Our guest for today’s show is Erik Huddleston. Erik was recently on the podcast, on episode 269, speaking about important elements of squat technique based on individual frames of the athlete. After the show, I had some other important questions left over that I wanted to discuss, and also in that time, Erik has made a career transition to working in the NBA. Erik is currently an assistant sports performance coach with the Indiana Pacers and head performance coach for their G-League affiliate, the Ft. Wayne Mad Ants. He is the former director of performance at Indianapolis Fitness & Sports Training (IFAST), along with having NCAA D1 experience.
When we program training for athletes, what factors are we considering when we select exercises? Do we just pick movements that are novel and random, or do we have a greater philosophy that helps us decide what types of movements to use, and when? What about timing, such as exercise selection in the training sessions coming off of, or leading them up to competitions or tough practice periods? Or, do we ever ask ourselves about what an athlete’s development level (youth vs. pro) might mean for them with the types of exercises we are prescribing from a compression and expansion perspective?
On the show today, Erik speaks on organizing exercise selection based on an athlete’s training schedule (such as post or pre-competition periods of the training week, or even training year), how to use weight placement to train various athlete body types, and some critical differences in training, from an expansion/compression perspective, regarding youth vs pro level athletes. It’s so easy to fan-boy (or girl) over the workouts of “elite” athletes, but the key to good coaching is always knowing how to engage an athlete where they are at in their own development.
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Timestamps and Main Points
5:28 – How to organize training based off of periods of “expansion” and “compression”
11:42 – How Erik quantifies what players are experiencing in practice and games from a “expansion/compression” perspective, and how to give them what they don’t have then, in a gym setting
14:54 – Exercise selection principles that help athletes optimally reset in their “off” days
21:55 – How to adjust exercises to help them ramp up to a game or competition situation
24:20 – What a pre-season training load looks like compared to in-season in professional basketball
29:00 – What pre-season training looks like in high school sports where athletes have a lot more time to prepare without high volume sport loadings
34:41 – Situations where more compression will help an athlete, vs. situations where it will potentially hurt an athlete
39:25 – How to set up training for “pylon” shaped individuals to help their reversal ability in jumping and athletics
46:20 – How “flipping the pylon” of the torso, and having wide shoulders impacts squatting selection
52:06 – How the shape of one’s torso impacts the types of plyometric exercises that players should utilize
54:46 – How to prescribe jump programming to individuals who have a hard time yielding in their movement relative to the ground
59:10 – How to approach plyometrics and jump training for youth athletes vs. elite athletes who are already at a relatively high level, and playing jump oriented sports constantly
“Keeping player assets on the court is the most important part of my job”
“Give them some of what they don’t have that they are getting from the training and the basketball stimulus”
“I have to assume that the vast things that are occurring on the court are output driven… that’s where we get into that compression end of the spectrum”
“My training before a game is really really output driven, it’s really force production driven… ramping them up like that is the appropriate thing to do”
“When they have an off-day, that day is generally going to be an input day, or this expansive quality that we are looking for… how do I restore position that allows them to recover well”?
“When things are intense, when training loads in the court are high, we try to match that with a high intensity in the weight room also”
“When you are prescribing your compression in the right way, it doesn’t take a lot of it to move the needle forward in terms of force output… but it quickly on the back end can take away from some expansive qualities”
“Muscle mass by nature, is compression… and whether that is positive or negative is a case by case basis”
“If I’m looking to bias the inhaled portion on a split squat, I’m going to coach an inhale”
“That traffic-cone shaped individual, they just don’t have the base in their thorax to be able to re-direct pressure and volume… so obviously that’s something we want to work on with the force output side of things”
“Breath hold and exhale are the game thing…. A breath hold is just an exhale against a closed glottis”
“I’m not big on coaching cues while doing something, I want to set (an exercise) up in a way where an athlete will be successful”
“(For young athletes) I use line hops, ankle hops, with the emphasis of getting off the ground quickly. (Pros) I band assist a lot of their jumps… they are already really good at getting off of the ground quickly… I try to allow them more time (to find the heel in their jump… you do want these guys to have access to the positions where they can redistribute force well”
Show Notes
Expansion/contraction flow chart for training
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About Erik Huddleston
Erik Huddleston is currently an assistant sports performance coach with the Indiana Pacers (NBA) and head performance coach for their G-League affiliate, the Ft. Wayne Mad Ants. He is the former director of performance at Indianapolis Fitness & Sports Training (IFAST). Erik previously spent time at Indiana University & Texas Tech University with the men’s basketball teams.
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