Today’s episode welcomes back coaches Cal Dietz, Dan Fichter and Chris Korfist in a truly epic multi-guest podcast. The amount of coaching and learning experienced between Cal, Dan and Chris is staggering, and they have been influencing the training practices of other coaches since the early 2000’s.
Speed training is always a fun topic, with a lot of resonance to many coaches, because it is the intersection of strength and function. Training speed requires an understanding of both force and biomechanics. It requires knowing ideas on both cueing, and athlete psychology. Since acquiring better maximal velocity is hard, it forces us to level up on multiple levels of our coaching, and that process of improvement can filter out into other aspects of performance and injury prevention.
On the show today, fresh off of their recent speed training clinic collaboration, Cal, Dan, Chris and I talk about a variety of topics on speed and athletic performance, including “muscular vs. elastic” athletes, the importance of strong feet (and toes), reflexive plyometric and speed training, as well as the best weight room exercises and alignments that have a higher transfer point to actual sport running. This was a really enjoyable podcast to put together.
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Timestamps and Main Points:
2:50 – Who wins the quality sleep award between Cal, Dan and Chris
5:45 – Looking back on elastic vs. muscular athletes in light of the DB Hammer era, relative to now where we are talking more about wide and narrow ISA athletes
15:42 – Thoughts on athletes who do better to train with weights above 80% of their lifting max, and then athletes who do better with less, and how to train these athletes year-round
19:12 – Dan’s take on altitude drops, and how much athletes can progress into drops, or be more responsive to it than others
22:25 – The reflexive nature of things like dropping, falling and “plyo-soidal” oriented over-speed training
33:00 – Some different strategies Chris sees in sprinting on the 1080 with elastic vs. muscular athletes in mind
40:21 – Foot and toe strength, athlete function, and the role of the nervous system
50:05 – Thoughts on foot positions in light of weight-room work, and its link to sport speed
54:38 – How stronger athletes can manage a wider step width in a sprint start, vs. weaker athletes
1:03:58 – How athletes work off of coach’s mirroring of a movement
1:07:55 – Cal, Dan and Chris’s favorite single leg training movements for speed and athletic movement, particularly the “Yuri” hip flexor training movement
1:18:10 – Moving past “barbell hip thrusts” in training into standing or 45 degree hyper type versions
“I think the elastic component boils down to altitude drops” Fichter
“Everyone is going to deal with that collision in a different way, sometimes it is going to have to do with tendon length, or isometric strength” Korfist
“Isometrics correlated a lot closer to increasing power, after an isometric block with my throwers, than it did my sprinters” Dietz
“The throwers produced a lot more force above 60%, the runners produced a lot more force below 60%”
“I can give you examples where something works for my athletes, and then 16 weeks later, it might make them worse, and that’s the art of coaching”
“Is the hormonal/global response (from lifting heavy weights) going to outweigh the negatives?” Korfist
“We’ve trained a lot of people without jumping at all, just landings” Fichter
“I tested a kid with some reflexes that were off, and as soon as we implemented some overspeed work with the 1080, those reflexes turned on” Dietz
“I’m not pulling them any faster than they can run, but it changes the way they run, because it gets into this “I have got to be perfect, or I am going to get hurt”” Korfist
“The one freak almost dislocated my thumb (when I tested his toe strength)” Dietz
“If you can tie the foot and hip together, you are going to have a much more bulletproof athlete… we spend so much time on the knee, the knee is just a hinge joint” Korfist
“Some of the best female athlete that I have come in raw, have been kids that have been Irish dancing” Korfist
“Rhythmic motions heal your body” Fichter
“I had a kid that loved static stretching; I hate static stretching, but it seemed to work for him; so if he liked it, go for it” Korfist
“In the strength phase, our stance is wide, and then we go with a mid-stance in the power phases, and we go in a narrow stance on the glute ham, in the speed phase” Dietz
“Really weak kids have very narrow starts; really weak kids cross over when they start; I don’t think you can have that width if you don’t have a really strong foot” Korfist
“The brain knows exactly where to step; if you try to coach “wide” (in a start) I don’t think it’s a coachable point… I think there are a lot of things people try to coach, that you shouldn’t actually coach” Dietz
“People forget that velocity gives you stability” Korfist
“Someone with a wider stance gait has a vestibular issue” Fichter
“You want to see if someone can get to the big toe, crawl” Fichter
“You don’t tell a horrible/weak athlete to get a good shin angle” Dietz
“Tangential (rotational) velocity is the name of the game, and the (Yuri) drill does it” Korfist
“I had hip thrusts in all my lifts, I pulled them all and went to (the Yuri)” Dietz
Show Notes
Coaching “The Yuri”
About Cal Dietz
Cal Dietz is currently the associate director of athletic performance for men’s and women’s Hockey at the University of Minnesota, and has worked in the athletic performance department 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. Dietz has co-authored the top selling book, Triphasic Training: A systematic approach to elite speed and explosive strength performance.
About Dan Fichter
Dan Fichter owns and operates WannaGetFast Power/Speed Training, a sports performance training business in Rochester, NY that offers training to elite athletes. Dan is one of the leading applied neurological training experts in the world, and has made numerous connections between clinical level neurology, and athletic performance and sport training. Dan has coached athletes in all sports from all over the country, and is in two different Halls of Fame for his own athletic prowess in football.
Fichter’s clients have included pro hockey players Chris Thorburn (Winnipeg Jets), Stanley Cup champion Brian Gionta (Buffalo Sabres), Ryan Callahan (Tampa Bay Lightning, US Olympic Team), Shane Prince (Binghamton Senators), Olympic track and field star Victoriya Rybalko from the Ukraine, NY Yankee shortstop Cito Culver, UFC fighter Mike Massenzio, Oakland A’s 2nd baseman Andy Parrino, Washington Nationals Infielder Chris Bostick along with Washington Nationals pitcher Brian Dupra.
About Chris Korfist
Chris Korfist has been a high school coach in track and football for almost 30 years, with more than 80 All-State athletes. He has also been a strength coach at the college and high school levels, working with many sports. Korfist owns a private facility called Slow Guy Speed School that helps develop athletes ranging from World Champion to middle school. He has consulted with professional sports teams all over the world, including the NFL, MLB, NBA, and Rugby League.
Korfist has published research on sprint training and is an advisor for Auckland University of Technology’s SPRINZ. Additionally, he co-owns Track Football Consortium (@TFConsortium), is co-founder of Reflexive Performance Reset, and has discussed training in countless blogs and podcasts.
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