866 - The Godfather of Velocity-Based Training w/ Dr. Bryan Mann

0:00Doug Larson here and this week on Barbell's Drug we bring the Godfather of Velocity Base Training Dr. Brian Mann to the show. We talked about Velocity Base training many many times and have mentioned Brian's name and have said over and over again that we need to get him on the show and today's the day I was super excited about it. I've been a fan of Velocity Base Training since I first experimented with it back in roughly 2005 and I did three four week blocks and I hit PRs across all my weight lifting movements and all my power lifting movements while really enjoying the training. It was easy on my body. I felt good. I walked out of the weight room feeling feeling fresh and ready for minute in my next training session. I really felt like I was running sprints in the gym. Kind of everything full speed, not to failure, full rest. Very fun, very effective, easy on my body as I said. So, been a big fan of Velocity Base Training for many years and getting to sit down with Dr. Brian Mann, the person who brought VBT into the mainstream. What's a conversation I've been looking forward to for a long time. We talked about where Velocity tracking ads value, how to approach

1:00Velocity Base Training with different athletes. We're useful when it's on necessary how to measure it with devices and without devices as well as how to correctly do Velocity Base Training in general to maximize your results in strength and power development. So, if you are interested in Velocity Base Training and you want to learn how to get faster and more explosive this episode is for you in Joe's Show. Welcome to Barbell Shrug. Dr. Larsen here with Coach Travis Mash and Dr. Mike Lane. Brian Mann, welcome to the show. You are a pioneer in the world of Velocity Base Training and to use Travis's terminology. You're the godfather of Velocity Base Training. You're like the guy that turned it into a thing many years ago. Amongst many other things you've been Texas A&M for a couple of years now. You have a big history as a researcher. You're like a gangster in the space so to speak. You're gonna give it your background and how to get into the world of strength and this thing and what's your story, man? Well, first you never go against the family. Oh god, is there always that anywhere?

2:05Now, I mean really my career could be summed up by being at the right place at the right time or you could say that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. You know, somewhere over there I've still got the book that I got in 1993. It's on my bookshelf in one of these days before a podcast. I'm going to go grab it because I know that I'm always referencing it. I can see the updated copy. I can't see the the original red copy of a speed strength training for football. But anyway, it's no surprise to anybody. I got a big red birthmark on my face and kids are cruel. So I got made fun of a lot. So I thought if I got bigger and stronger than everybody that either they would quit making fun of me or whenever they did make fun of me, I could end it really quickly. And that's really what happened. You know, for my 12th birthday, my mom got me 110 pound DP Challenger starter weightlifting set, right? And I can already talk about it. Yeah, baby, great concrete plates and all.

3:08Yeah, man. And I started lifting weights and I saw results really, really quickly. And from there, I got my mom put me in a strengthy conditioning camp. It was the only year that they had it at Missouri State, you know, and there were three guys that were if there's older people that listen older than me, even, they might remember the names Rob Rogers, Kirk Woolf folk in Russ ball. Kirk went on to be the director at Navy forever. A lot of people don't know his name because he got a tenured position. So he just stayed there and set his, said his career just, you know, pretty much on hold there. Well, not on hold, but dude, if you got a tenured position, why are you ever going to leave? Right? Then Rob Rogers went on and did some amazing things. And now he is working with the military out in, I'm going to keep that, you know, I don't know what can be told

4:09and what can't there. I just realized that. And then Russ ball, I believe he is still in the front office with a green bay packers, but, you know, I knew that I loved lifting weights and then whenever I found out that that was a career option, I'm like, dude, this is what I want to do. And, uh, and, you know, I also watched Rocky for that same summer. And it wasn't Rocky that, that turned me on. It was the science with Ivan Drago. Oh, dude, I loved it, man. And, uh, so between those two things that really set me in motion. And then it was just going ahead and preparing, you know, they, the Rob told me to read that doc crease book and I read it covered a cover, probably five or six times. They're just the rest of that summer. And I started doing my own training for football at that point in time. And I would like to say it worked, but it'd be tough to say. I'm five eight tall and I'm five eight probably five nine wide. So, you know, division one scholarship was never in my, you know, in, in, in, in my works. But, you know, I could definitely tell the

5:12difference on the field. And then, uh, you know, I just happen to be in the right place at the right time again on a Saturday morning before working at McDonald's, you know, I was in a Ozark fitness getting, uh, getting to lift in and a guy named Charlie McLean was there. And Charlie was, uh, the first guy to squat triple body weight, I think at the 181. So, he's the first six hundred pound squatter at 181. And this is back in the days of like ace bandage as the wraps, right? Yeah, man. Um, and he was like, Hey, what are you training for? And I'm like, well, I think I want to do bodybuilding. You know, I'm not going to do, be a good football player. So, I want to try this. And he's like, dude, your hips are too thick. You're, you know, this is too wide. This isn't narrow enough. You're never going to be a good bodybuilder. But you're strong as hell. Once you consider powerlifting and he told me to go pick up a powerlifting USA and find a meat.

6:13And he would meet me the next Tuesday in his garage and, uh, started training with, not training with him. But I went over there, learned the techniques from him, found a meat. He helped me write up my first program and I went and did it. And I won the state championship and they all had single-ply gear on. I wouldn't wear anything. And, uh, and I, and I won. I didn't know what the hell a squat suit was. I'd actually, uh, Charlie, all he cared about was a squatting bench. He didn't like deadlift. So he didn't teach me that. Now it was in the magazine, but I thought, well, he would teach me the deadlift. If I was supposed to do it, we're probably hand cleaning. And, uh, so I didn't even know what a deadlift was. You know, I never had compete, uh, completed one before doing the NSCA and not in a CA in NASA high school Missouri State Championships there in 1995. Right? It's not just, you know, the kids just picked that shit up. It was, uh, yeah, but, you know, I shot it in my ass up into the air and did an RDL and all that.

7:15All the great technique that you're supposed to do. So, and then a couple years later, you know, still competing in powerlifting and, uh, one of my, I knew that I wanted to do strength conditioning. And one of my friends from high school, uh, got in Pat Fitzgerald, uh, was on the football team. And he was talking to me while I was skipping one class to study for another. And I happened to be sitting there in front of the weight room because it was on the second floor, uh, of this, uh, building that was right next to, uh, Michael, was that called temple hall? Is that where all the science was? Temple is a science in plaster was the football stadium where the weight room was on the second floor because somebody never lifted heavy weights in their life and put it on a second floor. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And it, it's all good, you know, but, uh, yeah, we got a lot of complaints about that shit. I, you know, I don't know if they got any better after I left, but everybody was complaining about the barbells dropping and then tiles falling into the racquetball courts and stuff and I just, like, it's not my fault. Somebody else is stupid. So we just, I know. And, uh, and, uh,

8:21and so, but Rick came up to me and was talking with Fitz and Fitz is like, Hey, you just won a national championship and he's like, well, I can't pay anything. You want a job? I know this is what I want to do. So I closed up my book and I went up to the weight room and, uh, and the, the rest as they say is history. You know, from there, I went on, I interned it for Joe Kennedy, Arizona State and then my dad got ill and I went back to Tulsa for Pat Ivy. Uh, the AD found out that Rick really couldn't do everything on his own that summer while I was gone, got his book kicked. So they called me beg me to come back and gave me a, they created a GA position for me that I think Mike got the, uh, to feel the benefits of later down the line. And then, uh, whenever Pat got the job at Missouri, he gave me, I was the second phone call. Uh, and I went up there with him as a gradual assistance. Uh, so I worked on a second master's degree and then just kept going to get a PhD. Why? Because I'm freaking dumb, I guess. I like pain and discomfort and, uh, and suffering,

9:27uh, which is, you know, academic, uh, academic life right there, right? Where did, did you get your PhD at Missouri as well? Yeah, I did it while it's full-time coaching and that is absolutely stupid, right? So whenever you're working 105 hours a week and you're doing full-time, uh, full-time, PhD load at the same time, they, I still have health repercussions from that. I know I was about to say how many years you, you reckon that tick, tick took off of your life, right? I probably six to ten. I would, I would wager. But then again, you know, I'm not, I'm not somebody who cared about that because like we can, we both competed in powerlifting. I was good at show. Love, gravity was not the, no, I mean, weighing 300 and some odd pounds at 5.8 is not a good idea, but I do want to ferment it many, many years. A quick break in the action here to let you know that I just recently chosen to get back into coaching and I specifically am looking to coach masters, jujitsu athletes, just like myself. I've been doing jujitsu for 22 years and strength and conditioning for 30 years. I'm a black belt, of course, and I live that life. I understand exactly

10:28what goes into it. I understand what's like to run a family. Do jujitsu, try to tie strength and conditioning into it all and all of the ups and downs that come with it from, from joint pain, to busy schedules, to travel and all the things. So if you are a master's jujitsu athlete and you're looking for some support, I'm happy to give it. You can DM me on Instagram at Douglas E. Larson or you can email me, Doug at barbellstrug.com. Happy to help back to the show. All right. And yeah, I was a pal, your back is not a good idea. No, no, no, no, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then as I how you discovered Travis, you're just competing in power from back then and then well, so he was always right on the scene. Yeah. Yeah. He was writing for lead FTS and he beat Eddie Cone. So I'm like, man, I'm going to listen to a guy that beat Eddie Cone at the demo. I beat his number. Let me be clear. I beat, I did not beat him at the head. This is if he's listening, he gets mad. So I, okay, I just beat his, I beat his total beat his record. He beat his record. And then we had to add and it was very close. He beat me barely. So, you know, that he's, that he's one of the goats

11:33for a reason. Yeah. Man, he is the goat. You'll call the demons out like, dude, anybody who's been a major competitor, you can find some demons, man. I still remember this. I'm not going to name names, but there was an intern who was talking smack one time. And I'm not even going to say where I was. And I hadn't squat in 18 months because I was having a lot of hip pain and a lot of hip problems and back problems. And dude's like, I heard so much about you, but now, man, all I see is you in your office and all this stuff whenever it's training time and he was talking and I am not backing down. And I was like, if you, whatever you do, I'm going to go 200 pounds over and hit a double. I didn't know that dude was going to go 550. So I went 765 and I hit two after not squat in an 18 months. And I did not move for a week and a half, man. It was, I should have just let that one ride. And now I'm more likely not not totally going to, but I'm more likely to let those kinds of things ride. But it's, I'm still struggling to do that. Me too, but I think I've got some

12:40many out of these now that there's nothing I can do about it. Like, so like, all right. What do you do? Like Ryan, what am I going to do? Give me. So yeah, you're going to just throw in some Brazilian jujitsu hold and choke his ass out. Not bad. That was for confident, but like when it comes to lifting, I do this tough little bastard. Yeah. So yeah, he's freaking strong. Hopefully you're lining up good for LA or he's looking really, really good. So I don't want to. But like, he's making better decisions. Yeah. That's what it all comes down to, man. It's good decisions. I made it. Yeah, man. Like, I feel like people have no idea when there's only three males that go to the Olympics. Yes, it comes down to a decision here to see the man can be the difference. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, so I'd actually love to hear the origin story of Vlasa based training. Was this like something you were doing in your own training and you saw results and you're like, wow, I really feel like there's something here. You kind of just like get iterated over time and like just like developed it over time like on your own or did you have doing it? And like you have like the delightful moment or what time I have the whole

13:45backstory? Yeah. So as Mike can attest that Rick had a bunch of copies of copies of copies of photo copies of photo copies of translated Soviet texts. And he wanted me to read them. And I guess you probably want to meet a reader because he didn't want to because that translation is it's tough, man. You know, it is very, very rough. And that's nothing against Butch or Niga. I mean, he did a good job, but Russian is so immensely complex. They've got a lot of words that we don't have concepts for. And that to me is befuddling. So whenever you're trying to do literal translations, it makes the reading really, really rough. And God rest his soul, but did a great job of getting this information out there. But it like I said, it was rough. But I read all these translated Soviet texts. And I kept seeing this M slash S and MS superscript negative one. And I'm like, what? But the one thing about me is, and I'm going to sell myself out here. I didn't get,

14:48I wasn't able to get a PhD because of my work ethic because I was already working 105 hours a week. I was able to get a PhD because I got a really good memory. So those things, they just stayed in my head. And I'm like, because it was different. It was interesting, but it was repetitive. And it wasn't just one book. It happened across a bunch across a bunch of them. So I'm like, there's, there's got to be something here. I just don't know what it is. And it was all these velocities at these different lift portions. Well, then came the day that we went and visited both Buddy Morse, well, it wasn't a day. It was a week. It was a spring break back in early 2000s. I don't want to every time that I say the year, somebody always tell me, no, it had to be this year because of this or that year because of that. I don't remember what year it was. I don't remember what I ate for breakfast. Excuse me, but every year, anytime it was spring break or we had any time off, Rick and I would hop in his van and we would go

15:49somewhere and learn. If we weren't, our vacations were spent learning in somebody else's weight room. That's super cool. And we went to the Cleveland Browns for a few days. But before that, we went to West Side Barbell. And so that was the week that Luke got the first hindo into this country. And you know, at feet per second and meters per second listed on the device. And I looked at Rick and I'm like, yeah, right? That's what point. Yeah, exactly. So you know that this was made almost the 90s, right? Because feet per second was still something people were talking about. But I was like, hey, man, whenever we get back, I know what to do with this. And Rick bought one and we started messing around with it. And I started recording and just looking at percentages and speeds and found that for guys that have been training West Side style for a couple of years, they all were around within about .06.08. I can't remember which one one of the groups was a little

16:52tighter. And I think it was at Missouri State and Missouri was at .08. The difference at every 5%. You know, about a .08 meter per second difference. That was good enough for me, man. It didn't have to be perfect. I was just looking for better ways to train our athletes. And then, you know, we repeated that at Missouri and we started and that's where it really, you know, took wind because we start doing this and all of a sudden, these guys that, you know, Missouri, we were recruiting two and three star guys. But in 2008, we were the number one country in the team. Yeah, the number one country in the nation country. Number one team in the country, not number one country in the team. I'll get it. We all we all we all we smith words here. We smith words good. Yes, yes. But yeah, and you know, I think that that I'm, they're recruiting absolutely get did get better and we absolutely did have some diamonds in the rough. I mean, Chase Daniel is six feet with three pairs of socks on and, and you know, because nobody wanted to look at him because

17:53of his height, we took him switched over to the spread. Offense took went, went wildfire went gangbusters. We were the mode we had the most plays many team in college football at that point in time. I don't know if we still got the record or not, but I think Chase was getting a playoff every 23 year, 27 seconds, which is, you know, that's just flying. And so yeah, no, I think it had a lot to do with recruiting, but whenever you, you know, we, we changed our training and we got about an extra year and a half of adaptation out of it, you know, most training, you only see improvements in absolute speed and jump height for a year, year and a half. Well, we were able to move that out to three years. So we just got an extra 18 months of adaptation. I think that there's some things that we could do retrospectively looking back, hindsight, so with 2020, God knows my, looking ahead at things in 2020 anymore. I'm wearing glasses here for Christ's sake, but but, you know, I think that we could have made some, made some changes that might have

18:55got us another six months to year of adaptation, but it's still, you know, it's still finite. There's always going to be a ceiling. Why do you think that most teams only get two years of adaptation? Everybody's doing the same program. Right? So we had a more than a conversation. Yeah, yeah, and even if they are just doing straight, Western traditional, everybody's doing the same thing. And when everybody's doing the same thing, that means that there's no more novel stimuli that are introduced, nor are there different traits that are attempting to be developed. So whenever we went from just strength, they're looking at strength speed and speed strength as development phases, we saw extra jumps and power. But, you know, one thing that I will say, though, is whenever you have trained athletes, the improvements in the vertical force velocity profile do not mean that there's absolutely no relationship to the horizontal force velocity profile. So, you know, at some point, the relationship between the lifting and the sprinting ceases,

20:01and that's about that same period, right? So, you know, I don't know how much of it actually translated to the field or did it just make us better lifters? Or did it make us, you know, I just don't know. Well, I'll be like that would be up to the sport. You know, if you make them better athletes, it's up to the sport coach to make them better football and that's out of your control. Oh, yeah, you control your variables and that's all you can control. But it's useful to think about the transference index, like how much are we really getting per this choice of exercise, per this programming? And, you know, and of course, I mean, obviously, you can think of like Joe Cannon, the tier system and other folks, exactly, like we're giving the athlete the appropriate stimuli where they're at because there's no point going straight into a speed strength, speed strength, or a strength speed phase for some way that can't even squat bodyweight. No. We still have to get like you and I've had those conversations about accommodating resistance, like why using bands and chains? You literally bench press 185. Exactly. As a male, that weighs 200 pounds, like come on. Yeah, exactly. So, when do you think that, when do you think strength ceases to

21:07like relate to increases in speed like two times bodyweight? Like, you know, that one of the things that we have to realize is that there is so much individual variance that it is insane. Is this person using more? Some people call it fashionally dominant and it's like, I don't know if I agree with this terminology because so much of the ability to use the facial system is how quick you can set the pretension with the muscles. So, and if you don't set the pretension with the muscle, then there's no stretch of that parallel elastic component and the fascia. So, but some people are they their tension is or I'm sorry, their running speed comes from set and quick pretension to get a lot of stortal elastic energy out. Right. Some people are more contractile dominant. I think that the person who is contractile dominant can see speed increases for a little bit more than a person who's using their their their their parallel elastic component.

22:10Right. And they're they're out in series two. Don't get me wrong because that one wants that myocyberal the act and myocin complex is set. The stretching isn't coming for anything other than Titan. Right. And then that's nobody talks about the Titan protein filament, which is the biggest. Yeah. That is my white whale. Yes, we do. And there's different ice pores based on training that has not been heavily researched enough. Yeah. And a needs more. Man, I mean, Cavania started figuring that out in 1976 and I don't know why we still aren't looking there. I can't help but wonder if it is because of technology and that it's super easy to look at act and myocin. It's tough to look at Titan. So Titan is literally 10 times bigger than myocin. So you have to use what's known as a silver standing method, which is a S O B. And that was the white whale that I was trying to do at the end of my dissertation after looking at you know myocin heavy chain type one type two a type two X B whatever way you were taught it. It's just

23:11you know the fastest the fastest which humans have. And it was one of those situations where I love to go back and do it but it's it's hard to do. Yeah. And so hence that's a real thing. Also with the relative strength in you know coach man you and I are great examples of it. If you're someone that's built a squat you've got the longer torso and the shorter femurs. The two times body weight squat isn't producing anywhere near as much torque at those joints for something that's a tortor so long limb. Yeah. Exactly. So like when we and I but it's a good it's a good way to go about it if I'm a high school strength coach of like hey yeah you got a squat twice body weight but then we we hear understand that nuance of like there's a big difference between a long limb and a short limb lifter with the real forces they have to deal with. I'm not sure anybody over that I literally have a nine year old it's already two times body weight so is that is your chair? What? Bear or bear bear yeah okay but his femurs is like he's built this way he's going to be I know his mind he's this extraordinary strong he's like he's my son he's going to be

24:16and he's just femurs are like size of my pinky you know like in there in there not from from like a practical between you and your wife he's going to be he's going to have the jeans to squat you can so squat the hell is so easy for him so yeah it's not going to be a strong kid yeah yeah yeah wait from like a practical standpoint for like for all the listeners say like they're they're moderately trained they're not professional athletes but they know how to lift but they've never done velocity based training before like what are like the best practices for how to start to implement velocity based training into kind of an unnormal training program for someone who's moderately experienced yeah you know I think it's awesome it can be a lot of fun you know so there's there's a lot of different ways to look at it and it depends on how the person wants to do it and one thing that I would actually recommend them not do is not use my zones you know for your moderately trained person the zones were created for division one football players for deadlift

25:17and squat and we threw bench press in there too even though bench press had a drastically different well I mean drastically 0.15 instead of 0.3 meter per second you know at the the in range so I mean at the end of the day who cares it's not that this not that far off but bench press doesn't matter so we left at the same speeds to make everything easier for us to be able to remember out one of the athletes yeah it was just keep everybody on the page man like here's a deal that a lot of people don't realize if they've never been down on the weight room floor and this this is one of the things that grinds my gears about some academics because they're like when you're losing precision you're losing precision it's like man precision means squat in coaching if do these guys listen to me do they believe in me if I screw things up by telling somebody the wrong speed that takes away at my credibility if one of my other coaches screws something up because it's confusing

26:20it takes away from all of our credibility I have far more credibility and buying from those athletes from having that one set of speeds going across all the lifts because nobody's going to mess it up because people did screw it up at the start and we saw the athlete saying coach but coach Williams over there said and then we'd have to be I'd have to be like I don't give a rip what coach Williams said I'm the guy that figured this out this is what you're doing I'll go talk with him so we had to go away from having lift specific velocity zones to just having one that suited for everybody it it was management you know that's I mean I want to let people you know I was talking about that coming back from from national so before this last national conference down in New Orleans I I reached out to my my acquaintance friend Jonathan Weeklyms like hey man it's only a six hour drive back to back to New Orleans I can drive you back with me if you want to

27:22spend some time and he fortunately he did and we were talking about that story on the way back and I'm like man I had good coaching is what I thought it was and I tried to share it with the world and I didn't know what I didn't know at the time because Dunning Krueger is a hell of a thing right and you know I thought that if it worked at these two schools it must work for everybody right well dude division one sports who makes it to division one sports the crime deal right yeah so I had a very very homogenous population but whenever we get outside of that it becomes so heterogeneous that you really have got to to look at where you are and what you need to do to improve so what I would do is I take a little bit more nuance like everybody wants to load velocity profile but why because what is the thing that matters for performance it's just a speed really well now it's not even just a speed right because if you were just the speed it's power and power power power because

28:29power is the interaction of forcing philosophy okay so it's not your biggest strongest guy that's your best it's not your fastest guy that's the best it's the biggest guy who's just as fast that's your best right that's what I get when we didn't talk about Swiss that's what yeah yeah is that not only power but where power happens that what does power happen yeah so at what intensity so what I would recommend is that people start to look at whatever the exercise is right and so they find out where peak power is supposed to curl at now like oh Colin Moran Hoth had a paper in like 2004 maybe that's old I know I just can't remember the year where they put out a bunch of different exercises with the populations and what peak power was for them and what intensity it was achieved at so like a squat was at 50 to 60 percent of 1 RM in these different populations the

29:29bench press was you know 40 percent for one population 30 percent for another they might have bench row in there they might have you know there was a few different exercises so look at those kinds of exercises see where you hit peak power at and then I'm sorry see where they hit peak power at where you're expected to and then go collect your own load velocity and power profile see where that power occurs and then try and shift it through training if you are more towards the full force into the spectrum we know from the work of Pedro Jimino Pedro Jimi Nes Reyes JB Moran and Pierce M. Isino I don't I can't be my French accent I don't have one it's pretty good it's better than I can have done yeah yeah puto abro a spanillo comonino de tres anios so puto abro a las most nombre yeah can you hear that yeah but I forgot where I was

30:30going oh yeah it's training towards the deficit so training what you're not good at is what moves it in that way so if I am way on the force into the spectrum that would indicate that I need to move faster and if I'm if I'm really fast but I'm weak that just means I have it stronger so you know letting that drive your training and it could be the loads within the exercises or it could be that maybe I need to change up exercises totally because I'm no longer really seeing changes here right that is where common a resist does come in of two oh absolutely faster right yeah because the accommodating resistance allows you to stay in acceleration for longer you see ballistic exercises like a clean pole man you know so if you look in the NSEA book and this is one of the things that just I do not like about the essential to strengthen conditioning is within the resistance training the programming chapter power they say is between 30 and 90 percent depending on what exercise variation you use yeah it was the broadest statement in the

31:32industry in the world it's 30 to 60 percent for most of your traditional movements because half of the time the spent slowing down the barbell you've got to slow everything down because force equals mass times acceleration that's going to be far too much force for you to control it in range and not hyper extended joint for Christ sake but what about a ballistic you don't have to stop that load gravity does it because you projected into the air so like a clean pole 90 to 110 120 percent of your clean max is where you hit peak power on a clean pole exactly right you don't just tolerate there is no acceleration period you projected into the air you don't have to stop the thing and it's the maximal in nature they're not like they're not like a squat or a bit right right so yeah and but bands allow you to link to not that time spent in acceleration so instead of push the slowing down for half of it you're for like 75 80 percent of it and you know anybody who thinks that bands don't work I'd look at the study by Andy Galpin that they did on the deadlift

32:35and then there was another one by Tom is linsky he was just an author on it he wasn't a lead author it was for when he was at Robert Morris University and it was a very well done methodology I remember whenever I was reading through the paper I'm like holy hell these people actually knew what they were doing with bands and then I went back and looked at the author list I'm like oh wonder dude it's my love of course we train with Louis you know we learn how to do it from the man himself so it was done appropriately as opposed to I was still remember the first study that said it didn't work and it was using blue bands on back squats with female volleyball players uh-huh no she did bang so uh Mike you remember what the menobomb squat was use blue bands what in rick's weight room oh dear cout you to be over a 500 pound squat that's what I was like right on the other side yeah I have yet to see a volleyball player that can squat 500 pound female volleyball player not a shot footer who went out onto the volleyball team right and

33:37nothing it's in a tall they are yeah yeah yeah the taller people that even more resistance and they were like see the bands don't work and I'm like see tell me you're an idiot without telling me you're exactly but you know it's just another one of those things that people it's done in crew group they didn't know what they didn't know they thought they were the expert because they got a PhD I know I got a PhD and I know I'm a dumbass so you know we've got to that's what make me a little difference in some other people so for all the possible options there you got you got tains bands you got reverse bands you got ballistics like you have very very massive tension etc like what seems to be the sweet spot for producing peak power that's a very difficult question to answer what's one plain answer yeah there is none so we have having the different variations to allow for multiple stuff now there will be a answer based on what the deficit is okay so let's say I've been training forever and I have a I'm way towards the force into the spectrum so I have

34:37what what him and as Reyes and Marin called a high velocity deficit well then I would want to go with heavy band resistance and light bar weight to maximize that velocity so like 1.1 1.2 meters per second now if I am on a low velocity deficit maybe and you know and I'm not the strongest guy in the world then I'm at that you know 60% of 1 RM you know right there near that power throw some change or bands on and move it 0.75 to 1 meter per second and that's going to elicit probably my greatest adaptation there so it depends on the needs of the individual how strong they are what exercise like what they've been doing in the car yes so many variables to consider because the normalcy is useful and the other thing that I would throw in there because you brought up the reverse bands is band resistance accentuates gravity because that will rip that bar faster than the normal 9.8 you know 1-ish so if you haven't done bands before aside from unwrapping it is going to throw you if you go too heavy tension you're not used to it

35:41but second it is harder on your connective tissues because you slam down faster yeah so change to reverse bands are great if you're a little banged up just still give you a accommodation but it's a more of a breaking effect yeah you're going down yeah yeah not as much of an adaptation though but but still it just depends it always just depends yes yeah it's one of those things the most effective one is the one you haven't done yet you know right that novelty effect like might just brought up I mean it just just changing something will stimulate adaptations how bonder chuck said that that himself every five years you have to change everything man I swear the bands increased my raw bands more than anything but it also because I'm idiot it's probably what ended my career too but like but my I mean it definitely no doubt took my raw bands from 455 to 535 no doubt that was the only change I made was you know adding more and more bands and you know to a without using sugar anything yeah but I did I got to where I was

36:44using the green bands doubled on bench press that's holy hell Travis it's stupid no but like I'm not that strong but then I blew up you know yeah did you blow your pectin to do in that or I mean a bit like I really think it actually like like it was part of what happened when I you know I fractured a cervical vertebrae oh deadly part of what's a lot of tension to place on that that was because your point was going from a neck yeah oh man I just I guess yeah dude you know so to be honest with you probably wouldn't change anything going back might have just been like okay let's let's cycle this in every you know run this for three weeks and then out and then back in but you know that but we you can't hindsight's 2020 and you know it's the scars on our body that make us better coaches yeah I'm trying not to hurt the next generation like I screwed myself I exactly yeah yeah yeah I'm curious like anecdotally I maybe I'm recognizing a pattern that doesn't

37:50even exist here but I always felt like for me I have a short torso long legs long arms like I'm mechanically advanced to deadlift and not not so much the squad very good ankle dorsiflexion so I can kind of go vertical but I'm not really I'm not really mechanically advanced two squat with long legs and short torso yeah the accommodating resistance seems to and kind of like what some people might call power training or now velocity based training seems to really do really well for me for increasing my squat it helps me squat much better but it never seemed to do much for my deadlift I don't know if that's just me or if that's like something that's ever been noticed elsewhere but I've never actually discussed this with anybody before is there any research that might validate any of that is that just me look sensing a pattern that might not actually be your reality yeah that's an excellent question and everybody is always an inner one right now I haven't ever seen anything about this but here's here's what I know whenever somebody a short torso and they've got the long limbs they're going to rely more on range of motion to be developing that power and what do you have

38:51on a squat that you don't have on a deadlift the electric cycle eccentric eccentric so no stretch shortening cycle at all and to be honest the velocities are going it's not going to be much a stretch shortening cycle but you do have that at the beginning and then with the bands you're going to have a bit of an over speedy centric to apply more tension throughout there and that could give the nervous system one more pre stimulus to get so it kind of makes sense that because of that eccentric beforehand and the lengthening that's going to occur through that tissue that you're getting more out of the squat than you do the deadlift because the deadlift is concentric home and so you don't have that reliance for that that any of that stretching for all the tissues but adding it to the rdl is all the difference in the world that is what took my squat from 750 to 800 no doubt only change the maid is I added bands to rdls and all of you I did a dynamic deadlift day and the heavy song went that entire cycle the 700 pounds and then otherwise

39:56I did heavy a 100 to 5 to 7 hundred pounds you asshole and then that was the biggest adaptation I ever had I opened at 700 which was the 700 in training that I went 750 800 and was like the biggest jump I've ever taken man that's awesome yeah that's awesome yeah you got the eccentric on the eccentric component exactly the only thing that I would be concerned about especially with the late population is the moment aren't the moment forces that the torque that's gonna be applied at that lumbar spine and if they have a lot if they have anything that keeps them from being able to lock into that position that is a herniation waiting to act happen one of you know that's trying to be the strongest power dude don't you think it's trying to be in the mouth healthy yeah no I only bring that up because somebody's going to hear this and they're going to think oh this is a great idea no definitely not great for health no no there's a huge difference yeah they're training for performance and training for health are two different things yeah

40:58man you know you watched the Juicy Westside Barbarale and majority of that stuff wasn't for health no yeah yeah I don't think health like yeah yeah I mean not even the Bob Evans beforehand nobody was eating healthy there you know around it back in mornings yeah even like you watch how they even performed their their box squats they were just plopping down and running this you know flexing their spine I'm like nothing healthy about that but they also say that that wasn't everybody that was just the guys that made their their goals to be the king of Westside for that day not the king on the platform but you look at like Tony Bologna I mean that dude's form was impeccable and he got his ass whooped on most max effort days but at the meats that's where he was you know you're it's totally me so you know that that just kind of comes back down to the person too and that I'm actually literally referring to my biggest rival like Voguepool like oh well I chucked into anything that look great pretty right that dude was a man and that's one of the few people that I've ever

42:02been like it this is going to sound horrible but there's few people that I've ever been in the presence of where I was actually physically intimidated and Chuck you didn't look that put together but holy cow nobody said shit in that gym whenever Chuck was there but that's a Chuck left and he always Greg and new trauma Dave Hoff nobody knows what you're trying to or those guys would be messing around but man that place was all business when Chuck was there I don't love training there whenever Chuck was there that I love going against him I love him he just didn't love me because I beat him but I love man you got to think you got to think Dana Dana not Dana what's Dan's brother's name the crazy one Dana Demel's brother Matt Demel you got to think that Demel for that that's because you know he brought Chuck's neck and he could never bench after that so yeah for all that nerve damage I appreciate it because it made it yeah that's wrong he had the only he only had the squat hey good day live the dude could still deliver 815 this was like

43:07make no mistake that's a strong man he was still a bad dude man and he's a bad dude he looked like he looked like a ferocious he did and we're going out it was like it was awesome like what do you say it was by far my biggest that was the most fun I had yeah first time I went to Westside he was 275 like rocked up and like the height of his like big story and now coach man and I worked together with Rick Perry and like we cannot say a positive thing that Rick was the specimen of himself and like I saw one of the offensive lineman think he was gonna be cute and do a patch rush on Rick and Rick just turned it on you know he threw a 300 pound man and I was like that was too close to me I don't want to be that close to humans doing that yeah and just watching Vogue'll pull pace in the back I was like this is what it'd be like to wake up in the silver back a real cage like I'm gonna just not make eye contact and just like hit my shit and I'm gonna talk and he's shit that's what he needed to do anyway he needed to go off he should not be able to

44:08be the guest in the first place he's taller you know oh yeah he was the freaking oh the first time I met Chuck I thought he was a skit he was skinny I know it's like back down to look huge and I'm like this guy's kind of skinny he was like 20 or something yeah when he was being at 320 he was he was killing himself to get down yeah he went you 75 that's an unbeatable specimen then well that is a monster of a human being and that's raining along he didn't belong one like I was 5'6'3'4' this dude's like 5'10'5'11 he was giving up weight too much to go against me yeah yeah pushman with the power training and I know we've had those conversations about using like the prolipin chart for like the volume you'd have folks used still a fan of that or what would use is kind of the guiding light for folks to try this power training yeah you know I like the prolipin chart as a place to begin you know and it's like the zones for athletes it's where you start it's not where you end okay now I will say it's not where you end for really good athletes that are going to be more key I'm not going to make big changes to guys that are never going to see the field

45:13because that takes a lot of time and those aren't the guys that are keeping me paid and while this sounds horrible and I know how it sounds but I don't want to lose my family because of putting extra effort into a walk-on's program I understand that so you know that was that was something that I put in and I say that knowing good and damn well that I love the walk-on's right that you know they were a lot of the people who I would gravitate towards just to chat with after the workouts because there were great people but if they're not making a dent in my bottom line I am making a mistake by spending serious time programming for them that I could spend programming for people who could help us win and the majority of those guys aren't going to be there like this is unfortunately and like but that one that makes it is super cool story but like oh yeah just not that many of them yeah no there isn't you know we had a emissary we had a lot of guys that

46:16would have been division two NAA all Americans and they never saw the field for us I mean and that's the way what and that was good on them for trying you know yeah absolutely chasing their dreams man can't hold that hold them against that but then you have the guy who does walk on and you know ends up starting now that's a whole different ball game and there's plenty and we had a couple of those yeah and at most of the time there were just late bloomers you know you know they might have grown four inches in their senior year after the season was open which we've seen that and those are the diamonds and the rough that you'll get we have plenty of those you know that they were athletic but they were just a little too small to go to Tennessee or Bama back at you know you could tell my age right whenever I bring those up but you know that and we got them they grew and then all of a sudden we were making an impact it I mean outstate makes the career on those guys yeah plenty of those these are late bloomers going to the NFL you know Matt Stevens you know that I can name him he walked on with me with freshmen and I did

47:19ended up being a second-round draft it's oh it's crazy man it's awesome that happens yeah yeah but the dude also had a it'll work ethic I've never seen in my life to the state still like yeah he went there committed he he didn't care what anyone thought or said he he came down state for one reason that was to make the NFL then if he didn't do it that's awesome yeah and love those success stories oh yeah so but you know so curious here so growing up I was very fortunate to have a great mentor I think is Mark real and he was friends with with bud Trongood and we had all those Russian tech and and whatnot and so you know talking with him back in you know the early 2000s plus you know looking at Louis stuff online with dynamic dynamic effort method and whatnot I went back after my freshman year of college and for all of my exercises for for everything doesn't matter you sit ups doesn't matter like everything overhead overhead dumbbell press every every single movement for for a full 12 week block I was just told to to do between three and five reps

48:21make sure there's zero velocity loss so I did all fast reps for everything and I see you smash all I smashed all my PRs on everything yeah it's so I know I was doing with the spectrum yeah they did velocity and went up and anything that required speed or momentum you killed about your vertical jump went through the roof like a skin medicine ball throw about that sucker was flying yeah yeah all my limbic stuff all my power thing stuff all my big movements like they all they all did very very well I was I was stronger than I was fast and so I did velocity at base training for everything and I got better so that's that's that for that said like in a in a program that's you know designed in an intelligent way these days like to what degree are you just using velocity based training for like the main movement of the day versus doing it for all the assistance work or or somewhere in between man the thing that we have to remember in life is to keep the goal the goal and if we get lost in the minutia we end up with minutia right so not every exercise has a has the need to have a velocity right it doesn't you know

49:30what's the vlog I remember somebody asking me what is the what should the velocity of a Turkish get up or an overhead squat be in my I looked at him and I said why you're talking about balance stability and coordination exercises they're not supposed to be done fast now so you know just because you can doesn't mean you should do something and that's probably the complete opposite answer that I would have given you from you know 20 plus years ago where it would have been oh no you got to do it on everything and this that the other and it was just because I could do something and I wasn't thinking about can and should so I think that what just a couple of exercises if it is are we trying to uh to account for fatigue use it okay if we are trying to if we need feedback of velocity to increase the stimulus like on a a jump squat exercise with its speed do it the feedback is going to help you out yeah if it is a burnout day why yeah right now unless you're

50:33wanting just to investigate what happened just because it's kind of cool I get it dude I love looking at stuff like that but in terms of training a team with it why okay um but I don't think it needs to be all one way I don't think it needs to be all another I think it just needs to be where it needs to be uh and that's ballistic exercises for feedback and I think that that is anything that's dynamic effort and anything that's explosive I do it there everything else let it go I say that so confidently but then you know then there's things that make you change the way that you're looking at stuff like that study out a spane on the lap pull down right and the study in spane found I can't remember the authors I just remember it was from spane why do I remember that I have no idea but uh they found that the lap pull down the power derived on the lap pull down was the most important or not most important most predictive

51:36thing of anything they had to predict swimming abilities uh for the strokes that are dominant right so that would be like your your butterfly and your crawl maybe your backstroke uh I'm not that I'm not a swimmer yeah so yeah I wouldn't I'm not the one to to say on that but definitely for the crawl and the uh is that butterfly or breast I can never remember butterfly or it's great you bring that up because when we talked to my one of my former athletes Tom miazka a couple weeks ago and that's actually what we did with the tendo to a dip belts and ham do that for those pull ups and use that as kind of a dynamic effort day of like okay how fast your concentric is and I want to for listeners at home is remember one of the biggest assumptions that dr. man has in the background here is the athlete is technically sound at the movement we're not going for speed squats on something that doesn't know how to squat or ski dead on something that's not dead so like this is an athlete that knows how to do these movements and now

52:37we can give them that external indicator of like when I say you're too slow this is what I mean yeah and now they can see it because we've all seen the guy that tries to just plop on the box and uses a rebound for a speed squats and like well no that doesn't make some neurosurgeon happy because he's going to get to do another spine to help pay for that vacation home right yeah man you know you know the the VBT is an intermediate training methodology man it's not where you start it's not the end all be all right on a continuum of A to Z is probably an H you know somewhere around a G H you know it is a great way to bridge the gap towards power from strength whenever strength has already been well developed and we're not really seeing much more out of strength in terms about adaptation when that slows down that's when you add VBT in you know add it in just because it's cool you add it in because that is solving the problem or the deficiency that you have you know things will work like the one example I've got for this is whenever I was in Missouri we

53:42had this quarterback you had I think it was five discreasions so he can't load his spine at all right and I take him and being uh because I was a graduate assistant at the time so they gave him to the guy that didn't matter you know they gave them backup quarterback that didn't matter to the guy that didn't matter and I took point two eight seconds off of his 40 and point two six of it was in the first ten yards what we did was we towed the sled heavy well what did he not been able to do for years load maximally so his force into the spectrum was really low so I take him from about 200 pounds why did I speak 200 pounds because that was the uh that was about his body weight and between how heavy that sled was I think it was like a plate on top of that maybe two and we just walked we walked for like 30 yards maybe 40 yards uh why that distance because we had that distance right we had longer I might have gone longer uh and we just progressively overloaded that right based upon our PPE if it was less than an eight we added either a 25 or a 45 and he got up to the point

54:45where he was towed in about 800 pounds so 600 pounds will wait on the sled plus uh 200 pounds safety sitting on top of it so we saw a huge improvement and straight he saw a huge improvement in speed so of course what is coach I think he has everybody do it and what the next D not everybody saw the same improvements because you know like the efficiency yeah you know it's like it comes back to specificity and and that's you know between progressive overload and specificity you look at those two principles and you can figure out how to elicit any adaptation right it right if people just knew those two concepts yeah you would see a lot less mistakes in the way that they're like it's too bad that the people don't know those two you know yeah it's so important yeah you know if you you have the reason you understand science and physiology I talked to this with my grad students the other day it's like why do we have to learn physiology in such detail it so you have a better BS detector point blank you are not there I still remember

55:51that there was this uh device I'm going to leave it out leave it nameless but I will talk about the claim that they used it was a a stem device that they claimed that by using this stem device people spontaneously re-grue their ACL where the hell does the electrical current come in and that tissue remodeling process it doesn't it doesn't at all and some people got duped by it and spent a lot of money on this thing and if we would have stopped it that's their fault yeah I know but and you know what whenever you're the young one you can't say anything you know I know it's going to believe you uh and there was a very very prominent person who I'm also remaining name list to not embarrass them uh that was also promoting this thing and that's why they believed it's like well if he's saying that then it's got to be real yeah you know it's probably what's real is the money that's going into his bank account every time one of these things gets sold you know take me and uh yeah so you know and I take issue with that that's that's charlatanism and

56:53I will never ever do that yeah you know it doesn't you know doesn't work I won't do that I mean I had a company offer me a percentage of the company and sometimes I throw up in my mouth when I see what it sold for and knowing how much I would have made on that you know screw assuming that I didn't get you know screwed out of the money somehow uh and it makes me throw up in my mouth that by god I can still look myself in the mirror in the morning exactly yeah yeah so like damn I didn't know I had that much integrity so yeah we do thank god to do it fuck you out of you uh well speaking of cool devices there's many cool devices out of that that that measure velocity very effectively but uh closing out the show here like if you don't have one of those devices but you still want to do some velocity based training play with it you're already sufficiently strong and you want it you want to experiment but you you don't have something measuring the exact barbell speed like what what do you do what's like a easy way to again jump into the arena here and try it out without any technology under your belt well what what are we referring what are we meaning

57:56is technology what can I use here as a proxy well it would be something that's be like layperson inexpensive that they already already have access to the measure velocity okay and there would be good like entry level model if they're to buy something specific just a measure velocity yeah well so let's take it a couple of different ways we can old school it and we remember that velocity is displacement divided by time so we can just get a stopwatch out there and time the repetitions and you know there was something we always had uh two reps of squats in three seconds or three reps of bench in three seconds there was uh man there was this like explosive training for sport book by a guy named mmm I want to say drabic but I can't remember if that was the explosive book or if that was the youth training book uh I get those two mixed up and I get them mixed up because Rick bought both of them at the same time and the same trip to out to him yeah I'm thinking so

58:59it had like a a picture of a guy boxing on the cover and it was yellow and had it framed out can't remember but I believe it was five squat jumps and seven seconds there uh that they use so that's just a couple of ways using just a uh a stopwatch now beyond that if we realize that if we have a known reference distance a known reference we can use that to estimate difference distance on a camera like a 45 pound plates about what 18 inches so if we train the device on that we can get something that's oh pretty good with velocity yeah I would even say super close but I would just say okay because it's 30 frames per second right and that's kind of bushling that's half of what a a linear position transducer uses for the for the for the cheapest ones right there at 60 so at 30 frames per second is you got it and that might be your that might be

1:00:02your marijuana vbt right your your gateway drug there um and so you could use one of the apps what app to use I'm not the person to ask that now there was uh I've got I've got your more words so I'm not going to go use apps I'm not going to go use something that's not as good if I've got something that while it's not gold standard it's on par with it's been tested against the gold standard and having r squared and point nine's at least whenever I did it okay um so I would definitely use one of those apps I know that uh the was it my lift app my lift jump lab or something like that for Carlos Balsa Bore has been uh it's been through the ringer a couple of times and I don't remember if all of the results were positive but I do that know that uh several of the studies showed favorable results there I'm not saying it's 100% on but it's it's good enough for government work right so that's a place that they could start uh or they could start with a stopwatch and then

1:01:03if you wanted to spend a couple hundred bucks uh there is uh my god he's to rep one I believe is what is called uh it oh I don't have it in here somebody I know exactly who took it uh but it's uh it's a another uh linear position transducer that has a x-axis correction to me I if a unit doesn't have x-axis correction I don't want to mess with it uh because you're measuring hypotenuse instead of vertical axis and then so then you just lead to a lot of confusion that that leads to a lot of red herrings because if I think I'm measuring a but I'm measuring b I can't make decisions on a by what happened at b so it just just a quick he's moving quick interjection x-axis front to back why is all the thing we want straight up and down right so again whereas we'll do the calculations you know to be perfectly on top of it right because when you're talking about the gold standard of a linear position transducer those things suck because you have to have the athlete perfectly

1:02:04lined up with the sensor and if they have natural displacement and they will backwards in the movement everybody's gonna throw like so just be reliable do the same setup every time yeah because at least then you're doing an apple's apples thing sorry to interject dr man no you're you're good Mike I appreciate that and uh I like the x-axis correction because I got multiple herniated discs and whenever I was been in over every day million times a day to adjust it for the squat or the clean uh my I had to go lay on the floor my legs up on the wall right because my back was so jacked up by the end of it so I'm never doing anything without x-axis correction again pull me lazy all you want but uh you know I'd rather be lazy and be right than be exact I'm not the call you correct yeah yeah all right uh well very cool your your name has come up on the show many times I was stuck to talk you today so appreciate you being here I didn't want to learn more about you yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah any time you guys want me back you know it was fun so let me know oh

1:03:06we need a part two for sure yeah yeah if people want to learn more about your work uh where where can they go to to find more social media websites etc well excellent uh segue here because I don't think well I don't think track well I think I might have mentioned this to Mike and Travis I am maybe a week away from having a website up so yeah yeah the same with all of my socials is just jbranman.com and then Brian is with the y uh it is education uh so what I've been doing for the past 14 weeks is taking three topics that it started out as just being related to the cscs exam but it's starting to kind of pile out from just the pilot stuff that we've been doing and I go an inch wide a mile deep on a very very minute width topic you know so like today it was uh electrolytes and cramping it was uh uh the peak power you know at the two different lifts which is why it was all fired up about that and then the third one uh how to do

1:04:08with static stretching and how long it took for the force to return you know should you not static stretch beforehand so you know uh that stuff is all uh uh for three three a week so right now we're sitting at 42 hopefully I'll have maybe 45 before it's up so everybody has a library that they can go to uh for one cost and then for the other cost they can ask me the questions uh that I go over right and then they can be on the zoom and interact with me and uh get further discussion uh and clarification uh as we're running through it so hopefully that should be up in a week or two uh I think right now we're just getting pictures right and a couple of uh things you click on takes you the wrong spot but otherwise j brine man uh on any of the social medias that I am on that that's it I can't be creative because I've had too many concussions and uh you know if people want to get at me don't email me hit me up on social media I get 300 emails a day uh but I uh I might get

1:05:10like 1 DM 2 DMs a week so that's really the easiest place to get a hold of me is on social media if you email me the chance it's it's hit or miss if it happens to come in and while I'm sitting here at my desk and I see the name pop up with the subject line and everything oftentimes I'll open it but whenever it's 300 deep brother I'm just I'm scrolling through on the things that I need to hit immediately I know it pisses people off I'm sorry uh I can't do anything else about it I've been using co-pilot to try and increase it but dog it's just going to get miss man hit me hit at me again if it's important sir uh this show is probably going to be up uh just over a week so your website might be up by then what was the URL the URL for that again uh just jbrionman.com jbr.y.a.n.mn.com it was there so I took it beautiful well right on uh again I appreciate it coming on the show thank you coach Travis Mass had to take off a little bit early so he's out got a coach Travis Mass doc wasn't coach not what what what what what what what not

1:06:12absolutely no no coach coach Travis Mass on Instagram is his personal yes yes yeah manatchley.com is a website there you go thank thank you so much uh doctor Mike Lane what about stuff yeah so just come say hi on uh yeah my claim PhD on Instagram otherwise I like my relatively low profile and doctor man thank you so much for coming out today and those of you guys if you get to meet him in person you should ask me about Remington's because I might explain some of the concussions and that's all I will say about that yeah a couple of work from there all right very cool uh I am Doug Larson you can follow me on Instagram at Doug with the C. Larson we are Barbell Strugg you can follow us at barbell underscore shrug and if you want to work with coach Travis Mass doc from my claim doctor Andy Galpin and the whole team at Biomolecular athlete you can go through Biomolecularathlete.com friends we'll see you guys next week