Unlocking Athletic Performance through Force Measurement and Mechanics

Today’s podcast is with athletic performance coaches Hunter Eisenhower and Mike Sullivan. Hunter Eisenhower is the head of men’s basketball performance at Arizona State University, previously spent time with the Sacramento Kings, and has worked in several NCAA S&C departments. Hunter played college basketball for four seasons at Seattle Pacific University. Mike Sullivan is a speed and performance coach at TCBoost Sports Performance in Chicago, IL. At TCBoost, Mike works with a wide variety of athletes, from youth to professional, and transitioned to the private sector after time in collegiate strength and conditioning. Most recently, Mike was at UC Davis and spent time at Illinois State, Notre Dame, and Texas. For a long time in sports performance, weight room strength has been considered the top priority and method of measuring strength and power outputs. At the same time, bodies in motion produce incredibly high forces in jumping, sprinting, and landing (eccentric and reactive forces). Understanding the nature of elasticity and reactivity, and how to measure and train it in greater detail is a must-know for anyone looking to improve athletic abilities. If you were to list three of my favorite sports and human performance topics, they would be: Play, Jumping, and Sprint Development. Today’s show will be getting into these topics, primarily digging into key markers that highlight usable athletic force production, centering around altitude drops onto force plates. We’ll also cover aspects of sprint training from a standpoint of observation and technique, relative to technology readouts, as well as overspeed methods. Finally, we’ll get into Hunter and Mike’s use of play, games, and “aliveness” in their warmups. This was a fun and practical episode from which a wide range of coaches and athletes can find new and valuable ideas. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing.  Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers.  I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 2:31 – Discussing the UC Davis “Strength and Conditioning Decathlon” 6:37 – Maximal elasticity and reactivity as a function of team sport play, versus training without the athleticism that comes from well-rounded play and elastic activities 9:48 – Discussing scoring systems for power and reactivity 16:14 – Key elasticity metrics for athletes, and key reactivity and elastic metrics based on force plate rate of force development readings 29:52 – Measuring force production through the realm of single leg reactive strength values, as well as thoughts on single leg hops for speed 39:42 – Programing implications based on muscular or elastic abilities 45:49 – Overlaying sprint kinetics via technology (such as a 1080 sprint) relative to observation, and athlete feeling of the effort 53:27 – Overspeed work, and giving sprinting a sense of “ease” 1:00:41 – How Hunter and Mike have put “aliveness” and play in their programming 1:07:37 – Risk/Reward assessment in terms of using a more alive, play based warmup or training approach with a group of athletes Hunter Eisenhower and Mike Sullivan Quotes “Just that little framework of me creating a 50 (centimeter CMJ jump) club drives intent so much more.  On a small scale it works, and if you can create it on a bigger scale.. the difference it makes is huge”