This routine focuses on strengthening the feet and ankles to improve stiffness and reactive strength in sprinting. It targets the often-neglected areas crucial for efficient force transfer in sprinting.
- Address foot and ankle strength/stiffness, particularly for athletes with "mushy" feet
- Progressively increase difficulty of exercises
- Focus on quick, reactive movements
- Monitor improvements in foot control and ankle stability over time
Today's episode features Angus Ross, physiologist and strength coach at High Performance Sport New Zealand. Angus is making his second appearance on the podcast, following up on his initial chat about eccentric strength training with practical knowledge on stiffness, fascia, and performance.
- PhD in exercise physiology from the University of Queensland
- Worked with elite athletes in the NZ system, including sprint cycling and skeleton
- Experience in the Australian institute system (Queensland Academy of Sport and Australian Institute of Sport)
- Winter Olympian (1998 and 2002 Winter Games)
- Known for intelligence, curiosity, and pragmatic approach to coaching
- Double versus single leg stiffness for team sport athletes and track/field sprinters
- Benefits and use of plyometrics versus overloaded eccentric training
- Periodization of training methods throughout the year
- Muscular versus fascial driven athletes
- New developments with Angus Ross
- Reactive strength and stiffness in sprinting
- Double versus single leg stiffness
- Maximal isometric or overcoming exercise versus plyometrics
- Experimenting with frequent alteration of training stimulus
- Benefits of "fascial tightness" exercises for fascial driven athletes
- How muscle driven athletes can often PR after rest periods
- Thoughts on velocity based training
- EMS and strength performance
"I'm sure stiffness from sprint data would show the same things as a single leg drop jump (athletes deficient in a single leg drop jump leak energy at maximal velocity)"
"The plyos might really develop tendon stiffness, while the longer slower contractions (i.e. supramaximal type work) still might develop some stiffness, but may also develop compliance as well"
"If I was going to periodize it, I might be doing some supramaximal eccentric work with some isometric work initially, because they marry well in addressing tendon properties, and you could do it with a small amount of plyos, and then morph until faster eccentric work, and towards plyos"
"The great coaches have the intuition to change (the emphasis of the program) when needed"
"When you got the motor patterns from 20 years of plyos in the system, they are there, if you make a change in the system, you will improve"
"What I've been doing essentially is a 4 week block on repeat, with a different week each block… for some athletes it's worked great, but other athletes don't feel like they are getting enough time on a stimulus"
"Changing the stimulus on a regular basis is a good thing…. some people it's worked really well for"
This 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.
Intrinsic Foot Muscle Training