This week’s guest is Carl Valle of Spikesonly.com.
Carl is, amongst other sprint and hurdle coaching talents, a speed technology expert. A current trend in athletic performance is jump testing, both as a means of assessing physical progression over the course of a training year, as well as a way of seeking to balance out athletes for the prevention of injury, and potential optimization of performance.
The vertical jump is the greatest display of power that an athlete can generally produce, so it does make good sense to have adequate knowledge regarding testing and assessing the movement. After all, “what you measure, you improve”.
There are a lot of opinions on the best way to test power through the vertical jump, so Carl and I cover a lot of ground on this topic in this podcast.
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Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.
Key Points:
- The basics of using vertical jumping as a means of assessing athletic preparation
- Considerations with the novelty factor in jump training
- Guidelines in deciding which jump monitoring system to utilize
- Why Carl likes repeated jumps vs. single efforts in testing
- Pro’s and con’s of accelerometer based testing
- The advantage of jump testing with added barbell load
- Embedding tests as a part of the warmup
- How and when to test jumping for team sports vs. track and field
- Utilizing jump testing in context of strengths vs. weaknesses, and “balancing” the force-velocity jump profile of athletes
- How to determine what is necessary to train for, and what data one should collect over time
- The relationship between athletic structure, sprint testing and vertical jump performance
- Why Carl likes a plethora of jump tests in training and assessment
“The first time you get on a force plate or jump mat, you’re excited, and want to know your numbers…. but you start to get bored, and want something different or not at all… jump testing requires an all-out performance to be valid”
“When there’s lines (for testing), people aren’t learning and moving and getting better”
“You should be video taping jump testing”
“Accelerometers, because they’re cheap, you can make devices really easily. We’re going to see less physical pads or plates, and a lot more sensors”
“(knowing wattage) resets people’s perception of the numbers”
“In sports preparation, you always want to contrast what they’re not getting. So basketball players, there is a joke that it is the “no barbell association”, testing vertical jump with a barbell reinforces the cultural side of what we’re trying to do”
“My rule is to make sure the tests are embedded (as part of the warmup)”
“Rate of force development, you have to be careful, because you have to do a lot of teasing out to get there”
“If you don’t think it’s going to improve, don’t test it”
“Training data trumps monitoring every single time”
“The most humbling experience you can do, is have athletes to do a 2-point leaning stance, and time them, because you won’t get the artificial benefit of learning to accelerate better from a mechanically efficient position”
“Maximum velocity is the most wonderful test; I’ve seen guys with awesome 20 meter tests, and the look great, get cleared, but then they get hurt”
“You need to start profiling with greater precision than “what’s your 20 time?” (This is where a device like the 1080 sprint really shines)
About Carl Valle:
Coach Valle has coached Track and Field at every level, from high school to the Olympic level in the sprints and hurdles. He has had the privilege of working with great athletes that have been All-American and school record holders. A technology professional, Coach Valle has expertise in performance data as well as an understanding for practical application of equipment and software. Carl is currently the director of innovation for InsideTracker, and focuses his time on testing elite athletes and using technology to help everyone on any level of human performance reach their goals.
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