hugely powerful. And obviously, uh, I want to reiterate what I said. I don't even know if I said it on air or off air, but, um, you know, your ability to make many complex, complex things simple is so profound. I've learned so much from you. Um, if you're listening to this and you haven't been to a human matrix, you absolutely have to go. So Zach, I want you to talk about, you know, what you have coming up. With the Matrix, um, we're at the end of 2024 now. Are we in, are you scheduling for 2025? Do we have stuff on the calendar?

Zac Cupples: 51:35

Oh yeah, yeah, I got, um, almost full 24, 25 dates. I'm all over. Um, I'm trying to think of all the places that I'm at. There's still a few dates left in 2024 if you're, uh, if you're around. So like, uh, let's see. I'm gonna be in Houston next week. And then I got Colorado at the end of the month. And I got Vegas. And, uh, San Diego in November. But, yeah, I have pretty much, I don't have, like, my full, full schedule for 2025, but I have dates all the way through November next year. Um, and I'm all over the U S and I'm also in Europe for one of them. So that's exciting. Where are you going right now? Dusseldorf, I might have one more location, but I'm, I'm still working on that. So I've never been to Germany, so I'm excited to check it out.

Ryan Patrick: 52:26

How's that work? Uh, do you have a translator go with you or is there an English speaking

Zac Cupples: 52:31

Germany? Everyone's English speaking, but, um, some of the international ones that I've done, like I'm going to China this winter. That one I'm going to have to have a translator, um, cause that, that's, it's funny, I've been to China so much this year, I, cause I went in the beginning of the year, I did a few, and uh, in, uh, the summer I did a couple, and then, yeah, I'm doing more in the winter. Um, yeah, I think China has either the second or third largest English speaking population, but because China is so massive, it's still like one in five people speak English. Speak English. So you got to have a translator there. And then when I was in Spain this, this summer as well, um, it's interesting Spain, um, like there are a lot of people who speak, speak English, but out of all the European countries, it's definitely one of the lower ones. So we had to translate that one. Um, but like I taught in Slovenia a couple of years ago and most people spoke English, so we didn't have to translate there, Germany. Most people speak English. Yeah. So it's interesting. Super interesting.

Ryan Patrick: 53:44

So what's, what's next for you, man,

Zac Cupples: 53:46

uh, in terms of life? Um, well, I'm hiring. So if anyone wants to apply to, uh, do, um, remote movement coaching with, with myself and, and help people, um, that's, that's, that's happening right now. And, uh, you know, I'm not, I'm not looking for, I mean, if obviously if you have the technical skill, that's great, but culture fit first and foremost, that's, that's my current bottleneck that I'm trying to, uh,

Ryan Patrick: 54:14

That is the bottleneck because you can teach anybody the skills.

Zac Cupples: 54:19

Yeah. You can. You can. It's the, it's, it's having similar values that you can't, I think, I don't want to say that that's inherent, but just people value certain things. And so if you have that first and foremost, I mean, even soft skills, to some extent you can break that down into specific behaviors and it's harder to teach, but it's still teachable. But the values is, is one thing that, you know. Harder. I don't know if, if, if, if you can teach that as a skill and so I need that first and foremost, but yeah, other than that, it's, yeah, that and trying to continue to help people is, is as much as I can.

Ryan Patrick: 55:02

Cool. Where should people find out more about you?

Zac Cupples: 55:05

Zachcouples. com is the hub. Um, Z A C C U P P L E S dot com. That's where you can get access to a lot of my other social media stuff. I'd say my biggest platforms on social, if you just search my name, are YouTube and Instagram. Um, but I also do blogs, all of my services are there. If you want to get to Human Matrix, you can find it there.

Ryan Patrick: 55:29

I am still a subscriber to the Human Matrix playlist on Spotify. Oh, nice. I need to update it. Yeah. Although, you know, it's, I was gonna say, that's what I was getting at You gotta, because I always appreciate your taste in hip hop, man. It's good stuff.

Zac Cupples: 55:44

Well, I think it's a testament to say, uh, there's not that much new good stuff that's really like tripping my trigger. Um, although I was gonna say, I,

Ryan Patrick: 55:55

I haven't seen updates in a while.

Zac Cupples: 55:57

LL Cool J just came out with an album. I don't know if you heard that.

Ryan Patrick: 56:01

I haven't listened to it yet. I didn't know he was still doing stuff.

Zac Cupples: 56:04

He hasn't, I, I think his last album was 20. It probably was. It. Decade ago, 2013, 2014. Is that like Phenomenon? It's actually pretty good. What's that? The Phenomenon? Was that

Ryan Patrick: 56:16

Phenomenon?

Zac Cupples: 56:17

Yeah, which I heard wasn't good. I didn't even know, like the, was it Exit 13, the one before that? Like that was his last one? It was okay. But this one, so get this Frank, gets Q tip from a tribe called Quest to produce the whole thing. And, uh, like if you don't like that sound, like my buddy Joe, he's like, I hated it. It sounded awful, but I'm like, you didn't like tribe growing up, did you? He's like, no, that's your issue. Um, but I mean, he's got some great features. Eminem's on it. Nas is on it. Uh, and like the very first hip hop album that I own that I had to hide from my mom was LL Cool J Mr. Smith. Um, it's, that was a great album, God. And, uh, I think like it's, like lyrically he's, he's on point with it.

Ryan Patrick: 57:11

I'm going to give it a listen. I'm already intrigued and I need some new hip hop. I don't know. Some of the stuff coming out is just not doing it for me.

Zac Cupples: 57:20

No. Even some of the stuff from people I like, like Eminem's new album, and this is almost sacrilege for me to say, because he's probably, I always alternate between him and Nas, although Freddie Gibbs is slowly, You're a big Freddie Gibbs

Ryan Patrick: 57:37

fan, yeah.

Zac Cupples: 57:38

He's so good. Funny story. Uh, but Eminem's new album I thought was, you know, Funny story, I was in Cabo last year with my wife, um, that's when I proposed to her. But we were flying back, and we ended up getting stuck in Cabo. Worst places to get stuck. Um, but Freddie Gibbs was at the airport and I went to a store and I would have said something to him, but he was on his phone and he was just like yelling at someone, but it was so funny. I'm like, Oh my God, that's Freddie Gibbs. Um, and I'm like, man, I should have asked him for a picture. Cause I'm like, I just don't want to bother the guy. And someone did while he was on the phone, asked for a picture and got it. I'm like, damn.

Ryan Patrick: 58:23

Should have done it. Yeah, you probably don't look like the typical Freddie Gibbs fan. That is true.

Zac Cupples: 58:28

Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Patrick: 58:29

All right, brother. Well, I appreciate your time. Just hang on here for a minute so this can finish uploading. But, uh, man, I'll definitely tag all your links in the show notes and send people your way. I appreciate your time today. Super great to chat and catch, catch up, man. It just, uh, time, time goes by too fast. I don't get enough face to face with all the beautiful people in the industry. So thanks again, man.

Zac Cupples: 58:49

Of course, man. You ever make it out to Vegas? I

Ryan Patrick: 58:51

need to.