Good morning. Happy Monday. I have neuro coffee in hand and it is perfect. All right. A very busy Monday, unusually busy Monday. But quick housekeeping item, the Intensive 19 is going to be September 22nd through the 25th. We're going to open up applications this week, maybe today for those of you on the mentorship list. If you're not on the mentorship list, go to any post on billhartmanpt.com. Get yourself signed up on that list. You will be first notified when applications open and give you the first opportunity to apply for the Intensive 19. Intensive 18 is this week, so this is Intensive 18 week, very exciting. So a lot of things to do for that, people coming into town from all over the place, even outside the country. So again, very excited. Today's Q&A was with Sandis. The original question from Sandis was in regards to sprinting and then this led us into some things associated with connected tissue behavior, some testing to differentiate what type of connected tissue behaviors you have. So we mentioned things like a Bosco test which you can look up yourself and find out how that's going to help you to determine whether you need to bias training towards more force production or a more power-oriented or a time-constrained type of an activity, plyometric activities fall into this category as well. So this is going to be a great question for those of you that are always trying to determine, well, what do I do with this athlete? How do I determine what I should be doing with this athlete? So again, Sandis, thank you. Very useful question for a lot of people. Everybody have an outstanding Monday. Don't forget to get yourself signed up on the mentorship list today ASAP so you can be first to apply for the Intensive 19. Have a great day. I'll see you tomorrow.

So, how do sprinting or jumping in basketball connect with the gym? What kind of exercise selection do you need to improve those things? Is it like heavier weight and lower reps? Is it like more explosive type of training?

Who are we talking about? But I mean, like, but who are we talking about? So, so, so that there's not a, I'll get the vertical jump cookbook out and we'll go through that, right? You can't really do that, can we? Right? We got to, we got to, we got to talk about, we got to talk about problems and solutions. We can't just say that, oh, if you want to jump higher, this is how you do it. If you want to run faster, this is how you do it. Now, here's the one thing that we can say. is that the greater the force that we can apply to the ground in the shorter period of time, that's going to impact both of those. The question mark is, is how does this individual need to do that? Is it the fact that they don't produce a high enough force? Or do they produce a high force? They just can't do it quickly.

Both.

But I mean, like, but who are we talking about? So, so, so that there's not a, I'll get the vertical jump cookbook out and we'll go through that, right? You can't really do that, can we? Right? We got to, we got to, we got to talk about, we got to talk about problems and solutions. We can't just say that, oh, if you want to jump higher, this is how you do it. If you want to run faster, this is how you do it. Now, here's the one thing that we can say. is that the greater the force that we can apply to the ground in the shorter period of time, that's going to impact both of those. The question mark is, is how does this individual need to do that? Is it the fact that they don't produce a high enough force? Or do they produce a high force? They just can't do it quickly.

Okay.

So that would be the difference. The one absolute is force into the ground. When you look at top speed sprinting, you're going to push almost straight down into the ground. The higher the force into the ground in the shorter period of time, the faster you will run. From a vertical jump perspective, we need the same thing. I have to push harder into the ground so I can go in the opposite direction. The question is, is this a force per unit time, so the impulse, or is it the fact that you can't produce force into the ground? And so that's going to be the determining factor.

And how do you change that? How do you know that? Like that's the limiting factor.

Well, you could read up on Carmelo Bosco, B-O-S-C-O. There's a series of tests that you can do to determine which factor is the deficit. Do you know the difference between a counter movement jump and where you squat down, you hold for four seconds and then jump? If you had those two jumps—so you do a counter movement jump and you do a hold and then jump—and they're equal, then you're using the same strategy under both circumstances, which would bias you more towards the fact that you don't have great connective tissue behaviors.

Are you familiar with that?

Are you familiar with that? No. Okay. So you want to read up on explosive strength deficit. Okay. All right. But you can determine whether it's force related or the connective tissue behavior being the limiting factor by using those two different jumps. Because the dampening of the counter movement demands greater force production be applied to get the connective tissue to move so you can jump. So if you had those two jumps, so you do a counter movement jump and you do a hold and then jump. And if they're equal, then you're using the same strategy under both circumstances, which would bias you more towards the fact that you don't have great connective tissue behaviors. What would be the connective tissue behaviors?

What does that mean?

Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy. You don't bounce well. It's not weak connective tissue. It's connective tissue behaviors. So your connective tissues behave more like a leather belt instead of a rubber band. So if you try to stretch a leather belt, how hard is it to stretch? It's really hard to stretch. How much energy does it release when you let go? Not very much. If I take a rubber band and stretch it and release it, that's a lot of energy. So that would be a representation of really stiff connective tissues that don't store and release energy. And then the rubber band would be connective tissues that do store and release energy. Right. And so the activities that you need to do to make the connective tissues behave more like the rubber band type would be the kind where you move into a position and out of a position progressively at higher rates. So you start to expose the connective tissues to the sort of rubber band type behaviors.

Okay. So it would be categorized in traditional standards as plyometric behaviors.

So it would be categorized in traditional standards as plyometric behaviors.

Okay, I gotcha.

Okay, you would need more of those types of activities versus trying to increase somebody's 1RM back squat. That would be more of a force-related behavior. You see the difference between the two? Yes.

Yeah. So it's just a different type of training, but effectively.

Right. And one's not better than the other. It's just a matter of distribution of how much you need. But there are plenty of tests around, like I said, Bosco tests. Manuel, do you use a Bosco test with your lifters? Okay, I kind of figured you would. Yeah, so if you look at Bosco tests, it's a great little testing tool that'll give you their bias as to what their strategy is in a time-dependent activity like vertical jumping or sprinting. Okay, start there, understand that, and then sort of create your list of activities that you would say would be more force-related versus more power-oriented where there's a time constraint. And again, that would be like your jumping and hopping and all of this stuff that falls under the plyometric category.

Okay. So it's not related obligatorily with the gym. Like, it's not needed to have a gym to do those kinds of things.

Well, it depends on what you're doing. Do you know the fastest way to improve your top speed sprinting? Sprint. Do you know the fastest way to improve your vertical jump? Jump. It's specific. It's 100% specific to what you're doing. High jumpers do thousands and thousands and thousands of jumps. And if you've ever looked at like their Achilles tendon on their jumping leg, it's ridiculous how adaptive that sucker is. They get this big honk and thick Achilles tendon on one side just from doing a bunch of jumps, like thousands of jumps over a period of years, right? And so they optimize the stiffness and the ability to store and release energy in the longer tendons that store the most. That's a pure adaptation from the activity itself. It's always the fastest way. If you want to increase throwing speed, throw. If you want to jump higher, jump. Now, there is supplementary training that you can do to enhance those things to whatever degree you are adaptable, but that's typically the fastest way to do it.

So that would be the same as you explained before, like the leather belt transforming into the rubber band. Okay.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you. This is very helpful.

You're welcome. Good morning. Happy Tuesday. I have neuro coffee in hand and it is perfect. All right, a very busy Tuesday coming up. Quick housekeeping item: applications for the intensive went out last night to the mentorship list. If you are on that list, please check your email and, if you're interested in attending the intensive, please follow your application and return it in a timely manner, but please be thoughtful in your responses. Digging into today's Q&A with Dante. This was a follow-up question on the last Coffee and Coaches conference call in regards to the difference between connective tissue behavior and muscle orientation. So again, these are one of these foundational questions that still has a little bit of confusion behind it because of the way that some of the information has been applied and reported in the research. The distinguishing characteristics between connective tissue behavior and muscle orientation have not been very clearly delineated, which is why you'll see static stretching research that is attempting to increase range of motion and failing miserably. The changes are very small and are not maintained for a very good reason because that type of an activity is designed to emphasize connective tissue behavior, which is not designed to change range of motion. So thank you, Dante, for asking a great question. We break this down; it takes about nine minutes for us to get through it, but there's a lot of good stuff here. So again, thank you, Dante. Everybody have an outstanding Tuesday. I will see you tomorrow, Dante.

And good morning, Bill. Greetings. And a really quick follow-up with Sandy's question. You talk about the counter movement of jump, right? So it includes a stretch-shortening cycle in the counter movement, right? Sorry. I just want to confirm that that means when we land, the connective tissue behavior is yielding. Yes. And when we jump up, it's overcoming. So if we get better on the counter movement, does that mean we have better connective tissue behaviors and it's better for range of motion?

I hope so. So that, so does that mean if I, if we get better on the counter movement, that means we have better connective tissue behaviors and it's better or good for relative motion? No, no. OK. Connective tissue behavior, hang on. The reason that you have connective tissue behaviors in the first place is because you actually stopped the relative motion and the connective tissues keep moving. This is why static stretching does not improve range of motion to any significant degree because it's not supposed to. It's connective tissue behavior. Muscle orientation, so the change in the concentric to eccentric orientation of a muscle is what changes a joint position. That improves range of motion. See, they're confusing things because they're not paying attention to what's actually happening during the stretching element, which would be the yield. OK, stuff move. No question about that, but it's not relative joint motion. Like you don't, like when you're, when you're trying to train connective tissues, you don't want relative motion because I need the connective tissue behavior to be the stuff that moves joints.