Today’s guest is Aaron Davis, sports performance and health coach at Train Adapt Evolve. I first discovered Aaron’s work after reading his piece on arterial occlusion and tempo vs. circuit training prescriptions which sparked a huge interest in the topic on my own end. Aaron’s work is first class, and his knowledge of physiology and athlete adaptations is second to none in a field where coaches are quick to copy and paste the trendy workout template, but less willing to dig into why one athlete might respond well to longer sprint work, while others flounder with this workload.
Aaron has been a head collegiate track and field coach, and switched over the private industry afterwards, where he now uses technology to optimize training adaptations for athletic populations. He also has a deep interest in human health and function.
Today on the podcast, Aaron and I cover topics ranging from muscle length-tension relationships, to muscle occlusion trends in sprinting and strength, to muscle hypertrophy ideals and training cycle planning.
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.
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Key Points:
- Aaron’s background
- The importance of muscle length-tension relationships in speed and strength expression
- Deep squats vs. partial high tension movements in power and elastic expression of strength
- Occlusion and bloodflow trends, and individualizing speed-endurance work based on response
- Strength training in light of oxygen desaturated situations
- How max strength, hypertrophy and speed fit together in training
- Ideas on fast-twitch hypertrophy in training
- Enzymatic adaptations to speed-endurance training
- Eyeball tests to determine oxygen deprivation in workouts
“We have to improve tension in certain ranges to improve stiffness at maximal velocity”
“(Regarding altering length-tension relationships) Intensive isometrics are kind of my go-to, or eccentrics in certain ranges”
“I think owning and learning certain positions, and having strength in certain positions can only do good, for sure”
“What kind of stress reaction are we creating if athletes are occluding all the time. If you occlude, that means while you are doing work, you are not getting the free fresh blood into the muscle”
“How can we get in and out (of a workout) without causing that much damage… that’s how I look at it with using the MOXY (blood occlusion monitor)”
“One of the hardest things with endurance athletes is to try to teach them to desaturate”
“Generally, all the greats have (max strength, speed, hypertrophy) going at the same time, in some form or fashion”
“You should see this occlusion trend somewhere above 75%, if their slow twitch it might be a little bit higher, if their fast twitch, you might see it a little bit sooner on, that percent scale per their 1RM”
“When we think of tension we think of a bracing tension, but we want a fluid tension that relaxes just as quick as it contracts”
“Speed-endurance allows certain sodium potassium pumps to regulate the cellular environment under certain stressors a lot better”
About Aaron Davis
Aaron Davis is a Sports Performance/Health Coach with 10 years of experience coaching athletes and teams across multiple sports. Utilizing multiple diagnostic technologies and labs, Davis firmly believes health and performance go hand in hand. He is a constant student of sports performance and health – drawing upon knowledge from leading experts in the field. Davis coaches athletes in the Austin, Texas area as well as international and US athletes remotely. He shares his experiences and training philosophy speaking at seminars and writing for Train. Adapt. Evolve.
Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (NSCA), USA Weightlifting-L1 Sports Performance Coach, USA Level II Track and Field Coach, CrossFit L1
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