Today’s show is with athletic performance coach, Erik Huddleston. Erik is currently the Director of Performance at Indianapolis Fitness & Sports Training (IFAST) and a performance consultant for a number of professional baseball & basketball teams. Erik previously spent time at Indiana University & Texas Tech University with the men’s basketball teams.
So often in the course of using barbell methods for athletic performance, there are often movements that are considered sacred cows of training. There also tends to be common thoughts as to how these lifts should be performed, such as all athletes needing to squat heavy “ass to grass”. In reality, athletes come in all shapes, sizes and structures. Athletes of varying shapes may respond to various types of barbell lifts differently, and there are ways to optimize training for performance, and robustness when considering structural differences of athletes.
Advanced and elite athletes will tend to utilize the feet, and stance in different ways as well. Knowing how an athlete is leveraging the gait cycle, and what points they are particularly biasing to achieve their performances, is important when thinking about which lift variations we might want to utilize with them over time.
For today’s episode, Erik takes us on a deep dive into squatting and how it relates to the “reversal ability” of athletes, given their individual shapes and structures. He also relates the phases of gait (early,mid,late stance) to squatting and jumping concepts, to help us better understand how to give athletes what they need at particular points in their career. Erik cover important elements of single leg squatting as well, in this highly detailed chat on performance training.
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Timestamps and Main Points
4:00 – Some of the things Erik has learned from spending time in both the collegiate and private sectors of training
9:00 – Things that Erik looks at in training video that he may be addressing in the gym setting
15:00 – Managing squatting and squat training in light of the various phases of stance
25:20 – How to “bucket” athletes based on need in squatting, in terms of depth and heel-elevation, particularly those with wider hips and narrower shoulders
35:00 – How an athlete’s body shape and structure will tend to determine their functional ability and biomechanics
49:00 – Self-selection principles when it comes to strength and power exercises and coaching
52:00 – Shin angle principles in light of squatting and reversal power
55:00 – How single leg differs from double leg training in terms of pelvic-sacrum action and pressurization
1:00.30 – What Erik is looking for in the stances of the foot when an athlete is jumping or dunking
1:05.30 – Why banded work can cause athletes to “over-push” in jumping, and the impulse related nature of “point zero” in a jump
1:11.30 – More talk on jumping in regards to single leg jumping and accessing late-stance, and why advanced athletes tend to be more late-stance dominant
1:22:00 – Erik’s take on athletes who are early-stance dominant, and how to help them overcome resistance, create compression, and ideally get to mid and late stance more easily
“An ability to translate through the phases of gait is something that I look at (when assessing video)”
“Some kids are naturally not going to be able to get lower in that athletic stance”
“Gait is a constant falling and catching yourself as you go forward”
“If the tibia moves forward and your heel is on the ground, you are moving towards the middle phase of propulsion…. as soon as the calcaneus breaks the ground you are in a later phase of propulsion”
“(Internal rotation) doesn’t allow for a lot of general movement qualities… or a fluid var...
