Athletic Performance Podcast

Feet, Ankles, and the Rhythm of Speed with Ryan Hopkins Ep 50

• Ryan Patrick

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Feet, Ankles, and the Rhythm of Speed with Ryan Hopkins | Athletic Performance Podcast Ep. 50

What if the real key to speed has nothing to do with the weight room...and everything to do with your feet, ankles, and rhythm?

In this episode, Coach Ryan Patrick sits down with Ryan Hopkins (Soho Strength Lab, NYC) to break down the overlooked foundations of sprinting and athletic speed. We dive into cadence, coordination, and why too many coaches slow athletes down instead of letting them chase outputs.

This conversation is packed with practical takeaways for coaches, athletes, and parents who want to understand what really drives speed on the field.

What You’ll Learn

• Why most athletes are leaking performance through their feet and ankles.
• The critical role of rhythm (4+ steps per second) in top-end speed.
• How to balance technical drills with letting athletes “run wild.”
• The problem with always adding more force in S&C.
• Training strategies that actually transfer to game speed.

Chapters

00:00 – Rhythm and cadence: the heartbeat of speed
01:15 – Ryan Hopkins’ journey: from Equinox to Soho Strength Lab
05:00 – Untapped opportunities in youth development
07:00 – The foot & ankle problem (and how to fix it)
12:00 – Training progress: why it takes 1–2 years, not 4 weeks
16:00 – Drills vs. outputs: what really drives speed
22:00 – Session structure: blending rhythm, ranges, and pushes
29:00 – Common errors: cadence, hip separation, and over-striding
36:00 – Teaching range of motion and coordination
39:00 – What’s overvalued: slowing things down to make athletes “fast”
42:00 – Combine prep: retuning Ferraris, not building them
48:00 – Rethinking resisted sprints & horizontal force
50:00 – Why static starts are overrated
53:00 – Change of direction and deception: sport speed vs straight-line speed

🔗 Resources & Links

Soho Strength Lab

Comprehensive Calf Force Profiling – Dylan Carmody & Andy McDonald

Follow Ryan Hopkins on Instagram → @sslryan

Connect with Ryan Patrick → @coachryanpatrick

Join the Conversation

If you’re a coach, parent, or athlete serious about speed, drop your biggest takeaway in the comments. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share so we can keep bringing you world-class conversations with performance experts.

Ryan Hopkins:

So So if you have all my kids, I go, what's our rhythm? They all like an army. Go dun, dun. And they tap because I'm most of the time walking next to them while they do basic stuff like the a, the a run series. And my whole thing is you need to be able to make your limbs move that fast to to be fast. Like there is no one who's running very fast, that's running below a four step per second cadence. That's just, it's even arguably four and a half. Right? It's higher than that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. if you have all my kids, I go, what's our rhythm? They all like an army. Go dun, dun. And they tap because I'm most of the time walking next to them while they do basic stuff like the a, the a run series. And my whole thing is you need to be able to make your limbs move that fast to to be fast. Like there is no one who's running very fast, that's running below a four step per second cadence. That's just, it's even arguably four and a half. Right? It's higher than that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

M-2-peakfast:

Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.

Ryan Patrick:

Welcome back to the Athletic Performance Podcast. Today I have, uh, I guess I'd call you an internet friend Ryan Hopkins on. Man, I'm gonna let you do the introduction. So just rewind the tape for me. Tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got into strength and conditioning in the first place, and kinda what twist in the, the journey shaped where you are today as a coach.

Ryan Hopkins:

Awesome. Well, first thanks for having me on and it's always good to wrap about stuff with, uh, like-minded professionals. But, uh, the short, the short story is, uh, I am the owner and I'm, I guess I'm the co-owner of, so Strength Lab in New York City. Uh, I've been a strength coach for 15 years. I started out very much, uh, in regular personal training. So I actually had an Equinox. Uh, I went to school for athletic training, decided that didn't really want to be an athletic trainer, and, uh, I just did some, I did all kinds of stuff, uh, for a couple years before I decided that I was actually even gonna use training. Uh, and then eventually I was like, I basically ended up working in a warehouse driving trucks around, uh, and forklifts. And I had turned the entire warehouse into a gym anyway, so I figured out how to make a forklift into a bench press, into a GHD, all the stuff. And I was like, you know what? I should probably. Do this. And so what I did was I just went and got a personal training certification. I went to the best gym that I knew, which was Equinox, which was an awesome experience for me. Mm-hmm. But naturally has kind of a ceiling if you're not just like a hardcore like fitness fund personal trainer. Right. But if you're like trying to go strengthen conditioning route, it can be, it's just a little bit different. Uh, and yeah, I had two guys that I worked with that were both in college sports and kind of recognized the like, Hey, this is not like we love what we do, but this is not the setting. So we opened Soho Strength Lab in 2013 with the idea of like just dropping a D one college weight room in the middle of Yeah. Downtown Manhattan. And it went off really well. So that's why I tell you it was just kind of like naturally fell back into what I love doing and got really lucky when we opened a gym that it, it did what it did.

Ryan Patrick:

That's amazing. You know, the, the concept of like training athletes in New York is so foreign to me because I live in Kentucky, which like, we're right outside of Cincinnati, so it's all suburbs. So like there's schools around, there's kids like New York. I'm like, I don't see kids. I don't really know where the schools are. Like where are these athletes coming from? Where do they, where do they train? Like where's the field? And like, so it's really that, that whole part of, it's just interesting to me. But, um, I had actually got a funny story for you. So I was, uh, I was an athletic trainer for a day in college and I went to the university. Yeah, I went to the university at Kentucky and, and like day zero, they're giving me a stack of clothes, like probably three feet, high shoes, all this UK gear. I'm like bragging to my roommates. I'm like, guys, look at this. Like, this is so lit. And next day I actually go in to do the job and they gimme a fanny pack and it's got, you know, it's basically the booboo kit, right? Guys have tummy aches, they got tape and. I'm like, this is the dumbest shit ever. Because I had no idea what athletic training was. I'm like, oh, athletic training, we're gonna train athletes. And I'm like, I am, I am not their little like bitch in the fanny pack, you know, making sure that they can get through practice with whatever ailment they have. I'm like, this was dumb. So I had to turn all of it in. Like that part of it was really, really hard'cause it was all, you know, back two. Yeah man, it was tough, but I hate to do it. I was like, I don, I can't do one more day of this. Like, this is horrible. Um, so today's out there. No shade, no shade to you guys. Um, you're amazing Yik, we definitely need you. But, uh, just wasn't for me. So anyway, shift shifting gears, man. You and I both geek out about speed. We love it. I think, uh, every athlete who wants to dominate should love it. So I'm gonna start broad here and we'll kind of, you know, drift wherever the wind takes us. But when it comes to developing young athletes. Where are the biggest untapped opportunities right now? And specifically to your philosophy, what are some of the non-negotiables when it comes to developing these guys?

Ryan Hopkins:

So that's a really good question. Again, pretty broad, so I'll try to be as concise as I possibly can. Uh, the, I would say the, where I see untapped potential, and this is gonna sound really like duh, but is basic body control and coordination. Uh, even this is gonna sound really basic, but even ground-based stuff where they, uh, just have time to sit still and feel stuff and to kind of get educated with their body and what's what, and where is what I think is a really, really big one. We automatically jump into performance mode when it comes to like athletic development. But a lot of times the reason those kids are there is because they're already doing all the athletics and they do need the gaps starting to be filled in. And then I think, uh, it would be stuff like ankles and feet because that is what I see is a lot of these kids can actually push pretty good, but if you just look like just downstream of their knees, what's splashing out all over the place, uh, is the feet and the ankles. And I would say, uh, yeah, that would be the, those are the kind of, the two main things that I work on are like kind of ground-based body control, whether it's like easy stuff like side planks or dead bug ISOs or any, any kind of stuff like that where they can really feel stuff work well. Helps me a whole lot. And then again, yeah, if I go, I'm really foot and ankle centric for a lot of the young kids and all the way up through development, but I think that's a, that's a big one that people miss. Okay.

Ryan Patrick:

I like that. I mean, I think a lot of the shoes, the design of them now, it's like a sensory deprivation shoe, right? Like, these athletes feel nothing. They don't know what's going on. And I mean, I honestly just wanna burn most of the shoes that the athletes come in with. Um, we have a shoe guide now that we send out to our, our parents because I'm like, you cannot wear Hokas to train. Like, I don't, yeah. Like, what is this? You know? Like, we're not, we're not, we're not going just forward, you know, these are athletes, they're cutting, they're changing directions. But, uh, one of the things you touched on that I think is so important that I like to say is awareness begets opportunities. Yeah. And you talk about athletes. Really developing this awareness of maybe foot ground interaction and just where's the knee going in space, what's the, the kinesthetic kind of sense of what my body is doing. And, and obviously with some of these kids, you know, um, like I had a friend, you know, right at that like peak height velocity at puberty. I mean, he was the most uncoordinated person. Like the referees would joke, like this kid's tripping over the lines on the court, you know? Yeah. Like, he was just that kid. So, I mean, I, let's, let's kind of dive into this foot stuff. Like what do you think is leading to some of these problems for these young athletes and what kind of stuff are you doing and, and who maybe who helped shape that philosophy or made an influence on, on your thought process regarding this?

Ryan Hopkins:

Okay. So the first one I would say is, I think what's going on is, you kind of touched on it already, is I've had so many kids show up to do evaluations in Hokas, right? And this is not to just, this is just a brand name shoe, but like, just with the amount of pushing and padding and comfort that they're, these kids are self-selecting for these shoes that are super squishy and comfortable. Mm-hmm. And they, like you said, they don't get much my most athletic kids, this is actually a really funny story. I have a kid who is in 10th grade, he is an absolute freak when, when it comes to like, uh, big offers and stuff like that. And football. He's got a, he's got a lot already because he's naturally, he sets himself apart. I looked at his catapult data and I was like, why is his energy expenditure is distance so far? And I looked at it, so I zoomed out from the field and there are these rings around the field and I was like, why are these all these white rings? So I was like, TT, what are, what are you doing? He's like, oh, I was out, I was out without my shoes walking around the perimeter of the football field. And I was like, okay, this kid, if you see his foot, his ankles, his lower legs, you see the angles that he hits. He's insane. Right. That's like what sets him apart is he's special from the foot to the knee. So I think it's not a lot of exposure in South Florida. And even for myself, a lot of these kids do grow up without shoes. Like they just walk around, we're outside all day, we don't wear shoes. Mm-hmm. Right. It's kind of odd to go in the weight room and you gotta tell them to put on shoes. Right. But I see a lot of kids that just aren't, they're not used to like super hard pressure through their feet. Mm-hmm. All these other angle exposures. Uh, the person who I would say shaped my thought process on it. It's just a collection of people. It's more of like the education of, uh, God, I can't remember. There was a calf profiling book that was maybe like a year or two ago that came out. I can't even remember who wrote it. But the whole thing was about all the sections of,

Ryan Patrick:

you

Ryan Hopkins:

know what

Ryan Patrick:

I'm talking about? I got it right here. I'll tell you the author so we can shout'em out. Um, but create

Ryan Hopkins:

like really, really good.

Ryan Patrick:

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Ryan Hopkins:

Uh, but basically like the whole thing was like, look how you segment the foot, how you bend this thing changes how you're using or what portion of your soleus you're using. Yep.

Ryan Patrick:

So you're talking about the, sorry to cut you off. Are you talking about the comprehensive calf force profiling book? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Dylan Carmody and, uh, Andy McDonald. And I know one of those guys has a podcast with, uh, Mike Robertson. So we'll shout him out too.

Ryan Hopkins:

Yeah, that was like, that to me was a, that was, uh, not a mind-blown thing, but I was like, okay, it is the, I put a post a lot about, this is like the interoperability of the foot. Mm-hmm. And the ankle and how well these things work. It's not the maximum force production ability of that lower leg per se. So a lot of what I do to kind of answer the third part of that question is a lot, you know, just a large variety of stuff. I do do some basic ISO stuff with bent knee, straight knee. I do a lot of inside, outside edge of foot walking. Mm-hmm. I do a lot of, uh, kind of like a foot elevated heels in ted, kinda like ball of big toe walk. Mm-hmm. So kind of purposely getting this toe out of the way and walking on this knuckle. Okay. I do a lot of pigeon toed. Uh, stuff where I'm bending the foot this way and kind of taking steps with the outside edge of the foot. And then we do a ton of isometrics into the wall on inside, outside edge. Do a lot of that stuff. You know, it's like, it's part of every warmup that we do and my thought is like, I'm never gonna hammer it. Mm-hmm. Uh, but I'm gonna Okay. No, it's alright. I thought I had it on. It's all good. Uh, so yeah, that's basically it. I do it every day in some capacity. Uh, and it, after a year or two, they're like totally different kids. So I'm lucky that I, I get kids around like the eighth, going into ninth grade. Mm-hmm. Age range. And then I can work with'em heavily all the way until junior and senior year.

Ryan Patrick:

Actually, I love the fact that you say it takes a year or two because I feel like culturally we're, our expectation is to get results, you know, in four weeks or 12 weeks. And the reality is like a lot of these kids have just had muffled feet for a decade or more, or basically their entire lives. I mean, you know, they're put into like baby Jordans at like, before they can even walk. So it's like they're not, in a lot of cases, they're not really developing just some of that infrastructure. Um, but one of the things you kind of danced around that I think is a pretty big problem in strength and conditioning, um, at least in the US is that we do a great job from the knee up, right? But it's like transferring that force into the ground is sometimes missing, right? So. You talked from a volume standpoint, you know, you're doing a little bit every day, so we're talking, you know, maybe 1% of a training session or you know, one minute out of two, two minutes outta 75. Like it's not a huge contribution. Do you have anything that you like to tell your athletes to do on their own that maybe, uh, accelerates this process a little bit?

Ryan Hopkins:

Uh, yeah. I'm pretty, I'm pretty annoying in that way, as I always tell. They're like, Hey, you know, like, and obviously there's different stuff that you do, but like, hey, look, if they've got ankle or foot, uh, stuff, I give them just a se it's the same shit that they do in their warmup. Mm-hmm. And it's the same stuff.'cause generally they all feel really good afterwards. Mm-hmm. And so when they ask me like, coach, what, what can I do to improve my ankle range of motion? It's generally the same kind of single leg, bent knee something or another, or tempo calf raise with, you know, their four foot suspended a little bit. That's basically it. You know, the biggest thing is for them to get really good at it. So I tell them like, Hey look, if I'm gonna hammer one thing on you all the time, clearly there's a lot of other options. But do you think that, I think that that's important. And the answer is always Yeah, of course. Like, alright, so then do that. You know, I'm, I'm a really firm believer in, there's just not that many things that can really change a person. Like you can't change a lot of things in terms of just like the, their innate structure. Mm-hmm. But it takes a long time to accumulate tissue in some of these dense areas, so you have to be pretty unidirectional. You know, and that's, that's kind of my idea, is like I give them the same thing that they're good at. Mm-hmm. So I know the quality of work is high and I think we have to drive in a pretty unidirectional way with a lot of those things to actually make forward progress. I think when you're darting in and out and kind of like maybe dabbling over here that you're not really spending enough time to. You know, really send a, a strong signal.

Ryan Patrick:

Yeah. That actually kind of leads really nicely into the next question because, you know, especially with kids, how much speaking to speed, how much is it about drilling what we might think of as technical proficiency versus just cutting them loose and letting them run, jump, and compete at very high outputs? So

Ryan Hopkins:

dude, oh man. It's like, uh, if I had to answer this honestly, I would say like 30% it is the max that I would account for the drilling. Mm-hmm. Right. And a lot of it, like you said, is chasing big outputs, because I do think that you've gotta bang around the ceiling, you know, I think like you've actually gotta press on that thing for whatever you've got that day. You've gotta push at a very high percentage. So I think a lot. Yeah. And this is, you know, it's been, uh, heartbreaking for me now being at two different high schools, like Good South Florida high schools for strength and conditioning is to see like, hey, look, uh, yes. Sometimes they're like, if I improve their running efficiency and their body positions and how well they do stuff, that it automatically leads to an improvement in velocity.'cause they're just making better steps. Mm-hmm. Right. The ground is they're ringing off the ground. Better step to step to step. A lot of it is the environment and what I can get'em to do with their friends, you know, and that's, that's truly where I see like. I posted something the other day about a catapult reading of 23.8 miles an hour. Mm-hmm. And I was like, Hey Leslie. Like I was trying to figure out, in that day they had to do basically like tempo run hundreds. Mm-hmm. But these guys, these guys will, if they're in a big line and we have some kid, we have the fastest kid in the country for the a hundred and the 200 in our receiver court. Yeah. So we have kids that run like a ten one. We have a couple kids that run some sub ten five. So I was like, what did you do? Were you running 20? I was like, were you in the golf cart? I was like, did you get in the golf cart and drive off? He was like, no, I was racing Ari. And that's, that's Samari. That's the kid who won the hundred and the 200. And I was like, oh, okay. I was like, did you beat him? He's like, yeah. And I was like, okay, well that makes sense.'cause he had one, 1.8 miles an hour faster than Zari and he was doing 22. And I was like, okay, this is, I couldn't beg for that. Truly. But I letting'em just get out and run wild for a split second and gun after each other. There, there it goes. You know? And I think, like, I think about all those times where I'm telling'em like, Hey, we're, we're gonna build up intensities and I need you to try to keep the feel of this to this. And it's like you're watering down the product. Yeah. You know? And, and to be honest with you, I just, after working with Olympic sprinters in high volume and some super fast high school kids, they're just, they're just like that anyway. So if you want the outputs, like put'em in the situation to get the outputs and then technique them enough to where you're not losing a lot. Yeah. That Florida speed's different

Ryan Patrick:

too, man. Those guys just talk about like chasing rabbits around and stuff, or chasing each other.

Ryan Hopkins:

That's a real thing though. That's a real, I mean, that is like the, the kid that I'm talking about is from the hokey belle. Glad that is where he's from. Is he's from the mup is what they call it.

Ryan Patrick:

Yeah. I mean, I don't know what, you know, it's. It is funny in our area because the club sports scene, and this is probably everywhere, so I'm probably speaking appealing to a lot of coaches right now. The club scene is so, so dominant in terms of capturing all the athletes in this area. And time and time again, it's just even the, the kids who have the most skill or are on the ones and two teams are, I, I just don't like, the only way I can say this, they're just physically underwhelming. They're not that fast. They don't jump that high. Like there are a few kids who just are real absolute freaks of athleticism and

Ryan Hopkins:

Yeah,

Ryan Patrick:

you know, my, the hill I'll die on is like, you, you have to train this one.'cause the next level, you know, college or whatever it is, it is gonna be, they're all gonna be much more developed and yes, it's just time away from your sport. So you, you know,'cause they're all single sport athletes, so it's like, okay, at this point training has gotta be your second sport. You need some time off the first one. But, you know, getting'em to that level is so difficult and less and less are they out there playing and running and chasing and just reacting, you know, very organically like you're talking about.

Ryan Hopkins:

Listen, that's kind of like the way that I'm, I'm like a 50 50. Um, I don't think that's this, this is that novel for 2025, but I'm a 50 50 like true speed development in terms of a speed session in my session organization. And then the back piece is always some sort of highly competitive. Thing where there are one or two rules and there's context to the drill. Mm-hmm. But I just want these kids to go after each other. And that's, that's the only way that I can get that over the course of like, uh, the summer or even the lead from the end of our season through spring, all the way up till now. That's where I've got this ability to keep them. Like, like you said, training is kind of their sport for a lot of that period of time. Mm-hmm. It's, it's me, it's for four or five days a week. And so my stuff has gotta be varied enough to where no, they're not playing their sport. There is some variety, but the outputs are there and the development has to be real. Mm-hmm. So our whole expression is like, look, did you get better or did you just get a little different because you did different stuff for a couple training cycles? We need to get better and we need to demonstrate that we're getting better. And the only way to do that is to have a real structure and to know what you're doing, but also to, like you said, let'em cut loose and get in these. Environments where it's highly reactive and the speed of play is high. Like all the things that they need to stimulate truly is, is present. So it's, you know, it's a real task. But I would say I, I couldn't agree more. Yeah, I like that expression train for second sport.

Ryan Patrick:

Oh. I mean, I don't know who I stole from. I probably, I wish I could give him credit'cause it's like the best thing I've ever heard. But it, it just makes so much sense to me. But I'd love for you to, to dive in a little bit more to just kind of the session structure. I think it'd be really valuable Yeah. For some coaches to hear that because so many times, you know, we'll get on Instagram and my big beef with like the, the technical stuff and the guys who are doing, you know, the coaching eye, it's great stuff. But like 99% of the time it's like, oh, this is a rugby union player, or this is an Olympian. I'm like, I got a 13-year-old kid, like this is not working for them. Right. So I feel like some guys, um, do a great job of picking this apart, but like it's kinda lost on the audience. And on the other side, you know, you see some, some wild like guys who really get the high output side, you know, they got the twitchy stuff going on where they're just tapping as fast as they can or whatever it is. It's like I get the high outputs, but like maybe too much of a good thing. But I know you've got a good blend of how you're putting all this together. So I think it would be so valuable if you'd be willing to share that.

Ryan Hopkins:

Dude, I would love to. So I think this is like, I think it's, this is gonna sound stupid at first, but I promise I'll tie it all to, I'll do the weave. It's that I think it's actually very simple for a lot of kids. Uh, from the speed development side. I think that we get lost in, uh, textbook movement models. I think that's really, really kind of like you're not really looking at what you're looking at then I think that's kind of a problem if we're chasing the white rabbit. But I think, uh, it's okay. So the big things for me are teaching them what I call it, the rhythm of speed. Again, another just like word, but it's the four step per second cadence. As a base base rate of movement. Mm. So if you have all my kids, I go, what's our rhythm? They all like an army. Go dun, dun. And they tap because I'm most of the time walking next to them while they do basic stuff like the a, the a run series. And my whole thing is you need to be able to make your limbs move that fast to to be fast. Like there is no one who's running very fast, that's running below a four step per second cadence. That's just, it's even arguably four and a half. Right? It's higher than that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So I teach them how to do that and I teach'em how to make a limb exchange in a full range of motion. Those are my two main things, right. Is can you give me Dun, can you build it in that rhythm and can you move through a full joint range of motion so you express power. So I'm really exclusive with what I actually use. So a lot of it is. In the beginning holds so they understand how to move their pelvis and get a hip lock. Mm-hmm. So I have them do a ton of things where I have them stand and hike their pelvis. Right. Things where they understand what I mean in terms of full range of motion beyond just legs going like this. Mm-hmm. Right. And then I have them work on their cadence and then I'll have them do stuff like, it's not even a straight leg bound. It's like a very, it's a straight leg bound with a knee bend. Mm-hmm. Right. And I get them to, to accelerate. So I teach them, Hey look, even though it's not a traditional acceleration exercise, I need dung. D dung, dung, dung. I need your hips to move. Right. I don't, I don't even tell them about their knees or their feet. I just say, Hey look, I need your hips to do this. Okay. And then I teach them. Okay. Most kids when they do that, they start back when they do a straight leg bound. And what do they do? They lean back and they can can their feet and they just kind of like lift it up in front. And I explained, Hey look. If I'm like this and I'm just kinda like striking the ground, I'm not pulling, pulling myself through and hitting. So I tell them, I give me a small lean and then I want you to hit and pull. And then I need it to be bung, bung, bung, bung, bung, bung, bung, bung, bung B. And these kids can do, by the time they're good at it, they can straight leg, semi straight, leg bound below, you know, like 2.7 seconds on a 20 with a one step walk-in and their hips separate. Really good. Mm. Right? And the next thing that I have them do is like, okay, let's, now we have that, let's do a three step push. And my only cue is push, push, push. I need you in that rhythm. Push, push, push. And I have them just get the rhythm, push, push, push, push, push, push. And I have'em evaluate. Did they make speed? So they're like, okay. When I finished my three step push. Did you have a lot of momentum? Like were you skipping on down the way and you're like, oh shit, like I'm really moving. Mm-hmm. Right. Or were you stubby and were you able to stop within the next five to 10 yards? Right. And then they understand that like when they get great steps and they push out, they do a really good job and they can feel, oh shit, I accelerated. Perfect. Right? And that's a really easy way for me to do it. And then all I do is I go push, push, push, and then I go push, push, push, push, push. And then I get it out to where it's at 10 yards. Right? That's how I start every kid. And once they can nail a seven step, six and a half, seven step, push, push, push, push, push, push, push in that rhythm, building, each step on step on step on step, they're moving. If I go further than that, it depends on their sport. Mm-hmm. Right? So sorry about that. So even for something like baseball, like 30 yards is the farthest that I'm gonna go. Mm-hmm. But I'll still teach'em how to run 30 yards. Perfect. Right. Because you can run a great 10, but it might, it might, you know, you might have your, your shitty angles and it doesn't mean anything from 10 20. Yeah. So what I do, what I do for that, and what I think is really important is I coach the first 10 to be at like 92%. So gimme 92% for the first 10. For the second 10, give me like 95 to 98%. So they understand that they are still building and still accelerating. Mm-hmm. And then when they get from 20 to 30, if I go that far, that's where I, I wanna see like, can you do 98 to 102? Can you, can you build it for that long and stay relaxed enough that you can rip and the limbs really start to fly faster than maybe you're even capable of holding. But I wanna see you build, build, build, build. Bill, bill, bill, bill, bill, bill, bill, bill, bill, bill build. So these things are just. Rolling. And that's the way that I do it is like if I can get'em to not squeeze their body and jump out and just be fucking crazy on the first three or four steps. Mm-hmm. They keep the efficiency step to step, to step to step and more organized to where they do move through a full range of motion that they do stay pretty fluid and that they do actually accelerate a lot longer than they would if you just said blast it. Mm-hmm.

Ryan Patrick:

Okay. Oh my god, that that was elite. There's a lot to unpack here, so I'm gonna try to try to keep it to going to one direction first. You highlighted a lot of the major problems that I experience with young athletes. Number one, the cadence is absolutely horrible and what I've noticed, especially when training these shorter distances, like 10 yards, is that kids will tend to over rotate, um, or over stride. In an attempt to be the fastest to 10 yards, but not be moving the fastest at 10 yards, which I think leads into why, why that 10 to 20 is so ass and Yeah. Yeah, it's true. And we had a problem because my facility, we can only accelerate, I mean, if we go 15 hard, like it's a five yard decel before you're hitting a wall, so you gotta put the brakes on, right? So we had to come up with solutions like we have a treadmill. And for all its drawbacks, it's been really useful for that transition phase because we just don't have a means to, to develop that. And they needed athletes to experience running longer. The lack of hip separation that happens, especially as they try to pick up frequency. So if we do like a, a switch or a triple or, um, any, a run, soon as we try to pick up the speed, I get this, I call it like little, little big little, little big. It's just, you know, small range. It almost looks, I call it the donkey paddle'cause it just looks like you're just trying to like, hurry through the water. And so that's a huge problem. But man, like my kids are gonna hate me because we use a lot of, we use the metronome a lot, especially for like tempo lifting. So yeah, we're gonna have 240 beats a second going this week till, I don't think that's that. No, uh, that or we find like a house music playlist that's got, you know, 240 beats a minute on Spotify. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll do, it might be a little bit more enjoyable. Um, but I love that. So, um, where I want to take this and start with. You know, because I think a lot of the a drills get criticism. I think people are like, eh, it's stupid. It's not sprinting. But I would love for you to talk about how you're developing this full range of motion, what some of these holds look like, because especially for the young athletes, this is a, a major problem. Like you can run fast all day, but if, you know, you can't control the pelvis in a split hip position, you're gonna be limited forever.

Ryan Hopkins:

Yeah. Uh, so this is a huge thing for me is to just teach it right off the jump is like, Hey, look, this is what a single leg support actually is, and I'm just trying to get'em to, the biggest thing is Albert Mill said this, uh, we hosted Alvar meal, I, I forget what year, maybe 2017. And it was one of the things he said was like, good athletes are pretty hyper. And they're like, kind of just like, not, like they're not in, they're not thinking about all the sensations, they're all their feelers, especially not at that age. So for me, it just slow'em down a lot. So even my first sprint sessions are inside and they're basically stationary. So we do a lot of stationary stuff, uh, to help them basically just slow down and feel it. And then I impress upon them. I've sh I mean, I do everything to be honest. I like have, I don't know if you've ever seen the, the YouTube movie? Uh, I Am Vault, like the Usain Bolt documentary. Mm-hmm. But I tell them like, Hey, watch this guy run and watch how he moves through his hips and watch what I'm like, I'm telling you, this is like the, this is the fastest guy in the world and they have all these incredible slow motion, uh, clips of him running at full speed from the behind, from behind, from the front, all kinds of stuff. And so I try to get that idea that granted he's like six and a half feet tall. But he's not the guy coming outta the block when Right when you're not Flintstone his feet. Mm-hmm. He's going and he's pushing, and if you watch him slow motion the way things are going and his hips are moving mm-hmm. Like, you have to do that. So, and then I explained like, look, there are times when we may keep things very small to get the higher than normal frequency if we're just looking to like, ramp it up. Mm-hmm. But all of the time we're talking about, okay, I have, if there's a kid in their class that goes very rapid through an A drill and it's supposed to be a full height exchange, and he gets, say he sit, he sits a little bit. Mm-hmm. And he gets short and just kind of punches it. I say, okay, hey, pop out here. I want you guys to watch. I say, okay, gimme three seconds. And I say, okay. Did he get taller or did he start sitting down? They're like, oh, he was sitting. I'm like, okay, well did he move all the way through his hips or was he Flintstone in it? They're like, oh, no. Flintstone in it. So I'm getting their coach's eye like, and for whatever you wanna call it, established to what the actual like general like position A, position B is gonna look like. Mm-hmm. And we talk about maximal frequency versus optimal. Right. And that's the way that I do it. Other thing that I do is, I sometimes people will hate this, uh, is I explain to them like, I don't want to hear your feet. Granted, I'm not trying to tell them that I don't want you to hit the ground hard. I'm just saying that when you exchange your hips evenly top down and bottom up going like this, there's not a lot of sound. Mm-hmm. So if I do an A switch, I shouldn't hear a do before this has gotten up. Mm-hmm. It should be that they, they pull and reposition and it sounds like, you know, when you're in like a karate gi and you punch mm-hmm. It just goes and it's your like clothes snapping almost. Mm-hmm. So I get them to get that timing to where they can do a great switch and they make no sound. And then they get like, oh shit, like this should hit at the same time this hits. So now I have my coordination and my timing piece and I just try to hold them to that for everything where I'm like, where they can actually think about what they're doing. Mm-hmm. Right. Once they go and run, like, I'm gonna say stuff to whatever I need to say to get'em to do what I want'em to do. Right. I even have kids like, uh, draw out the first step. So how I say that Push, push, push, push, push. I might go push, push, push, push, push, push, push, just to make sure that they open up. And I might have kids do like a more of a bent leg bound and do like three bounds and then accelerate off the back of it. Mm-hmm. So it goes like, bung, bung, bung, bung, bung, bung, bung, B, anything I can do to get it to, to switch and exchange is what I do. The A stuff for me is more like keeping'em in place where they can feel stuff. Mm-hmm. Making sure that they're masters at it and that they know what good reps are, even down to like, coaching their friends. And they do do it, which I don't love, but everyone's got an opinion. Mm-hmm. And for whatever reason they run, they, they run pretty good. You know, they, they all can, they can all put down some times.

Ryan Patrick:

Yeah. A couple things come to mind. Like one, I, I think about, uh, Stu McMillan talking about like the crescendo of acceleration, right? So you've got this temporal nature to it of how this speeds up. And we always talk like, you know, especially in the literature, it's a spec, temporal, you know, whatever. And yeah, we, we'd like to talk a lot about the space, the angles, the, the shapes. But I hear very few people really talking about the tempo of this. And I. Like, I mean, I'm just kind of by my own admission, I'm not spending enough time on this as I'm hearing it, I'm like, this is so like blatant and in front of me because, you know, if I'm playing an instrument, there's like cadence and rhythm that I need to learn. And you know, even with music, like you can just remember tempos and find them quickly to be able to do the thing you need to do at the speed you need to do it. Um Right. It's like doing the CPR, huh. Ha ha. You know? Yeah, exactly. You just, you just kind of fall right into that rhythm. And I think hearing that like four plus per second, like we're mi missing the mark on that. Like we can, we can push all day, but you know, if we're three and a half, like there's an upper limit to, to how fast you're gonna go.

Ryan Hopkins:

Yeah. I think it's like, you know, you play with it a lot obviously based on like the person and the size of their body. Mm-hmm. And what, what they've got limit. You got some short legged kids that are gonna be pretty frequent. Yeah. And you got some long legged kids that are, you know, still really fast, uh, really fast that are. Gonna have a more extended, at least one and two step. Mm-hmm. You know, and that's like, you just gotta know what you're looking at for that. Yeah. But my opinion with that is, I have a great pic, so I didn't, we didn't talk about this, but I worked at Tumbleweed Track Club with some like, really like the top 18 sprinters in the world for a while. Uh, there's a great picture from Puma where they're all coming out of the blocks from the profile and the shape is identical. It's really, really amazing. But there's the same picture from the front. Everybody's twisted up different, everybody's making that shape a much different way. Mm. So my whole thing is there are positions in shapes that we gotta hit. Right. Those are super important. Yep. To determine how well you are going that way, you know, that's the whole goal. Can't go that way. Pushing a whole lot of different ways. But if you can get that push in that rhythm, however you're making the shapes, if you can get that rhythm and you're going that way. We're doing pretty damn good. Mm-hmm. And that's where I think, like, I don't think you gotta go that crazy with some of this stuff, even with the really fast kids and the kid that's a national champion sprinter, uh, and he's, he runs a ten one just so everyone knows. Like, he's not, that's a really fast kid. Uh, we do very little with even resisted sprinting for various distances. Mm-hmm. A lot of it is just getting him to run really well. Especially after he gets, he gets out because that's, that's the deal is how well do you run that rhythm and position, how you hit the ground is a huge part.

Ryan Patrick:

Mm-hmm. So clearly we're missing the mark on some things. What do you, what do you think we're doing too much of? What do you think is being way overvalued that guys are just, we haven't come full circle with it yet.'cause the pendulum's always swing in one direction or the other.

Ryan Hopkins:

Oh man, I, this is gonna be, this is a long one. So the, uh. It's a highly dependable answer, obviously, but the, I would say we try to slow things down too much. Trying to make them go faster. Mm-hmm. Right. It's like our strategy, fucking sorry for everything is, oh, let's, let's slow it down. Mm-hmm. Well, we'll, like, we'll put more weight on'em and see if you can go, like, try now, like now, like what are you doing? So even with the, the weighted acceleration, what we did was, you know, we have like two, two times or three times that we use it. And per person, we just go, okay, where are you producing the most power? Where our, you know, like on the, on the graph where we're still ha you can look at the steps, you know? Mm-hmm. There, we, and we tell the kids like, up to six or seven steps, I want'em to be responsible for that. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Right. And we just put whatever resistance we can on there to make the power output the best with still great steps. Mm-hmm. And it's not a lot, you know? Yeah. It's like for longer runs, it's like barely over 10 pounds, like 12 pounds. For short stuff, it's maybe 20 pounds. Right. And that's, that's about as far as it needs to go. I think for the most part, we need to start trying to speed things up because at the top end of things, it's how well they can process this. Like, everything going like this and ringing off the ground, it's the who makes the best steps. Mm-hmm. So you gotta make the best ground context and ring the best. So it's working on that stuff where I actually think you're gonna have a higher rate of return for a lot of kids. I think, uh, the weight room is incredible up to a certain point. So I think you have to, I think you have to lift weights. I think you have to improve motor potential, like we talked about really early on, about around the hips and the pelvis, uh, the lats, the shoulder girdle. Mm-hmm. All those things have to be strong and able to also move fast and be balanced against the pelvis. Uh, those are the things I think are super important. But I think we get, and this is taking a shot at myself, uh, we get so wrapped up into fucking bilateral symmetrical heavy grind movement that really lock us down and push us farther away from better sprint and athletic performances in a true sense. Mm-hmm. The robustness aspect can't be overstated though. Like how are we supposed to get much more robust? You can do it by sprinting and running and jumping, but that's a really long, long, long term approach to it that's like you need to take puberty mm-hmm. While doing that at high volume to say that's your strategy for development. Mm-hmm. But I'll also say this, I think most of the fastest kids are their fastest, long before most strength coaches get ahold of them.

Ryan Patrick:

Yeah, well, I mean this, you see a lot of guys coming outta college slower than they were going in. Right. And then they go into these combine prep programs where it's all, you know, they're just hammering linear stuff for six, eight weeks and they make massive improvements.'cause all that potential's there, they just haven't developed it. Yeah. Um, and, and I, well, this is, I'll go ahead.

Ryan Hopkins:

No finish please, dude. So this, this is my big brie and I, I'm, again, like somebody who, I don't do a lot of combine prep. Mm-hmm. I've done one over the course of my entire career because I feel, one, I don't want my, I don't want to be on the hook for all the things that happen. I think there are better guys to do that. Mm-hmm. Uh, it's super tempting because I'm in an area where you have a lot of supposed gurus that are just absolutely guessing. And from my one experience, and this is with verifiable noteworthy results like this, I can, I can post the receipts, uh. I got a guy who came into it and he was like, oh, I ran a 4, 3 6 before the season started right at the end of spring. So I'm going, okay, like super fast guy. He also jumps 38 inches. So I was like, fuck. Like all his times when he sent me his numbers, the only thing I thought was like, if you can just do this on the right day, you're gonna be the top of the heat. Well, when he came in and we tested him, it was immediately post-season and his body was beat up, so he wasn't doing it. Okay, this is not a joke again, not a joke, but we got him time before he left to run a sub four three, and when he went and ran, he ran a four three low. So did I improve him at all? Fucking, no, not at all. Right? I got him back to where he was before his body felt like shit, right? So super special kid. He was able to repeat what he needed to repeat. He got some looks, he got some people that were asking about him, but he had a pro day. He wasn't at the combine. You know, it's like even with all those numbers, someone still didn't really want to see him in a camp. My big thing is most of these kids already have the potential when they go in, they're beat up and they haven't really trained in a while. Mm-hmm. So by feeling better and heating right back up and doing the right stuff, don't get me wrong.

Ryan Patrick:

Yeah.

Ryan Hopkins:

They're gonna go, they're gonna go back to that. But you're not making them any faster. And in fact, I've seen a lot of people that they run slower than what they did right before they started their senior year of football. So it's just like, you're just retuning a Ferrari. Uh, yeah, that's basically it. I think the environment coax it out. I think it's like, you know. A lot going on.

Ryan Patrick:

I mean, I think you're kind of understating the impact because there's a lot of guys who are gonna push hard and end up blowing these guys up, right? You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There, there's the urgency of time, uh, there's the uncertainty, uh, of what their, you know, stress response adaptation is gonna be like, like, is this athlete gonna be recovered enough to do the thing they need to do? And I think just out of like insecurity and just, you know, lack of certainty, guys will, will push too hard in an attempt to get the results. So the fact that you can even get somebody back to that is good because, I mean, getting a body to recover and fine tuning the performances is not an easy task, man.

Ryan Hopkins:

I think that that is like, uh, the hard part when you get those guys is that you don't know unless you're lucky and you can get a lot of their programming. Mm. And I have a couple kids that are basically like, I'm kind of excited for this'cause I have a couple kids that are now junior and senior in college that I got as junior and senior in high school where I know them and I, like, they send me their programs for each piece because I get'em for summer, I get'em for spring breaks, I get'em for all the little whatever. Mm-hmm. That makes it, that makes me feel more comfortable with the guy I worked with from Ohio. I was like, uh, his Bobcat, uh, but guy I worked with from Ohio, they had a really good program to be honest. And he was very well trained. He was super smart. So what I do, the only thing I thought I could do in those situations, and this is what I do with every athlete that I get, is I say, what? Like, what works well for you? Mm-hmm. Like, what have you done where you're like, damn, that was fucking that hit. And they'll tell you. Right. So I go off of that. I do test, but for the most part, I just start training and I try to be very conservative for the first week. And I also, I show them like a very simple chart. It's pinned on my Instagram, the first thing of the stress recovery adaptation curvature for the different systems of the body. And that their connective tissue curvature, once you're training above 80% speed or a load is taken, taken a beating and is gonna be a little slower mm-hmm. Than other things like muscle tissue or your nervous system in various ways. Yep. And I, and I stay, I fucking stay there. You know, I don't, I don't try to go be I'll stand on that hill of you stand if you come in 1% under prepared, but 101% healthy in the right environment. Super excited as that level of athlete that's had really good prep. They're gonna show out. Mm-hmm. Like they're the very least not gonna be a d. Yeah. You know, and that's, that's the only way that I think you can do it. I think the moment you try to make your whole career based on, look what I do to these guys in six weeks, they know better. These are not dumb people. They have educations, they have a lot of experience. They know what they're doing. Mm-hmm. We know, we know what we're doing as professionals in terms of overstating the claim. Some people, some people, some people are in God mode, which is, you know, good for them.

Ryan Patrick:

Yeah. So, I mean, kind of, I wanna circle back a little bit because I had asked you about, you know, what you feel like is maybe overvalued and, and one of the things that kind of keeps coming up is this idea, it's what I perceive to be a big problem in s and c, in that maybe just American strength and conditioning is just, if there's a problem, uh, we just wanna solve it with more force. So we're running like, screw it, we're gonna run with weight. You know, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember there was a day, you know, we were doing some resisted runs. We don't have any of the fancy devices. We have couple extra genies, which we've actually gone back to. Um, we have a run rocket, which is really great, but honestly it's like overpowered from a young athletes, so very few of them can use it because like at Level Zero it's still got a ton of drag.

Ryan Hopkins:

Significant.

Ryan Patrick:

Yeah, it's significant. And we were just doing so many resisted runs that one day I'm like, I just kind of shook my head. I'm like, this is ass. Like, I know we're talking about DRF and horizontal orientation of force and all that stuff's super important. I'm like, but this is not getting it done. Like more resistance. Less resistance. Like these kids need to open up. They need to hit, yeah, hit the speed. Like, and it was kind of like one of those dumb moments, right? It's like, oh, we're gonna run fast, we're gonna train fast to be fast, you know? Yes. Which is like this great, great epiphany, but I think sometimes it gets lost, right? Because it's very popular now. There's a lot of research around it, so guys are talking about it, but I just felt like it wasn't leading to a lot of the results. And then you talk about, I have a,

Ryan Hopkins:

go ahead. No, man, I'm finished. Take it, dude. I have, I have a huge opinion about that. And where I think, this is not to say that I feel like my results are better than everyone's or whatever. This is just to say, sometimes I listen to people's problems or I watch like what they're doing and I'm like, all right, like I'm clearly doing something. Okay. Because in a high concentration, I have a lot of kids that have good times, and I know our procedure in terms of my kids will tell you how many times I measure and remeasure cones because I don't want to send them even down to the jump mat. I won't turn the ply mat on, just jump mode to give you a high number. I'm gonna tell you, you jumped 22 and a half inches, right? When it comes to speed, I have a lot of kids that can put down wild tens and wild twenties, right? And what I think this comes from is I don't give a shit about the start. I don't care about how you come out of a static position. Mm-hmm. I generally, and this is not to say like if you're doing the combine, I'm not gonna do the start, but I generally will give you, so if I set up my free lap, I go 80 centimeters and then I give'em a one yard, I walk back three footsteps, a one yard. They can take a one step, they can do whatever they want, they can walk in a little bit, but I don't have'em start out of like a two point start or a fallen start and jump out because I think it fucks with the way that they know how to accelerate. Mm-hmm. And what I get with one yard, and I'm not in my head confused and going, oh, I ran a one two, A 1, 4, 2 10 over the one yard. Like that's a real 1, 4, 2. I know that it's not, and I tell'em, look, that's a one step, that's not from a static, but any which way I see kids accelerate really, really well mm-hmm. With this much fucking momentum going into it. And they can go really fucking fast on even the 10 to 20. These kids are running really, really, really fast. And I was like, okay, if I'm gonna see them and we're gonna train, say three days a week, am I gonna waste my time working on static start mechanics that I'm not coming off a block? Mm-hmm. I'm not pushing off a horizontal surface. Right. I can only get so much lean until their foot's, you know, like bent like this, like what am I really doing? So I'll give them a one step walkin and have'em blast and just get that dun dun, dun dun, that rhythm. And when they do it, they fucking rip. So I'm like, okay. Every single time I have them run, I know that their velocity that they're hitting by the back of that 10 is way higher than what a lot of these kids are hitting if they come out of a static start. Mm-hmm. So why would I not do that? Right? I still do the other stuff, but why would I not spend most of my time training at higher velocities for the same distance? In sports, you're gonna get, like you might get a little hop and then I, then I go, but I have a little something. Yep. As a wide receiver, you don't just take off unopposed. Right. And you where your start matters. Yeah. It's how well you use that like little bit of momentum to rock it outta that shit. So I do a lot of stuff that has a little, maybe one step a skip start, like I have'em like kind of skip in and then crush it. Yep. Uh, or walk in if they can't time the skip, but something like that. So I can always get nasty acceleration for 10 to 20 yards.

Ryan Patrick:

Yeah. I went recently and watched a bunch of our girls play. They go to the same high school playing a soccer team and almost every run that they made was off of a, a jog. Right. Nothing was static. And I got in the habit for a minute of watching the first step. I'm like, this is never happening. And, and anybody can manufacture a good first step, a good, uh, you know, still shot picture, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's these big angles. Uh, we're drawing the hashtag on it. I'm like, anybody can do this, but like. What happens after that? And there's another piece, I think to sports that you're touching on. How does the change of direction piece fit into to what you're doing? Because obviously different cadence, different tempo, but you know, I tell my kids like, you know, deception and, um, you know, evasion, like you might just need to create that much space to, to put a guy on your hip and distribute a ball. Like you don't need a ton of distance. Like we're talking about just being able to, to, you know, close space or open space and, and these are very tight windows. So, you know, in addition to your linear stuff, how do you work in the, the multi-directional skill sets?

Ryan Hopkins:

Uh, it's the same thing, like, you know, if I'm talking about doing all the foot, ankle, lower leg stuff, it's generally like on a second day we will do the same kind of thing, but I'll work more inside, outside edge stuff. Mm-hmm. We do a lot of shout out McKen Watson. We, we do a lot of, uh. Multi direction plyometrics, where we're doing like, you know, small over one big, small, over one big, and a lot of different directions. We do a, I mean, we do a, we do a, an f lot, we do a lot of very, like the low box shuffle, change in direction. I'm huge with getting them to understand that it's not dropping the height of your body indiscriminately. That it's really like you drop as much as you need to, to redistribute a limb. Mm-hmm. Uh, and to get this like kind of smoother level change, I just really, again, really keep it super simple because a lot of them are really good at changing directions, but they generally, what I'm correcting is how they're coached to change directions. Hmm. Which in football tends to be, I'm gonna run full speed at you, and then I'm gonna drop down to where my ass is in like a kindergarten chair. Yeah. And that's, that's, those are my things. So I try to tell'em, Hey look, when I change directions and I say, I'm like, I'm moving this way and I plant and I go this way, I should hit in an angle that redistributes me on its own. So that the moment from when I stop and redirect is the same moment. Right. I don't wanna see you get stuck and get caught over on your leg. And so it's just trying to get them to feel, Hey, do you see how when you put your leg out there that you got shot back and you didn't even try? Mm-hmm. And they're like, yeah. I'm like, alright, watch, watch this guy when he does it. Do you see how his hips are like this? And they don't go like this. Like, yeah. Yeah. You know, those are the things that I work on. Uh, we do a lot of stuff with like eccentric rate of force development. I'm not gonna lie about that. With a lot of like bounding off of things and sticking. Yep. Uh, a lot of the cone grab drills where they like run in from two yards, hit it, grab and have to run out. Mm-hmm. Stuff like that where like we increase the distance into the cut. Yeah. But I don't, but I don't go crazy, uh, trying to over coach it. I think if they just understand like how to, how to be a fucking technician and smoothly reposition their body. And that if they can stay a little bit more relaxed going into it, that they're actually gonna use their elasticity. Yep. The same conversation, like the optimal frequency versus Max. I'm like, all right, you hit that shit like a rock and you got stuck on yourself for like a fucking half of a second. Mm-hmm. And then you kind of like came out of it without falling down basically. I'm like, look, if you were a little chill and we have a couple kids that are super fluid movers. Yeah. And I go, Hey, look at snow. Do you think that snow is holding his, holding his breath and dropping? He is like, no, he is fucking just going. And he is in and out before he even realizes it. So I try to put them on onto like what these actual concepts are and not, uh, yeah, not, not hammer it. I think that's the best way to do it, is just like, make sure that they understand body position. Yeah. And that it's not like everything's not wildly voluntary when it comes to the gameplay stuff. When you said about like, you don't have to make like. 55 feet of distance. You need some space and some time. And those windows are small. Mm-hmm. So a lot of times when you're doing the most, like you're not gonna make it through the door when it closes. If you're fluid and you try, I tell a lot of kids look like you're not gonna do crazy shit going a hundred percent. You can. You're 90%, you're still in control and you can make a move. Mm-hmm. Right? Still fast enough to get someone else to move. But if you're on offense, like I did a presentation during COVID and I thought I was a genius. It's called the X Factor. But it was like, look at a defensive player and an offensive player. What I saw that made the difference was the offensive player had to be smooth, but they had to be the dec decide A clear decider, right? Like, just make, make fucking one move and make it well. And then there's that 50 millisecond mechanical delay window that that defender's gotta have that you're exploiting. That's your little bit of fucking time that. Right. That's the door before it closes. Yep. And they have to be in the ultimate ready state. So like they have to be on the ball, their foot, ready to like quickly reposition as a defender to have any chance of keeping with it. So that, those are my two things. Or like make a fucking decision. Yep. You can't go at, you can't go at a hundred percent and do that with control.

Ryan Patrick:

Right. Yeah. I forget, there was a paper I read at one point, it was, you know, most agility actions are actually at like a jogging pace. You know, you think we, we try in COD we're like full throttle, right? A hundred percent. Like that's almost never, never happening. But, um, one thing you touched on was the footwork, uh, Lee, Lee taps low box series is, is just one of the ultimate things. But we had a football guy start this week and you know, of course he's doing the low box drill like he's, uh, running through the tires, right? You got these choppy feet. His center of mass is kind of staying over and, and this is a guy who complained about feeling really slow off the line. So I showed him a clip of Miles Davis from the past, you know, this week playing the Bengals. And he hits like this, like double euro step, real wide plant angles, you know, upper body sway, just boom, boom. And I'm like, you see these plant angles? Like this is how you move. Like you've, you've gotta get your foot outside of your, your center of mass. You can't, you can't cut when your feet are under you. So this like choppy footwork and like, as soon as he did it, he is like, okay, like I feel it now I get it. Like it was just a whole different experience for him. Be like, got it. You know what I mean? And it, and I think the good athletes can take that. Like, I have like one felt sense experience of what this should be like. And it's like they're locked in.

Ryan Hopkins:

Dude. There's so much with, uh, if you can get, I always, I try to explain it as much as I think the person that I'm working with can take. Yeah. Is like, even for, for defensive players, like coming out of Backpedals, I like, I really like to reduce. Those drills into like maybe one or two steps before they like say it's a T step, they punch forward. Mm-hmm. And I, I will, I'll go all the way down to like, hey, let's look at where your foot is on the ground. So like when the, it's in grass. So like look at the angle of your foot. Yeah. Where it punched. And then we look at where the next step. So bing, bing, where's this step hit in the ground? And when these kids do it right and we have the film and the body position is great, the distance that they travel off that same step, and again, the momentum that they carry out of it on the backend that they can feel is way more so they know it's not just in this like silly old white guy's brain that this is the way to do it. They're like, oh fucking Well, I tell'em like space time, I'm not a defensive back clearly. Right. You don't want me to coach you how to be a db, but I can work with you on better foot positioning. Where I see, and my big problem with football is. Everything you'll hear stay inside the frame of your body when it, when it's cutting, they're like, stay inside the frame of your body. How the fuck do you stay inside the frame of your body when you're trying to push and go somewhere else? Mm-hmm. And this is even down to the lateral stuff. I have asked so many people, I said, why before you guys, if you're doing a lateral, so say, I'm going like lateral shuffle and I'm gonna punch forward and go straight ahead. Why do I need to step over three, three things before I punch? Because you don't, if you watch a linebacker figuring out what's going on, if they're not, they're not going, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, punch. They're going like little slide, little, little position, bang. And then they go, it's not at all what they're training to do when they do high volume skill work sometimes with the private coach or in practice. And so that's my big thing is. I know what they're telling you, and when you do their drills, you do their fucking drills. But I'm telling you, when we practice movement and how to move faster and be better in multi directions, these are the things that you have to do. And I promise you, even if it's like I run forward, I hit my like two foot, my little stop step, and then I have to hit turn, flip and punch back this way. Lean, if you know where you're going, lean back the way you're gonna go when you hit your punch and they all go like, boom. And they go out two yards. I'm like, dude, you're six feet before you knew where you were as opposed to going Tuck, tuck, tuck, and you're one yard. Yeah. So what are you gonna do? And then you watch the best kids do it on their own. Yep. Right? The kids that I've never had to tell any of this shit. I go, oh, good job. You know, like that's, that's why I tell you it's like it's there. So it's just, you have to understand why some of these kids are so great in space. It's because they naturally orient themselves. Mm-hmm. They know how to do it. They're never the most muscular. It's just that's not those kids. It's these kids that are super fluid. Uh, I think that is the hard thing as a strength coach when you watch kids is you clearly, they put enough force into the ground. If you listen to a football game when they're running, even a shallow cut or a little veer at 18 miles an hour, it's, it's a, it's a strong foot into the ground. Yeah. But it's not a maximal voluntary effort. Right. It's just something that they know how to do. And so when we coach, we have to try to get fluidity of movement to be the priority as much as, Hey, look, yes, you're fluid, but you also have to go that way. Go that way, you know, and then, or run behind them. I have kids when they do like, uh, any kind of five yard say they do a one shuffle hard sit and then. Run. Yep. I'm, I'm gonna stand there and I'm gonna try to grab'em. Right. And they fucking run away really quick. Yeah. They do the whole thing. They position better. Yeah. Because they don't want to be touched. They hit and they're out be in the same moment, which is my whole teaching point, is don't get stuck. It's the same moment we're out. Mm-hmm. And so anything that you can do Last piece about the, uh, oh man. I totally forgot what I was gonna say about the fluidity piece. Oh. So with the acceleration, this came to my head and I think coaches will love this. The biggest thing I think we fuck up on the acceleration is the, uh, telling them about their knees. Like, don't put, like when you hit, remember we were talking about making the hashtag and the beautiful side shape that fucked it up the most, because generally when people look at a great position, they look for a straight line from your heel to your knee, to your ass, to your shoulder. Yep. And most of the time we don't see that great of a line down the leg. And what I see is a lot of kids, they push and they kind of like, if they're see my knees like this, they pop their knee almost backwards. And they don't, they don't go this way as a unit. Yep. So what I do is I, I only tell kids about the hips and then just like trying to grab'em off the change of direction, I try to grab their heel on their back foot. Hmm. And they pull that foot out real quick. Yeah. And they just, they just run that way, but they don't extend their knees'cause they don't have time and they're pushing it back at me. Yep. Yep. That, so those, that's what I tell you. Anything you can do.

Ryan Patrick:

Yeah. It's that, uh, we call it like rip Right. You gotta rip that foot off the ground.'cause sometimes they're just hanging out there too long and you know, it's, uh, you, you kind of, you kind of finance the, the push on this stride at the expense of the next one. Right. Because now that front foot's gotta hang in the air longer, so you're laying way in front of your center of mass. Well now you got a giant break, so now you're pulling yourself through and it's just like, there's just so many consequences And, and we noticed that when we were chasing this like picture perfect. Position on the, the acceleration. I mean, this has been a couple years now, thank God. Like, uh, we, we've rectified that. But yeah, it's a huge problem. What I like though, um, when you're talking about trying to grab these athletes and stuff is, you know, so much of what we do in, in the gym, in the gym space is just decontextualized, right? There's no shot clock, there's no crowd, there's no opponent ball, uh, objective. We're just running in space. So I think giving, giving a little bit of that feedback of, you know, evasion or, uh, just kind of reactivity to it, I think sometimes just elicits better mechanics. Like even with the football drills you talked about, it's like nobody's doing these choppy steps in the game, like they're reacting and, and it usually looks like a lot of stuff that we're trying to teach when it comes to movement.

Ryan Hopkins:

Yeah, I mean, this is like the, the biggest, this is where sometimes I sit and I go, what the fuck are we, what are we doing? Like. You'll, you watch'em like look. And the other thing is, some of these really kids, these kids that are great, are just great. You know, it's like they are really, really astoundingly athletic. Mm-hmm. And can pick up every drill that you give them. And then you also have the kids that are astoundingly athletic, they can't do any of the drills that you're doing. Yeah. And so I'm like, uh, okay. Like, I guess I'll just like make sure that they're healthy and I'll find, like you said, contextual ways to challenge the output. I like to give kids looks that are, are similar to gameplay, even if it's just what I have'em do in the way I explain it. Yep. If it's like a five yard shuffle and then they have to punch and run vertically behind them, I tell'em like, Hey, look what you're watching it develop, watching it develop. Okay. Gotta go. And then that's the way I want them to do it. I don't, I tell'em, Hey, what's the most important part of the drill? Is it the shuffle or is it the flipping? We go and they're like, it's the. Flipping we go. And so they set it up well. But if you give them those little bit of pieces and you just let'em be really athletic and say like, you know, they flip and go and there's a kid running off the sideline that they've gotta chase and converge on, they fucking do it. Mm-hmm. Every time. So, and if they're slow, they're slow, like they have work to do. You know, that's like, that's all you can do as a coach is not thought box them. I think that is really a problem that I had when 10 years ago, was I know a lot of shit. Let me tell you all the shit that I know and they're going like, what? The, I don't even know what, like dorsiflexion, you know what I mean? That's like, that's already one big word. Yeah. And now we're talking about space geotemporal fucking organization of this motor structure. And they're, they're like, you know, they, they didn't get anything. Yeah. So that, that to me is, yeah. Where I sit now is pick two things. Hammer it for as long as you're gonna work with them in their career. And when that window is closed, find the next thing that is like. You can hammer. And I think that's the way you make long-term progress. That's

Ryan Patrick:

awesome. Ryan, this has been like an absolute masterclass. Uh, we're going over an hour here. We could probably go another hour or two, I'm sure.'cause we're just, I feel like we're just getting started, but I wanna hit you with a couple like quick, quick hitting questions. So short answer stuff that I think maybe people can still get some value out. And then we will, uh, wrap up with where people can find out more about you. So, uh, let's go to the Instagrams most overrated drill, uh, assessment or tool you're seeing right now in the world of speed.

Ryan Hopkins:

Oh, um, guns is a tough one. Uh, that is really tough. Most overrated assessment, I would say would be like anything, anything like. A to a stand or a switch related I think is not a great assessment. I think you gotta watch'em run.

Ryan Patrick:

Yeah.

Ryan Hopkins:

All right. What

Ryan Patrick:

a, what's an underrated drill or tool you wish, you know, most 14 to 15 year olds were using or doing an underrated drill? Uh,

Ryan Hopkins:

I would say something like a, maybe like a, a straight, like a semi bent leg. Straight leg bound. Yeah. I think that is, if you can get really good at that, it clears up

a

Ryan Patrick:

lot of problems. Yeah. I really like the bent leg prime time, uh, or scissor bounds more than the straight leg. There's just something about the field. You actually feel more of that whip from the hip.

Ryan Hopkins:

A hundred percent. I don't think the straight leg bound, a true straight leg bound, is that valuable. I think it's a little odd. And the timing, you, I always look at what naturally happens. Yeah. And it's not to swing the leg up and keep the knee extended, it's to kind of swing it up and to let it drift until it flexes a little. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ryan Patrick:

Yeah, I like that. All right. Um, best coaching, cue for acceleration or max velocity. I like acceleration. Yeah, go ahead. I was gonna say, I like that

Ryan Hopkins:

heel grab. I know it's not really a cue. I think the best thing, yeah, push, push, like push, push, push in the, in the rhythm, I think is if you can get it. And then I do that little push, push, push, so they hear like a ding, ding, ding. Mm-hmm. Because each step has gotta be a little bit more than the next.

Ryan Patrick:

Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Hopkins:

Right. You're not making additional speed if it's da, da, da. If that's the same, we're just at the same pace. But if I can bung, bang, bong, push, push, push.

Ryan Patrick:

Yeah,

Ryan Hopkins:

that's, I mean, I, I'm, I sound like a crazy person, but that's what I say. And then for, for, uh, for, for top velocity, ah, man, it's something around, like, I tell the kids, Hey, look, in the beginning you're pushing on the ground. Like push on it. And then when I say, Hey, you're running really quick, like, you're gonna tap it. Mm-hmm. So you're pushing and now a tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. And that, that tend, they tend to understand like, I'm trying to like maintain my body position while I tap the ground and keep like skipping a rock, you know, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Stand before we go in, the rock goes into the water,

Ryan Patrick:

you know? That's good. I like that. Get that quick ground contact. Alright man. Um, this was awesome. I can't, I'm can't wait to go back and listen to it again. But, uh, where can people find out more about you?

Ryan Hopkins:

Uh, I would say Instagram is probably the best way to find out. Like, just to kind of my thoughts. Uh, I do a mentorship, uh, with a guy named Jason Lee, uh, called the Performance Paradigm. This is more for young and new coaches that there, it's not very performance oriented, it's more towards, hey, how do I be a solid strength and conditioning professional? Uh, but it's something we've been doing for the past three years. So I think it's, I think it's good.

Ryan Patrick:

Incredible. I'll make sure I link to that. I'll make sure I get that from you and uh, man, I appreciate it. Again, this was, this was incredible. I know. We'll stay in touch, so thanks for coming on. Thanks, bud.