How Olympic Sprint Coaching, Chinese Systems, And Wearable Resistance Shaped Elite Speed

Two coaches at the sharp end of elite sport pull back the curtain on how speed really gets built. We sit down with Olympic sprint and jumps coach Randy Huntington and Exogen’s Joseph DeSetti to unpack the methods, measurements, and micro-loads that turn good movers into great performers—safely.

Randy walks us through his global journey: rebuilding Chinese track and field with timing systems, load-velocity profiling, and individualized technique, then carrying those lessons into the NFL with athletes like Christian McCaffrey. The big reveal is deceptively simple: proprioception before load, technique before intensity, and measurement before judgment. You’ll hear how mini hurdles, activator belts, and wearable resistance create “compliance” so athletes feel front-side mechanics, fix high heel recovery, and apply real force into the ground.

We go practical and specific. Learn how placing grams on thighs or calves changes torque and awareness, why many pros are strong in the weight room yet weak in key patterns, and how to progress from drills to sprinting without spiking soft-tissue risk. Randy shares a step-by-step logic for acceleration and max-velocity coaching, including when he refuses to load calves, how he resolved years of Achilles pain in days using tools and microcurrent, and why finishing sessions light locks in clean movement.

The conversation widens to return-to-play and water-based solutions, from deep-water running with targeted loads to building tendon capacity with simple skipping. Joe explains the “assistive vs resistive” framework and why acclimatization over four to eight weeks is non-negotiable at high speed. Throughout, the message stays grounded: no single method wins; a complete, measured toolbox and coach humility do.

If this episode reframes how you think about speed, share it with a coach or teammate who needs it. Subscribe for more candid, high-level conversations, and leave a review with the one coaching shift you’ll make this week.

Transcript

Setting The Stage: Guests And Goals

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey, Jeff here back with another episode of Down the Rabbit Hole. And today, guys, we have a very special episode. We have uh, well, it's it's we have three people on the call uh uh today myself, Randy Huntington, and Joseph DeSetti of Exigen Lila. Exigen, uh, this is Joe's second time being on the podcast, but this is the first time with with Coach Randy Huntington. And guys, I am super excited um for you to listen to this as uh Randy is for anyone that doesn't know, Randy has been an Olympic sprints coach, jumps coach. He kind of he's a jack of all trades type of coach uh who's been around for a very long time. And he works with professional athletes of man, all levels, um, from NFL to NBA to Olympic sprinters in the US and jumpers to Chinese Olympic sprinters. And Randy is just he is just a wealth of knowledge. And having both him and Joe on this, we talk everything speed training, man. First, I wanted to get Randy's you know background. I wanted to learn a little more about Randy and how he got to working with you know Su Bing Chin of uh the Olympic Sprints Sprinter uh from China. For anyone who may not know, uh I think it was 2021. Um Sue set the all-time the world record in the 60-meter sprint, running the fastest 60 meters in in recorded history. And um he was an Olympic sprint, uh, he's an Olympic sprinter, 100-meter sprinter that run a ran a 9.83, which is blazingly fast um for uh any sprinter coming out of China. And Coach Randy, I really wanted to get him on because I again I've known of his work for a very long time, but it wasn't really until his course that came out on Altus, which I couldn't recommend hire to anyone on on re-engineering Sioux, it's what it's called, and you can find it on Altus. Um, I after watching that, I was like, I gotta, I gotta talk to this guy. Um, it was absolutely refreshing to watch a course and get the full spectrum of thoughts that went into everything. It wasn't just like, I'm great, I'm this, I'm that, and this is the amazing result. It was no, here's the thought process, here's the assessments, here's the exercises, here's the drills, here's everything we did, here's what I thought, here's what I saw. It was just awesome, uh, absolutely awesome. And so I really wanted to get Randy on uh to talk about Sue and his experience over in China and the differences between, you know, coming, you know, being a US citizen and working with U.S. athletes and then going over to China and the difference in the systems there. And then, you know, what he learned with his. I think he was there for 13 years. He's still he's still involved, and now coming back to the States, and you know, he'll tell you he's he'll never fully retire. Um, but uh he I know he's working with, and we we get into it a little bit. He's working with several uh high-level, very high-level NFL running backs, uh, Christian McCaffrey being one of them, and Bijong Robinson of the Atlanta Falcons being the other, which are two of my favorite running backs. So I wanted to learn what he's doing with them. Uh and obviously having Joe on, and and anyone who's seen Randy's course, a large tool that Randy likes to use for many reasons, which we get into, is the use of Lila's and wearable resistance and what that has done for his athletes and where that fits in Randy's training and why he uses it and the science behind it, and Joe's use of it with high-level athletes. Both of these coaches, guys, work with Olympic level athletes, like the highest of the highs. And so um I wanted to get into why you know wearable resistance and why they both feel it is such a great tool to be used. Uh so, anyways, we have a great show, guys. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do. It's a long one. Uh, we get into everything. Um, I had an absolute blast talking to these gentlemen. I hope you enjoyed as much as I do. Please give a like, share, and subscribe, and um, you know, feel free to send some comments and and share it on on social media. I I I hope you guys enjoy it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Pro group was Gretzky, you know, and with Wayne back in the early

Randy’s Coaching Roots And Global Path

SPEAKER_02 4:30

90s, a couple years, and uh the NFL guys, Trace Armstrong, Henry Ellard, um, and others. Um, eventually on to the Broncos a few years later, uh, 10 years later almost. And that's where I met Eddie McCaffrey and trained Eddie. And uh that's kind of how I ended up with Christian and Luke this past year. Um which has been a great experience. They're just great kids, you know. I mean, it's it's it's it's Eddie and Lisa's little boys, you know. Because I well, Luke hadn't been born yet, but the last time I I had seen Christian before this, I was holding him. He was a baby, you know. So uh um it's uh and it's you know 12 years in China, three years in South Korea. Um that's that's just the coaching experience. And so it's yeah, then I've lived out of the country quite a while, so you've had chances to experience a lot of different systems, and I think that lead that lends itself to uh um to being a little more open to ideas and change. It was a bit of a shock to come back to the United States, to be honest. Um but that's uh that's a political discussion we can have later. Um yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Uh well I we'll get into we'll we'll keep it more to the uh the athletic side, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

Otherwise I'll be I will be off. Yeah. So let's go.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah, you know, well, you gave away your boxes of wine too, so we can't get yeah, yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Um so yeah, that's it. You know, it's just it's just years and years on top of working for Kaiser and MBT and you know, having the opportunity to to be in that industry. So I really learned a lot about the history of the industry, um going way back to Nautilus and everybody and looking at what's happened. So I uh I'm not a one-dimensional coach, I'm not a track coach, it's a lot of different things and sports medicine side, you know, looking using the early days and the 80s of frequency-based medicine, kind of before everybody was using it, you know, in the in the early 80s. So yeah, it's been it's been fun, been a good ride so far. Now it's kind of time to go quiet it down a little bit and just give back to the coaches. That's sort of my my thing now, as much as I can, if I can, you know, so um we'll we'll try.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Love that. That's awesome. Um, now I I'm sorry, this wasn't uh a scripted question, but I just can't help it. Uh I'm a I was a social studies teacher, so history is very important to me. And I I think uh understanding the history of our profession and where ideas and methods and and things come from uh is very important. And and uh I'm curious, you know, has what what have you seen historically? You know, how has history kind of uh helped or or hurt or what what you know uh as far as your coaching through here, because you've been around uh a bit longer than I have, sir. So just curious, you know, if that's uh how is that shaped kind of you know who you are today and and how you work with Christian and and Luke or other athletes?

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Well, I'll I'll take that last part first. Somebody asked me this just in and um Joe heard me say this. I don't know if he's still on there or not, but um I uh someone asked me this just just last week, and they said, so what's different between when you were coaching Eddie and and now them? And I said, Well, really, not much. I mean, speed speed, training's training, technique's technique, you know, acceleration's acceleration. Uh those those animals haven't changed. But what's changed is your ability to monitor and and and having the appropriate you know more tools to be able to make yourself more accountable and the athlete more accountable. So now you know a lot more about what you're doing before you were doing it, and just hoping you were guessing as good as you could. Um, but now you you know most coaches are kind of turning into their own sport scientists, yeah. Which can be good and bad, depending upon um how many ends of one you have and uh how uh how well you're able to uh organize them. Now, as for as far as the the other history, you know what I uh what I've been around long enough to see is the uh the um return of ideas. You know, there was the the the eccentric concept came floating through here for a number of years. Now the isometric concepts coming back through, you know, and and the fact is they all have a place and they've all been tools. So, you know, and and I wrote a lot an article back in 1989 or I think it was 89 or 88, I can't remember, in which I described the coach's toolbox, you know, then what we had to work into. Um and and and just you know that that hasn't changed, it's just your toolbox grown in terms of monitoring. Now on the recovery side, um well, for me, I've always done a lot of stuff in recovery, anyways, but with uh um the advent of some of the newer technologies, safer technologies, uh, you know, red light PMF, uh you go down the list. Um that has become a bigger part of, you know, I mean, we when we we're working with Christian, you know, we've we you've got to take a guy who's you know got in a car wreck every Sunday and get him back by the next Sunday to be a normal driver again. And and and and that in itself is an extreme challenge. And you know, you think of these poor uh medical staffs on the NFL teams and others who you know they got you know 55, whatever number of guys in the practice squad, 53, whatever, and and they got to deal with them all. That's a I mean, that's a really, really tough job. Really tough job. Yes, sir. So my hat goes off to them.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Yes, sir. Now, uh have you spent the last, correct me if I'm wrong, the last 12 years uh in in China, sir?

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Pretty much, yeah. Okay, yeah. Since 2013.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

First of all, how did that come to be? And uh, you know, how how was that? Are you still involved with the Chinese sprinters and and program over there? Or what what yeah?

SPEAKER_02 11:05

Well, to do the last part first, I um am not really, but still consulting, not consulting financially, just talking to some of the kids that are still pretty good who don't have coaches and getting them in the direction of coaches. Um Raina Ryder is over there now, so he's replaced me, which is a great replacement. He's arguably in the top sprint coach in the world. Um the the way I got over there was my my coach that I worked with as an assistant at Oregon was Dennis Whitby. And Dennis, after Oregon, went to China for two years, came back, took a position in Cal, actually, finished his PhD at Oregon, then he went back to China, actually went back to Hong Kong.

Tools, Monitoring, And The Return Of Old Ideas

SPEAKER_02 12:00

And uh in 2010, we had the East Asian Games and in Hong Kong, and Dennis said, Hey, you want to have dinner? I said, Sure, and he invited Dr. Feng, who was his assistant when he was in China. Dr. Feng was the vice president of Chinese Athletics. We had dinner, cool, got to meet him, great guy. Um, and then uh a few years later, I'm working for Kaiser, and I had never taken a vacation ever, and I couldn't afford one. And on one of our Monday meetings, I said, Guys, I'm gonna go on vacation this week. And they said, Where are you going? I said, Don't know. I'm going to the airport, and the first thing that comes up, I'm buying a ticket and going. Wow. I hadn't really thought that out because it's alphabetical. So, so the first, and this was Portland, so the first thing on the air on that came out was Beijing. So I bought a ticket to Beijing just because uh I'd been to China before, but I hadn't really spent a whole lot of time there. And I sent a note to Dr. Feng and said, Hey, I'm coming over. You want to have lunch? You know, and they, you know, being that I coached Mike Paul and all that, they sort of opened the gate for me, which was really wonderful. Um, and that, you know, not to belabor this too much, but long story short, he said, Hey, do you want to go see a track meet? I hadn't seen one for a few years. We went down, it was the national championships indoors. He asked me to talk to the kids. I did. And I went home. You know, I did all my tourist stuff in Beijing and went home. Six, seven months later, I get an email from him saying, Would you want to come coach in China? You know, I was director of marketing for Kaiser. And I thought about it for a while, and I went into sat down with Dennis Kaiser. I said, you know, maybe I should do this. Because I think maybe I can help this this concept of Kaiser, this this how do we use it? Since I started using it in 1983, um, and all that's I mean, people didn't even know it existed that long, that long ago. And I said, maybe this will help uh the company more with me being in China uh and and growing it. Um and and not not necessarily purposefully, it's part of my DNA, it's just the way it is. It's I don't succeed without it. You know, I mean I just don't. I've tried, I can't get the same results. Um so I left and went to China. That's how I got there.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

That's awesome. What uh I mean, what what was the pro what was kind of the uh the environment, the programs like over there and and and you know what's what is it now?

SPEAKER_02 14:46

I mean what what have the growth or or or yeah it's changed dramatically, as a matter of fact. Even Raina, he goes, Man, I gotta take my hat off to you, Randy, because it is completely different than when he was there in 2015, you know, with uh Beijing um uh World Outdoors and 2012 as well. He goes, it's just changed completely. I mean, the warm-ups, the running drills, none of that was done. Pertom mobility, I mean, it didn't exist. Um when I got there, every athlete in every event did the same warm-up as well. General warm-up. Every athlete did the same workout on Monday every week of the year for their entire career. And uh Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday. So they were they basically just it they just did the same stuff, and that is one of the reasons why they are fairly successful, the youth and the uh uh juniors, because they've done so much, so so many uh repetitions of certain things that they can outshine the the uh the foreign kids who aren't in that in those kind of systems, um particularly in the jumps. So they get end up and end up getting very elastic but without a lot of strength. So the strength training was was was poor. Um the education level of the of the coaches, and these are not dumb people, don't get me wrong. It's the difference between being dumb and and not having the educational opportunity, so they just hadn't. So when I first got there, nobody had ever used a computer, nobody had ever used and none of the athletes had ever seen themselves in video. Wow, you know, I mean nothing, so they weren't using their phones for video, none of that existed. So and they'd never seen a PowerPoint presentation. Yeah, it's 2013, you know, been doing PowerPoints for 20 years at that point. Um yeah, it it was uh it was very prehistoric in many ways, which means there was a ton of upside. You know, now they were very good in certain events, and other sports were different. This is not all China, this is just athletics just tracking the field. You know, other sports were very advanced, but this particular one, for some reason, couldn't get out of its own way. And uh for instance, our sports science was still much like the US used to be, in that it was research-based for them, not practical based for the athlete. You know, so they had to do that, you know, they do their research and then nobody ever knew what it was, and and and it didn't it didn't really affect them. So they needed, as we did, we needed you know on-site on-site sports scientists, people who understood the events. I didn't need a sports scientist, I needed uh, you know, an application sports scientist who could help me uh understand what needed to change. That is still in its evolution there. That's still evolving, they're still learning.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Um, how now how was that received? Uh you know, someone from the West coming over and you know, hey, you guys are doing this and you're that this and we need to get rid of this. I mean, I wasn't.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

How'd you sell that, sir? I did I didn't sell it. Well, you you sell it with with uh results. Yes, sir. That's how you sell it. I mean, in the end, that's how you sell it. So um, yeah, there was a there was a sense, and I didn't

China Track: Culture Shock And System Overhaul

SPEAKER_02 18:30

quite understand, even though I'd been in South Korea for three years before and and had you know been in Thailand lecturing and uh Japan, I didn't really um understand the lose face as much as it exists. In South Korea, I got a sense of it after a few years, but in China I thought there was a little more open. But the fact is that once I started promoting these things, the coaches lost face because they didn't promote it, they didn't know about it, and and and so I wasn't liked, and in some cases still not liked, which I I mean, do you care? Well, you care because you want people to to do better and you hope that they'll listen. Um but at the other side, you know, it's about the athlete, it's athlete-centered, so you can't care. You can't care that somebody's getting their butt hurt because they don't they didn't understand or didn't work, you know. You what you do try to do though is educate them, which I did for a long time. And then, you know, the women uh coaches over there really wanted to learn, they were great students. The men's coaches, not so much. Yeah, but they would go study like crap behind your back because they were trying to, you know, one up you. We gotta be as good. Yeah, we gotta be as good as Randy. I'm like, well, that's not gonna take much, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Now you said um when you got there that the athletes were very elastic. I mean, what what uh tests, what did you do to kind of

SPEAKER_02 20:00

uh see where they where they were do you do force velocity profiling you went to load velocity profiling do you do different power jump measurements like what when you got there how did you kind of all of the above all the above okay i mean all of the above uh and i took i took all i in the first year of there i spent sixty thousand dollars almost 70 of my own money to get stuff because their accounting system would take two years to to get it and so no timing systems everything was hand timed so i brought timing systems in um there was no uh no measurements per se of lifts so i brought you know measuring lifts in with originally tendo and then moved on to more things as we went um there uh you know the regular jump tests they I mean one of the hardest things for particularly for the because I went over first is a long jump coach and kind of they wouldn't let me coach a triple jump even though I'd coached the world record holder and American record holders in the triple jump but uh so in the long jump you know one of their um one of their issues and and Joseph heard me talk about this the other night one of their issues was they kept they they just would always jump for distance but they would never jump then never figure out how do I jump far. It would just always be how far did I jump? Just go yeah and so there was no system and there was no rhythm there was nothing and as it turns out you know when I first got there I sat and observed for three weeks I just observed everything wrote it down look at what's going on here at the end of that three weeks I realized I didn't understand anything they were doing it was except that they were doing the same thing every Monday Tuesday Wednesday I figured that part out but then I also started to understand that the the number one athlete was telling the coach what to do here's what I want to do today. Interesting that was it so we'd come in and he'd jump three times and go home strength training was all the strength all the strength training all of it there was uh quarter squats uh Chinese cleans these things these things which are not bad I mean the the second the third one's not bad but that's what all they do and they go home there was no other aspect of performance in the SNC world that they did that was really worthwhile and what were some of the uh what were some of the results that you got that kind of started getting them to to come over to to Randy's side a little bit the dark the dark side of the force. The dark side well mostly it was 847 847 843 834 831 829 you know seven in the top ten all time in in in within three years so it's you know and these were these were kid guys that came in basically at 780 790 in the long gym so you know Xiuhao 843 as a 19 year old Wang Jinan 847 as a 21 year old uh Legion say 822 847 as a 22 year old they were all under 22 23 um and somewhere right in there but uh I mean the when I got them they were all under 18 except for Legion say they were all um 19 18 and 19 year olds so you know Wang Janan won world juniors first time in history well that Chinese long jumper won world juniors uh legion say got a medal in the long jump at world indoors first time in history and then the next year we got so we went from nothing in history to medal medal medal medal medal finalist finalist finalist and so now when you go to world championships or olympic games it's like oh yeah well Chinese are here they're gonna jump so we got to beat them you know and that was that that success opens a lot of doors that are normally now I never learned the language so doing this you know I mean I I look back on it now and go geez randy um you know no there's all a complete language barrier so coaching in this this matter as I have said Joseph heard me say this I think every coach should have to do two things coach in a foreign language and coach middle school which is really a foreign language um in a sense today particularly but uh um and and that that gets you down to the fundamental or rudimentary uh aspects of everything you do in coaching because you can't do you can't do this I mean I still see you know I look at the videos online these days and see what people are doing and I still see elite drilling and aspects overlaid on youth and I thought we'd we dismissed that years ago and it's it's back now no running sprinting drills and all that you got to do that young that should be done you should be developing that but other things man you know and and so you you get kids are either going to get injured or burn out take your pick um and and and that's something I think that we've got to be real careful of is it is is overlaying uh elite training onto children yes sir well that kind of ties in uh to the next question I had so when you came back to the states and keeping it non-political what about the environment especially especially can there uh the environment of athletic development and speed development in the United States what's I mean was there a change were you kind of shocked at at the culture um you know what what what are we doing well here in the states in your opinion what are we not doing well here in in your opinion well I think you know when you look at the the the culture at least they're just making up for the fact there's no PE anymore but a lot of them weren't PE teachers so you know you've got that that that that loss of you know the evolutionary side of child development um that is some something we have to be constantly aware of um see a lot of people out still to this day coaching positions not actions although that's changing fast people are starting to understand the whole movement not just the pieces you know uh that used to be a real problem that people you'd see people go I want you to get to this position here and well how do you get there for gosh sakes but I see um speed gurus who are not really understanding speed mechanics but the fact is that when you start teaching a child speed mechanics they're gonna get slower for a while it takes a while to get through that and and that freaks everybody out and if you've got got a strong constitution you're gonna freak out and say and you'll stop before before they get to where they need to go so stop the journey and you'll just worry about speed and you won't worry about how to get faster which then in the end limits them down the road or in the case of you know when you get an elite coach you got to undo it all and then redo it which takes you you know a good part of a year to get that done um it's not like you're asking people do the job for you but you are saying you know hey can you at least do the pieces to the puzzle properly um you know I look I look at some of the guys and some of the facilities they had and geez I wish you know I'd been around that kind of money when I was their age um because we could have built some great facilities back then. I mean I look at the facilities today and they're exactly

Data, Timing, And Early Wins In Long Jump

SPEAKER_02 28:30

what I would have designed in the late 80s you know I mean we were just that far ahead in terms of thinking um and I've always been a tinkerer from that perspective um I will try new technology and things out without necessarily knowing exactly what it's gonna do I have a pretty good idea but um I feel that uh you know one and one of the things this is interesting one of the things I told the Chinese in my very first meeting uh and this is so this is 2013 I said look you guys we may not have the genetic ability of the African American or the Africans or whoever that uh sort of dominate certain events in track and field I said but we do have a technology and I can tell you in the United States very few coaches understand it yet so you got about a five year head start we can where you can jump ahead of them and and you can take athletes that are less than and and move them to um better than which is kind of what we did. You know so I was introducing technology over there that really hadn't happened over here you know exogen for instance has not really happened was it wasn't really happening in the US yet 1080 wasn't happening in the US yet you know as as some free lap wasn't happening in the US a few people had it you know some of the late coaches were but there was uh so that that was one of the advantages we had for the people who would listen is that we could so that's the that's the technology I bought and brought over and um but you you can utilize technology to your advantage you can also let it ruin you if you're not careful. You could look at that yeah yeah that's right.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Well since you kind of brought that up I'm gonna jump a couple questions and we got Joe Joseph on here um when were you introduced to wearable resistance uh and and you know where does that kind of what what role does that have in your training process? Me?

SPEAKER_02 30:41

Yes sir you and then yeah and then we'll get get to I wasn't I actually was never introduced to it I just created it. Okay. So I and in and when I was at Berkeley back in 1983 and then before that at Oregon you know we had ankle weights well I mean it became pretty obvious the ankle weights were way too heavy and but the aerobic dance world was coming to fruition was being really popular in the late 70s early 80s mid eighties and they had developed um weights for the women to use in their dance classes and so I pulled those out of the dance class and put them on the athlete's arms and ankles and then some uh a guy in Chicago I can't remember his freaking name right now I'm sorry developed uh pants and so I was using weighted pants back in um with Mike Powell back in 8788 so and then of course vest had been around forever that was the one thing that had been around a long time um and but but it wasn't being used very much by the jump sprint group was most of the throwers who were using it um because they were also very heavy but yeah so for me I just started utilizing this and and and again and and Joseph's heard me say this recently you know my first reason for using it was to teach the athlete where they were in space and time where the limbs were because they didn't know where they were and um you know where's my you you say I want you I want you to recover your foot uh where's my foot you know you had no idea where it is so you know when you're trying to correct somebody who's got a big wheel in the back and get them to have big wheel in the front they don't know where the big wheel is so they can't go to where it's supposed to be and and when you use um what I call compliance hardware it they change because they can feel it and it helps them comply to your needs and and their needs um and that's you know when I I first used that word compliance software back with something um it's actually sitting right here I just picked this up picked this out of my thing so this this is something I used and will still use it's called music and sync so this was compliant software this was in 1985 okay and a guy created he took Nike shoes he put a he put a um a micro a layer in it and then he recorded the footsteps okay and then he created the music to it so now he had every footfall rhythm from a hundred beats per minute all the way up through 240 beats per minute and what happened for somebody who's on a treadmill if you put them on with the music they would comply they would start running to the beats per minute in the music. Yes sir um even though it was hidden in there it was hidden in the music it was still the so that was compliance software so that's where he came up with the term compliance hardware that uh you your your body complies to it. Yeah so I mean it's been a part of my life since the mid 80s.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

That's awesome when when when we're introduced to to to Lila and uh you know from my understanding of the history of wearable resistance I mean like you were mentioning the ink weights and vests historically were always kind of heavy. Well Joe's kind of gone on the other side of that with with light is is the new fast you know so when except those aerobic people were doing a hundred grams oh 200 grams.

SPEAKER_02 34:28

So they were because women you know just couldn't they they they were afraid to go too heavy but yeah so that's so their wrist weights were just the right right weight and then that's and and Joseph's been right in the middle of that so I was exposed to that well I saw um um advertisements and I can't remember exactly which magazines but um for it and then in 2017 uh actually had um Yan Ding who was a distributor in China at that time get me some and uh that was where we first started using and it was like okay here comes the ability to not only have the resistance but then to change the torque about the the the joint that you wish to be affected. So if I want you know so that was nice to be able to move it. And um I'd say back in the old days the only negative was that the darn things kept coming the glue kept coming undone

Technique First: Elasticity, Strength, And Progress

SPEAKER_02 35:30

in the heat but that was something it they've corrected uh since then um the good news is the Chinese companies that ripped them off haven't corrected it so they they still fall apart.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

So when you wear wearable resistance the one of the main first things you you you wear them for is more appropriateception?

SPEAKER_02 35:52

Yep absolutely that's the that's the first first part. Yes sir then training then then then the train because you mean if you're just putting them on and you're going and there's no appropriateception involved then you're training the wrong stuff you know I mean it's like you've got a foot dysfunction and you train through it you just train into the dysfunction and I don't want to train into the dysfunction so correct the dysfunction first or in this case technical flaw get the flaw right and then start adding in the tools to help you train the appropriate technical model that athlete's model not necessarily your model but the athlete's model which is the beauty of compliance hardware because it it the with their different lever lengths it changes what the way it's done for them you know when someone someone like Wang Jinan who has extremely uh long femurs you know he's world champion and world uh junior champion really long femurs and we did you know we looked at the numbers from him in 2018 and we just saw that his the angular velocity of his thigh takeoff was a hundred degrees per second lower than the best so okay so how do we change that well you can't change that with the machine because you can get stronger but you aren't getting faster so you know that's when we started going to the pants and moving moving moving the weight down over time so that we started having higher velocities with more resistance and in that that's you know that got Eddie out to eight eight forty seven his name's Eddie um out to eight forty seven and then his medal in Eugene in 2023 probably should have won in 2016 probably should have won in 2021 but he just had bad days so yeah sir so do you start okay let's just we'll we'll keep it the team sport athletes uh NFL player do you start with kind of a technical model watching them run and that's gonna tell you where you want to use the Lila's for pro perception where you want to do that um and you know is it so you could have Christian and his brother um you know with you and you and you load them both differently based off of their their their running styles well one of the hardest things to do um and one of the places where where Lila where exogen um kind of gets in the way but you can still use it to correct it so Christian was a dominant lifter everything he did was lift off the ground very powerful no force into the ground he just missed that part of it you know I mean he his even though in the on the field he'd still do it but when he started to run he was and don't get me wrong having great uh lifting ability is is is okay but when you don't apply force to the ground then it's not um and and so if you put on exogen and you have that problem now you've got now you're reinforcing the problem so we had to teach him how to first feel down and that's where I use a different tool I use the activator belt. The activator belt and then I'll use the activator belt and exogen combined yes sir and then I'll take the activator belt out and then the exogen out and then they're off. So that's kind of the the role it's activator first to learn ground forces add in the exogen with activators so now that you're you're enhancing the amount of force then you take the activator off now you've got your appropriate technical model and then then you get to where you don't need anymore.

SPEAKER_01 39:46

Yes sir yeah the the when an athlete tells me oh that feels so much better that is like as good as gold to me uh I have so with I mean between your activator belts we have six pairs and then I have Jeez, a ton of Lila's. Uh, those are huge tools for me, uh, learning tools. And and they kill two birds with one stone, in a sense, where I don't have to do these cues and all of these fancy necessarily drills, because where I load it will, or where I uh put the band on the activator belt can can do a lot of the work for me as a coach.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

Yep, that's compliance hardware. That's what it is. Yeah. So I mean, so that's exactly what you mean. You and you said it, but when you use these two tools, you can teach people how to sprint in very short order.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

You know, how to apply force. I mean, for the most part, that's the hardest thing. The two hardest things are how to apply force to the ground and how to recover properly. And you know, the recovery part is still an issue for a lot of people, and and and this is something that uh we work I work with Ralph Mann on quite a bit um before you know Ralph passed away last year. But um we can't, you know, we we figured out that with well, let's say someone like Sue, who's got really short levers, that Sue was was still had a pretty high butt kick. So his recovery, I'll use this. That's his so his recovery was about here. Okay, bring camera there. His recovery is his heel, his foot was about here. Well, we did some work, and I actually put him on the force platform, and I started him here. I just had him swinging his leg. And I and I wanted to see what was the force on the other foot, you know. And and and and so what we what we figured out is that as we came up from here to here, somewhere right about here was when you had the greatest force through the length. So you actually had the right lever length. Now, if you know that, now you put X gen on, and now you're training force application down, force application in your lift. It's a different different thought process. So instead of the speed of the lift, it's the force part of it. And in Sue's case, we needed him to get his knee to just drive three frames duh duh duh before he started down because he was overcooking it. He was boop boop, he was too fast. Um, you know, we had uh if you can imagine, you know, most of the time you hear 0.081 or so it was a really great uh ground contact time. Well, Sue was 0.074. Yeah. And so he was it was too good. I mean, I'd made him too fast, too quick. Now I had to slow him down. And I had to get so he was he was going boom boom, and now I needed him to feel that. So the only way he could feel that was to load his to load his um thigh with the exogen and load his calf so he could figure out where his foot was in space and time. Gotcha. And he went so but but he went from a stride length of 221 to 238 in Tokyo.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

Wow. Yeah. So when you get athletes, because I I would say high heel recovery is definitely uh a problem that I see with sprinters, uh, particularly around here, you know. So you like loading uh from a practical sense, do you like loading uh the back, or you try to you try to do more of those drills you said to find that optimal force, uh thigh angle of velocity force? Or like what are things you like to do to work on that? Because I find that's a difficult thing to get uh some of these athletes, particularly the ones that don't have good uh proprioception and letter own sprinting.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

Well, we didn't talk about mini hurdles. Well, I was gonna add, I was just gonna ask, is that something yes? Yeah. Um we use we use mini hurdles, you know, with exogen, with activator bells. Okay. I made the mistake, and this is a mistake I talk about and try to get people not to, I made a mistake of thinking that the higher mini hurdles would be better. Now, when you have somebody who's frequency-based, maybe that could be the case, but it's still but what it what it encourages is a high butt kick because they're afraid to hit the hurdle. So, in the case of uh of Sue and everybody now, I don't go over six inches when we do many hurdles. Because I want them to feel that you know this comes out of this is my triple jump coach thing, because when you're coming off the the hop and you see people in the hop, I'll go back to my little thing here. These did these are really cool, by the way. They're they're a little they're a little memory thing for your iPhone. You plug it in

U.S. Speed Culture: Mechanics, Myths, And Tech

SPEAKER_02 45:00

and takes all your pictures off your iPhone. But so in the in the hop, you see people uh oftentimes you hear me talk about this the other night too. You see people oftentimes they come down in the hop. So this is the free leg now, and the free leg goes back, and then they come forward with just the knee, and the lower leg is just hanging up there again, too short. So they there, but there's no power in it. So this is one of the things we learned, and and this is why I brought this up to Ralph is that we learned to to lead with the foot, the top of the foot, yes, to get that for and you feel this tremendous. Now you're using it's like you know, in the old days of long jumping, they used to run down the thing with weights and throw them and hold on to them. It's essentially the same thing. You're you're using your lever length now for power, for the foreside of power, and uh and you and it's finding that magic place. You know, if you look at uh look at uh our Italian sprinter, gold medalist, look at his heel recovery height. You know, his coach was a triple jumper and triple jump coach. It shows you so how do you teach that? You know, that's where the mini hurdles come in.

SPEAKER_01 46:18

We gotta get Joe making some wearable resistant socks.

SPEAKER_02 46:21

Well, we talked about that. We talked about loading the top of the foot there.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

I like that.

SPEAKER_02 46:26

Yep. I mean, we've got there's there's guys making them in China, but they're not very good. So that's the next uh one of the next things we need to have because having it on the foot, top of the foot, particularly, really changes everything you're feeling and in the hip, hip joint. Awesome. Um but yet as a coach, if you can if you can start to do mini hurdles properly, and we start off with the kids at 0.5 meters and just standing and reaccelerate the thigh, you know. So boom. I just I actually had someone just yesterday send me a video, and it showed their their their athlete doing it. He's got that you know this is really great, and I'm like, nah, not so much. He's pushing down. And and and I and I say, remember, muscles can only pull. There is no pushing, actions can be pushing, but muscles themselves can only pull. So you need to teach him how to feel pull that creates the push, and that will change what's going on. So my theory has been, and of course, I think it's now coming a little bit to fruition, in that as you hit the ground, as you hit the ground, um if you learn how to re-accelerate the thigh, here's the thigh, you re-accelerate that part. This this this trails. If you do that, you've got a dorsiflex foot to protect the knee. If you hit the ground, all of this elastic tissue in the back gets just and pulled apart, and you've got a huge, huge rubber band back there. Then now, if you understand how to work it, it'll flick the foot and thigh forward instead of up and back. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 48:17

Gotcha. Um with uh with your work in the NFL in uh you know, in today's modern day, as we were talking a little bit uh before uh with the recording, you know, what are some of the biggest challenges you find working and with starting an off-season with with some of the players that you do? Well, this you know, it's a little unique, right?

SPEAKER_02 48:38

With particularly with Christian, because you know, he was um he was injured, you know, Achilles tendinitis and PCL. And so, you know, we had to work around all that in the beginning, and he and the and the Achilles tendinitis was not going away. It was just not, I mean, it'd been I think almost four years. And um, you know, I mean, this guy plagued with pain. That's amazing to think about how he did it and and how he does it. But uh so with him, it was a little different than like Bijan Robinson and Dijon. We didn't have enough time with Bijan to correct him, but that will be the goal for him in this offseason is to help him um run better. Now, a lot of times you want to help a guy run better and he's never and he's never run better. Hamstrings almost over every time. Um, you know, when they when they have a uh uh a flaw in their technique and you haven't corrected it completely, don't put the Lila on. Sorry, Joseph, or they will that it'll lead to a bad thing, and that's not what you're trying to do. You have to really um drill them with Lila on for quite a while, and then that conditions the hamstrings. Everything gets all the tendons, everything gets conditioned so that now you can let them go, and it works great. Um you know when you when you have extra force on the on that uh bottom of that tibia, uh it can it can be a problem if they're casting. So you have to teach them not to cast first, and then you're good, then you're golden. So um the as I said was Christian, he was a lifter. Um, you know, no offense to Kula, he just hadn't corrected that. And maybe he didn't have time, maybe they just didn't, because I really don't know how much time he had to work with Christian in the offseason, because uh when he was with Carolina too. Um but that that was one of the first things we did is was we corrected that, you know, and say, look, let's let's teach let's get you putting force into the ground. You can say it, but but you gotta be able to see it too. And he you could I could say it to him, but he wasn't getting it. You know, I mean it was like okay. Then we went to the activator belt, and that immediately, I mean, within two days, yeah, they're getting it, you know. Awesome. Yeah, um I think one of the other things that's surprising is is from a track coaching standpoint, is that these NFL guys are weaker than I think they are. You know, I mean huh? And I mean, I I'm I was surprised that they're they're they're not as strong.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

And you know, certainly you know, it it's the specific strength they're lacking, you know, and those protect them at the moment they need to be protected.

SPEAKER_02 51:36

Yep, and you know, that's where exogen comes in. I mean, that's where you're you know, you just you drill and drill and you're you're learning to protect yourself. But even in like squatting, I expected to see much stronger squatting ability. Now, um, no, and and someone like uh again with Christian this year, he was he was injured, so he couldn't really push that. You

Wearable Resistance Origins And Philosophy

SPEAKER_02 52:00

know, you couldn't push a lot of sprinting, you couldn't do a lot of that until until I finally resolved his Achilles tendonitis. I mean, I finally got through it and figured out what what what tool was going to work, and boom. It was gone in in minutes and and never came back. Well, I mean, we yeah, it was it was you know, I mean, we worked on it for a few days, but then it was like it's got it's gone, you know, and uh part of that was Joseph heard me talk about this. Part of that was he had some scars, and you know, scar this these scars were healing, and when they're healing, that tissue was getting like this, and it was pulling on the on that sheath, and I released those scars, and that took care of a good part portion of it. It you know, had to work on it for a little bit, but 90% of it was gone very fast, and then that little other part, and he's played the whole season with no Achilles pain. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 53:03

I mean, after four years, it's pretty amazing. Yeah. I'm uh uh I'm a posturologist, and one of the things we look at, sir, is we look at scars and the negative effects of scars and the importance of releasing that uh both manually, and then we had a we have a special uh essential oil that we use to put on it as well to help uh negate the negative effects, but people don't realize how bad scars can be for the system. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:27

Well, what I did is I used the grass and tools. You familiar with those? Yes, sir. So I have the graston tools, which I used for years, and and I taught this to David years ago, 1993 or 92. Um, and then I used my old myomatic, an old microcurrent device. And I I run the current through the tool, and now you've got electrical current while you're using the grass and it works at you know, it just magnifies the effect of the tool tremendously. Very cool. And that's that's how I got through it real fast. Is it uh and and and anybody who's having that Achilles kind of pain. I mean, you know, I feel bad for Kittle as you that thing went the other day. You know, the other thing, of course, we we we do a lot of work on strengthening the Achilles structure, you know, with the seated calf and and standing calf combo, and a lot of rudimentary jumps because you know, these guys, you know, if they were athletes in high school, they were doing everything, you know, and they get you know into the pro sports, and that's not so much the case. They don't do a lot of other things because they don't want to get hurt, you know. So you have to do rudimentary things that don't let them get hurt. Skipping rope is you know, a simple one. Um a lot of skipping drills, so you're getting dynamic, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:48

Well, if you in in your opinion, sir, uh speaking of Achilles, like why do you think there's such a huge like rash of just Achilles terrors in all sports right now?

SPEAKER_02 54:58

Yeah, well, what you know I know that's a very deep and multi-factoral thing, but but it but I think it's shoe design. Um I think they've they've gotten away a little bit from how that foot. Well, they're thinking too much about how that foot functions, but the big thing originally, and this goes back to the late 80s, and it was the first question I asked Christian, and that's what piqued his interest in and I think in working with me is um heel counter. And the heel counters were too high and too stiff, and so when they would accelerate, that heel counter would just go right into their Achilles. So where he was tender was where the heel counter was hitting. Um that torsional rigidity, you know, they're they're separating front from back. If you look at some of the shoes, that allows the front of the foot to torque, the barrier not. I mean, it's it's uh, you know, in my view, my opinion, that you should have a very solid uh um torsional strength. It should be continuous throughout and not separated. And bio mechanists may disagree, dunkey may disagree, uh, Adidas, who knows, but there have been way too many. Um you know, in basketball, for instance, I mean, they play a lot and without very little recovery. Now why they're having other injuries, I I mean, I just it's hard to say the I mean if you go from the collegiate season, which is how many games on 25, 30, something like that, yeah. Something like that, to uh NBA season, which is what, a hundred and I forget how many games in the NBA season now, but it's a lot. It's like triple or quadruple the amount. You know, if if uh you move from that system to that system, even though you're still practicing every day collegiately, um yeah, your your body can't repair, it doesn't have enough time. So recovery mechanisms, I think, probably need to be um more measured. I uh I believe that more specific strength would help them uh in in that. Even a little loading, like if you just put light loading in on basketball players during practice rather than even going in the weight room. But I'm not even sure. I mean, I'd have to go look at the teams, it'd be a very interesting to to to look at the the NBA um athletic trainers are you know arguably some of the best there are, and uh I'm sure they're all befuddled by this right now. I mean, you do have guys with really big feet, and you know how much force is being sent through that Achilles, it's a lot. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's one of the problems we have with the Chinese. They have baby feet. I mean, they're in size nines. Um going against guys with size 12s, you're losing three inches of takeoff.

SPEAKER_00 58:20

You know, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 58:23

Um now, if you had stay in everything, Christian McCaffrey from you know in season to everything, would you have him wear Lila's and wearable resistance in practice during during the season? No.

SPEAKER_02 58:37

They've already got their pads on. You use it all off season to you know emulate at having that extra weight.

SPEAKER_01 58:43

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_02 58:44

But uh no, I wouldn't. Um there between games, they're just trying to get back on their feet. I mean, it's it's pretty brutal. You know, uh off-season for sure. Yeah, a lot. I wouldn't with the NFL guys, because they're not they're not all trained to sprint, I probably would not use it. I'd use it in acceleration. I don't think I'd ever use it in max velocity. Although I would train it in max velocity drills, but I would never run with it at max velocity, except for vest and pants. But I'd never do it on the calf. Too many potential hamstring issues are gonna come up because you if you don't have you don't have a lot of time, you don't have time to make them sprinters. Uh you have time to correct some things, but I would just be careful with the lower with the calf side. Um, but you can drill them with the calf, I just wouldn't sprint them with the calf. I would accelerate them with the calf, because that's really important to understand where that that lower leg is in in your first four steps, or in their case, they make it two steps and they're changing direction already. Yes, sir. So um w we do we I would use them in um football specific drills in the offseason. Yeah. Wide receivers would be different because they've got a different game they play. Um you know, linemen would be different. I mean each each position becomes uh a little different in the way you would uh you would utilize the tools.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:15

Yes, sir. Joe, you're off the quiet, sir. Don't mean to we didn't forget about you, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:22

He just wants to he wants to reach through and slap me, you know. Like, what do you mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:26

You know, Joe Joe, do you got any any any questions, you got any comments, sir, sir? I don't mean to just yeah, exclude you.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:32

And and let me let me explain this for a second. When you got a guy who's getting paid, you know, millions of dollars, you can't get him hurt. Yes, and you know, I did it once with Christian and and I learned my lesson. So um even and and that was with somebody I thought was ready. So it's uh you just have to be really careful, know their background and know they're here, because a lot of those guys have one

Proprioception Before Load: How Randy Programs

SPEAKER_02 1:01:00

speed, and it's not slow, yeah. Going slow is not in their vocabulary, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:08

Yeah, well, we always say that in Canada is you know, a bear has one speed, top speed, and those athletes definitely reflect that. But just listening to Randy and and giving context to some of that very high-level discussion, taking it down to a very basic level, you know, and I have this conversation every day with elite coaches around the world, and I think that's probably been the most exciting part of my journey in high performance and now with the company is everybody's reaching out because it makes sense. But the one thing they're all trying to understand is well, how do I use the tool and where do I start? And you know, we've kind of uh, as Randy mentioned, wearable resistance that's a term I coined as we started the company. And because there wasn't a way to understand, you know, resistance on the body as part of the body versus uh an external resistance. But I think a hundred years ago people were making wearable resistance, and like Randy said, everybody worth their weight has probably developed some version of taking a weight and sticking it somewhere they needed it. And I remember it was Nick Winkleman who said, Joe, every coach in the world has tried to figure out how to glue weight on the body, but you guys finally figured it out, and now it's gonna take us, he and and this was the important part. He said, it's gonna take us 20 years to learn how to use it because we learned how to use a bar, we learned how to use a dumbbell, we learned external strength tools, and we're pretty good at them now. But when you put a load on the body, a lot of things happen. And I think that was the important part. And so for people to understand context, all the things Randy covered at a very high level with that product or any product is these are tools, and you have to learn how to use your tool. And a tool can be a benefit or a tool can be a problem. The other day I was in the jungle, you know, trying to use my machete as a hammer, and I almost took my finger off. And why? Because I was using the wrong tool for the wrong job, but it's the easy one I grabbed. And I remember sitting there thinking of building this little jungle camp. I was thinking, okay, I'm just gonna wait till I get the hammer. I'll go back to the house, I'll bring the hammer back tomorrow because that's what's needed here. And so, you know, every tool needs to be understood and where its value is. And exogen certainly is probably one of the leading products that we can really use at that far right side of the strength curve. And it's but it's like people ask me often, well, can it put on gain weight or things like that? I'm like, well, how is you know 50 grams gonna help you gain weight? That's not what the tool is built for. So I think one thing that we're proud of now is myself certainly, and within the company and and through educators like Randy and yourself, Jeff, the things we've learned, we've now got almost 20 years of information behind it. And really, I think not only innovating the tool of wearable resistance, uh, the the tool itself is a was was developed out of that learning, right? The research, the high-level people. Uh you you guys talked about the hand foot. I was always telling Randy, we have a whole new range coming out for micro, micro loading, which is hand foot and neck focused. And it's going to the next joint. And I won't go into that right now, but um it's lighter than light, and it's very interesting. But again, it's really important people understand where to start with the tool. And I have this conversation yesterday with the Carolina Panthers and you know, two days ago with Dennis Mitchell again, who's on his fourth year down there with Star Athletics, with not arguably, but the fastest people on the planet. And and and we we we focus on progression a lot. Like the first year, it was exactly what Randy had said. The first year we worked on it primarily in drilling. As again, when you have uh Kenny Banarik or a Melissa or Shakari and TT, um the number one thing you're conscious of is let's not do something wrong. So his his his thinking is from caution first um rather than performance first, because if you don't look at it that way, you know, you can get in trouble really quick, as Randy even mentioned there with someone like Christian or whoever they are. And again, they've only got one speed. You know, you say run a drill at 80%, you've got to realize 80% and 100% to them don't register, you know? And if you put three of them on the track together and one of them's a step ahead, whatever you told them, that's gone because that just became a range, you know, and and and and so so and these are things I've learned, obviously, sitting there. So one of the key things with whereabouts we we talk about, and it doesn't matter what tool you use, activator or whatnot, you need to acclimatize the athlete to that, you know, and there's a and there's a phase for that. And with Exogen, the very first thing we send out is our starter protocol, and it teaches you about the difference of loading, like a front side load versus a backside load. It has an enormously different effect. And nobody in the world really knew that before we kind of created the tool that allow us to feel that. You put that 100 grams or 200 grams on the back, that hamstring is going to be on that whole posterior chain, the elastic component from the hip right to the heel, that's under a very different stress as compared to the front. And so exposing them to different feelings of loading, getting them comfortable with it, doing it at the loading range that won't trigger problems and at sort of moderate and sort of speeds to higher speeds, which happens in a warm-up, is what we recommend. And you know, with soft tissue, you probably need a minimum four to eight weeks of that feeling so you feel comfortable that it's not the muscle you're trying to work or the movement, it's that joint. So just to reiterate, any new tool, take time to understand it. Don't we get people coming to us in a rush all the time? I got an athlete, they got a competition, it's two weeks out from the world, want to load up, and I'm like, well, no, you know, that's not where we start. And so we generally recommend for people to really, really focus on getting into the drills. And and there's different sports, different things. Uh we might be talking about balance. Like we look at archery and shooting, and we use exogen as a balance tool to teach athletes again awareness of movement, what parts of the body are in or out of balance. So, again, as a weight tool, there's no limitation on what you can do with this thing, other than your imagination. But if you talk about high speed, you know, as soon as you're in that parameter of high speed, that means you're also high risk. And when you get there, you have to, you have to be wired to think caution first, not performance. And so, like Randy said, what I love about some of the things he said is how many times he mentioned the first thing we did is, well, we kind of had to slow them down first. We kind of take the step first. And that allowed us to move forward, not just to get to the performance that we know we can get, but to do it safely. And and again, I'm just going to reiterate that with the tool because the number one issue an athlete will ever face is never losing. It's injury. Because when you have some form of injury, some form of niggle, you are unable to perform in training or competition. And and most of the athletes people work with, they're already high level. If you can get them consistently training, good things are going to happen. They're in the game, they're going to keep their contracts, they're going to fill the rice bowl, as we say here over in Asia. But as soon as there's an injury, then you're in that scramble. And so I just want to overly caution any tool, especially at high speed, take a little time, follow the warm-up protocols we've spent 20 years designing, and you're not going to have a problem. You know, and to this date, we have almost no very few issues with injury, but it can happen very quickly, as Randy said. I remember being with the Combine guys with Yo Murphy's group out of Florida, and we had a big guy, it was a Tennessee Titans genome, I think it was seventh overall two years ago in the draft. And he put just 200 grams on his 100-pound leg. And he went for a run, and the first thing he said is, I can film a hamstring. And what people didn't realize is the big guys can't handle more weight because they're relatively less strong and they have heavier limbs. And Randy, you would know this. So a hundred, I'm more confident working with a 180 or 200-pound guy at speed than I am with a 300-pound person because that body has tremendous force production, but you know, relatively a lot of weakness in it. And so, again, it's just let's not try and do this too fast. You've got a six weeks combine. Number one thing is keep them healthy. Two, get them to feel their body a little bit. And three,

Mini Hurdles, Recovery Pathways, And Force

SPEAKER_00 1:10:00

get a little bit more oomph in their acceleration. And you know what? They're gonna have a good 40 time. And you know, there's not much you can do in that period. So again, just reiterating the fact be safe, be smart, follow the guidelines, know your tool, and know what it can do and what it can't do. And and I think what's really interesting is all problems uh have two issues, right? The awareness problem and then the physiological issue that needs to be, or biomechanical issue that needs time to change. But we use that, we use that in our, you know, we talk now about what's called a resistive and an assistive load. And these are in our education programs. An assistive load helps the athlete to feel what they should be doing and the angle they need to be at. A resistive load then is done over time that helps them gain the specific kind of biomechanical neuromuscular adaptation that allows them to do that when the load's no longer there. So, you know, like I said, just like this tool, we we I what the first thing that shocked me, and I'll stop on this point. The first thing that shocked me is how little we knew about the you know, loading on the body, sort of the internal function of the body and movement when we added load, um, as compared to what we knew about external resistance, whether it was sleds. But then when I look back and I did quite a historical run, we had a hundred years of really good history of learning external loading, weight training, you know, and a lot of different people around the world were part of that. You know, certainly the Eastern European system mastered that. North America took and applied it to sport and multiple sport, but now we're we're still learning, and and I think people need to understand we're we're we're at the we've certainly learned a lot, but there's more to learn. And so I think what's really exciting is as Randy was mentioning, is taking a look at the technical areas, the feeling areas, because movement and sport is a feeling, and when an athlete feels good, good things tend to happen. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:01

Yeah, another another area, Joseph, which we haven't really talked about, is the rehabilitation sign. Yeah, um yeah, and and and for me, uh just a quick comment. So early on, I learned that you know, with like the ankle weights, I learned to reverse them because you know it was it is significantly different in the front than in the back, even at even at 200 grams, 100 grams, uh, which is what they what the what were the like the weight of the ones we used. But one of the things that we do is um, and this came from Dr. Leeroy Perry years ago as a chiropractor, but you know, we would do water traction. So we'd put a flotation belt on, a belt, and then a flotation belt, and then we would run a cord between the legs and and then put a weight. So now you're tractioning the hips while you're in the water, while you're in deep water. And fantastic for discs and everything. But then the next part of that is you put heavier Lela on the calves, and now you're tractioning the legs as well. So the combination of the hips and the legs for tractioning the lumbar region and and eventually anywhere from the weight belt, the the flotation belt down. Um and for all these, a lot of these guys really have low back issues for various reasons, but um yeah, we we we try to go in at least once a week doing that. And I think you've got swimmers using it now too, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:32

Yeah, China's one of the biggest, and uh just started uh and I'm really excited about this, and I'm gonna throw this out there because I don't hear a lot of talk yet about it, but I think it's the coolest thing in sport, and that's the enhanced games. And I you know, I don't have any or other alignments or feelings on whether you know these things. I just love the journey of looking at a possibility, and and they're doing it very safely, and I and I and I think the whole model is really interesting. We just started with Coach Brett Hawk, uh, who's the swim coach for the enhanced games and the track team. Um, and so I'm like I said, it's uh yeah, the swimming world is cool. And when we first started, it took us a little while to understand that because naturally in the water, loading, the first thought is well, maybe you don't want that. But then again, it just came down to understanding where and how the tool is used and for what, you know, because you've got buoyancy and propulsion are your two issues in the water, and and you can there are ways to work that and at a very high level. So yeah, the water one's a really exciting one. Definitely watch what those guys are doing in the enhanced games because it's I just think it's cool. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:42

Yeah, I'm not much for the concept, but yeah, might learn a lot from it. And the funny part is you don't have to be enhanced in the enhanced game in the enhanced games.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:50

Yeah, I think that like I think, and if you guys remember, and I'll just say this to qualify, you know, again, Randy, I I I've I've got a few less years under the belt in training, but almost the 40 years in the sport in sports. And you remember back when Saturday Night Live did a very funny scene in the late 1980s, and it was called the All Drug Olympics.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:12

Yeah, and their arms ripped off.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:14

Yeah, yeah, arms ripped off, and it was just that spoof, you know, because that was the time that time when steroids were starting to become a conversation, issues were popping up, etc. etc. And when I we look at the enhanced games, is your first thought is okay, well, is that what we're doing? And I and so I talked to the guys, got athletes that are going in there, the guys that we're already working with that are in there, and you don't have to be enhanced. Enhancement means a lot of things. It's basically let's look at how science can push sport safely. And one thing I am confident on is these guys are interested in pushing the barriers, but safely and with the athletes' concern at the very highest and for us it's safely and legally.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:57

Yes, safely and them, it's safely and not legally.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:00

Well, it's so yeah, you know, and again, I'm without going down that conversation, I'll I'll leave it for them to have that conversation. But I do love the exploration, you know, and I think it's and I think it's um it's gonna teach us a lot, and and certainly certainly it's gonna open conversations that are gonna be interesting because just like what we're doing at Leela, and I and when I when I talked to coaches, I said, well, just remember, whatever you think is gospel today, in 30 years, 50 years, it's gonna look like caveman thinking.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:34

So or it'll be gospel again.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:42

We're not at the front of the curve for very long, you know, like it keeps changing and and and just be open to that kind of thinking. Yeah. But yeah, so again, the big point is any tool, know your tool and do it safely. And at high speed, as you mentioned, um, that can that can really get go wrong quickly if you're not sure of what you're doing. And the other area is the return to play. You know, we've done, I think most of the elite programs around the world from Real, Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, the New Zealand All Blacks, you know, right now Real is the number one sport brand on the planet. And this, of course, is soccer or football, depending where you where you talk about it. Um, but most of them come to us because of injuries. They come to us like the first things we've talked about. People come in and say, I've got a guy, he's got a problem, she's got a problem, here's the injury. And and that that gray area is really tough to work between, you know, sign off on the injuries healed to returning to play at whatever percentage you're at. Uh, the return to play stage, it's really difficult. Uh, a lot can go wrong there. And I think we're still in the process of having better tools. As you mentioned yesterday or two days ago, Randy, on the chat with the

NFL Case Work: Ground Force And Caution

SPEAKER_00 1:18:00

track and field guys, you know, we're we're measuring better. So now we're more aware people are actually at versus what we think they're at. And then we've got better tools to address those issues on a micro level.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:12

Yeah, and return to play, you know, we we and and I do this. I don't know if I've ever told you I do this, but I do. Um, so we'll we'll take and we'll we'll wear, particularly calf uh and weights in the water. Well, we'll do all of our drills in the water, deep in deep water before we come. If let's say somebody has a foot injury or a hamstring or whatever, um, so we'll load up the calf and we'll be in the water. So you have the water resistance along with the extra extra torque in the limb. And uh you're floating, and you know, you just you drill, drill, drill, drill, drill without any force on the feet. So you get you get the knee joint and the hip joint getting stronger without the impact. With without the impact, right. And the same thing if you have a hydroworks, which most of us don't have, but you know, you can just change the water level um in it. And and and I was using ankle weights, little, you know, 100 gram ankle weights way back in '96 with HydroWorks when I was starting to teach them how to use the water even better. Yeah. So it's yeah, there's a lot of applications.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:19

There was Brandy. I was gonna say something you mentioned about the in-season. I won't say who the team is because I don't want to get anybody in trouble, but I know uh some of the customers we've worked with in the NFL, one of the areas they used exogen was in the injured reserve area, what because they lose, because they can't be on equipment, they lose the impact of training with weight. And so they used exogen across the body. And remember, a weight fest is a centralized load. You're right. There's there's definitely an application for it, but it doesn't apply to the limbs, the arms. And when you have sort of five to ten pounds of equipment loss for two weeks or three weeks, it's got it's actually a significant no, that that's different than wearing it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:00

Or is it? Yeah. I mean and and in season when you're not playing, when you are playing, that's a different deal. Now, is can you make a case? Could you make a case for using it uh in a in a in a in a sense like a circuit? We do a circuit every Monday, a real quick Kaiser circuit, six, you know, six to seven exercises, uh, three sets, four or five reps to move to blood flow. But could you use it as a circuit as well? And and the answer to that is yes, you could. Uh as long as you're not trying to move at 100% speed, but just trying to move limp through the body, get blood flowing, and that sort of thing. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:41

And something else you mentioned earlier, and again, this is just for people to get an overview of that, is one of the other principles we developed is finish light. You know, you never don't work at speed, fatigue, certainly not with loads. So when if someone's got a set of exercises, there's a you put that loading on for X amount of reps, but you always make sure that load comes off. One, because they'll probably start moving in fatigue. Two, they need to continue to feel their own body because they're not going to compete. And so that's right. And again, anybody who might be listening to this, reach out, we'll send you the starter guide. We walk through all those principles and sort of the laws of wearable resistance training that we've, you know, really clearly defined that would help anybody just understand, okay, here's this tool, I can apply it. And and for anybody who's been a strength coach and studied some level of weighted periodization, the same things apply with wearable resistance. It's just the load is lighter. You know, you've got progression, you're gonna, you're gonna, you know, you don't you're gonna use it on alternate days, you're not gonna hammer them with it all the time, you're gonna take time to load at the right time. So I think if you've got a basic understanding of how to progress and periodize load and weight in general, then it's just a matter of figuring it out with the weight in the body and just air in caution. If you're not sure, don't load them. If an athlete walks in and says, guys, I'm pretty tired today, hamstrings are sore. All right, well, let then we'll have to adjust to that, you know, and um and and just safety first. Safety first.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:15

Be smart and adapt, you know, adaptation is our our our our biggest role is to teach them to adapt. So um and it's also you know, in in general, in genuinely, probably one of the hardest things to get them to do is to one rest, recover, and adapt slowly, you know. And as I say to people, this is not a short journey, this is a long journey, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:41

Um, so Randy's run of that journey and that curve. And I think one of the things I've learned, because Randy and I first met in early 90s as a connection with Kaiser. So we've we've been crossing paths. He was a mentor when I was a young strength coach coming out of Western Canada with in uh the Vancouver UBC days, Randy, you as you know, and and right from back then, your your introduction to you were already that's Kaiser, right? You were looking at speed versus that was that was I think when I was wearing my white tracksuit doing that lecture, and uh you were the first spoke to that moved me away from thinking because back then in the 90s, early 90s, and late 80s and 90s, that's when we were pushing strength. And I came and I met this and it was like, okay, strength is you know, strength is good, but how does that relate to speed? And I remember thinking, okay, well, then you know, there's people that are are ahead of the curve here, and and I think that's always been your strength is you also as a tinkerer, you call yourself, I think you've just got that engineering mind that looks at things from a problem solving. So, you know, I think more coaches need to, I know they get stuck in their systems, they get stuck in the routines, but I think it's really good to step out of that and say, well, what what am I not doing? You know, and just be open to that a little bit more because there's people like yourself that are you think that 24 hours a day in every incidence you're in, and that's why you're always so front of the curve, not just from a methodology standpoint, but a technology standpoint.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:17

And and you know that's hard keeping up with that stuff today, let me tell you. I think to your point, Joseph, is nothing's a panacea, nothing, yeah. You know, and and if you get stuck into only eccentrics, must do isometrics only, you you're you've you've hurt your athletes. Yeah, let alone your own mind, but you're really doing a disservice to your athletes, and um and that matters to me, you know, because you it it you care about those kids and because you the their it's their dreams, not yours. If it's your dream, then maybe you're in the wrong thing, but go go back to masters or or whatever uh sport. But you know, it's their dream, and your job is to help them achieve their dream. So yeah, that's a big and and that quite frankly is a huge responsibility.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:08

Yes, sir. Well, gentlemen, thank you so much uh for the time. It's been an absolute pleasure, Randy, finally to get to talk to you in person, sir. If you've been a fan of yours for a very long time, and Joe, thanks for helping to set this up and always good to talk with you, buddy. Um, yeah, uh boys, Randy. Do you have uh anywhere like any listeners can can find more information on you or if they want to contact? No, you're good?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:31

Not really. I'm pretty, you know. Uh uh Zach, who works with me, you know, he he he uh he saw a movie um searching for sugarmen. Have you seen that?

SPEAKER_03 1:25:45

Oh, I remember that.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:47

Yeah, and he oh, it's about a guy that was a an uh uh musician who then stopped and he just basically never really made it in the US, but was incredibly popular in Australia, South Africa, and other other countries. And it's the story of those people in those countries going to try to find him because they thought he was dead. And and you know, he was just he he he really was Kat Stevens. I mean he was an incredible musician, but uh so yeah, Zach sort of started calling me Sugarman, um you know, because I've I've stayed not hidden, but just you know, I just do my job, you know, doing what you're supposed to do. And I think the only thing I I I want to say, and and I've said this most recently on some other podcasts too, but I think we've we have to be really careful. Uh you know, you you heard me uh speak of Kula and and you know when he was working with Christian. I don't know what he did with Christian, to be honest. We've never had a long discussion about it. Um and I don't know, you know, because you don't know what the athlete hears and what the coach says. But in general, I think we have to be really careful that in this is a profession, you know, it's it's like salesmen. They're they they don't think of themselves as professionals, but this is a profession, and uh in general, we're pretty critical of each other, and and I don't mean that nicely either. You know, he's an idiot. Oh, what a stupid, you know. I mean it gets it gets ugly. And the fact is that we should be supporting each other and trying to make each other better, and you know, it's and uh we're all guilty of it. We definitely are. I'm not gonna say I'm not because I've said things about people myself, and but uh as you move through this life a little bit longer, you realize that well, a lot of people are just trying their best, and maybe they haven't got the education yet to be better than than it can be. But in general, our job as I see it, what you're doing here with this podcast, is you're trying to help

Safe Progressions: Where Exogen Fits

SPEAKER_02 1:28:00

people learn and understand more about what we we do in this in this profession. This but this profession about the body. And the last thing is, you know, we people ask me what books are you really fond of. And you know, the the one book I always tell people about uh is The Thinking Body by Mabel Todd that Dr. Hay handed to me. And he said to me back in 1988, if you want to understand movement, read this book. Gave it to me out of his library. I gave it back to him the next year when I saw him again. But you know, the thinking body, she was way ahead of her time. Because that's the way we have to think. And I think most good coaches have a copy of that somewhere in their library or have read it at some point.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:48

Awesome. Thank you, Joe. Cool. Where can people Randy mic drop? Uh Joe, where can we uh where where can the listeners find more information? Reach out to you, you know. What are you on?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:00

Just go to I mean LeelaTeam.com is the website, and and it's literally there. Um can you Aaron? If you reach out to the info there, just say, hey, can I get a chat with Joe if you're a coach or athlete and want to talk a little more about what we're doing with the product? You know, we lead with the education and the product has a natural progress into that. But I want to say one other thing for people. You know, this is Randy, this is our I mean, we're in contact all the time now. We've got the McCaffrey's off season and B Jen's off season talking with you and Zach about getting uh those next stages. And then I had the pleasure of being in that chat with you on Wednesday evening with the USA tracking, which was great. And then now, and one thing I was thinking listening is you know, it's a ridiculous level of knowledge that you have. And I always knew that. I knew that 30 years ago when we first met, and now today, even more. And I think for people, if they want to get because you get all these nice snippets, you listen to a podcast like this, and you think, oh, I learned two or three things. And I coaches really appreciate anybody who learns is well, I I also want to need some structured learning, and I think a place for people to get a structured learning process on the mind of Randy Huntington and how to put the take that and use it is go into I think it's Altis and download or buy the Subingtian program store. Uh I just did that. I and I've started on it, um, Randy, just so you know. And I went in there and purchased it. And because I thought, well, look, I've I like you, I'm a student of the game, and you know, with all the stuff that we had done uh with you and all the work you'd done with Sue, even with their product, I thought I kind of want to go back and learn a little more. And I'm just finding this, this is a good way to say this is not a snapshot of listening to Randy on a podcast. This is a technical breakdown of how to do things. And I anybody who might be listening to this, if you want something to read or digest, and Randy, maybe you can tell them exactly where to find them. I because I can't remember if I got it from Altus or not.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:04

It's it's Altis. Altis. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I've never even seen it, you know. I've not I did it, but I've never seen it because that we did we did that over hours, days, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:15

Yeah, it's it's incredible, and and it's just and it's the technical breakdown of doing it. Everything you talked about today. How do you go in and work with somebody? How do you fix these problems? How do you how do you systematize that? Where do you start? How do you progress it? And what do you use to do that? And I think to me, it's a it's uh it's an in-depth technical detail that any coach who reads it, uh digests it, is going to be able to turn around and say, all right, now I've got kind of a template of what I might do with the athlete I'm working on. So if you're out there, get Randy Honey, Du Bing Chin uh uh project. And yeah, I think it was Altis. So it's Altus.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:56

It's definitely Altus, yeah. It's the only one I've done that's you know relatively expensive.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:01

Yeah, you need you need to do more of those, I think, because this is the bigger chunk of that your knowledge that people can digest rather than just catching these little tidbits. And we'll talk about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:15

Yeah, I need yeah, I I you know it's you get you get to a point where you do a few of these and you kind of forget what you said, and then you'll then you'll ask, did I say something smart? Because uh, you know, you're a lot of this is conversation, and uh out of it can come, you know, like you say, two or three points, which is sort of what you get in the seminar kind of thing. And and that's it the the the point there, Joseph, is you know, how do those points fit into the whole picture? And how do you how do you not just fit, but then how do you uh master it? How do you paint that picture? You know, and and I always talk about the coaches um as like a painter with no arms, you know, but your your student is sitting in front of you, and you gotta tell them how you want that painting to look, but you can't paint it. You can only do it with words, and you're trying to get them to paint the picture, your picture, you know, and it's not easy, yeah, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:17

I've got a thought on that. So now what and we hear this from coaches all the time is and you both of you know that and kicked on it. And I think what we've done now, and what if you ask me what my journey is now, it's empowering coaches to be able to take that think of that no armed coach, but they can put something like an exogen load on the body so the athlete now has the connection of what the coach was trying to do.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:42

Yeah, it the hardest part with me to and and this is my own critique, is that during um let's say just during a session, I will change things based upon what I see. You can't you'd have to follow me around with a camera to see how I would manipulate stuff because that's not things that you oftentimes remember. You just do no, you did it because it was you you you saw that it was now a necessary thing had to be done. They're missing the part of the puzzle. Stop, go back, fit fit that back in, and then let's go forward.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:22

Yeah, and that's the artistry, that's the art.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:25

It is the art, it is the art. I mean, it's grounded in science, but definitely the artist. And I think Jeff might need to be going here.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:32

But no, um, no, boys. Keep keeping talking, yeah. Uh that's that's what master chefs do, sir.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:40

But uh yeah, it it it it gives us I mean if you set on the track with and this is why I say we can't be too critical of each other, because we don't know what why somebody's saying something, we just don't know. And and they may know a lot more to the backstory than we will ever know. And uh being a little in in this particular society today, being a little kinder, a little more empathetic, and less a dick is probably a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:13

Yeah, that that's a good place to leave that. Yeah, there you go. That'll be the title, that'll be the title of the uh the podcast, Randy. Randy says don't be a dick.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:25

I like it. I like it. Well, boys, thank you so much. A great place to great place to leave it. Hopefully we can uh talk again. And uh I appreciate you both. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:35

Thanks for having me, Jeff. Appreciate it.

unknown 1:35:37

Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:38

Take care, guys.