Just a few short months ago, my worldview of sports training was shaken by reading one of the most revolutionary, as well as smart, books in the field, Tri-Phasic Training.  If you haven’t checked out any of his stuff, Cal Dietz is a genius in the world of athletic development. He has some great experience, as well, with often debated topics such as over-speed training, explosive eccentric and isometric training methods, as well as complex training. I am pleased to bring you Cal’s thoughts on several of these aspects of athletic performance training in this first interview with Cal for Just Fly Sports.
Just Fly Sports: You feature a lot of accelerated plyometrics use in your programs. Do you always use them as part of a circuit or French Contrast, or would they be a good stand-alone tool as well. Do you have any examples of case studies where an athlete improved their vertical when accelerated plyometrics were incorporated in the program?
Cal Dietz:Â Approximately 10 years ago, I was fortunate to come across a motion analysis system that our mechanical engineering department possessed. This device contained nine cameras placed systematically such that it could detect a multitude of human movements and joint angles to find out what was really going on in sport. While utilizing this system, I analyzed a number of athletes in the weight room and on the field with this elite camera system. To be clear, I couldn’t set these cameras up myself. Our strength and conditioning staff had to have biomedical engineering students assemble the entire system in order to run these tests and analyze various movements.
One day while analyzing the data, I began to realize that I couldn’t mimic the speed qualities of the second and third step in running and skating using conventional plyometric exercises. At that point it dawned on me to first look at the basic functions of the ankle foot as it’s used in sport. As the foot strikes the ground, whether during acceleration or at top speed, the small toes work to find contact with the ground. What then occurs is a transfer of forces from the small toes over to the big toe at push off. The transference is utilizing the size and strength of the big toe in running; this action must be used in all movements in training.
       
Power transfer to the big toe is a crucial aspect of being fast and athletic
So keep in mind that in every possible action you must use a few key coaching points/actions with your athletes:1. Focus on pushing through the big toe. You will see a huge improvement in their jumping ability if you add this one component to your jumping/plyometric programs. Also, in any weight lifting movement that applies extension of all three joints (at a slow or high speed) this also must be implemented to transfer weight room performance to the field. So, in your cleans, cue the athletes to push through the big toe at the top of the pull. This is not recommended for Olympic weight lifters; however, for sports performance it would be highly recommended. The walking lunge is another example of how this should be implemented. As an athlete would push and finish off the movement at the top, all the forces must be transferred off the foot to the big toe to strengthen it and emphasize its mobility and strength at the range of motion.
No matter what sport you play, if it involves movement with the legs, you must constantly coach the athletes up on these finer points of foot function. Essentially, what happens is they’re losing all the potential power from the main two joints of explosion and not transferring it onto the speed on the field.  I’ve seen too many athletes underutilize their potential and have a simple biomechanical problem that can’t be transferred over because of one joint in the kinetic chain in applying power and force to the ground. You lose so much potential.
Just Fly Sports:Â What are your thoughts on complex and French-Contrast training vs. traditional strength loading methods which separate strength and speed methods? Do you feel that complex training is an effective method to train power?
Cal Dietz: I guess it’s hard to know where to start with this answer. The complex and French contrast training is some of the most effective transfer from weight room methods to the field. I’m just talking about results in the sporting field not in the weight room. The problem is people can’t identify their goal of training they assume weight room is solely strength training and not performance training.
 
Above is an example of a French Contrast Training setup
I believe I once saw a study where they were researching strength for the evaluation of contrast training versus strength training only. The results showed that the group which solely completed strength training had better strength training results. Which should be the case with this study, however the author didn’t point out that with complex training your sole purpose is not strength training, it would be a transfer of sport performance through dynamic correspondence to help you perform on the field. Now I could go on and on about what complex training is designed for, however the sole purpose I feel is reactiveness and speed development. The literature and reviews of studies may show you that complex training is not as effective as strength training for strength, however it’s not for developing strength, it’s for the improvement of speed. I have many track coaches who have e-mailed me since release of my book, Triphasic Training, to say thank you for the methods of French contrast, because they have achieved superior results from training their athletes with this method, as well as many others in the book. These results are simply compared to the previous methods being used, I’m not saying it’s the ultimate method, I am saying it is very effective. I truly hope this is of value because many coaches, and strength coaches, that have not been dealing with track athletes, do not realize that there are some methods in the strength field that wouldn’t make their athletes any better. Many protocols would make him worse if they had been trained in a sound manner.
Decathlete RJ McGinnis performs a French Contrast training session
People can’t understand when I say functional training is not going to make an elite athlete better, if anything it will make him worse. If you can’t understand that then I don’t know if you understand the process of training. I will, however, use functional training as a beginning stage for an athlete to develop general fitness levels. Functional Training is in no way a specific training method and will not improve their performance significantly in their sport, but it will improve their ability to train specifically at a later date which might be four weeks later or it could be months later. I think functional training has its time and place, but it cannot be used solely to develop athletes or any athletic quality at the highest level.
About Cal
Cal Dietz has been the Head Olympic Strength and Conditioning coach for numerous sports at the University of Minnesota since 2000. He has consulted with Olympic and World Champions in various sports and professional athletes in the NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB, and Professional Boxing. During his time at U of M, he help founded and chairs the Sport Biomechanics Interest Group with its purpose to explore the physiological and biomechanical aspects of advanced human performance encompassing the various aspects of kinesiology, biomechanics, neuro-mechanics and physics. Dietz has also given numerous lectures around the country, as well as publish several scientific articles and dozens articles on training. Most recently, Dietz co-authored the top selling book, Triphasic Training: A systematic approach to elite speed and explosive strength performance. You can find Cal’s excellent book via his website: www.xlathlete.com.
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