What Everyone Gets Wrong About Explosive Training For Athletes w/ Olympic Track Coach Aaron Gadson

Are you ever having just sessions of jumps? So, what would that week built out look like?

We're on the track four days a week. We have two active recovery days, which is like biking and like body weight circuits. The people that I coach, they're they're lifting somewhere between 2 and 3 days a week.

Jonathan Edwards and like who do you look at as like the best technical jumpers with that could carry the speed the best and hold the best positions? I've always heard he had a big clean. I don't know if he squatted. I don't know if he did anything else. If you can't clean one and a half your body weight, like you're just not doing enough in the weight room. I think Jonathan Edwards at his best was almost cleaning almost two times his body weight, which is like pretty, you know, remarkable.

We're going to talk to the coach of the most explosive Olympic champion. And we're going to start right now. So, we're about to start a podcast talking to the coach of the 2024 women's triple jump Olympic champion, Thea Leaf Fond. Aaron Gadson coaches Thea Lefond. He's coached Jordan Scott, who's one of the best triple jumpers in the entire world this year in 2025. And Thea also was an indoor world champion. And what we're going to do is we're going to talk to Aaron about triple jump training. We're going to talk to him about the strength behind it, the speed behind it, how it's genuinely the most explosive sport in the entire world. And then how you guys can take these lessons and apply it to the realm of sports performance. So, we're going to pick his brain. We're going to analyze all these factors. and then we're going to try and see how we can use this for our everyday athlete. We're going to start right now.

Okay, Aaron. So, I want to tell I want to tell this story right away because I was coaching the men's shot put at the Olympics uh past year 202 2024, which by the way, it's crazy. It's been almost a year, but as as I'm coaching your wife and athlete, Thea Leon's up on the screen, right? And I'm watching like, oh my god, she might actually win this freaking comp. And and I'm I remember it had started to rain. I think what second round maybe. Um but following following that, I'm paying attention. I'm watching. She ends up winning, right? And I I want to share this with the audience in the fact that we've known each other I think since '22 if I remember correctly, like where we've first formally started to talk to one another. And one of the things that I've I've loved like watching is where you tend to train like it's like you you almost have like a fly by night setup like nothing like you see these big time college universities they've got everything behind them. they've got all this funding uh the coaches or or or you'll even see NGB's funding uh entire countries and in your case with Thea is you know she's from a small country the country has never had a medalist never you know really on the grand scheme had never done anything at the Olympics essentially um and watching her win not just that first medal but then winning the actual freaking Olympics and after winning the world indoor title as well. For me to see someone that I know first of all was I remember being like like so amped up and and like seeing you and being like you you did it. Like holy [ __ ] you did it. But I think the the the coolest part about that is just like seeing still where you guys are. You're still just working. You're still working in a in like a corner of a cricket gym. And I think that's one thing that I I want to put out there and it shows to me that you can overcome those the the lack, you know, in theory the lack of assets with good coaching and good execution of everything. And I and I wanted people to just recognize and and and to to see that.

So I I guess how did dude how like I want to know like from 2016 on like what did you see in Thea and and what are the biggest things that you maybe have worked on as like low hanging fruit along the way?

Yeah man, I think I mean you hit you touched on a lot of stuff there. Um I mean to to answer your most recent question around kind of what did I see with Thea and what do we do? I think at the time Thea was that was like the first time I'd worked with somebody kind of of her caliber. I mean at the time she'd only was jumping 1340 1360ish and for for people's context like that's not that's not world class. That's kind of like really good in college maybe all-American. She actually was never all-American in a triple jump but she like had she done that at nationals maybe she could have been all-American. So, it was like about all-Americanish kind of number, not a winner, not a medalist type thing at NCAA level. So, she she really had a lot of work to do. And the reason why she went to the Olympics in 2016 was specifically because of this rule around like if you're from a small country and that's the only person that you have, you can bring somebody. And so, that's how she went to Rio. She didn't actually hit the standard. Um, so anyway, as far as kind of what I saw with her, I think I really saw as like, hey, this is a great opportunity as somebody that's at a higher level than I've coached before, and I'm just trying to get her better. And so I think that she just had a lot of technical flaws that I saw. I think she was like reasonably strong. I think her clean at the time was like 185, for example. Um, which is like pretty good for NCAA, but she also had a multi background, so it's not nothing crazy. Um, she was really aggressive, which is a great trait to have, but when you're doing technical stuff, you can't just be totally aggressive either. And so, I think really the the the first things was like really cleaning up the running technique and the jumping technique and making her be more technical focused as opposed to just like aggressive only aggressive first. and and you know within kind of six months we were able to get her to actually qualify for the world championships which is which is generally harder to qualify for than the Olympics and at that time we were literally training in hallways like with a rollout runway and like on a high school track that was like pretty beat up. Um so

So what when when you're what place did she get in Rio?

Literally last place, 30, I don't know, 32, whatever, however many they brought, 33.

So I I wanted I I did know this um already and I wanted to use that as like to me it's like she so she gets last place in Rio and then you know you go Tokyo then you go a couple world championships later and all of a sudden she's the Olympic champion. I think it's like, okay, that aside, how are you looking or or what are you looking at as far as running technique um slash jumping technique? Walk us through um as far as as far as like the actual technique and the phases of the jump. What are you looking at with each phase of the jump like approach to the to the takeoff and then uh each phase as concisely as you can?

Yeah. So I think there's there there's there's always going to be um some benchmarks, right? So you're going to have speed benchmarks. You're going to have benchmarks obviously like how far did the person jump? How far they can they do you know different testing things you know if it's like a standing long jump, standing triple jump um you know a fly 30 so that's you know a running start and 30 m 30 m run all those different types of things. So like I I knew from some of that data that like the one of the first things I do is kind of just do those battery of tests and like she just didn't really like her power levels weren't very high. She wasn't very fast from from just a technical standpoint of like the running. It's like she's very much interiorly tilted. So her her chest is forward, her hips are kind of rotated downward, she has a lot of back kick. Um and so that's that's just really an inefficient way to run. Um and then you know way as far as triple jump stuff, one of the biggest thing from triple jump standpoint like someone has a there's three phases. And so if you have you have a hop, step, and jump. If your middle phase is really short, that's usually like a a major red flag that there's something going on there. You should have your your distribution should be something like 35, 30, 35 or somewhere between 30 and 37 for the hop. The first phase and the third phase, and the middle phase should be around 30%. A lot of women tend to be under 30%. Um sometimes even like 26%, which is really low. And so again,

Yeah. And so for Thea, I think, you know, she she had some of those characteristics and a lot of that comes from if you're running, you're interiorly tilted in your run, then your house's going to be interiorly tilted. And that that position is not very efficient and powerful position. And so that doesn't allow you to create a lot of um I was going to say force, but really like impulse. So force times time. You're not going to be on the ground very long. You're not going to be able to uh you know, exert a lot of force. And so your time interval is smaller and the force you can generate is lower because you're not engaging, you know, all of your posterior chain on that contact. And so it just makes it so that you just have this tiny little phase. Um, and it's just not efficient, especially when you compare it to men. Um, so men, I would say, generally have a much better phase distribution. I think it's just more naturally easier if you're stronger. Um, but for women, I think their technique has to be dialed in a little bit better because they can't just kind of muscle through phases.

So, what are you looking at? I'm thinking through. So, I I you know, and and you're actually the one who's this is a cheat code is talking to you about the speed stuff with with Rojos from Tokyo. And you see like her max so her her top speed in Tokyo on the runway was faster than Elaine Thompson Hara's top speed in the at least from a miles per hour or kilometers per hour clocked uh Rohos ran faster uh than Elaine did when she won the Olympics in the 100 meters. Um, and I guess what what where I'm going with that is like if you think about her or mainly I'm thinking about Thea is what what are you looking for if you know because I I also think about from a football perspective you or even taking it starting off on on 100 meters, right? there is this like projection forward, but it seems like because of the runin on, you know, like the flying 30 might be a better carryover or at least a better demonstration. What do you want to see posture-wise as they're going to uh to lead into the hop? Like when they when they plant there, what do we want to see uh with their torso, their hips, their their knees and everything?

So So yeah, I mean I think the point that you bring up is pretty interesting. like Rojos is is is really just an incredible athlete as far as what she can do. I mean, usually when you see women that are 6'3, they're usually pretty awkward. Obviously, there's some great, you know, volleyball players and basketball players and things like that, but your typical 6'3 woman is like pretty, you know, slow and clunky and uncoordinated and and Rohos is extremely fast. And so, you know, could she be to land in the 100? I highly doubt that. But like her top end speed for over let's say 10 m is is arguably you know some of the best in the world. Um and that's especially true I think when you're fast and you have that such a large you know stride length. Um it's kind of like Bolt right? Bolt was really fast too you know obviously but he had such a large stride length you know his when you compare his frequency to other people it's so much lower because his he's almost taking like nine feet per step which is just insane. And so um and so for for Thea, you know, you know, coming into the board, you know, what we're really looking for compared to like maybe an elite sprinter is your posture needs to be a little bit um more upright. I think you can see from a really elite sprinter, they're going to be maybe a little bit crunched up. It's going to allow them to kind of engage the hamstrings maybe a little bit more. Um but in the triple jump because you need some vertical triple jump is really about how can how do you um the trade-offs between horizontal and vertical velocity. And so for your hop you need some vertical velocity. You need to trade some horizontal for vertical. And the only way that you do can do that is by making it such that your your body is more upright or in some cases maybe even a little bit farther back. And that's you see that in high jump and long jump in particular, right? They have this penultimate step and then like even in javelin, you have this penultimate step

and your body your hips are going to be, you know, have some angle towards the such that you can kind of get that that vertical projection. Um, and so in triple jump, I wouldn't say you necessarily have a pen ultimate. There are some jumpers, especially in Cuba, that have more of a pin ultimate and they go really high in the hop. um you can do that, but the challenge with that is the higher you go up, the more eccentric forces you're going to have to deal with on the other side of that. And you know that if if you don't handle those well, then that means your your second phase is going to be small and you're going to lose speed and things like that. Um so again, I'm looking for her to come in there with good posture, you know, pretty tall. That last step is going to be a little bit longer. It's gonna, you know, you're gonna have your foot's gonna roll as opposed to kind of just more like, you know, be quick off the ground because you need that rolling that little bit more length in front of your center mass so you can be on the ground a little bit longer and generate more impulse to push off of the board.

So, you would be rolling from the heel.

Yeah. I don't necessarily think that you cue it that way, but if you were, you know, to slow it down, you look at it, that's what that would be the difference between that step and a typical running step.

Okay. All right. So, if if you're saying what do you think it is with women if we're looking at the hop versus the step and the most women might be instead of being 30% on the step the second phase they're we're looking at, you know, naturally maybe 26 to 30%, they're a little bit lower on that step when you're looking at it compared to the entire percentage of their of their jump. What do you think that would be like if you're testing somebody? What are the benchmarks that would show like yeah that is indeed uh this benchmark is linked to this low step uh performance and then on top of that what are you then trying to do let's say in the gym versus what are you trying to do with drills or with actual technique on the runway.

Yeah, it's it's a great question. I think one of the things one of the things that I do that's maybe a little bit different than a lot of coaches I think things have shifted and I don't know if I'm can be responsible for that shift but I I do a lot of multi-jump. So multi jumps is like you know triple jump is just a hop step jump but a multi jump might be two hops a step in a jump or hop step step jump or you know any different variations of hops and steps that's not exactly triple jump. And the reason that I I do those drills, you know, especially in regards to what you ask, is like if you do two hops, the only way to get a good second hop is if you have a really good first contact. If that contact would lead to a short step phase, then it's going to be extremely difficult for you to get a second hop. And and so it's just a way to for it's it's a way to like force people to get a good contact without having to tell them it tell them like what to do. It's like it's almost a way of um you know having external cue or or setting up the environment to get people to do what you want as opposed to telling them exactly what you want to do. Um, so that's that's, you know, one of my staples is kind of doing hop up, step, jump, especially, you know, you can add more intensity. You can do it off of a box to make it harder and things like that to to really reinforce that contact needs to be in the right way because it, you know, if it's not, this drill is like not really possible. And I think that drill is really really difficult for say like beginners and like high school kids because usually they go way too high and they're also not very strong. Um, and then as far as what you would do kind of in the the weight room and stuff, like I I look at I look at the weight room as a way to create like resiliency and the ability to like the ability to survive the practicing and the ability to surprise to survive the season. And so like I don't necessarily look at lifting specifically as this is a like performance-enhancing like hey if you can squat this amount or you can single leg you know or vsss this amount or whatever that that means you're going to jump super duper far like yeah I do think that there's a strength quality that's required because the eccentric force is extremely high but it's more that we need to have connective tissue that is strong enough and resilient enough that's going to allow you to practice the thing enough to get the skill to actually be successful.

I I want to come in here because I literally just had this whole discussion with Alex this weekend. So, he was talking to me about a discus thrower and he's like, "This dude still doesn't like to lift." And he's dude, he's good. He's like one of the best. But I told him, so we were at uh Prefontaine and Daniel's Daniel Stalls in the weight room and he was deadlifting like like 650 for like three triples fast. And I was talking with his coach Stefan and then Alex and I were just talking on a walkie-talkie back and forth and I was actually like, "Look, I think there's a point and maybe this maybe you can tell me if this is what you're what you're saying." I was and I'm my argument was I think as kids like let's say you take a a 13 to a 20-year-old weight room work is going to just explode their performance. It will be a performance enhancer. And then probably when they're like 20 to 25, it'll really start to slow down. And then, you know, as they become elite or world class, it it's the stability factor. It's like, look, if we can keep you resilient and if we can keep the structure together so that you're strong and stable so that you can go throw a lot or you can go do a lot of triple jumps so that we're we're minimizing the beating by strengthening your tendons. That's where the the weight room work comes into play more so than like we need you to, you know, in the case of the throwers like we need you to bench press 500 for a set of five. No, we don't really need that anymore. We just need you to stay healthy so that you're able to take a lot of throws. Is that sort of what you're saying?

Yeah, I mean that's exactly what I'm saying. I I think like triple jump I would say is probably one of the hardest like events to practice because you can't get a lot of reps in cuz it's so you know punishing on the body. So like even I know I've learned stuff from you just talking to you guys and stuff about like throwers and you guys might throw I don't know making up 30 times or something.

Yeah.

Like you would never jump 30 times in practice for triple jump. Like that sound that's like

You could but your shins would and your knees would be slaughtered.

Right? And so it's just like because you have such limited, you know, opportunities for reps, it's really important, I think, to be strong. And so there are some coaches, and I don't coach like this per se, but there are some coaches that is like, "Yeah, we just work on the speed and we do a little bit of bounding here and there, but we only jump like once a week or something." And like, yeah, if you have someone who's really freaky and fast and elastic and light, like I guess you can get away with doing that, but I don't think that's going to be super consistent. And I don't think that that's the way that you, you know, train someone that you're trying to get medals for. You're kind of like avoiding a a major piece of it and and trying to like, you know, just brush over it with like just athleticism. So, with that being said, I I was sort of when you were laying out like the the multi jumps. Okay. Do you have because I I was listening that I'm thinking the multi jumps that you're talking about in my mind would be like the way I think about a weightlifter like if we do a no feet snatch or a low hang snatch or a high hang or a one box, those are variations of the competitive movement. And I would I'm I'm interpreting it that way from a triple jumper is like you're basically extending the triple jump and you're saying these are variations of the triple jump that should have a high correlation and they are maybe slightly better from a technical side point for a stance or even maybe they're easier on the body so you can do a little bit more volume on it. Is that the way that you're that you would Is that an accurate analysis of like the the multi jumps?

Yeah. I mean, I think there's, you know, there's there's talk about like practicing like the whole event versus like part of the event and things like that. So, I think this is like more of like that part kind of training where it's like, hey, I'm just working on a hop today. And the way to work on the hop is by using this drill that emphasizes, you know, these things or it sets up this environment to make people contact the ground in the right way. Um because I I think if you actually just practice pure triple jump, it becomes it becomes a lot about like an internal cueing and it becomes and and it's just like it allows you to really fall back into those same um you know bad habits. But if you do a drill that's like almost impossible to do with those habits that you have, then it forces you to make those changes a lot quicker.

Mhm. So, all right. If you're if you're looking at I was trying to think through this because I I did want to go in into a little bit of the speed discussion maybe and maybe that's what I'll do first is like speed stuff. You you mentioned a flying 30. Uh so if there's any football coaches out there, they well at least collegiate football coaches, they might be like, "Oh, flying 30." Um what what would you say like from a speed perspective? Is it a flying 30? you're looking at flying tan. I've I've talked to you about uh I know you've you've radarred the jumpers on the runway as well. Just I don't know if you do that randomly or not, but I wanted to see how how many days a week would you be doing like classic speed work and then what are those big things that you're looking at in that in that realm of the triple jump?

Yeah. So, I I I do speed work about Oh, well, I do p like max velocity. I'm going to break things into I mean two groups. I do there's like max maybe three groups. Max velocity technical technical running and like acceleration work. So I do max velocity stuff twice a week. I do acceleration stuff some form of acceleration also twice a week. And then a technical will be like will float like so maybe maybe I don't do max velocity twice a week. maybe do it once a week and once a technical and then another week I might flip that around or whatever. Um, but I I basically, you know, have certainly I'll have one day that's really, you know, max velocity for sure. The other day of that week might be more technical running depending on kind of uh their readiness, so how fatigued they are. Um, but it also might depending on the time of the year, it might be, you know, max velocity as well. And then I'll definitely have twice a week where we're doing some type of resisted running, which is really acceleration kind of work. Um, but you know, we you talked a little bit about this earlier. I don't have like a a ton of space. So I actually don't do fly 30s because I don't have enough room to do fly 30s since wallto-all my facility is about 50 meters. Um, so I I I would do some like fly 10s. Um, obviously, you know, our very specific stuff that we do would be like run through. So, you know, your approach. Um, but if we're not doing approaches, they'd be like more like fly 10s or um yeah, we do fly 10 or our technical work would be running over kind of mini hurdles. Um, and we also do sometimes certain parts of the year we'll do assisted running. So, you have a cable that's towing you um to really get you over, you know, your actual you like the like supra max. So something that's above what you actually could run by yourself.

Okay. I want to go into that, but I want to see. So max velocity, you're going to do flying 10. If you had more space, maybe you would do flying 30s possibly. Technical running work. You're doing like wicked drills is how I envision that. Is that accurate?

What would be like another version of a technical run that you might be hitting?

Um you could do so um different variations with like, you know, early in the year sometimes they do like actually hands up running or hands up with a weight, you know, other versions of like no hands technical could also be, you know, using some um of really light like uh uh resistance on the arms or the legs or the the hips to really kind of emphasize that movement. So again that's like creating the environment to get people to do what you want without telling them um what to do. So, we're talking about, you know, a pound or two in certain areas to to really, you know, get them to feel where their body is so they can kind of, you know, be better at running. Um, so yeah, it's really just variations of, you know, one hand, no hand, hands above your head, a little bit weighted. Um, things like that to really emphasize hitting the ground well, um, and good posture. And then acceleration work, you do resisted running or some form of resisted running like it. Would you do hill sprints or mainly just like a a slider cable?

I use So I have this thing called Dynast which is very similar to a 1080 sprint. It just can be integrated with some other devices. Um but I think hill running is great. It's definitely much cheaper than a a 1080 sprint. Um I think the 1080 sprint is or the dyno speed is really good because it can give you like very specific data about, you know, how fast you're running at certain, you know, you know, one meter, 2 meter, 5 meters, 10 meters. Um my device also can allow you to do variable resistance. So, you could start at a certain resistance and then as you run, you can get lighter and do different things like that. Um, so, so when I do my resisted running, I usually have it start pretty high and then as you run it gets lighter and I do it in a contrast fashion as well. So, I might like do two resisted runs and then do one unresisted. And the idea there is like, you know, you're trying to you're creating like a potentiation effect, but you're it's also like a uh a neuro not I don't want to say neurological, but it's really about ingraining the right movement pattern. So, it's like, hey, you pushed out the heavy resistance really helps you find the angles that you need to push well because otherwise you're not going to go anywhere. and then you bring that over to your actual un unresisted run and so you should have better running mechanics.

So in a weekly split like let's say let's say it's 2020 there's no COVID that'd be great the is weekly split what would this look like as far as days a week lifting running technique work and are you ever having just sessions of jumps or is it like no matter what like the sessions of like the plyometric work that you would do is We're doing that on the runway no matter what.

And what so what would that week built out look like?

Um so a typical week um do we we're on well I'll give you the overview but then I'll kind of go day by day but we we're on the track four days a week. We have two active recovery days which is like biking and like body weight circuits. have one full day off and then Thea in particular lifts four days a week. The people that I coach, they're they're lifting somewhere between two and three days a week, but Theoa lists four. Um, and really that's just I think her body likes to feel like primed or or loaded. So like her lifts, it's not like a ton of she's not doing a ton of volume on all of those days. Um, but she doesn't like to go days where she's not doing much. like if she goes two days without doing something, she she just doesn't feel good. Um, but as far as kind of how things would would would work out, so on Mondays we lift in the morning and then we have a speed about, you know, so 6 to 8 hours later we'll have another session which would be a speed day. Um, so max velocity stuff. Then the next day she'd lift again in the morning and in the evening she would do um jumping and then finish up with resisted running. This on the track. Wednesday would be active recovery day. Thursday she'd lift in the morning, do another speed session in the afternoon. Um the the speed session is usually going to be more technical running just generally because I think at that point in the week that nervous system wise they're just not be able to hit as high as amount of intensities. Um Friday she just she lifts in the morning does some more active recovery in the afternoon or directly afterwards and then on Saturday we just have a jump session on the track. Um, so that's that's how her week is set up and we we've been pretty consistent with that for the last at least 5 years or so.

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What would be a lift like you would do, let's say day one before max velocity, six hours later? What would be like two lifts you might do in there?

Uh, let me see what we do. Uh, one second. She usually I mean she does she does not doing anything super fancy. We've we've done some fancy stuff over the years. I don't know if it if it matters that much as far as like getting really really deep into the advanced stuff. Um where's Sorry, I have too many tabs in here.

I just think like think like when I've talked to you guys in the past, it's like yo, Thea's doing like a rack pull and then like hang clean hang power cleans or something like that. And like to me it's like we would all envision this. Maybe this is where I get triggered by like the functional uh cults is like I've talked to you guys and it's like you might do a rack pull or something or a deadlift. I something similar like this and and then a hang power clean or something that just like is a pretty standard fundamental movement and then you're doing your jumps and your speed stuff like you're not doing from what I'm seeing and what I've talked to you about is like you're not doing like

Banded cartwheels for triple jumps.

No. So like I'm I have our stuff pulled up now. Sorry. So like we do this is I'm just going to go through just general list that we do. not necessarily um super detailed, but like we do front squats, RDL's, step-ups, pull-up, hang clean, back squat, Bulgarian split squat, push press, hip thrust, and then like just like variations of that. So, we might sometimes we might do clean pulls, we might do a trap bar deadlift, might do a single leg RDL. Um when we get closer to like major competitions as you said like we'll do we'll do rack pulls um we might do some jump squats or some like um like quarter squats. So like be stance or like a kickstand kind of stance.

Okay.

Quarter like really heavy. But I I see those like less about like, oh, these are like functional, more of like, okay, let me do something that's going to be like less volume, but still give you that kind of nervous system like hit.

Yeah.

And so it's really just like, okay, if we get this like minimal minimal dose of high CNS activity, it's going to keep us primed throughout the week. But it's not like, oh, we do this at two meters per second, like she's gonna jump super far.

How far out from the lifts would be, and I want to I I actually have in my notes, I think I sent these to you, was like the world indoor peak versus the Olympic peak. How far out from, let's just say a normal meet, not a peaking meet, a normal meet, would she be lifting before jumping? And then is there a difference between the dudes and the chicks?

Um, so for a normal beat, we we usually train through like even for world indoors that when she won, she lifted the night before. She had

Well, that's why I wanted to bring that up because I remember talking to you guys. I remember talking to you. I think you might have even like just gotten there like, "Oh, I'm still awake cuz I Thea's got to go do like rack pulls or something." And she was she was competing the next morning at like 8:30 or something crazy. And I remember you had posted a video and you were doing the cable pulls. Like you were pulling her with the cable by the pit. Do you remember that?

Yeah.

And and I was like, "Yo, she's jumping tomorrow morning." No, I think that's a different scenario, too, relative to the Olympics, but I I don't know. So that's why I wanted to see maybe that's just take us into that actually. this explain like what you what you were doing at World Indoors versus the Olympics.

Um, so I I think for World Indoors it's more of just like a D load as opposed to a taper. And so I guess the the distinction that I'm making is that generally speaking depending on the time of the year like she every four to six weeks there'll be kind of a de lo week which is just really more about roughly speaking anywhere from like 60 to 75% of like the volume that you typically would have. So you might take a day out of take a lift out take a day of the training out and each one of those training days is going to be just like a little bit less volume but keep the intensity up. And so, you know, going into world indoors, if I look at this, I think, yeah, I think she maybe she kind of it's like had maybe 10 to 14 days of kind of like a a deloish, but like the actual lifting didn't really change that much. Um, but going into the Olympics, maybe it'd be more like, you know, the lift changed for for about a month and then like two weeks going into it to the Olympics, things would change as far as um that change lift and the dload. Um, and so I would say that you you know the reason why she lifted the day before for world indoors because usually she does something we call just like potentiation. And so like six hours before she competes, she might do something like banded squats, like really heavy banded squats contrasted with some like jumps or something like that just to like, you know, be a kind of like a a CNS primer. And so because she was competing like super early the next morning, I think the competition actually started at 10:00 a.m. I was like, "Okay, like this go before you go to bed." So I think she literally went to the gym at like 10:30 p.m. or something like that. She just did kind of like this light lift. It might have just been like some like cleanse and jump squats or something like that and then, you know, she went after it. Going into the Olympics, I think even in 20 in Tokyo Olympics where she actually had some really big jumps where she probably could have got at least a silver, maybe maybe a bronze medal. Um, I'm pretty sure if I can go back, I'm pretty sure that she lifted the day before. Let me see. Yeah, she lifted the day before the Olympics in Tokyo and then competed that evening. Um, and then I think for this mostly recent Olympics, I think she did something similar, but because she could, which was like unprecedented, she the prelims in the final were backtoback days. And so I think we we maybe backed off a little bit more compared to Tokyo because usually there's a day of rest in between. Um but yeah, I I think I think for her again, as I said in the beginning, she just doesn't like to be she doesn't like to kind of just chill and do nothing. She needs to always feel a little bit of just like priming.

And I think that I'm sure you know a lot of throwers that are probably like that, too. It's not everybody. Um I think for for men, they can be like that, too. I I think women allow you to maybe they give you a little bit more wiggle room because I think they can their CNS doesn't get taxed as easily as men do because they're not able to I think just like activate as many fibers and so they're not going to get fried as easily.

Yeah. They just genuinely don't have as much muscle mass as a dude. So they don't have as much neural stimulation from a a session.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I think it's something at the elite level, it's something you definitely need to experiment with because I think it can be really effective because, you know, when you're talking about one or two% like that's that can matter. And so, you're getting that extra, you know, potentiation that's that CNS firing up a little bit better. If that does that lifting the day before or the night before or a few hours before, you know, do that. But you got to try it out. But don't don't try it out at the championship. can't try it out early in the year and get that that ironed out, but I think it can be really effective.

What do you think's been like the biggest rise with the Jamaican dude?

Are you talking about Jordan?

Jordan. Yeah.

Um my I think really this is the first year he was fully kind of locked in. I think he had the first year I worked with him, which was the Olympic year, he kind of had one foot in, one foot out because he was doing some lifting from somebody else. And I don't think, you know, he would do, you know, I've talked to him about this, so it's not a secret, but like he'd be like, "Oh, I was up till 3:00 playing Call of Duty or something like that." It's like, bro, come on. You know, like like what happened? Somebody I'll look at somebody at practice like, "What's going on with you?" He's like, "Yeah, I was tired. I didn't sleep well. I was like, "Okay, like what happened?" And they like, "Oh, is up late?" Like, "UPlay doing what?" Like, you know what I mean? Like,

Yo, this reminds me when the first Diamond League final I was at was in Zurich and I was sitting with you and Thea and I was like, "What do you think was like such a big change for you?" I asked Thea this and she was like, "Well, I I don't I don't want to sound bad, but like the the first thing for me was I just stopped being fat." I was like, "What?" Like, well, I I realized I remembered back to my college coach and like I got all in until like nutrition and like recovering because I realized like fat don't fly. He used to say that and it and Aaron would would talk about I got to recover better and that's I worked on that and I'm like sitting there thinking and it's like hearing Jordan Scott's the he's the number I mean from what I remember he's a number one guy in the diamond league right now

like

jumping out of his mind and basically like unless they followed you on Instagram people would see this guy as like he just popped onto the scene essentially but like you could see it sort of building basically from last year when you started working with him. That that's my take on I don't know what you think about it, but it's like when you hear this stuff, it's like what are you doing playing Call of Duty till 3 in the morning.

Yeah. And you got to wake up in six hours and go lift, you know,

and go jump too. Yeah. And focus on your speed work. And it's like, what are you doing?

Yeah, man. And so like I think again I really think like we had a long hard kind of conversation after Olympics about like hey man like if you really want to do this and like have a sustainable like profession and stuff like you you got to do these details. You can't just like go to practice for two hours and then do whatever the heck you want to do. You know what I mean? And and I think that like a lot of people I think underestimate how important some of this stuff is. I just think it's a difference maker. And I also think that's like you already said it with the it's like she she's not the most talented like when you talk about when I say talent like genetically gifted and showed promise at like a young age like she's not that like certainly yes she she did well in high school and she did well in college but when you talk about the world there's pe

There's young people all over the world doing incredible, crazy stuff. Like, you know, she was getting blasted at like, under 20 championship, world under 20s and stuff. Like a lot of the people that she's competing against were way, way better than her, you know, years ago.

And I think with her, it was like, okay, let's get, let's maximize your strength. Let's maximize your speed. Let's maximize your technique. Let's maximize your nutrition. Maximize your recovery. Do all of these things and year after year after year, get better. And I think she just maximized herself or optimized herself better than other people did.

And, and if you, you know, you go on the Olympic, you know, channel, uh, like their Instagram, you can see what she looked like in 2016 versus what she looked like now. She literally looks like a different person. Technically and like physically.

And just even, even like the way, the way she moves when she's just moving, like when she's walking, her presence and, and her build is totally different. Like, totally. Yeah. Like it's crazy. And I think, not to cut you off, it's like, it's so mind-blowingly different that it's like, dude, she's, she's just put in the work for, for eight plus years. Like it's not, it's not something easy that you can hide and if you don't do it.

And then, and, and to your point too, she never all-American in triple jump. Think about this. Like, so there was eight chicks indoors, eight chicks outdoors that were better than her all the time at the, at the collegiate level. This isn't even on the world stage. So like, that's also a testament. So, yeah, man.

And I think like, it's just certainly, I want to be clear, like there, there's genetic gifts and talent matters and stuff. But I, I think there's another part of genetics that we don't talk about, which is like, um, what's, what's the word? Um, it's basically like your expression of your genes, right? So like, if you're not in the right environment and you don't have the ability to express those genes, and you, you won't be able to see that, like that talent, right? It's obviously, it's easy to see, oh, somebody's tall.

Right. Also, epigenetics is the term I was for. So there's the epigenetics, right? So like, you have to put people in certain environments for them to express their genetics. And there's a component of genetics of things like, you know, certain people when they train, they get more of like, you know, pleasure hormones than other people. So that means that person might just really like to train. And so if you get somebody that's really engaged, really likes to train, then they're going to be able to get more of those gains, you know, practice over practice, week over week, and things like that. And so it's like not just about what somebody looks like and what where they are right now. It's about like actually, you know, putting them in the right environment, giving them the right plan and seeing what happens. And you just never know.

Yeah, 100%. I agree with that. Where it's, it's, it's almost like looking at someone like Rojas, if she grew up in the US, let's just say she would have probably been a basketball player. And like genetically, we would have never seen, or she may not have ever had the development of her speed component actually be released. Like the genetic expression may have never happened because her environment setup likely would have been geared towards just playing basketball.

Yeah, it's just the odds are that way. Exactly.

Um, when you do, when you lift, a couple people have asked me about you guys with with velocity tracking. And I feel like Thea maybe tracks it better than you do, Aaron. Do what, what do you have with with like the bar, bar speed and stuff like that related to jumps and related to, and even related to like speed on the runway?

So again, you know, I, I don't want to, you know, act like I'm an expert on VBT. Um, but the way that I think about it, and, and I think about this in regards to other parts of training as well, is that VBT is about like accountability and intent. And so whatever part of the, you know, cycle you're in, like you should be trying to increase or maintain the velocity of the bar. Doesn't matter if you're doing, you know, reps of five or reps of three or reps of one, you should be using that to hold yourself accountable to to that. And so for her to say, okay, man, like, wow, that that velocity really dropped. She's like, "Okay, I got to get this next rep going or this next set going." And that's going to allow you to make sure that the the quality of your lift stays high and that people are continually, you know, autoregulating.

Um, autoregulation in regards to making sure the intent of each lift, each rep is good, and each set is good. But also saying like, "Damn, like my velocity was really low this whole session. Like, maybe I need a break and I need to talk to coach about that or I need to look at it and see that and say, okay, man, like your velocities have been low the last few sessions, let's, you know, give you a deload or something like that."

Um, so, so I don't see it as like, okay, I get, oh, your clean velocity was, you know, 2.5 meters per second. That means that you're going to run super fast. Cuz I, I just like, I haven't, I haven't seen a clear understanding of like how anything in the weight room actually replicates any of the velocities that you might see on the track. So, like that might not be true necessarily with throwing. Maybe there's some things you could do because velocities are maybe a little bit slower on some parts of the movements. But like, I don't know if you can say like, hey, if you clean a certain amount, you snatch a certain amount with a certain velocity, that that means you're going to run really fast. I think it could mean maybe, maybe you would have a better, a better first step, first, like your first, um, to a point.

So, so the only thing, I mean, I don't disagree with you because the only thing I would say is like, if you have a better pound-for-pound, let's say relative, like let's just say you, you clean as a dude, 1.5 times body weight, your first step, maybe two steps will be correlated to that because the impulse is going to be similar. The time to put force into the ground will be similar. But then soon after three, four, five steps, the impulse is much shorter. So the, the time period would would correlate more towards what you're doing on the runway or with jumps or anything like that. So I don't think.

Yeah. Um, also it, we would have to have the context of the age of the athlete. But like a 25-year-old person, uh, you might see it on their first step, maybe that's it.

Yeah, I, I agree with that. And, and so, you know, in regards to certain sports, so like, let's say your football, like alignment or something like, maybe that would be like really, really relevant for triple jump in particular. I don't necessarily care what your first step or second step velocity is. I'm only, I care what you're at the end of the runway, what things look like, right?

So, that's not to say that that doesn't help, or doesn't correlate at all to like, you know, the momentum you have down the runway and potentially give you a little bit more into your max velocity. So, I'm not saying it's not useful per se, but I think that the faster velocities that you're talking about, the less the weight room is going to like actually directly correlate to those things.

Mhm. Yeah. I, I agree with that. I think that's the interesting. What do you know about? I did want to ask you, we've talked about a couple times, like if we're talking about like Jonathan Edwards and like he, he, what do you see in, and maybe who do you look at as like the best technical jumpers with that could carry the speed the best and hold the best positions through through technical execution? And then yeah, what would you, I've always heard and I don't know if this is true. I've always heard he had a big clean, but I never understood outside of like he just had a really big clean. I don't know if he squatted. I don't know if he did anything else. I don't even know if he, if any of that stuff's true, but maybe what do you see in those guys that you can look at for Jordan or for Thea that to build towards and even the younger kids to build towards?

Yeah, I think, I think there's like, you touched on it earlier. I think there's a requisite level of strength that you need to have. Like if you can't clean one and a half your body weight, like you're just not doing enough in the weight room, right? And so I think Jonathan Edwards at his best was almost cleaning, I think he was cleaning like power cleaning, um, like almost two times his body weight, which is like pretty, you know, remarkable.

Um, and I also know like Christian Taylor, he also, I think he's, I think his clean, I believe it was like something like 350 or something and maybe he only weighed 180ish or something. And so, you know, he also had clear, almost a double body weight clean. And so I know there's a lot of.

Crazy, what a [ __ ] animal.

Yeah. So, I think you, you definitely need to be able to clean one and a half. And that's not a magic number, but it's like the weight room matters to a degree. Like, you, you, if you don't have a certain amount of strength, you're just going to like fall apart.

There, there are some like young people that jump really far that have like really bad weight room numbers. But I think what happens if you keep jumping like that, your body is just going to fall apart. Um, but again, as far as Jonathan Edwards, I, you know, I think that he, from what I've read, there's, there's some stuff that you can find that has his old, his like, uh, training program of the year when he broke the world record. It's online. You can find it pretty easily. But he was mainly just doing clean snatches and he was doing like, I think some half squats and stuff like that. But I think pound-for-pound, he was really strong.

Um, I think he had really, really good technique. And he was really light. Um, and so I think that's something that you should, those are all things that everybody should be striving for. Being really pound-for-pound as strong as you can be, being really light, having really good technique.

Um, I don't think there was anybody quite as fast as he was, especially at his, like his body weight. And so I think that that makes triple jump a lot easier. He also had the best technique, like I think by far.

Um, there are some guys in the last 10 to 15 years that I think could have broken the world record as far as like they had the physical gifts to be able to do it and they had pieces of world record jumps, but technique is not stable enough and it ultimately led to injuries and those guys just didn't have enough time to break it.

I was just going to ask like, what do you think Taylor lacked or or any of those guys relative to to to Edwards? Injuries aside, was it the lack of speed and then the lack of speed to hold maybe to hold the, is it the lack of speed and then the inability to hold that speed when they they hit the board or what is that, which I guess would be technique as well. So like, what did Taylor lack that didn't get him to jump this far?

Not, I mean, again, we're talking about one of the great, the second greatest arguably ever.

Yeah. To be, for for context, like Christian Taylor jumped 1821 and the world record is 1829. And if he had, if Christian Taylor was perfect on the board, he would have broken the world record.

Yeah. Um, so like I wouldn't say that Taylor lacked anything per se. He's very, he's very fast. I mean, you know, he's a guy that could run the 400 and I don't know, 45 seconds or something like that. Um, which is pretty remarkable.

All right. I forgot about that.

Um, I think that part of it is if you look at, he jumped, he jumped 17 high over both legs. So he, when he, early in his career, he was jumping off one side, then he got hurt and then he switched and jumped on the other leg and he also jumped really far on that leg. And so I think he lost a little bit of time because of that switch and that injury.

Um, I mean, if I were to change his technique, I mean, I think maybe his, he relied a little bit too much on his last phase. Like his first phase was really, he was really good at maintaining speed, but it was, it was short. And so, you have a short, you know, hop phase, and he had a good step phase, but it's like, you put everything into that last phase, there's only so much you can get out of that. So because of Christian's build, where he's a longer like guy, the torque, so when I'm talking about torque, it's like his legs are going to hit farther up away from his center of mass. And even if the force, the ground reaction forces are similar, there's going to be more torque on the body. And so I think it's just harder for those guys to potentially be as as aggressive on some of the, on the hop, for example, especially with that type of speed that he had. So, um.

Do you, do you look at it like, okay, if, if, let's say we, we get a, we get a jumper comes in, jumper comes in, he jumps, you, you're analyzing their jumps, got the hop, step, the jump, and then basically you go hop. Maybe there's an umbrella here of these things correlate to a good hop, step. These things correlate to a good step, jump. These things correlate to a good jump. Then you work backwards and then you say, "Okay, here's the pieces that correlate this." And then you look at the ratio and it's like, "This is bad. This is good. This, this is really good. This is really bad. Okay, now let's take this apart. Let's try to do all the things to improve this part under this umbrella and then troubleshoot it and then let's basically like revisiting. I don't know if you do it quarterly or something, you revisit it over and over again until you just keep chipping away at that low-hanging fruit. Is that like a way that you do training when you're developing someone like Jordan or Thea?

Yeah, I think it's, it's, it's similar to that. I, I think what can happen with triple jump, and probably, you know, many events is like, there might be 20 things you need to fix or 20 things that are are are bad or whatever, right? But a lot of those issues are correlated. Meaning that, okay, if I just, if my posture is off on my approach, then that means the posture is going to be off in my hop. And the posture off my hop, that means my step phase is going to be short and blah, blah. So it's like, if I just fix the posture in my run, that's going to correlate to a good takeoff posture, and that's going to correlate to a good posture in my hop, and that's going to correlate to a good step phase or whatever. So I look at it as as okay, how, what are the issues? What's the priority of the issues? And how, and what do I think, uh, that prioritization, how is that going to, um, you know, solve these subsequent problems? So again, I think some athletes can be like, well, man, I got to fix my landing. It's like, well, it doesn't matter if your landing is good or bad if your hop is horrible and like your run is slow. Like, we need to get you running well first. We need to get you jumping far. And then it's like, yes, the landing does matter, but let's figure, let's fix the thing that's going to give you an extra three feet as opposed to six inches.

Yeah. It's almost like there's something more upstream that needs to get fixed. And it's the posture or the speed on the on the runway that could be, could have a huge cascading effect downstream if you just fix that stuff, is what you're saying.

Yeah. And so I think maybe this might be a flaw of mine, but it's like, I'm pretty stubborn about stuff like that. And so it's like, I don't want you to even think about or talk to me about this other stuff. I need you to just fix this first part first. Then we can worry about all the like little stuff or even like the, the sexy fun stuff. Like people want to worry about the 1% stuff. I need you to fix the 10% stuff.

Yeah, dude. I think that's such a, I, this whole year for me has been, and this is maybe this is a, a short therapy session for me, is is like conveying that message to the throwers. Like, I don't give a [ __ ] about where you are at the front because that won't get fixed if we don't fix the way you enter the circle out of the back. And I, I think of that the same way on the runway. It's like, if this point and your takeoff here is sloppy, the way you land, yeah, we could fix it, but you're not fixing the actual root cause of the issue. And it's the same thing of like, how do you, that's like the hardest part is to get the athletes. Like somebody who's more mature, someone like Alex, I can be like, "Yo, Alex is like, yo, I just need to be balanced on that left out back." And if I'm balanced on the left, the throw's over. I'm done. I'm going to slam this. Like, it's simple. It's really simple. But then to say that to, you know, somebody who's just coming through who's 24 or 25, it's like, dude, you're worrying about the stupidest [ __ ] because you, you, you get distracted by your squirrel brain.

Yeah. And I think it makes it even harder because you have like social media. So, social media is awesome because, you know, I get to meet people like you, right? But it's also a problem because there's, there's some like losers online who just are saying stupid stuff, but it's also, you get to see what everybody's doing. And so it's like, wow, so and so's doing this, so and so is doing that. I heard on this stupid podcast that somebody said this other thing. And it's like, don't worry about that. Even if it was right, that's not you right now. So like, yeah, don't worry about it.

That's not you right now. That is like, that should be staple on everybody's shirts. That's not you right now. Shut up. Yeah. And, and so it's like, you, I think it's really important for us as coaches to like, you know, we have to build that trust and build that buy-in. And part of that should be like, you have your, your pedigree and your accolades and stuff. And do like, hey man, like, you're here, you're here to trust me and like, let's, let's do it this way. And, and, and if this doesn't work out, then, then let's, we can pivot and figure something else out. But it's like, if we can't even try it this way, then it's like, why are we here? What are we doing?

Yo, this is one thing I that like I, I, I want to tie what you just said. I, I want to just, I'm going to rub your back here, Glazy, a little bit. You said you, you go, "Why?" I am not necessarily like this, the velocity guru or, well, I'm not necessarily the guy that really could be speaking about speed. Yo, let's just do a real, real quick check. You coach an Olympic champ. You, you have the ultimate pedigree and you have the ultimate, for like, you should have no athlete coming to you this year and being like, "Aaron, do you really think we should be doing this?" I would be like, "I coach a motherf Olympic champion. Don't even ask me." Like, you follow the plan and you execute the plan and that's it. And you're still probably having athletes like, "Well, do we should we really do this?" Oh my gosh. I was even, I was thinking like, so I wanted to share this. It made me think about when we got into, well, when mainly when you got into it with the other coach, I was there, but I wasn't, I was more like the, uh, I was just like, I would be the enforcer on the back. Uh, I was just observing and filming possibly. Um, but when you got into it with the other coach, I was thinking, you know, from that coach, must have felt like such a [ __ ]. And he probably still feels like a [ __ ], especially after what, what's going on this season in the Diamond League with your guys. Uh, but it's like this never-ending thing now that it's just like, no, no, no. That board gets put back in here. We're going to finish jumping because you have that pedigree. I don't, I don't know if you feel that way, but I feel that way for you. So, I hope, I hope you have a little bit more of an edge.

Yeah. Um, it's, it's funny because I, you can ask, you know, Thea about this next time you see her, but there's been years it's like, man, don't let me get a gold medal because nobody can tell me anything. And, and it's like, that's funny. And I, I kind of felt like that because it's, it is frustrating. Um, because I, I used to say this thing to Thea that always would bug her, say it's like, "I'm just some guy." Like, like, you know, what do I know? Like, I'm just some guy. And so like, now it's like, I'm, you know, coached the world Olympic champion and world champion, all that stuff. So like, I guess now I'm not just some guy. But at the same time, I think, you know, people just feel like their opinion is important. And it doesn't matter what, you know, my accolades are or whatever. Like, there's nothing that I can do that's going to force people to just be like, "Okay, coach. Yes, sir." Like.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, I mean, also it is good that you're not the guy who's like, "No, you have to do it this way or else." It is like, you're, you're not abusing that power, but it is, there still should be a little more in your favor. Like, shut your face.

Yeah, man. But I, I don't know. I, I don't know. I, I look at it again. I, there's a, I think what happens sometimes with athletes is they see it as like, "Oh, this isn't my path or I'm different and blah, blah, blah, whatever." And I think, yeah, there is individualization for sure. But it's like, we're talking about trying to get to the peak of Mount Everest, right? And there's a bunch of different pathways. There's pathways that people went on and like literally died and didn't make it. And you're like, "Okay, we shouldn't do it that way, right?" And there might be a few different pathways to get to the top, but like, they're all, um, converging to one point.

Mhm. So there's not like tons of different. The closer you get to the top, the more similarities there are in what people are doing than not.

Yes.

Yeah.

100. So it's like, we can't just go, "Why, why are we creating a, a unbeaten path that we've never done before that might work?" Why don't we do what we, we've seen people do that works? Maybe a slight adjustment, but like, we don't need to make something new.

Why, why would we do that?

I've been to the top. I've, I've guided someone to the top. Yeah, that's good. Just like maybe we meander a little bit off it, but we don't want to waste time.

Um, no, that's a really good way to put point to put that. That's, and it's, it's funny because it's like, when you, even when you're in the, in the village or or wherever at Worlds, like everybody's doing the same [ __ ]. Everybody's still doing the same stuff. Like, yes, there's going to be difference on technique things and how you queue and how you treat and how you interact and stuff, but like, pretty much everybody's doing the same key things to get to that point.

Um, yeah, that's, that's, that's a, a good thing. I did want to bring this up around sports performance because I wanted, I wanted to tie this. I've had this thought because after watching World Indoors this year and, oh, what's the girl's name? Claire. Uh, is it Bryant? Right.

Yeah. But but looking at her speed also, I still haven't found speed. I even asked that PJ Vasel guy for speed on Thea if they have that from the Olympics, but I haven't seen any. And if you look at, and where I'm going with this is you look at, they put up her top speed, her max, uh, velocity on the runway, and I was, yeah, it was like, I remember thinking like, if that was a dude in the NFL, they'd run like a 45 or a 445 or something, 40, if they, if they carried that through. She's fast, right? And I'm thinking this with Thea and I'm going, triple jump to me, long jump to me are really, really good sports to pull from from the realm of sports performance. So, as a, and I think throwing as well is good, especially in more resisted sports like football. And one thing I wanted to to give you to talk about was last year when we had our one, one guy was prepping for pro day. We had three, three guys prepping for pro day. You would send, I'd send videos to you and you'd say like, "Yo, posture is bad here or or foot position isn't the best here." And I was like, just getting started in understanding this stuff. And you gave me so much stuff to think about. Like, let's say like five real key things to think through that now I've spent, you know, maybe 18 months trying to really watch other sprinters, watch your jumpers, watch people that I see in person, and then our football guys, you know, going through and myself with Legend, our speed guy here, and learning so much about speed from you and from, you know, the triple and the long and I, and I guess I wanted to go tie that into is like, what do you see, like a normal strength coach or a normal, like, let's say a football coach or a soccer coach could learn, you know, from from the, the jumps because even with you, it's like, I, I would send you videos of Tai and you'd say things about like foot pressure and stuff like that. And I don't know if you could expand on anything specifically or if it's just being aware of body position during movement, really.

Yeah, I think, I think there's a large, large opportunity for team sport athletes to like develop their technique. Like, yeah, there, you know, there's, there's a lot more variation in kind of their environment as far as like, hey, there's someone running at you or there's like obstacles that you have to run around and things like that. But I think that because there's not as much of an emphasis on some of the, uh, you know, biomechanics and, and things like that, it leads to a lot more injuries and it's just, it's inefficient in general, right? So like, wouldn't you want to be able to train more so because you're healthier and because you're more efficient? Like, I think that's really what, what's kind of like missing. And so I, I think what's, what's lost is like, I remember seeing some, some football guy posts, like, uh, football guys doing like a standing triple jump or something like that, and they were trying to go like 10 yards. And I was like, I have girls that can do that. So like, why are we, why are we hyping up like guys that are in combine type guys or even NFL guys that can do 10 yards on a standing triple jump when I have women that can do that? Like that's, that's like a bad benchmark.

Mhm. And similarly, like there might be drills, you know, acceleration or running drills that football guys are doing and they're like hype because they're just hype in general, but like, like, hey, you, you should not benchmark to what a football guy does. You should benchmark to what humans can do. And so if like women elite women sprinters can beat your guys, then like, you're actually not really training at a high level. And I don't think that they have that perspective. Like, because I don't know if it's ego or whatever, they just think like, "Oh, we're, we're the best. We're doing it the best." Like, and it's just not, it's not true. And it's not about me saying that track is better than football or whatever. It's just like, we should be trying to train our guys to to have the highest performance possible. And so we should have the right, the right benchmarks. And I just don't think those, those benchmarks are there because these sports live in their own little bubble.

Yeah. That, that's, I mean, it's, it's funny because I think about that with Chase, with Chase Jackson. I think about that a lot where I'm like, "Dude, this chick can, you know, bench press close to 400 pounds." Like, our guys should all be benching at least 500 pounds. Like, I'm not saying that we have to do that to throw far, but if she can do it, that should be the, we should be past that benchmark then. Like, she's an elite woman. We should be able to to go past that. Now, in regards to speed or jumps, who or what sports would you say on the women's side, and I've made this argument before actually talking about Thea in a couple videos, is like, who, who would you say from a sprint perspective technique-wise dudes should be learning from? And then maybe, uh, on the jump side as well, that that these coaches could learn from on the women's side and be like, "Okay, this is stuff that we could apply, um, as a football coach to a, you know, a normal kid, let's say."

So you're asking about like examples of like sprinters, female sprinters, technique-wise? A good question. I think like, like Julian Alfred, obviously Olympic champion. I think she's, she's interesting because obviously she's extremely fast, right? But she also has like a build of kind of more of like team sport athlete. She's very, very strong, right? And so she's showing you what, what it looks like to be like, have the ultimate level of power. And so she does her acceleration is like really, really good. And it's something I think that can be replicated by more team sport athletes as opposed to like, I think someone like Gabby Thomas, who's also an Olympic champion, who's who's really good, right? She has a much like longer, like leaner build. She, she's more about like top-end velocity. Um, her acceleration is like, is not bad, but I think she's, people aren't going to be able to relate as much to her, um, because she just doesn't have that kind of, that similar kind of build and that similar type of like strength and power that that Julian Alfred has. Um, so I think she's kind of just like a really good example of like, how do you kind of push with just so much intensity, um, and aggression? Um, because I don't, I don't think any of these football guys are really can hang with her.

Would you think the same thing almost with the jumps? It's like, like what do you see? I'm just trying to think through, you said because you mentioned that that broad jump, like a, a double leg triple jump or a broad jump. And I'm trying to think through what, what would Thea's best broad jump be? Do you know?

Uh, standing broad jump, she can do about, um, like 290. So that's 9 feet maybe like seven or or eight. Yeah. So, so we're testing here on site this whole week in the gym. And yeah, here's a good question for you actually. What do you think is the difference? So, we have, we have this, uh, now I, I think I have a thought process, but we have a kid, 44-inch vertical, and he's, he's done 42 and a half on the vert. He's done 44 on the pad. He has a 9'3" broad jump. And I'm like, how the hell do you have a 9'3" broad and you have a 42 to a 44-inch vert? Like, how is this possible? And I, I wanted to see. And the the interesting thing is he's an Olympic weightlifter. So in my theory, it was like, okay, he's so in tune with like the specific adaptation of force in a vertical aspect. But then Ryan, or our other weightlifter, who's good, had a 34 and a half inch vert, but then had a 9'10" broad. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if you've ever seen that consistently where like, why someone could have much greater vertical output versus horizontal and what that would be.

Yeah, that's interesting. I, I would have guessed that you say a guy with a 44-inch vertical would be over 11 feet for sure.

Yeah. I mean, my, you know, not to toot my own horn, I was pretty strong in college. Um, but like, Aaron, let's say Aaron back squatted like 550 or some stupid crazy thing. You, what else did you do? You front squatted like 440 or something insane, weighing like 160 goddamn pounds, and you did like 35 pull-ups and you could bench press 315 all while weighing like buck 70. It's a little bit of an exaggeration, but yeah, something like that. But like my my vertical was like, uh, like 39, and I could broad jump 11 when I was front squatting about 405. I could do, I think I think went 11'4" in the broad jump or something like that.

[Laughter] You know? And so like, I, I mean, I was good at that type of stuff. Like that was like my strength. Um, and I think that like doing front squats and squats in general correlate pretty well to doing broad jumps. So, it's surprising to see that a guy could go 44 and only go nine. I mean, it might just be a technical issue. So, maybe work with him for a couple weeks and he can jump way farther. I just, I don't know how that's possible. That that's really strange to me.

Yeah. Um, yeah. But like I have, I have a girl who's 5'5" who can broad jump over 10 feet. That's insane, dude.

And there, there, there are a few women that that that can do that for sure. Like elite, elite long jumpers, you know, there's, there's a few women that can can do that for sure. Um, especially if they're taller.

What do you think lacks then if you have a big broad and let's say they, is it just strictly speed because of that she's shorter or what?

Uh, excuse me. So yeah, I think that as far as like, why is she not jump, why is she not a world champion if she can do.

Yeah. Or or just maybe not.

Yeah. I, I think that you, you have to look at at the kind of the time intervals and stuff, right? So, you know, if you're doing an actual standing broad jump, you get, you're going to go through way more flexion than you would for a regular long jump, right? Like you can really go down and spend a bunch of time to generate all that impulse and then take off. When you're actually doing a long jump, you know, your takeoff time is going to be like 120 milliseconds or 130 milliseconds, something like that. And so, you have to be able to generate, you have way less time to generate a ton of force to take off. And you have to be fast. I think she's really good and I, you know, she, she's like almost, you know, world-class level, like she's like right on the cusp of being able to break into, you know, qualifying for Worlds and stuff. Um, but I think it's, it's very possible for you to be really good at, have a really good vertical, really good broad, and and not be fast and not be able to jump well off of one foot with speed because again.

Yeah. You don't have that time and it becomes a lot more elastic than than muscular. So that, that was kind of like my point around if you have a really good front squat, you probably have a really good broad jump. And that has very, I think it has a lot less to do with your, your elasticity and like your connectivity and a lot more to do with you could drop down so far and you have so much time to go into the.

And that's why a lift like that actually is better for team sport because there is more time that somebody might have on a football field where they're wearing pads and they're also making contact with somebody. So, it's going to be better there, but not necessarily, you know, to a point going back to the resiliency versus performance enhancement in a sport like triple jump.

Yeah. I have one more thing because we got about four minutes and I, I talked to you, gotta let me. Okay, let me. I talked to Kristoff Kip this morning because we were just talking, uh, physiology and this type of stuff and I want to pitch this to you because you're literally the person that that sparked me on this. You would always talk about, uh, Rojas is elastic. She's more elastic. And so I would talk to Kristoff then I'd be like, "What is, what is Aaron when he says this?" Is there any like timeline that would say this is where elasticity would be versus, you know, um, maybe it's, it's, it's elasticity means under point, you know, whatever time, let's say 0.2 seconds.

And where I'm going with this is in in the realm of of speed or of, let's, let's use endurance training. You basically have long slow distance and you get an adaptation of greater blood volume. If you're working with high-intensity interval training, you're going to increase cardiac output. If you're getting sprint interval training, you're going to increase mitochondrial efficiency. Those are like the three areas, right, that of of that you're looking at from the perspective end of of endurance. Strength. I think you could make the argument, you, you would have max strength, you would have speed strength, and then you would have some type of hypertrophy as like another, like a three-pronged approach to strength versus three-pronged approach to endurance. And where I'm pitching this is I was trying to figure out for explosiveness, if you would say, and this is from you. So I, you could also say like, this is inspired, maybe by you, is the elastic explosiveness would be under two seconds. And I was struggling with this one, saying being agile, so much more of like a, like a plant and a cut where you have a little bit longer time would be like 0.2 to let's say 0.8. And then from like 0.8 to like a me, a second and a half, I was, I was comparing, comparing this would be more of like impulse based because you would see this typically, like, like a, a clean could improve that. A front squat could improve that. So, it's sort of like the continuum of elastic here. And I know that technically using the term impulse doesn't make sense. I wanted to see and pitch this to you, there, your thoughts on that because I'm trying to clarify it with our guys also, our coaches out there, is like, mainly our guys on the on-site, is like, if we're seeing in an athlete that they're elasticity is good, but their impulse is good, we know where their explosive reps need to come in the gym.

Yeah. So I think there's, there's two, the way that the way I think about elasticity is there, there's kind of like maybe two phases of of of the strength. And so you have, I, I'll call it like from the initiation to like maximal amortization, and then from amortization to taking off or the release of whatever you're doing. So like, what happens is elasticity, I think almost like by definition, is energy comes in, you store some of that energy, and then you release that energy, right? That's like elastic when you're talking about like physics and you, um, and so what's happening here is that there's some type of probably like ground reaction force or force from a bar or something like that that comes in, you store that energy, you have to stop that motion, and then you have to, you know, reinitiate that motion, probably going the opposite direction, right? And so, so elasticity is not purely just about I'm at a standstill and I create force. That's kind of like the people use that like ballistic. That'd be like more like a med ball throw is more ballistic because you're kind of from standstill to launching an object as opposed to elastic would be is, you know, you jump off of a box, you land, and then you jump again because you store that energy from landing. You have to stop it and then you have to, you know, use that energy to go and jump again, right? And so at some point, the higher box you go, you're not going to be able to store that energy because it's just like so much. You're just going to crash, right? And so there's some optimal height there.

Um, so, so I do think that, yeah, you will have some of these time intervals, but it's not just about the time interval. It's, it's about you have to have some initial energy coming in first for it to really be elastic because like again, I would say, I don't, I don't know Rojas and all her training, but like when I talk about her, it's like once she gets going, she's really good at being able to store that energy and keep going as opposed to.

Like her acceleration being really good, which would be more about starting from nothing and then, you know, doing something. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. So, like, so one of the things you can do in the weight room, which I think is useful, but it's not fully about elasticity depending on the on the drill, is you have like constrained, you have a time constraint on your peak, your time to peak velocity measurement. So you could say like, let's say you're doing like, you know, a bench press off of blocks or something like that. You could say, "Okay, how long does it take? If I only have, you know, 0.2 seconds or 0.3 seconds, how fast can I get the bar in that time interval, right?" And that might actually correlate pretty well with like throwing or something, but that's not purely elastic because you're, you're going from a dead stop. What would make it more elastic is if you, the bar kind of drops and then you have to push it back up. And so you've seen people do stuff like that with like sometimes with a bar, but like more with like a medicine ball. You drop a medicine ball on somebody's chest and then push it out. That would be like jumping for your arms. So I see that as like elastic, right? And so you do things in the weight room that have a time constraint and there's some way of storing energy first. So you have to stop that motion and then use that energy to create another motion. That, that's kind of how I would define it. I know that's pretty long-winded, but.

No, that's helps. Okay. All right, Aaron. Thanks for doing the podcast. I'm glad we, I think this is like two years of me talking to you about it and then we finally got it done. Thanks to Jason.

Cool, man.

All right, I will hit you up. Everybody can. Yo, share your Instagram handle. We'll put it all over the screen so everybody can stalk you.

Oh, okay. Uh, Young Jumps.

Yeah, Young Jumps. It's pretty simple. It's exactly how you think you'd spell it.

All right. I will see you soon, hopefully.

Yeah, man. Definitely. Peace.

See you.

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feel.

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