every time you come into the gym. So you warm up, you work up to your training max. Based on that training max, that's how you calculate the percentages for the day. So you're actually creating a representation of how tired they are. Good morning. Happy Monday. I have no coffee in hand and it is perfect. Coming off a great weekend. We wrapped up Intensive 14 yesterday, kind of in a little bit of a catch-up recovery mode today, but feeling really, really good about it. Housekeeping by Fast University members. We have call at 1pm Eastern Standard Time today. So be looking for that. The link is already up on ifastuniversity.com. If you're not a member of ifastuniversity.com, please go there now and get yourself signed up so you can join us for the call at 1pm. All right. So digging into today's Q&A. This was with Lalo. And it came off one of the coffee and coaches conference calls. And we started off talking about a performance-related indicator in regards to whether someone is sort of utilizing connective tissues efficiently in a vertical jump and how we would identify that. But we drifted into a situation where we started discussing elements of fatigue and how we could monitor that. And there are certainly many ways to do that. And there are plenty of gadgets out that are available to us that can help us with that. But oftentimes in real time, so when we're actually in the gym, are there ways that we can monitor these things? And I would say, yes, there are. So something as simple as creating a five point scale of how do you feel today can actually be very, very useful. So the perception of fatigue can matter. So if I have an athlete that comes in and says, oh, I'm a one out of five, then we might need to reconsider what we had planned for training that day. And he comes in a five out of five, then then maybe it's time to up the game a little bit as it were. Rating of technique is an important one and this is an ongoing thing that we use in the gym all the time as a coach is your monitoring technique of your athlete and if we start to see a technical breakdown then we can identify the fact that okay so maybe we overshot the intensity a little bit or they're starting to accumulate fatigue and it's time to shut it down and move on to the next activity or end the workout for today. In combination with that we can use the athlete's perception of exertion. So how hard does something feel? So the big question would be after you perform a set, it's like how hard was that?

I compare that to my rating of technique and then I make the decision as to whether we're going to move that weight up, stay the same or lower it down or once again, moving on to a new activity. We could use range of motion as a KPI to monitor and that would be something that we would do over time. So for instance, if I had a baseball pitcher that requires a certain amount of shoulder range of motion to be an effective baseball pitcher, and we're in the gym working on maximum force production, what I don't want to do is create interference for that range of motion. So I would monitor that over time. One of the cool ways to monitor fatigue in the gym is just to perform a training maximum for the day. So let's just say that I was going to train at a five rep maximum for that day. I want to perform sets of three at five RM and then I would accumulate volume based on how many sets I can perform of three at that 5RM, but I would have to train up to that 5 repetition maximum for the day. If I monitor that over time, what I can see is I can see fluctuations in the 5 repetition maximum and determine how we're going to identify fatigue in that regard. So we're always training at an optimum level so that your 5RM may fluctuate and so we can adapt the workout to your level of fatigue in that manner. And then as we discussed in this Q&A with Lalo, we talked about using vertical jump as a measure of fatigue. All we have to do is accumulate data points over time. So we'd have the athlete come in, they warm up, they perform their vertical jump test at the beginning of the program or any other field test that you feel is valuable and valid at the time. And we monitor that over time and we look for change there. We can compare that to any of our other perceptions, perception of fatigue, technique, etc. And then we get an idea of how this athlete behaves over time. That just allows us to make better training decisions and better decisions on the fly during the workout itself.

Sir, before it gets to 103 degrees with 99% humidity. I have a basketball player transitioning from high school to college, but he's very recreational in his basketball. Basically, he goes to the park every day and spends two to three hours playing basketball with his friends. I've been trying to avoid a lot of the low amplitude plyometrics and ballistics due to the connective tissue considerations we discussed, focusing more on magnitude rather than frequency and rate of force production. I've been focusing on heavier weight training, helping him transition from yielding to overcoming actions, like we did with the reverse bandit a couple months back—which worked really well for him to prevent the double bounce in the box jump. I'm unsure how much further to push him given his current activity level. I'd appreciate any research or book recommendations to help me understand the recovery process of connective tissues, so I can better program his training frequency and magnitude. Do you test him at all? Well, I don't have a jump pad, so I just use video analysis in slow motion to evaluate his jumps.

Yeah. Well, you could do it with chalk or a posted note, right? So what you want to look at is the differential between his counter movement jump and his static, like a hold jump and use that differential to guide your process. Right? So if you got a big differential there, then he might need a little bit more bouncy work. If it's a very, I'm sorry, if there's a big differential there, he's got the bouncy part and you focus on magnitude.

Okay, so like take test of an ultimate stab, standing still, and also like a rebound.

Yeah, what you're trying to figure out is like, okay, if I take away, if I take away the yield, how much force does he produce? If I give him the yield, how much force does he produce? So is he elastic so he can store and release a lot of energy? So his counter movement jump is really, really high, but you have him hold for a count of four or five before he jump and it's not very high. Okay. Then you know he's very efficient with his connective tissues and you need to focus on magnitude.

Right, because I can't really determine if he's also fatigued in any way from the amount of playing that he does.

So you monitor him over time. So every time you see him warm up, do your jumps, make your comparison, and then see what happens over time. Because all you're doing is monitoring fatigue. That's if you've ever, do you ever have anybody on a regular basis work up to like a training maximum for the day kind of a thing to calculate percentages and things?

Like work up that day or through like a four week cycle?

Every day kind of a thing. So how do you know how well somebody's recovered in the weight room?

Did I lose you? Sorry. No, yeah, I'm good. I'm good.

Well, if you're working with one of Manuel's weight lifters and you're working off percentages for the day, you're going to do so many cleans at 75%. How do you know what 75% is for the day? You work up to a training maximum. Every time you come into the gym, you warm up and work up to your training max, based on which you calculate the percentages for the day. So you're actually creating a representation of how tired they are. You monitor that over time and need data points over time. You can do the same thing with a vertical jump. If your boy comes in and has a 34-inch vertical today, that's your first measure. Next time he comes in and jumps 35 inches, that means he jumped better—either your training is stellar or he's better recovered. Then he comes in on a Tuesday after playing 17 hours on the black top yesterday and jumps 31 inches.

Right.

Well, you work up to a training maximum. Every time you come into the gym, you warm up and work up to your training max. Based on that training max, that's how you calculate the percentages for the day. So you're actually creating a representation of how tired they are. Then you monitor that over time. So you need data points over time, but you can do the same thing with a vertical jump. Let's just say your boy comes in and has a 34-inch vertical today, and that's your first measure. Then next time he comes in, he goes 35 inches, meaning he jumped better. Either your training is stellar or he's better recovered. Then he comes in on a Tuesday, having played 17 hours on the blacktop yesterday, and he's at 31 inches. You need some way to track. So his KPI might be his counter movement jump and the differential between the counter movement and the whole jump. That will tell you where you are in this process, but you're looking at it over time.

Right.

You just need some way to track. So your KPI for him may be that like, what is his counter movement jump? And then what is this differential between the counter movement and the whole jump? And that will tell you where you are in this process. But you're going over time.

Should I have some type of control also? Like tell him, Hey, look, just give me one week of resting of not going to the park so I can have like an idea of if you have seven days of recovery, what would be your normal jump? You know? Yeah.

Well, good luck with that. But yeah, you can do that. I just don't think you're going to be able to convince. You're not going to convince a kid that likes to play basketball three hours a day not to play basketball for seven days. You know what I mean?

I'll tell him he's allowed to play it on his PlayStation for four hours. Maybe. I'll tell his mom, like, let him play on his PlayStation.

I think your best case is just to start tracking data points. Yeah. You decide what your KPI is going to be as a determinant of fatigue. So you can ask him, it's like, OK, on a scale from one to five, how recovered do you feel? And then you do your field test, and then you track that over time. So he comes in, he goes, and you say, how tired are you? He goes, I'm a three out of five. You know, and then he has like the worst jump of the week kind of a thing. You kind of know that, okay, he feels tired and he's demonstrating the fatigue as well. Right. So there's a lot of ways that you can do this. But I would say that you're just like a couple of quick tests on a regular basis will give you the information that you're looking for.

Got it. Thank you, Bill.

Not only does this reduce power output, but it's going to slow me down. And so we have to attend to this anti-orientation. Good morning. Happy Tuesday. I have neuro-coffee in hand, and it is perfect. All right. Man, busy Tuesday. Got to dig straight into today's Q&A, which is dealing with the influence of an anterior-oriented pelvis on change of direction. And so I'm going to show you a clip that's associated with how this influences a baseball pitcher's ability to change direction as they push off the rubber. But we can also apply this to any athlete that has to perform some form change of direction. So if we had a soccer player, a court sport player of any kind, where they have to do some cutting, this is going to be a similar influence. And this is in regards to the influence of an anti-orientation. So remember, the way we're going to identify anti-orientation is the entire pelvis is moving as a unit into its anti-orientation. This is to create an IR force downward into the ground, but we're also going to sacrifice external rotation, ranges of motion in the hip. The other byproduct of this, and this is the part that's probably a bigger influence, is that I'm going to move the center of gravity forward very, very quickly. So if we were looking at a foot, remember as I get this ankle rocker element, as I'm pushing force down into the ground, this is my IR force into the ground, if I anteriorly orient the pelvis above the foot, what I'm going to see is I'm going to see this tibia translate very, very quickly. So what's going to happen, I'm going to move towards max P very, very quickly, and I'm going to lose my heel contact. My center of gravity is going to be moving forward really quickly over the foot. As far as a sprinter, I wouldn't be so concerned about this because they're going to try to translate themselves forward in this direction. But if I'm going to change direction, which is perpendicular to this orientation of the foot, what's going to happen is I'm translating so quickly in one direction that I have to create a delay strategy by lifting up the heel, moving towards ER. So I'm going to go upwards first. I'm literally going to be lifting my center of gravity up to slow down in that forward direction before I change direction. And then we get this little hop off of the forefoot as I'm sort of pivoting off of that forefoot. So not only does this reduce power output but it's going to slow me down and so we have to attend to this anti-orientation. So from a strategy standpoint there's any number of ways that we're going to be able to posteriorly orient this pelvis.

But the one thing that we want to make sure is that we're not using this anterior rotation as a substitution for internal rotation. So we start to think about strategies. In that regard, what we may want to start to do to capture some true internal rotation or middle propulsion is something that's going to slow this tibia down. So we could use a right foot forward split stance. If this is a right sided issue, right foot forward split stance, sort of a palloff press static holds, we could do the same thing. If they can access internal rotation, then we can do the same thing in half kneeling. We have our offset split squat that allows us to capture that internal rotation bias just by biasing the load in our favor. And then to slow the tibia down, this is where we would use say a front foot elevated split squat. So we elevate the foot on a box that slows the tibia translation down. So all of these strategies are in play. So you can see that this anterior orientation can be a pretty significant influence, and so we have to be really, really careful with our selections in regards to strength training, that if we have people performing these bilateral, symmetrical, high force activities, and we're promoting this anterior orientation, it may negatively influence the outcomes, especially when we're looking at changes of direction. So, program carefully.

All right, so I've been thinking about this over the last couple of weeks. And finally had an epiphany the other night, which kept me up until around 3 a.m. as I was working through it. So, feel free to let me know if I'm totally off base here, but I'm hoping I'm on the right track. So it has to do with basically direction of force. So there are three pictures that I've been working with that have, we have a force plate mound and they're very jumpy, meaning they kind of lose connection with the mound. Does that make sense?

Sweet, I love those.

So, feel free to let me know if I'm totally off base here, but I'm hoping I'm on the right track. It has to do with basically direction of force. So there's three pictures that I've been working with that have—we have a force plate mound and they're very jumpy, meaning they kind of lose connection with the mound. Does that make sense?

Like at the rubber, they sort of like lighten, or you're talking about at least.

So as they push off their rear leg and go onto their front leg, we should see very little space between that. They want to see their back foot pushing and then their front foot accepting right away.

Yeah.

Got you. So, the pitching coach has been trying a couple of things here and there and hasn't been so successful. I've been working with these players a little bit here and there. So I kind of have an idea of what's going on, but want to see if this makes sense as to why they're jumping.