August 15, 2022 • 39 mins
A lot of us endurance lovers get into a somewhat monotonous workout routine. You may be a runner, swimmer, cyclist, or triathlete who dabbles in a bit of strength training, a spin class enthusiast, someone who primarily engages in resistance training with some cardio sprinkled in, or you may be a fan of low-impact TRX training. While it’s great to have preferences and activities you enjoy, adding multiple types of exercise to your training program is essential to maximize your health benefits and develop well-rounded fitness.
Plyometric training is one of the most frequently overlooked forms of exercise. It involves jumping, bounding, and other forms of rapid force production. Often, regular joe athletes are just looking to work out enough to stay relatively fit and decide that plyometric exercises are mainly beneficial for serious power athletes, but plyometrics are helpful for nearly everyone. No matter your level of fitness or what sport of choice you focus on, plyometrics has valuable benefits. Adding just a few plyometric exercises into your training block can advance your wellness with little time. Keep an open mind, and don’t preemptively count yourself out; listen to this insightful episode with my good friend and colleague, Jordan Collins, to learn about the benefits of plyometrics and why you should also start jumping bounding and skipping your way to better fitness.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Welcome to the endurance cartel podcast.
I am your host,
Javier Pineda,
endurance athletes and exercise physiologist.
And each week we bring you accredited human performance specialist or inspiring athletes to help you optimize your true human potential.
Now let's get down to business.
(00:28):
Welcome to the endurance cartel podcast.
This is episode number 14.
We endurance athletes want to lose weight,
become lean,
fast,
powerful,
have a high vo two max high lactic threshold above par running,
cycling and swimming economy.
And of course we want mental strength and resiliency.
The problem is that the majority of us endurance athletes or individuals that enjoy practicing endurance sports have a weak core and stabilize your muscles,
(00:56):
making us prone to injury,
doing our very best to achieve our ones.
Sometimes we fall prey to bad experiences at the gym with a trainer or misinformation from coaches who don't know any better.
The primary purpose of this podcast is to enhance your quality of life through information and personal experiences from athletes,
trainers and even doctors while ripping the rewards and benefits of endurance sports.
(01:20):
I urge you to keep an open mind while you listen to this podcast episode.
We are looking for progress and not perfection.
Today's topic is can plyometric training exercises help or hurt and endurance athletes.
Therefore,
the answer is yes,
Plyometric training offers many core benefits for triathletes and endurance athletes.
(01:40):
They include improve speed,
improve strength,
prevention of injuries,
improved coordination.
That means improved connection between our brains and our body movements.
So without further ado,
I hope you enjoyed this episode with my friend and colleague,
Jordan Collins.
Let's get down to business.
(02:07):
Welcome to another episode of the Endurance Cartel Podcast.
I have the privilege of having one of my good friends and colleagues with us today,
Jordan Collins.
He has been a colleague of mine and a friend of mine at the same time since 2018 when you first came down from somewhere in Georgia.
(02:28):
Right Georgia.
I was close,
I was close but I I keep on mixing you up with the U.
G.
A.
For some reason but he is one of those people I considered experts in the field of plyometrics and mobility as well as body weight training.
And with so much time that we spent at the gym sometimes we don't even have time to kind of pick each other's brains on what we're doing and how we're doing it.
(02:56):
And most importantly that why why are we doing that exercise with that athlete or client?
And Jordan's happens to be an expert on training not only kids but also up and coming pros at college level and professionals.
So yeah man,
you basically do general population and professional athletes at the same time.
(03:22):
Since I am more the slow twitch kind of guy you my friend are fast twitch,
you don't do anything more than 100 and 10 m at the track.
Anything above 110 m is considered for you endurance.
So for the listeners the topic today is basically how can we endurance athletes or anybody that wants to start a mobility program or plyometrics program or how can they incorporate plyometrics,
(03:51):
Bodyweight mobility into their their lifestyle.
So they can have,
they can be less prone of injury.
Absolutely.
You know,
the number the number one rule for an athlete to be healthy if you are not available and not healthy,
you can't be the best.
So the number one thing I'm always looking for is how can I safeguard the athlete and try and reduce the risk of injury?
(04:16):
The best way to go about that.
Make sure there's tons of mobility,
tons of stability.
The athletes strong and understands that they need to have power within their system,
even if they are an endurance athlete.
You know,
it's about building up the volume and the tissue tolerance and the ability to stay strong in those endurance events,
(04:39):
just like you would in the sprint events that the carryover is so important and so impactful and define healthy.
What's healthy for you in the sense of why do you expect your athletes to be healthy of healthy is functional and able to perform on the field at 100% or near that.
That is something that's so,
so,
so important is that they are available And in terms of mobility because as an endurance athlete,
(05:04):
I hear the word mobility and it's sometimes I confuse it with,
I guess I should just do more yoga or any of that or just maybe more Pilates because God forbid I'll just go to the strength side and get all bulky and not be able to do what I need to do in swimming,
biking and running.
Yeah,
(05:24):
understandable,
yeah.
You know,
mobility to me,
I I like to think of the term of flexibility and strength.
So it's not one or the other,
but it's the combination of being able to utilize your end range of end range positions and stabilizing those end ranges.
Now,
if you're not able to show,
so strengthen those end ranges.
(05:45):
Yes,
that could be at risk for injury for sure.
Um that's why it's so important for athletes of all sports,
all genders,
all ages to have strength.
Being strong as an athlete really takes care of a lot of issues,
you know,
a really common misconception I get with a lot of my athletes when it comes to my mobility is hip tightness come in.
(06:06):
Oh,
my hips are always tight,
they're always tight and they're endlessly stretching.
Well,
they might not need to be stretching the hips is so much as activating the hips.
That's why one of the first things I do with my athletes in myself,
when I get in the weight room,
different band work just to get the hip musculature activated.
So it's it's essentially those end ranges.
(06:27):
Am I able to stabilize and show strength in that in that area.
If not,
yes,
that is a higher risk of injury because I'm essentially having that that area,
that's a longer range of motion without the stability.
Once I can see stabilize the joint stabilizing the area of the body.
That's when the risk of injury start,
it's gonna start to diminish greatly.
(06:48):
And when you train kids,
I've seen you train kids as,
I don't know what's the youngest you've trained,
but they're young man.
And what is it that you see that you start making doing some exercises for all these kids and even some mobility for these kids when they're still kind of still developing their end range is I look at a few basic factors of before these kids are certain athletes and specific sports,
(07:14):
are they quality functioning human beings,
Do they possess certain movement patterns,
certain capabilities.
And the first thing I'm gonna look at is foot and ankle function uh you know,
the foot is what's actually rooted into the ground.
So it's the most important thing and it's gonna streamline up the body.
So if the foot and the ankle doesn't function properly.
Yeah.
At some point,
(07:35):
we're probably gonna have some issues up our chain.
Um So foot and ankle work is the first thing I'm going to work on most of the time.
If I can have my athletes barefoot,
I'm gonna have them barefoot a lot of the session,
especially during our dynamic warm up during a certain plyometric portions,
just so the feet can understand the feeling of being rooted into the ground and being able to work our toes?
(07:57):
Like our fingers?
You know,
if if we don't have the movement in our toes like that and that's something we immediately need to work on before we're getting more advanced up the chain.
Beyond that.
I look at very much postural alignment for a youth athlete.
You know,
I don't want to really load them heavy with external weight.
I think body weight is definitely the way to go.
(08:17):
If you can't stabilize and utilize your body weight,
there's no need for any external resistance.
So teaching them how to squat correctly,
how to lunge correctly,
how to do a push up,
pull up basic things that we used to do in pe class.
That is almost non existent in society today.
So,
trying to bring a little bit back of what's old school,
you know,
(08:37):
back into a new school era.
I don't think I've ever seen you with guys coming in with hocus or any extra cushioning on them shoes.
What's your take on that?
I mean,
has an athlete ever come with those type of shoes?
And they want to start doing plyometrics because they say they've had experiences in the past a lot of endurance athletes,
(09:00):
they tend to go into some classes and all of sudden these classes start making them jump and they're okay with those shoes,
but the moment they get off those shoes,
that's a different thing,
right?
But what's your take on people that do not have the right movement patterns and all of a sudden they start doing plyometrics in the first thing is qualifying your athlete and understanding,
(09:27):
you know,
what the prerequisites are,
what their,
you know,
what they're capable of the progressions,
regressions.
So when we're talking about classes,
a lot of those,
those are,
you know,
predetermined exercises with myself,
it's all individualized training based off of prior assessments.
So with athletes that come through,
we're gonna go in and we're gonna see some of the issues beforehand and that's how we tailor a program.
(09:48):
So if I see certain deficiencies,
let's say in the foot and ankle complex,
it could be something as simple as learning how to walk again or doing simple heel walks,
toe walks,
learning how to do calf raises properly and understand how to recruit the muscles.
So it could be very,
very simplistic in design or get very,
(10:08):
very complex based off of the quality of athlete and how long they've been in my system.
But at the start,
it is very what most people would think basic in design.
Um,
I do a lot of the same things over and over and over again as repetition to try and get that motor pattern perfect with the athlete and to try and establish as many tools and their athletic toolbox as possible.
(10:34):
You know,
we want to build as great as as nice and creative at home as we can.
So I want to try,
especially the youth athlete not to limit them and scope and at let them be creative and start to explore their bodies a little bit more in a safe capacity.
That's very,
very important as teaching them the certain parameters.
But then allowing an athlete to explore as well for one,
(10:55):
I've seen you do quote unquote what a warm up would be,
but it's an entire class for you.
And I remember back in level three,
um,
certification,
uh,
D.
B.
C.
They asked you how long should you be doing these type of exercise?
Because you were demonstrating some type of movement that would be beneficial for a warm up.
(11:19):
And your answer was spot on until I feel like I,
they got it.
That's a sign of a great coach by the way.
And this just comes to show that there is no timeframe for a warm up.
There is and we're so fixated on the warm up should be 15 minutes,
10 minutes,
(11:39):
five minutes.
Hey,
I didn't even warm up back in the day and now I regret it because if I would have had better warm,
ups I would have kind of get my body prepped up,
but I was not thinking I was in.
Now sometimes I,
I um,
my whole training session is just,
I mean it's just based on a quote unquote warm up.
(12:02):
Yeah,
absolutely,
absolutely.
You know,
it's funny as,
as younger athletes that are a little more I guess aggressive in our training approach.
You know,
we just think we can conquer the world and things like that,
you know,
skipping the warmups pretty commonplace,
you know,
it's kind of like let's get out there,
do a couple of twists,
touch our toes a little bit rock and roll.
(12:24):
But but really when you think about it,
we're doing such a disservice to ourselves as athletes,
so much harm.
The risk of injury that we're increasing is just exponential.
I mean,
where we're not if you're taking a nice race car out,
are you gonna warm the car up?
Are you just gonna slam the gas pedal down and say let's do this.
So you gotta think about,
(12:44):
we are very high quality,
high functioning functioning human beings,
you need to make sure they're warmed up properly.
Everything is fired up in the right manner that you have a good sweat going that,
you know,
depending on the workout ahead,
Are we doing a highly intense plyometric workout that you need to really,
really heavy warm up or we doing,
(13:05):
you know,
a recovery day that we're just gonna do some basic cardiovascular work and maybe some core work that's a very different warm up that we're doing for each and we need to understand the warm up prepares us for the work ahead.
It just so happens that today a friend of mine,
a very very good friend of mine,
he calls me up and says that he's uh he thinks he pulled his growing or his or something happened in his a D doctor right now and that he was asking me for advice and I gave him what I could but he is about my age and he's uh he's one of those that sits down a lot and he's become a weekend warrior come almost in just going and playing soccer matches and it was his fifth soccer match and he was so excited he was getting back and yeah man now he's out so he just tied his shoes and let's go.
(13:59):
I mean this is what we did in pe class.
This is the I guess now more than ever that we're sitting down,
we're on our phones more and it just says that we need more warm up,
we need more mobility,
our hips need more work,
our shoulders need more work.
And this is where I love that you do a lot of bear crawls with your athletes and mind you,
(14:23):
your bear crawls are very much different than what I grew up and understood.
I thought that hips were just going all over the place and just get down on the ground and just crawl as fast as you can.
That was a that was a bear crawl for me.
Your bear crawls or is just so much more systematic and in In a way it's it's gratifying to see how it should be.
(14:46):
You know,
can you just elaborate why extras such as a bear crawls?
Such a simple exercise as a bear crawl is such an important tool.
Bear crawl has been in my repertoire since I was a athlete at the age of 14 years old.
So I've been utilizing bear crawls in some form or fashion for over 20 years now and they are still just as hard.
(15:10):
Bear crawls are unbelievable for shoulder stability,
core stability,
hip stability,
firing up your legs,
your arms,
your back.
It's a full body coordinative effort.
So I utilize bear crawls almost daily with my athletes and I use them from almost a parameter of assessment.
I will be able to,
(15:31):
you know,
really see how the session is gonna go based on the quality of the bear crawls,
especially once they've learned how to utilize them properly,
which is really tough,
especially,
you know,
there's a lot of coordination to it.
Um it's not a typical animal flow bear crawl that where the limbs are usually a little bit lower to the ground.
This is where the limbs are lifting all the way up,
(15:53):
so there's a lot more stability and coordination going on with it.
So it's tough for some younger athletes,
it usually takes,
I would say between 2 to 4 sessions if I have an athlete for the first time comes in and goes through my bear crawls and my ground warm up very well.
I know they're going to do very well in my system and vice versa.
(16:15):
I know the ones that you know might take 56 sessions,
okay,
we're gonna have to take some extra time and do some just basic stuff and you know,
turn back the clock a little bit and work some more generalized patterns.
It works so much of your nervous system,
it transfers over to gate as well.
I've seen people that I've put them just,
(16:36):
hey,
let's do the bear cross and for the,
for the life of them,
they cannot coordinate for some reason,
this is something that's very important that transfers over to people that do a lot of running that,
that do,
I mean swimming or cycling things that require of course some type of coordination.
But then again we're endurance,
we always are in a straight line and you,
(16:59):
my friend are a great coach when it comes to getting them in all three dimensions,
you know,
and it's,
I,
I've picked up some exercises that you do that,
I was like,
oh,
that's a cool thing.
I should,
I should incorporate in my own repertoire.
So,
and it goes along with doing a lot of hip mobility and those and using a lot of hurdles and that for me was gold and I never,
(17:21):
I never use hurdles in in my,
my warm ups or even in my whole workout now now I like him,
You know,
it's,
it's funny with the bear crawls,
hurdles were introduced into my training protocol is probably,
yeah,
I was probably about 14,
15 years old.
So I've been utilizing the same hurdle routine for 20 plus years,
both as an athlete as a coach.
(17:42):
And it's funny,
it was stuff when I was a younger athlete,
I didn't appreciate as much and as I've aged both as a coach and as an athlete man,
I mean I will always streamline back to those because they provide both stability and mobility um of certain areas of the body.
They're great for coordination.
(18:03):
They're simple but very hard.
Um,
you can have one hurdle right there and you can go through a whole workout utilizing different different areas and it's unbelievable application dynamically.
You know,
there's ways to stretch the hips.
I love,
you know,
I love the 90 90 position on the ground and things like that.
But to help get an athlete in a way against some movements that they might do in in real life or on the sport of play putting the hurdles up there.
(18:30):
Great.
And plus that external sources there as a guide where you know,
you can say,
oh,
you can do it in the air sure.
But having a barrier to go over,
it's just something as,
you know,
a little internal competition with the athletes themselves,
you know?
Yeah.
And also your instagram pages is very unique.
I I enjoy it very much because I don't see the same things your exercises.
(18:52):
I appreciate them because you again it goes back to how you do them and what the response of that exercise you're looking for from that athlete and many people it looks simple,
but they've come to get injured just doing some of those exercises.
So it just comes down to what particular stimulus you were looking for an athlete in this,
(19:13):
in in all these videos that you do.
So just comes to show that don't go ahead and try to incorporate them by yourself unless you're knowing what the heck you're doing and why you're doing them.
Absolutely.
I mean,
but I think it should go without saying anything that you see online.
You should have a qualified coach,
(19:34):
you should have a qualified coach that understands proper biomechanics and proper proper movement patterning,
but also proper programming.
And you're seeing a small,
small,
small snippet of a very,
very large program um that people aren't privy to see the whole thing and that little piece of the puzzle can be questioned,
but there's a much larger reason for everything.
(19:55):
So always,
you know,
quad defying who you're training with and making sure I'm not just looking up something online and following it myself.
It's usually not the best route for success,
you know,
it can work sometimes,
but you know more often than not it's much better to have a coach on your supervision.
Yeah,
let's wrap and wrap it up on the warm up because I I wanna not get carried away with so many topics at the same time.
(20:20):
But What would be your ideal warm up for an endurance athlete?
And when I say endurance athlete,
I'm I don't mean something,
somebody that just does iron man's,
but somebody that just runs for 30 minutes a day or anybody that enjoys the cycling or just swimming or any of that sort that just does something monos truck thoroughly.
(20:41):
What would be an ideal warm up for you?
So the first thing I'm going to do on the warm up is get someone out of their shoes,
get them barefoot,
like I said,
and it could be as simple as just working on some basic calf raises.
Some hell walks,
toe walks,
heel to toe walks,
very basic things that you wanted an old track and cross country days,
as part of your warm up,
(21:02):
you would go through and do do these drills.
Um I want to make sure the foot in the ankle are working properly and they're activated.
So that way we can streamline up the system.
Once we do that,
we're gonna make sure that we're going to start to warm the body up,
get a thermo genic effect and start to do some basic basic bodyweight movements up and down the up and down the track or the turf,
(21:23):
wherever we are.
Basic things like skipping patterns,
shuffle patterns.
Backpedals,
things like that.
Just to get the body big movements to get everything going from there,
I'll get a little bit more specific and as the warmup goes,
I'm gonna get a little bit more intense,
a little,
a little bit more close to what our actual workout is going to be.
So we're gonna go to the ground,
(21:44):
start to work the area.
So if we're dealing with a runner for instance,
we know we need to make sure that their quads are,
are sufficiently warmed up,
the hamstrings,
the hips are activated,
the calves,
things of that nature.
Once we get down specific exercise on the ground,
we're gonna come back up right,
get a little bit more specific with some running drills,
(22:05):
some basic sprint drills,
different.
A March is a walks,
certain switches,
things like that,
that should be done,
you know,
almost daily.
Um what I like to call micro dosing those exercises,
if you notice in myself in the gym,
if I gonna break,
there are certain things that I like to quote unquote micro dose daily.
(22:25):
Just get a couple of reps in here and there and practice those patterns over and over and over.
I'm a runner.
I wanna practice drills,
they're gonna make me more efficient as a runner unless I'm perfect.
There's always something I can do to be a little bit better and as I become more efficient I should hopefully in that regards reduced to risk of injury and you know,
and drop my times as well.
(22:46):
So there's multiple regards to that.
So after our sprint drills we're gonna try and fire up the central nervous system.
That's where I will implement certain hurdle hurdle work,
bear crawl,
work,
maybe some base level pogo hops and basic extensive plyometrics,
not very intense stuff.
Things that we're gonna build tissue tolerance and understand how the foot is supposed to hit the ground properly to streamline up the system.
(23:11):
If you if you notice that's a recurring theme of mine is the foot hitting the ground properly to make the rest of the system work efficiently.
If the foot doesn't work efficiently,
the rest of the system will not I agreement.
And it's also important again that all these warm ups that were mentioning here,
it's you have a good assessment beforehand that your lower abdominals or your T.
(23:34):
V.
A.
Are properly working gay.
We use a lot of our lower abdominals to lift up the leg.
And if that alone is not really at at par with what we are mentioning here that I don't think we should be messing with any of this and just get ourselves into a good basic functional core program before we start engaging in any of this and I don't know if you agree with me or not.
(24:03):
Absolutely.
Absolutely if the core does not work work functionally and properly.
We're going to have some problems because something is going to compensate,
the body is excellent and compensating whether we want it to or not,
it's gonna find a way to get it done.
Whether it's the best way to do it.
That's to be determined.
I agree man,
cause I mean it's a,
(24:24):
it's a lot of things that body will adjust to in order for it to actually create the movement that we are asking the body to do and how important is for you.
The cool down because I would,
I mean for me,
the cool down was just like first off,
the warm up was a waste of time because it was just getting in the way of my work out and I thought,
(24:45):
okay,
I am too spent to actually cool down.
So how important is the cool down for any athlete in that matter?
Or any,
anybody hugely important,
hugely important to cool down is going to essentially set yourself up for either success or failure or you're following workout if we're an athlete and we're training,
(25:07):
let's say five days a week,
monday through friday.
And we had a really intense monday and all we do is just hop in our car and go home and chill out okay fine.
Or we could spend 5,
10,
15 minutes taking some recovery measures,
doing some cool down stretches.
Maybe getting in some normal tech boots,
taking an ice plunge,
(25:29):
having soft tissue therapy.
Anything in that regards to help speed up the process is going to one help you have more efficient workout to the next day and to once again reduce the risk of injury.
So if we don't have that cool down,
we're just slowly building and building,
building up this,
this risk.
Alright,
alright,
(25:49):
we're gonna get a little bit tighter,
a little bit tighter,
muscles are working a little bit more than a little less fresh.
So it's hugely important.
I will do a cool down with myself after my workout and every night before I go to sleep,
I have a foam roller to matt out right in my living room and I always stretch and roll out for about Anywhere.
Could be five minutes,
could be 20 minutes depending on how my body feels.
(26:11):
But I will always give back to my body or it's gonna repay me and not the best ways.
I think we're in an age right now that there's so much more information,
but at the same time there's good information.
There's bad information.
I've interviewed many,
many people that have,
they include more recovery in their programs with their athletes and for themselves as well.
(26:34):
And it's not how that we are over trained our endurance athletes especially,
I don't think we are overtrained,
but we are just under recovered because we tend to do so much and it's so much of a monster truck channel thing.
It's the same thing over and over and over and over again and we're just going in one straight line.
(26:54):
This is something I feel that it's uh it's imperative to just take into account and just actually give your body the proper rested it deserves.
But in essence,
I feel that when working for some like plyometrics that are just going to give me that extra edge on a sprint or on the final sprint as well.
(27:14):
And it's also gonna give me some power for for my bike or even to swim.
I think my my more recovery should be included in,
in in workouts,
but I I see them with your athletes all the time and it's it's those are true coaching skills,
man,
Thank you very much appreciated.
(27:35):
Yeah.
And also I want I want you to talk a little bit more about your experience because I mean from a coaching standpoint,
sometimes our gym is not as a huge huge gym,
some sometimes we get we eavesdrop in somebody else's conversation for some extra wide reason and when you speak with your athletes and mainly the parents of your athletes,
(27:57):
you're speaking out of not only your uh your knowledge,
but also much more your experience because you you suffered severe injuries that I mean that you learned from and many of your athletes came came to you because of that injury alone.
Yeah,
yeah.
My my career was based off of injuries.
(28:20):
I think that's a big reason why I do what I do now was I wish that,
you know,
I had taking care of myself a little bit better.
Listen to my coaches a little bit more maybe implemented a little bit more recovery.
But yeah,
hamstring rupture was a recurring theme in my,
in my track career.
Um I had a lower back fracture,
(28:41):
that was that's what ended my athletic career and really spring boarded into,
alright,
my athletic career in college is over before all of my friends,
what am I going to do to buy my time and keep myself mentally same.
And I just dove into understanding the human body and how to safeguard it from injury.
(29:03):
And I just started training anyone that would,
that would let me in and just went deeper and deeper and deeper.
And I've always just become obsessed about,
you know,
the terms injury prevention or preh ab or just making sure the body moves efficiently,
because I know that's what limited myself as an athlete.
I just made the promise don't let that happen to other athletes be the reason that they can come back from things instead of their careers are being over.
(29:29):
Yeah.
And at such a young age as well that your body doesn't forget and especially when,
I mean,
the situation of it,
I mean,
you can't ways of preventing it,
but your body doesn't forget and still there,
the I've seen you um on your workouts.
I mean,
you're very a know about the way you're you're you're moving and how how to be moving and and you're you ask yourself the same way that you ask your athletes and,
(29:56):
and God forbid they speak back to back at you because they'll be slapped across the,
it won't be touched,
but they'll be berated.
Yes,
No,
they will not be touched.
Um,
that's not gonna happen.
No one's getting slapped,
but uh,
I'm definitely what someone could,
(30:17):
could call a drill sergeant for say one thing about me is I am tough on my athletes,
but I think it's,
it's tough love and that the love part is what's really important is that all my athletes know I care about them very,
very,
very much.
I'm very passionate about what I do and I'm very passionate about each athlete being the best version of themselves and I'm going to push them now.
(30:41):
They might not be used to it and might not understand it,
but they,
they understand it's called coming from a good place.
So a lot of times you'll see them roll their eyes like you can roll your eyes.
I know I'm being an asshole.
I get it,
but you gotta do it this way because if not,
there's an for every action,
there's,
there's a reaction to it and it's either a good one or a bad one.
(31:01):
I'm trying to make sure with all of my heart and all of my might we always end up on the good path and not in the bad path that we're setting ourselves up for success and not failure.
So part of what I'm trying to do is impart all that knowledge I have to,
my athlete that are much younger and might not understand in the same context,
but it's still my job to harp on it over and over and over because if not it's I'm not being a good coach,
(31:27):
I'm doing a disservice to my athletes,
you've had great success in all these kids that have come to you that I saw,
I mean look at Alfred,
my God,
I mean what a what a turnaround he did.
Alfred is a client of Jordan's,
he came with the exact same injury and he plays at Harvard or played at Harvard at Harvard and I played soccer correct?
(31:52):
Yeah man and now he's uh he's he's going places,
it's a,
he's a true inspiration man as well as this other bolivian kid and now he plays in the spanish league or spanish league or the italian league,
italian yeah,
Alan,
yeah,
in italian soccer league,
yeah and this last one when he was not even,
he's not even 18 or something or just just turn it.
(32:16):
I mean these were kids,
high school age age kids,
Alfred was 17,
Alan was fifth 15 at the time,
their careers were about to be over first,
Alfred had that lower back fracture,
allen had a recurring hamstring injury and they were coming to me both separately as last ditch efforts,
they were not coming to me for a high level of performance of climax,
(32:38):
they were coming to me because they knew I'm hurt and you can help me get back to 100% and that was the goal.
Just be healthy again,
once we're healthy,
then we can worry about being an athlete.
So,
and they,
the,
those guys are awesome,
they did all the work,
I just got at them,
but you know,
that couldn't have happened if there wasn't a level of experience for my end.
(33:00):
Um having gone through some of those trials and tribulations as an athlete,
as a coach,
you can put yourselves in those situations so the athletes can relate to you a little bit more and now is a big thing and it's opening up,
you know,
both both emotionally spiritually because as you're an athlete going through an injury,
that's a really tough thing to get through and you better have someone to talk to.
(33:22):
I mean,
I don't care who it is.
Just someone to relay your feelings because if not following them up isn't the way to go.
So that's something I always try and be as a big brother,
you know,
to all these athletes and say,
hey,
I'm here for you within sport,
outside of sport,
whatever you need,
it's not just a one hour training and then see you.
My cell phone is always open.
(33:43):
My door is always open if you need anything,
I'm here to help you,
I've also seen you and I am also very big on this that if somebody comes in already with a prior nagging injury but not as severe.
And us endurance athletes were notorious for just because we're so tough,
right?
We just gotta go through every injury and it's not gonna defeat me and it's not gonna bring me down,
(34:07):
I'm still gonna go racing now.
I mean we paid for it dearly.
Later down the road I saw,
I read an article not so long ago about this uh professional triathlete.
One of his biggest regrets was not listening to his body and not race or or trained when he was having nagging injuries and now he cannot do certain,
(34:30):
I mean he cannot fulfill certain things that he wished he could.
What's your take on that?
What is it that you do with some athletes that come in with like,
hey Jordan,
listen,
um hamstring is kinda iffy but well we can still do something or my low back is kind of uh but I can,
I feel like I can still do some some back spots or anything.
(34:51):
What's your take on that?
It's funny you say that about,
about that triathlete because I'll use myself as an example as an aging athlete.
That'll be 37 a few weeks that trains himself no different than a college football player or college track athlete.
I was supposed to have a lower body training session.
I woke up today tips feel a little tight my hamstring that I've ruptured a few times in the past is a little tight.
(35:16):
I said,
you know what?
Today is not the day for it.
I did a little bit of warm up,
did some core work.
As soon as we get off this podcast,
I'm gonna go go a nice plunged to recovery.
A younger version of me would have said,
screw that,
I'm doing whatever I need to max effort,
squats,
da da da da da probably harmed myself and and might have done a lot more damage.
So there is a point of sadly experience comes from all of this,
(35:39):
but as far as athletes coming in and they have kind of bumps and bruises and little nicks and things like that.
You know,
we're gonna be fluid with the situation.
So it's a constant assessment.
Um really good example is one of my high school's female soccer athletes.
She's healthy right now,
but she's in the midst of preseason and the coach is putting it on them.
(36:02):
I mean it's full scale playing and then 30-45 minutes of max effort sprint After every practice.
So she comes to see me after what she'll do on the way over,
she'll text me tell me what she did practice,
give me a number system one through 10,
10 being the worst in the world,
one being the best of how she feels.
So I'll take that gauge,
we'll check in when she gets in as she started to her warm up,
(36:24):
starting to roll out things of that nature a little bit more low key.
I'm gonna check again.
All right,
we're gonna get engaged throughout the session.
So if there's a little hamstring or something like that,
we're gonna do low level work.
If it's not bother some,
we might do a little bit more,
but I'm just gonna rely on the athlete to be able to go back and forth with me and give me a good gauge of things.
But at the end of the day,
(36:44):
if I see something I don't like,
I'm shutting it down immediately.
If movement,
mechanics aren't right,
it doesn't matter of reinforcing bad movement,
mechanics is just that reinforcing bad movement,
mechanics,
That's not gonna help the athlete.
So unless it's done proper,
there's no reason to do it.
Where can listeners find you on social and social media instagram?
(37:04):
What's your instagram and you Tiktok as well?
I do do Tiktok,
Yes,
gotta,
gotta try multiple avenues to reach out to to all athletes everywhere.
But yeah,
my,
my Tiktok in my instagram handle is a J.
Collins performance.
It's the same thing for both.
So they're in a link.
So if you see one,
(37:25):
you'll probably see the other and guys feel free to contact jordans for anything related to whatever the topics that we discussed today that we discussed the warmup,
We discussed mobility.
We discussed the importance of having a proper warm up and having a proper cool down and uh just listening to your body and it's being smart of not everything in black and white has to be done that day and this is something that we have to be very mindful of Jordan's just thank you very much man for being here man and it's actually just picking your brain on certain certain things and uh I feel that we're gonna be having you more often man cause I mean it's like a lot of questions just came up but I don't want to just go down a a rabbit hole and just start getting other topics but it's,
(38:16):
you provided us with a lot of information and again the listener just feel free to contact Jordan's on his instagram or his Tiktok and I appreciate it brother and listen,
I will be seeing you tomorrow man,
it's not like because we see each other every day.
Yeah man,
thank you so much.
It was an absolute pleasure,
I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
(38:36):
I really love hearing feedback from you.
I am always trying to improve myself so I can better serve you at the highest level share with us a brief review on what part of this episode that resonated with you the most.
You can always download the show notes and useful links.
You can go to my website endurance cartel dot com or any media channel You used to listen to this podcast.
(38:59):
Also make sure to share this with your friends and subscribe to this podcast.
Until then train smart guys.
Welcome to the endurance cartel podcast.
I am your host,
Javier Pineda,
endurance athletes and exercise physiologist.
And each week we bring you accredited human performance specialist or inspiring athletes to help you optimize your true human potential.
Now let's get down to business.
(00:28):
Welcome to the endurance cartel podcast.
This is episode number 14.
We endurance athletes want to lose weight,
become lean,
fast,
powerful,
have a high vo two max high lactic threshold above par running,
cycling and swimming economy.
And of course we want mental strength and resiliency.
The problem is that the majority of us endurance athletes or individuals that enjoy practicing endurance sports have a weak core and stabilize your muscles,
(00:56):
making us prone to injury,
doing our very best to achieve our ones.
Sometimes we fall prey to bad experiences at the gym with a trainer or misinformation from coaches who don't know any better.
The primary purpose of this podcast is to enhance your quality of life through information and personal experiences from athletes,
trainers and even doctors while ripping the rewards and benefits of endurance sports.
(01:20):
I urge you to keep an open mind while you listen to this podcast episode.
We are looking for progress and not perfection.
Today's topic is can plyometric training exercises help or hurt and endurance athletes.
Therefore,
the answer is yes,
Plyometric training offers many core benefits for triathletes and endurance athletes.
(01:40):
They include improve speed,
improve strength,
prevention of injuries,
improved coordination.
That means improved connection between our brains and our body movements.
So without further ado,
I hope you enjoyed this episode with my friend and colleague,
Jordan Collins.
Let's get down to business.
(02:07):
Welcome to another episode of the Endurance Cartel Podcast.
I have the privilege of having one of my good friends and colleagues with us today,
Jordan Collins.
He has been a colleague of mine and a friend of mine at the same time since 2018 when you first came down from somewhere in Georgia.
(02:28):
Right Georgia.
I was close,
I was close but I I keep on mixing you up with the U.
G.
A.
For some reason but he is one of those people I considered experts in the field of plyometrics and mobility as well as body weight training.
And with so much time that we spent at the gym sometimes we don't even have time to kind of pick each other's brains on what we're doing and how we're doing it.
(02:56):
And most importantly that why why are we doing that exercise with that athlete or client?
And Jordan's happens to be an expert on training not only kids but also up and coming pros at college level and professionals.
So yeah man,
you basically do general population and professional athletes at the same time.
(03:22):
Since I am more the slow twitch kind of guy you my friend are fast twitch,
you don't do anything more than 100 and 10 m at the track.
Anything above 110 m is considered for you endurance.
So for the listeners the topic today is basically how can we endurance athletes or anybody that wants to start a mobility program or plyometrics program or how can they incorporate plyometrics,
(03:51):
Bodyweight mobility into their their lifestyle.
So they can have,
they can be less prone of injury.
Absolutely.
You know,
the number the number one rule for an athlete to be healthy if you are not available and not healthy,
you can't be the best.
So the number one thing I'm always looking for is how can I safeguard the athlete and try and reduce the risk of injury?
(04:16):
The best way to go about that.
Make sure there's tons of mobility,
tons of stability.
The athletes strong and understands that they need to have power within their system,
even if they are an endurance athlete.
You know,
it's about building up the volume and the tissue tolerance and the ability to stay strong in those endurance events,
(04:39):
just like you would in the sprint events that the carryover is so important and so impactful and define healthy.
What's healthy for you in the sense of why do you expect your athletes to be healthy of healthy is functional and able to perform on the field at 100% or near that.
That is something that's so,
so,
so important is that they are available And in terms of mobility because as an endurance athlete,
(05:04):
I hear the word mobility and it's sometimes I confuse it with,
I guess I should just do more yoga or any of that or just maybe more Pilates because God forbid I'll just go to the strength side and get all bulky and not be able to do what I need to do in swimming,
biking and running.
Yeah,
(05:24):
understandable,
yeah.
You know,
mobility to me,
I I like to think of the term of flexibility and strength.
So it's not one or the other,
but it's the combination of being able to utilize your end range of end range positions and stabilizing those end ranges.
Now,
if you're not able to show,
so strengthen those end ranges.
(05:45):
Yes,
that could be at risk for injury for sure.
Um that's why it's so important for athletes of all sports,
all genders,
all ages to have strength.
Being strong as an athlete really takes care of a lot of issues,
you know,
a really common misconception I get with a lot of my athletes when it comes to my mobility is hip tightness come in.
(06:06):
Oh,
my hips are always tight,
they're always tight and they're endlessly stretching.
Well,
they might not need to be stretching the hips is so much as activating the hips.
That's why one of the first things I do with my athletes in myself,
when I get in the weight room,
different band work just to get the hip musculature activated.
So it's it's essentially those end ranges.
(06:27):
Am I able to stabilize and show strength in that in that area.
If not,
yes,
that is a higher risk of injury because I'm essentially having that that area,
that's a longer range of motion without the stability.
Once I can see stabilize the joint stabilizing the area of the body.
That's when the risk of injury start,
it's gonna start to diminish greatly.
(06:48):
And when you train kids,
I've seen you train kids as,
I don't know what's the youngest you've trained,
but they're young man.
And what is it that you see that you start making doing some exercises for all these kids and even some mobility for these kids when they're still kind of still developing their end range is I look at a few basic factors of before these kids are certain athletes and specific sports,
(07:14):
are they quality functioning human beings,
Do they possess certain movement patterns,
certain capabilities.
And the first thing I'm gonna look at is foot and ankle function uh you know,
the foot is what's actually rooted into the ground.
So it's the most important thing and it's gonna streamline up the body.
So if the foot and the ankle doesn't function properly.
Yeah.
At some point,
(07:35):
we're probably gonna have some issues up our chain.
Um So foot and ankle work is the first thing I'm going to work on most of the time.
If I can have my athletes barefoot,
I'm gonna have them barefoot a lot of the session,
especially during our dynamic warm up during a certain plyometric portions,
just so the feet can understand the feeling of being rooted into the ground and being able to work our toes?
(07:57):
Like our fingers?
You know,
if if we don't have the movement in our toes like that and that's something we immediately need to work on before we're getting more advanced up the chain.
Beyond that.
I look at very much postural alignment for a youth athlete.
You know,
I don't want to really load them heavy with external weight.
I think body weight is definitely the way to go.
(08:17):
If you can't stabilize and utilize your body weight,
there's no need for any external resistance.
So teaching them how to squat correctly,
how to lunge correctly,
how to do a push up,
pull up basic things that we used to do in pe class.
That is almost non existent in society today.
So,
trying to bring a little bit back of what's old school,
you know,
(08:37):
back into a new school era.
I don't think I've ever seen you with guys coming in with hocus or any extra cushioning on them shoes.
What's your take on that?
I mean,
has an athlete ever come with those type of shoes?
And they want to start doing plyometrics because they say they've had experiences in the past a lot of endurance athletes,
(09:00):
they tend to go into some classes and all of sudden these classes start making them jump and they're okay with those shoes,
but the moment they get off those shoes,
that's a different thing,
right?
But what's your take on people that do not have the right movement patterns and all of a sudden they start doing plyometrics in the first thing is qualifying your athlete and understanding,
(09:27):
you know,
what the prerequisites are,
what their,
you know,
what they're capable of the progressions,
regressions.
So when we're talking about classes,
a lot of those,
those are,
you know,
predetermined exercises with myself,
it's all individualized training based off of prior assessments.
So with athletes that come through,
we're gonna go in and we're gonna see some of the issues beforehand and that's how we tailor a program.
(09:48):
So if I see certain deficiencies,
let's say in the foot and ankle complex,
it could be something as simple as learning how to walk again or doing simple heel walks,
toe walks,
learning how to do calf raises properly and understand how to recruit the muscles.
So it could be very,
very simplistic in design or get very,
(10:08):
very complex based off of the quality of athlete and how long they've been in my system.
But at the start,
it is very what most people would think basic in design.
Um,
I do a lot of the same things over and over and over again as repetition to try and get that motor pattern perfect with the athlete and to try and establish as many tools and their athletic toolbox as possible.
(10:34):
You know,
we want to build as great as as nice and creative at home as we can.
So I want to try,
especially the youth athlete not to limit them and scope and at let them be creative and start to explore their bodies a little bit more in a safe capacity.
That's very,
very important as teaching them the certain parameters.
But then allowing an athlete to explore as well for one,
(10:55):
I've seen you do quote unquote what a warm up would be,
but it's an entire class for you.
And I remember back in level three,
um,
certification,
uh,
D.
B.
C.
They asked you how long should you be doing these type of exercise?
Because you were demonstrating some type of movement that would be beneficial for a warm up.
(11:19):
And your answer was spot on until I feel like I,
they got it.
That's a sign of a great coach by the way.
And this just comes to show that there is no timeframe for a warm up.
There is and we're so fixated on the warm up should be 15 minutes,
10 minutes,
(11:39):
five minutes.
Hey,
I didn't even warm up back in the day and now I regret it because if I would have had better warm,
ups I would have kind of get my body prepped up,
but I was not thinking I was in.
Now sometimes I,
I um,
my whole training session is just,
I mean it's just based on a quote unquote warm up.
(12:02):
Yeah,
absolutely,
absolutely.
You know,
it's funny as,
as younger athletes that are a little more I guess aggressive in our training approach.
You know,
we just think we can conquer the world and things like that,
you know,
skipping the warmups pretty commonplace,
you know,
it's kind of like let's get out there,
do a couple of twists,
touch our toes a little bit rock and roll.
(12:24):
But but really when you think about it,
we're doing such a disservice to ourselves as athletes,
so much harm.
The risk of injury that we're increasing is just exponential.
I mean,
where we're not if you're taking a nice race car out,
are you gonna warm the car up?
Are you just gonna slam the gas pedal down and say let's do this.
So you gotta think about,
(12:44):
we are very high quality,
high functioning functioning human beings,
you need to make sure they're warmed up properly.
Everything is fired up in the right manner that you have a good sweat going that,
you know,
depending on the workout ahead,
Are we doing a highly intense plyometric workout that you need to really,
really heavy warm up or we doing,
(13:05):
you know,
a recovery day that we're just gonna do some basic cardiovascular work and maybe some core work that's a very different warm up that we're doing for each and we need to understand the warm up prepares us for the work ahead.
It just so happens that today a friend of mine,
a very very good friend of mine,
he calls me up and says that he's uh he thinks he pulled his growing or his or something happened in his a D doctor right now and that he was asking me for advice and I gave him what I could but he is about my age and he's uh he's one of those that sits down a lot and he's become a weekend warrior come almost in just going and playing soccer matches and it was his fifth soccer match and he was so excited he was getting back and yeah man now he's out so he just tied his shoes and let's go.
(13:59):
I mean this is what we did in pe class.
This is the I guess now more than ever that we're sitting down,
we're on our phones more and it just says that we need more warm up,
we need more mobility,
our hips need more work,
our shoulders need more work.
And this is where I love that you do a lot of bear crawls with your athletes and mind you,
(14:23):
your bear crawls are very much different than what I grew up and understood.
I thought that hips were just going all over the place and just get down on the ground and just crawl as fast as you can.
That was a that was a bear crawl for me.
Your bear crawls or is just so much more systematic and in In a way it's it's gratifying to see how it should be.
(14:46):
You know,
can you just elaborate why extras such as a bear crawls?
Such a simple exercise as a bear crawl is such an important tool.
Bear crawl has been in my repertoire since I was a athlete at the age of 14 years old.
So I've been utilizing bear crawls in some form or fashion for over 20 years now and they are still just as hard.
(15:10):
Bear crawls are unbelievable for shoulder stability,
core stability,
hip stability,
firing up your legs,
your arms,
your back.
It's a full body coordinative effort.
So I utilize bear crawls almost daily with my athletes and I use them from almost a parameter of assessment.
I will be able to,
(15:31):
you know,
really see how the session is gonna go based on the quality of the bear crawls,
especially once they've learned how to utilize them properly,
which is really tough,
especially,
you know,
there's a lot of coordination to it.
Um it's not a typical animal flow bear crawl that where the limbs are usually a little bit lower to the ground.
This is where the limbs are lifting all the way up,
(15:53):
so there's a lot more stability and coordination going on with it.
So it's tough for some younger athletes,
it usually takes,
I would say between 2 to 4 sessions if I have an athlete for the first time comes in and goes through my bear crawls and my ground warm up very well.
I know they're going to do very well in my system and vice versa.
(16:15):
I know the ones that you know might take 56 sessions,
okay,
we're gonna have to take some extra time and do some just basic stuff and you know,
turn back the clock a little bit and work some more generalized patterns.
It works so much of your nervous system,
it transfers over to gate as well.
I've seen people that I've put them just,
(16:36):
hey,
let's do the bear cross and for the,
for the life of them,
they cannot coordinate for some reason,
this is something that's very important that transfers over to people that do a lot of running that,
that do,
I mean swimming or cycling things that require of course some type of coordination.
But then again we're endurance,
we always are in a straight line and you,
(16:59):
my friend are a great coach when it comes to getting them in all three dimensions,
you know,
and it's,
I,
I've picked up some exercises that you do that,
I was like,
oh,
that's a cool thing.
I should,
I should incorporate in my own repertoire.
So,
and it goes along with doing a lot of hip mobility and those and using a lot of hurdles and that for me was gold and I never,
(17:21):
I never use hurdles in in my,
my warm ups or even in my whole workout now now I like him,
You know,
it's,
it's funny with the bear crawls,
hurdles were introduced into my training protocol is probably,
yeah,
I was probably about 14,
15 years old.
So I've been utilizing the same hurdle routine for 20 plus years,
both as an athlete as a coach.
(17:42):
And it's funny,
it was stuff when I was a younger athlete,
I didn't appreciate as much and as I've aged both as a coach and as an athlete man,
I mean I will always streamline back to those because they provide both stability and mobility um of certain areas of the body.
They're great for coordination.
(18:03):
They're simple but very hard.
Um,
you can have one hurdle right there and you can go through a whole workout utilizing different different areas and it's unbelievable application dynamically.
You know,
there's ways to stretch the hips.
I love,
you know,
I love the 90 90 position on the ground and things like that.
But to help get an athlete in a way against some movements that they might do in in real life or on the sport of play putting the hurdles up there.
(18:30):
Great.
And plus that external sources there as a guide where you know,
you can say,
oh,
you can do it in the air sure.
But having a barrier to go over,
it's just something as,
you know,
a little internal competition with the athletes themselves,
you know?
Yeah.
And also your instagram pages is very unique.
I I enjoy it very much because I don't see the same things your exercises.
(18:52):
I appreciate them because you again it goes back to how you do them and what the response of that exercise you're looking for from that athlete and many people it looks simple,
but they've come to get injured just doing some of those exercises.
So it just comes down to what particular stimulus you were looking for an athlete in this,
(19:13):
in in all these videos that you do.
So just comes to show that don't go ahead and try to incorporate them by yourself unless you're knowing what the heck you're doing and why you're doing them.
Absolutely.
I mean,
but I think it should go without saying anything that you see online.
You should have a qualified coach,
(19:34):
you should have a qualified coach that understands proper biomechanics and proper proper movement patterning,
but also proper programming.
And you're seeing a small,
small,
small snippet of a very,
very large program um that people aren't privy to see the whole thing and that little piece of the puzzle can be questioned,
but there's a much larger reason for everything.
(19:55):
So always,
you know,
quad defying who you're training with and making sure I'm not just looking up something online and following it myself.
It's usually not the best route for success,
you know,
it can work sometimes,
but you know more often than not it's much better to have a coach on your supervision.
Yeah,
let's wrap and wrap it up on the warm up because I I wanna not get carried away with so many topics at the same time.
(20:20):
But What would be your ideal warm up for an endurance athlete?
And when I say endurance athlete,
I'm I don't mean something,
somebody that just does iron man's,
but somebody that just runs for 30 minutes a day or anybody that enjoys the cycling or just swimming or any of that sort that just does something monos truck thoroughly.
(20:41):
What would be an ideal warm up for you?
So the first thing I'm going to do on the warm up is get someone out of their shoes,
get them barefoot,
like I said,
and it could be as simple as just working on some basic calf raises.
Some hell walks,
toe walks,
heel to toe walks,
very basic things that you wanted an old track and cross country days,
as part of your warm up,
(21:02):
you would go through and do do these drills.
Um I want to make sure the foot in the ankle are working properly and they're activated.
So that way we can streamline up the system.
Once we do that,
we're gonna make sure that we're going to start to warm the body up,
get a thermo genic effect and start to do some basic basic bodyweight movements up and down the up and down the track or the turf,
(21:23):
wherever we are.
Basic things like skipping patterns,
shuffle patterns.
Backpedals,
things like that.
Just to get the body big movements to get everything going from there,
I'll get a little bit more specific and as the warmup goes,
I'm gonna get a little bit more intense,
a little,
a little bit more close to what our actual workout is going to be.
So we're gonna go to the ground,
(21:44):
start to work the area.
So if we're dealing with a runner for instance,
we know we need to make sure that their quads are,
are sufficiently warmed up,
the hamstrings,
the hips are activated,
the calves,
things of that nature.
Once we get down specific exercise on the ground,
we're gonna come back up right,
get a little bit more specific with some running drills,
(22:05):
some basic sprint drills,
different.
A March is a walks,
certain switches,
things like that,
that should be done,
you know,
almost daily.
Um what I like to call micro dosing those exercises,
if you notice in myself in the gym,
if I gonna break,
there are certain things that I like to quote unquote micro dose daily.
(22:25):
Just get a couple of reps in here and there and practice those patterns over and over and over.
I'm a runner.
I wanna practice drills,
they're gonna make me more efficient as a runner unless I'm perfect.
There's always something I can do to be a little bit better and as I become more efficient I should hopefully in that regards reduced to risk of injury and you know,
and drop my times as well.
(22:46):
So there's multiple regards to that.
So after our sprint drills we're gonna try and fire up the central nervous system.
That's where I will implement certain hurdle hurdle work,
bear crawl,
work,
maybe some base level pogo hops and basic extensive plyometrics,
not very intense stuff.
Things that we're gonna build tissue tolerance and understand how the foot is supposed to hit the ground properly to streamline up the system.
(23:11):
If you if you notice that's a recurring theme of mine is the foot hitting the ground properly to make the rest of the system work efficiently.
If the foot doesn't work efficiently,
the rest of the system will not I agreement.
And it's also important again that all these warm ups that were mentioning here,
it's you have a good assessment beforehand that your lower abdominals or your T.
(23:34):
V.
A.
Are properly working gay.
We use a lot of our lower abdominals to lift up the leg.
And if that alone is not really at at par with what we are mentioning here that I don't think we should be messing with any of this and just get ourselves into a good basic functional core program before we start engaging in any of this and I don't know if you agree with me or not.
(24:03):
Absolutely.
Absolutely if the core does not work work functionally and properly.
We're going to have some problems because something is going to compensate,
the body is excellent and compensating whether we want it to or not,
it's gonna find a way to get it done.
Whether it's the best way to do it.
That's to be determined.
I agree man,
cause I mean it's a,
(24:24):
it's a lot of things that body will adjust to in order for it to actually create the movement that we are asking the body to do and how important is for you.
The cool down because I would,
I mean for me,
the cool down was just like first off,
the warm up was a waste of time because it was just getting in the way of my work out and I thought,
(24:45):
okay,
I am too spent to actually cool down.
So how important is the cool down for any athlete in that matter?
Or any,
anybody hugely important,
hugely important to cool down is going to essentially set yourself up for either success or failure or you're following workout if we're an athlete and we're training,
(25:07):
let's say five days a week,
monday through friday.
And we had a really intense monday and all we do is just hop in our car and go home and chill out okay fine.
Or we could spend 5,
10,
15 minutes taking some recovery measures,
doing some cool down stretches.
Maybe getting in some normal tech boots,
taking an ice plunge,
(25:29):
having soft tissue therapy.
Anything in that regards to help speed up the process is going to one help you have more efficient workout to the next day and to once again reduce the risk of injury.
So if we don't have that cool down,
we're just slowly building and building,
building up this,
this risk.
Alright,
alright,
(25:49):
we're gonna get a little bit tighter,
a little bit tighter,
muscles are working a little bit more than a little less fresh.
So it's hugely important.
I will do a cool down with myself after my workout and every night before I go to sleep,
I have a foam roller to matt out right in my living room and I always stretch and roll out for about Anywhere.
Could be five minutes,
could be 20 minutes depending on how my body feels.
(26:11):
But I will always give back to my body or it's gonna repay me and not the best ways.
I think we're in an age right now that there's so much more information,
but at the same time there's good information.
There's bad information.
I've interviewed many,
many people that have,
they include more recovery in their programs with their athletes and for themselves as well.
(26:34):
And it's not how that we are over trained our endurance athletes especially,
I don't think we are overtrained,
but we are just under recovered because we tend to do so much and it's so much of a monster truck channel thing.
It's the same thing over and over and over and over again and we're just going in one straight line.
(26:54):
This is something I feel that it's uh it's imperative to just take into account and just actually give your body the proper rested it deserves.
But in essence,
I feel that when working for some like plyometrics that are just going to give me that extra edge on a sprint or on the final sprint as well.
(27:14):
And it's also gonna give me some power for for my bike or even to swim.
I think my my more recovery should be included in,
in in workouts,
but I I see them with your athletes all the time and it's it's those are true coaching skills,
man,
Thank you very much appreciated.
(27:35):
Yeah.
And also I want I want you to talk a little bit more about your experience because I mean from a coaching standpoint,
sometimes our gym is not as a huge huge gym,
some sometimes we get we eavesdrop in somebody else's conversation for some extra wide reason and when you speak with your athletes and mainly the parents of your athletes,
(27:57):
you're speaking out of not only your uh your knowledge,
but also much more your experience because you you suffered severe injuries that I mean that you learned from and many of your athletes came came to you because of that injury alone.
Yeah,
yeah.
My my career was based off of injuries.
(28:20):
I think that's a big reason why I do what I do now was I wish that,
you know,
I had taking care of myself a little bit better.
Listen to my coaches a little bit more maybe implemented a little bit more recovery.
But yeah,
hamstring rupture was a recurring theme in my,
in my track career.
Um I had a lower back fracture,
(28:41):
that was that's what ended my athletic career and really spring boarded into,
alright,
my athletic career in college is over before all of my friends,
what am I going to do to buy my time and keep myself mentally same.
And I just dove into understanding the human body and how to safeguard it from injury.
(29:03):
And I just started training anyone that would,
that would let me in and just went deeper and deeper and deeper.
And I've always just become obsessed about,
you know,
the terms injury prevention or preh ab or just making sure the body moves efficiently,
because I know that's what limited myself as an athlete.
I just made the promise don't let that happen to other athletes be the reason that they can come back from things instead of their careers are being over.
(29:29):
Yeah.
And at such a young age as well that your body doesn't forget and especially when,
I mean,
the situation of it,
I mean,
you can't ways of preventing it,
but your body doesn't forget and still there,
the I've seen you um on your workouts.
I mean,
you're very a know about the way you're you're you're moving and how how to be moving and and you're you ask yourself the same way that you ask your athletes and,
(29:56):
and God forbid they speak back to back at you because they'll be slapped across the,
it won't be touched,
but they'll be berated.
Yes,
No,
they will not be touched.
Um,
that's not gonna happen.
No one's getting slapped,
but uh,
I'm definitely what someone could,
(30:17):
could call a drill sergeant for say one thing about me is I am tough on my athletes,
but I think it's,
it's tough love and that the love part is what's really important is that all my athletes know I care about them very,
very,
very much.
I'm very passionate about what I do and I'm very passionate about each athlete being the best version of themselves and I'm going to push them now.
(30:41):
They might not be used to it and might not understand it,
but they,
they understand it's called coming from a good place.
So a lot of times you'll see them roll their eyes like you can roll your eyes.
I know I'm being an asshole.
I get it,
but you gotta do it this way because if not,
there's an for every action,
there's,
there's a reaction to it and it's either a good one or a bad one.
(31:01):
I'm trying to make sure with all of my heart and all of my might we always end up on the good path and not in the bad path that we're setting ourselves up for success and not failure.
So part of what I'm trying to do is impart all that knowledge I have to,
my athlete that are much younger and might not understand in the same context,
but it's still my job to harp on it over and over and over because if not it's I'm not being a good coach,
(31:27):
I'm doing a disservice to my athletes,
you've had great success in all these kids that have come to you that I saw,
I mean look at Alfred,
my God,
I mean what a what a turnaround he did.
Alfred is a client of Jordan's,
he came with the exact same injury and he plays at Harvard or played at Harvard at Harvard and I played soccer correct?
(31:52):
Yeah man and now he's uh he's he's going places,
it's a,
he's a true inspiration man as well as this other bolivian kid and now he plays in the spanish league or spanish league or the italian league,
italian yeah,
Alan,
yeah,
in italian soccer league,
yeah and this last one when he was not even,
he's not even 18 or something or just just turn it.
(32:16):
I mean these were kids,
high school age age kids,
Alfred was 17,
Alan was fifth 15 at the time,
their careers were about to be over first,
Alfred had that lower back fracture,
allen had a recurring hamstring injury and they were coming to me both separately as last ditch efforts,
they were not coming to me for a high level of performance of climax,
(32:38):
they were coming to me because they knew I'm hurt and you can help me get back to 100% and that was the goal.
Just be healthy again,
once we're healthy,
then we can worry about being an athlete.
So,
and they,
the,
those guys are awesome,
they did all the work,
I just got at them,
but you know,
that couldn't have happened if there wasn't a level of experience for my end.
(33:00):
Um having gone through some of those trials and tribulations as an athlete,
as a coach,
you can put yourselves in those situations so the athletes can relate to you a little bit more and now is a big thing and it's opening up,
you know,
both both emotionally spiritually because as you're an athlete going through an injury,
that's a really tough thing to get through and you better have someone to talk to.
(33:22):
I mean,
I don't care who it is.
Just someone to relay your feelings because if not following them up isn't the way to go.
So that's something I always try and be as a big brother,
you know,
to all these athletes and say,
hey,
I'm here for you within sport,
outside of sport,
whatever you need,
it's not just a one hour training and then see you.
My cell phone is always open.
(33:43):
My door is always open if you need anything,
I'm here to help you,
I've also seen you and I am also very big on this that if somebody comes in already with a prior nagging injury but not as severe.
And us endurance athletes were notorious for just because we're so tough,
right?
We just gotta go through every injury and it's not gonna defeat me and it's not gonna bring me down,
(34:07):
I'm still gonna go racing now.
I mean we paid for it dearly.
Later down the road I saw,
I read an article not so long ago about this uh professional triathlete.
One of his biggest regrets was not listening to his body and not race or or trained when he was having nagging injuries and now he cannot do certain,
(34:30):
I mean he cannot fulfill certain things that he wished he could.
What's your take on that?
What is it that you do with some athletes that come in with like,
hey Jordan,
listen,
um hamstring is kinda iffy but well we can still do something or my low back is kind of uh but I can,
I feel like I can still do some some back spots or anything.
(34:51):
What's your take on that?
It's funny you say that about,
about that triathlete because I'll use myself as an example as an aging athlete.
That'll be 37 a few weeks that trains himself no different than a college football player or college track athlete.
I was supposed to have a lower body training session.
I woke up today tips feel a little tight my hamstring that I've ruptured a few times in the past is a little tight.
(35:16):
I said,
you know what?
Today is not the day for it.
I did a little bit of warm up,
did some core work.
As soon as we get off this podcast,
I'm gonna go go a nice plunged to recovery.
A younger version of me would have said,
screw that,
I'm doing whatever I need to max effort,
squats,
da da da da da probably harmed myself and and might have done a lot more damage.
So there is a point of sadly experience comes from all of this,
(35:39):
but as far as athletes coming in and they have kind of bumps and bruises and little nicks and things like that.
You know,
we're gonna be fluid with the situation.
So it's a constant assessment.
Um really good example is one of my high school's female soccer athletes.
She's healthy right now,
but she's in the midst of preseason and the coach is putting it on them.
(36:02):
I mean it's full scale playing and then 30-45 minutes of max effort sprint After every practice.
So she comes to see me after what she'll do on the way over,
she'll text me tell me what she did practice,
give me a number system one through 10,
10 being the worst in the world,
one being the best of how she feels.
So I'll take that gauge,
we'll check in when she gets in as she started to her warm up,
(36:24):
starting to roll out things of that nature a little bit more low key.
I'm gonna check again.
All right,
we're gonna get engaged throughout the session.
So if there's a little hamstring or something like that,
we're gonna do low level work.
If it's not bother some,
we might do a little bit more,
but I'm just gonna rely on the athlete to be able to go back and forth with me and give me a good gauge of things.
But at the end of the day,
(36:44):
if I see something I don't like,
I'm shutting it down immediately.
If movement,
mechanics aren't right,
it doesn't matter of reinforcing bad movement,
mechanics is just that reinforcing bad movement,
mechanics,
That's not gonna help the athlete.
So unless it's done proper,
there's no reason to do it.
Where can listeners find you on social and social media instagram?
(37:04):
What's your instagram and you Tiktok as well?
I do do Tiktok,
Yes,
gotta,
gotta try multiple avenues to reach out to to all athletes everywhere.
But yeah,
my,
my Tiktok in my instagram handle is a J.
Collins performance.
It's the same thing for both.
So they're in a link.
So if you see one,
(37:25):
you'll probably see the other and guys feel free to contact jordans for anything related to whatever the topics that we discussed today that we discussed the warmup,
We discussed mobility.
We discussed the importance of having a proper warm up and having a proper cool down and uh just listening to your body and it's being smart of not everything in black and white has to be done that day and this is something that we have to be very mindful of Jordan's just thank you very much man for being here man and it's actually just picking your brain on certain certain things and uh I feel that we're gonna be having you more often man cause I mean it's like a lot of questions just came up but I don't want to just go down a a rabbit hole and just start getting other topics but it's,
(38:16):
you provided us with a lot of information and again the listener just feel free to contact Jordan's on his instagram or his Tiktok and I appreciate it brother and listen,
I will be seeing you tomorrow man,
it's not like because we see each other every day.
Yeah man,
thank you so much.
It was an absolute pleasure,
I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
(38:36):
I really love hearing feedback from you.
I am always trying to improve myself so I can better serve you at the highest level share with us a brief review on what part of this episode that resonated with you the most.
You can always download the show notes and useful links.
You can go to my website endurance cartel dot com or any media channel You used to listen to this podcast.
(38:59):
Also make sure to share this with your friends and subscribe to this podcast.
Until then train smart guys.
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