From the Ground Up Athletic Performance Podcast Matt Tometz Episode 56 "Integrating Coaching & Data, Charlie Francis 95% Rule for true speed, VDec for resisted sprints/max power"
On episode 56, I sat down with Coach Matt Tometz of TCBoost Training. Coach Tometz has wrote several awesome articles for simplifaster detailing many of the talking points referenced in todays episode. This episode focused on speed training and how to get the most that you can out of speed training by utilizing objective data to validate when athletes are primed to perform max effort sprint sessions. The first portion of the conversation centered heavily on data and how to integrate data into the decision making process for a coach. One of the first things that Matt offered that I really enjoyed is that data is not a standalone variable. Data is part of a 3 part equation, 1) the data, 2) the coaches eye 3) The athlete and their current feeling. Before talking about speed training, its good to define the topic to give reference to the main talking points. Matt does just that and one can see the different traits that need to be arranged to effectively build and model towards speed and power development.
We next discuss Charlie Francis and his 95% rule and how practitioners can utilize this metric to help inform program choices and examine overall athlete readiness. Again Numbers are only valid if we can calculate them under valid conditions, Matt discusses how he calculates Athletes 95% capacity and how it helps him to give meaning and an aiming point for the session. I really like how in this section Matt discusses how it is unrealistic to expect a PR on each sprint attempt, such an environment and attitude can be detrimental to development. Matt shares how the 95% rule allows for him to complete high quality speed and combat unrealistic expectations and PRitis. Data is a great metric that allows for coaches to keep their finger on the pulse of a given session, however, Matt shares how one anomaly isn't cause for an alarm. Matt shares another great rationale that moving directly from data to decision can be a mistake. The appropriate order to insure optimal training would be data, discussion, decision, this involves athletes in the training process and also allows for coaches to appear less Draconian.
Much of the second part of the conversation discusses resisted sprinting and Matt and I share the observation that much of the resisted patterns of the weight room are not in the horizontal vector. This naturally shows why I believe Resisted sprinting to be extremely valuable for the building of plane specific force in athletes. Matt offers up a guiding question that he ask himself to guide his why in programming and decisions, What is the best use of my hour that I have with an athlete? Matt rationalizes and rightfully so that he firstly will provide a high quality speed stimulus to his athletes. This is really invaluable because most of the athletes that he is dealing with do not consistently encounter a potent speed stimulus, Prep and games more often fall into the 85% zone that Francis warned about. The last part of our conversation focuses on Velocity Decrements in sprinting and Matt does a great job explaining the process and stimulus of each zone. Matt also discusses how to use sprint profiling to develop programming on an individualized scale. Make sure to check the links below for access to Matt's socials and show.