August 11, 2025 • 57 mins
In this episode of the Braun Performance & Rehab Podcast, Dan is joined by Danny Lum to discuss Isometric Training for Sports Performance. The two discuss types of isometrics, exercise prescription parameters, iso-plyo supersets, and more.Danny Lum has been working with Singapore’s national athletes for more than a decade, supporting competitors across a wide range of sports, including athletics, badminton, bowling, cycling, diving, gymnastics, judo, kayaking, marathon, swimming, table tennis, wakeboarding, and wrestling. He earned his PhD in Sports Science from Nanyang Technological University in 2021 and is an accredited strength and conditioning coach with both the National Strength and Conditioning Association and the Australian Strength and Conditioning Association.In addition to his work as a practitioner, Danny serves as an Honorary Adjunct Lecturer at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. His research on isometric training and post-activation performance enhancement has been widely recognized within the international strength and conditioning community, with numerous studies published in peer-reviewed sports science journals and presented at global conferences.Danny is the founder of D. Performance Concept, a platform created to provide support for athletes outside Singapore’s national sports carding system as well as international athletes seeking his expertise. Drawing on his extensive experience training elite athletes and his deep knowledge of sports science, Danny is committed to helping athletes of all ages, sports, and competitive levels reach their highest potential and enjoy a more fulfilling sporting journey.For more on Danny be sure to check out https://www.dperformanceconcept.com/ & follow @dannylum82 on Instagram *SEASON 6 of the Braun Performance & Rehab Podcast is brought to you by Isophit. For more on Isophit, please check out isophit.com and @isophit -BE SURE to use coupon code BraunPR25% to save 25% on your Isophit order!**Season 6 of the Braun Performance & Rehab Podcast is also brought to you by Firefly Recovery, the official recovery provider for Braun Performance & Rehab. For more on Firefly, please check out https://www.recoveryfirefly.com/ or email jake@recoveryfirefly.com***This episode is also powered by Dr. Ray Gorman, founder of Engage Movement. Learn how to boost your income without relying on sessions. Get a free training on the blended practice model by following @raygormandpt on Instagram. DM my name “Dan” to @raygormandpt on Instagram and receive your free breakdown on the model.Episode Affiliates:MoboBoard: BRAWNBODY10 saves 10% at checkout!AliRx: DBraunRx = 20% off at checkout! https://alirx.health/MedBridge: https://www.medbridgeeducation.com/brawn-body-training or Coupon Code "BRAWN" for 40% off your annual subscription!CTM Band: https://ctm.band/collections/ctm-band coupon code "BRAWN10" = 10% off!Ice shaker affiliate link: https://www.iceshaker.com?sca_ref=1520881.zOJLysQzKeMake sure you SHARE this episode with a friend who could benefit from the information we shared!Check out everything Dan is up to by clicking here: https://linktr.ee/braun_prLiked this episode? Leave a 5-star review on your favorite podcast platform
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Brown Performance and
Rehab Podcast powered by Isofit and Firefly Recovery. Isofit is
my go to for all things isometric strength training. For
more on Isofit, be sure to check out isofit dot com.
Episodes like this are made possible by Firefly, the official
recovery provider of the Brown Performance and Rehab Podcast. For
(00:22):
more on Firefly, be sure to check out Recovery firefly
dot com. This episode is powered by doctor Ray Gorman,
founder of Engage Movement. Learn how to boost your income
without relying on sessions. Get a free training on the
Blended practice model by following at Ray Gorman DPT on Instagram. Danny,
Welcome to the podcast. I'm super excited to work with
(00:44):
you today. Man, as we were just talking about, you
are a absolute legend in the space, especially around isometrics.
That way, you are one of the leading experts that
I like to go to, especially for your research contributions
and your writings. Man, it's so great to connect with you.
For anyone who hasn't maybe heard about you and all
the amazing work you do in Singapore, would you mind
(01:05):
fill them in a little bit about who you are
and how you've kind of gotten into this world of
researching isometrics and beyond.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Thanks Daniel for the invitation. I'm Danny. I'm from High
Performance Sport Institute of Singapore. We used to be called
Singapore Sport and still we recently just changed the name.
I'm a senior strength conditioning scientist down here. I started
my journey on isometric training like back in twenty seventeen,
(01:34):
twenty eighteen when I did my PhD. It actually stems
from me working with our judo athletes. I have one.
I had one judia athlete who was so big it
was like two hundred over kidogram and he wasn't very
good with his moto skill apart from his judo stuff.
(01:57):
So and we had pretty limited time to get him
strong enough to ball for the South as Asian Games.
So and so I started looking at different ways to train,
and isometric came along because I don't really need him
to be proficient in more the control stuff. I can
(02:21):
just get him to push against the bar and that
was it. From then on, I went on to use
isometric training with our swimmers and it worked pretty well,
and so I started my research on isometric training for
high performance sports, because back then there were very little
(02:43):
on it, very little studies conducted on high performance the
effects of high performance with isometric training, and that was
how it all came about. And so that's how we
have all the isometric research coming from simple and.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I think the effect of work from individuals such as
yourself is very well seen that way. I feel like
any time I open up Instagram or Facebook or TikTok,
I'm seeing more people training isometrics and more people talking
about training isometrics and how to implement that into the
framework that way, And I personally absolutely love to see that.
(03:22):
As we're talking about earlier, isometrics are a big part
of my work as a physical therapist, and I use
them throughout rehab processes, whether that's early on or in
the later stages that way. But I think ultimately what
makes you successful with isometrics is having a robust understanding
of the types of isometrics that you can do when
(03:42):
to call on each and again, putting the pieces of
the puzzle together, if you will, having a system or
a framework to go off of instead of just kind
of picking one that you like and throwing it in
and hoping for the best, there is an actual knowledge
based and understanding that goes into this whole thing. I
know this concept of without moving sounds simple, but I've
found it's a lot more complex than I think we
(04:04):
often give it credit for that way. So first off, Danny,
what's been your overall framework for kind of bucketing or
you know, systematizing isometric training that way? Where do you
kind of put in your overcoming, yielding, equis functional ISOs
isometronics all the different types of isometric type training that
we have right now? How do you go about kind
(04:25):
of organizing that in your mind that way for training
and strength and conditioning purposes.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Okay, I like to keep things very simple, So when
it comes to categoriing isometric we actually recently came came
up with a review paper which is still on under review.
The two types of isometric is the push isometric and
the whole isometric. Push isometric is what is also commonly
(04:51):
known as the overcoming and whole isometric is the yilding
isometric that that's known to practitioners. And I keep think simple.
I just categorize them into push and hole and other
than that, I look at isometric the adaptations to isometric
training the principles of adaptation. It's pretty similar to how
(05:14):
it works for dynamic training. So if you want to
be you want to get muscle hypertrophy, and then that's
related to volume of training. You want to get increasing
maximal strength. Then it depends on the intensity of your contraction.
And if you want to increase relar force development, then
(05:38):
we just have to contract rapidly. So from then on
that's when I start to plan my training. Right and
between push and hole, what we found was that whole
isometric tend to increase hypertrophy more with a given intensity
(06:00):
and volume of work, while the push isometric seems to
be better at increasing the neuromuscular strength. So in that case,
when the objective is more towards hypertrophy, then we'll add
in more of the whole isometric. And if we're looking
at ralar force development, we're looking at maximal strength, then
(06:23):
the push isometric comes comes to play, and then volume
of work intensity. It all depends on the objective at
that point of time. Right. In general, what is good
about isometric is that it's less fatiguing, It poses less
reads of injury than dynamic training, and you can basically
(06:46):
repeatedly exit maximal voluntary contraction within the single session. Unlike dynamic,
you can't possibly get a person to do a one
hour m intensity for multiple sets. That's the advantage of isometric,
and so because of that, it can replace some sets
of dynamic with isometric just so that you don't have
(07:10):
to over fatigue your athlete well can still get them
to work at very high intensity. It works very well
for rehab setting as well, because low result of injury.
Can get the athletes to contract as hot as they
can and still control control it because the moment they
(07:32):
feel the pin, they know where to where to stop. Yeah,
so that's a I hope that answers the question for sure.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
That was great, Danny. I mean it sounds like you
look at things, as you mentioned, a very simple framework
is what you're looking for. I like your breakdown of
overcoming versus yielding. Right, you're either pushing or pulling on
something or you're holding and resisting the effects of gravity.
It's one of the two, right, And all those other
many types of isometrics that people throw out there, right,
(08:03):
like your eqis, your functional isometrics, they all have a
component of them that I would lump under the overcoming
or yielding element right, something like an EQI I bias
that more towards the yielding, something like a functional isometric
I bias that more towards the overcoming right ballistic. I
consider that as a type of overcoming that way, So
it's understanding first off, what are the big rocks in
(08:25):
this metaphorical jar, and then what are the other little
grains that say in that way? And I think a
lot of it, again, like a lot of the isometric
work I do with the athletes that I work with,
I would say eighty to ninety percent of it, maybe
even up to ninety five percent, depending on the day
in the week, is either overcoming or yielding. It's one
of the two. Again, it's very very simple, it's very
very straightforward, but it drives a lot of good outcomes.
(08:48):
But again, you have to know when to call on things.
And you mentioned about the PEMA type contractions being better
for neuromuscular strength, and I think that's one of the
most overlooked things, or maybe it's just me that overlooked it,
but I came out of school thinking it's all about
building bigger muscles, right, because larger muscles contract with more
(09:09):
force and then we're good to go. But sometimes it's
not just about the horsepower that's in the car. Sometimes
it's about the skill of the driver driving the car
that way, and it's a matter of how do we
make that car run more effectively, more efficiently, and teach
that driver how to actually operate that machine right. And
(09:29):
I think, you know a lot of times we've done
so so good with athletes building up a lot of
horse power, but they don't necessarily feel themselves being in
tune with it, or they don't know how to sequence
it or put all the pieces together of it.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
You mentioned that in relation to the athlete that you
were working with early on that way, the judo athlete
was you know, you had a limited timeframe, and you know,
he sounds like you someone who, from what you mentioned
and what you shared, didn't necessarily have the best motor
planning strategy. So it's like, you know, hey, how do
we improve this specific thing in a short amount of time.
(10:04):
We're going to go in the thing that drives the
most neuromuscular intent that way, And I think in general,
a lot of us Again, maybe I'm just speaking about
myself have really overlooked the role of the neurological side
of movement, and we've maybe focused a little too much
on the you know, hypertrophy side alone that way, if
you will.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
So, if you look at a number of studies, they
have actually shown that at least for the early stage
when the increase in strength and the changing muscle size
don't really correlate that much. But of course down the
(10:45):
road in the long term development wise, we do want
that hypertrophy because the bigger your muscles are, the potential
to increase strength will be high as well. Yeah, and
I do tend to look at train when training for strength.
Sometimes I categorize it into am I training the muscle
(11:09):
cells and I'm trained? Or am I training the nervous system? Right?
If I'm looking at increasing muscular power maximum strength, then
get us more towards the neural side of things, because
we already have so. For example, like a type of war,
right you have, your muscles are like your the number
(11:29):
of number of teammates you have. Right, you can have
ten teammates in your team, but if they can't synchronize
the pull together, then the other team with a lower
number of teammates they might be able to win because
they each time they exert the forces synchronized. So that's
(11:51):
when that's probably one of the reason why even though
you increase your muscle hypertrophy, you don't get that same
amount of magnitude of increme money strength.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Absolutely, And as you mentioned, you know, it's not to
overlook the role of muscular hypertrophy at all. It's just
a matter of understanding what things have we maybe been
missing in our own training programs that way, and where
can we kind of fill in those gaps and bridge
those gaps that way. And I think the other piece
that I find interesting that you brought up was having
(12:24):
that kind of like separate bucket for rate of force
development that right way right you mentioned hyperchephe mentioned strength,
and then you have that RFD category as well under
your kind of considerations for isometrics. And it's interesting because
just this morning I was on a call with someone
from a D one university here in the US, and
they were talking about how they literally used the DSi
(12:47):
to you know, dictate their programming with the athletes that
they do that way. You know, they do the isosquad,
the counter movement jump they look at the force numbers
and then they're pushing their athletes towards a Hey, do
we need to do more of a like RFD type
of programming or do we need to do more of
a stretch shortening cycle emphasis type of programming that way,
and I think having that understanding of again, what interventions
(13:11):
you're going to what exercises you're going to reach for
based on how you profile your athletes, and overall the
considerations that go into the isometric test itself. To understand
where the athlete falls from a profile standpoint, it is
absolutely essential. I'm curious to hear your thoughts. I know
you've done a number of great research articles and studies
in relation to isometric testing that way. I've seen, you know,
(13:35):
the thigh pole and the first pull in different things
that way. What's kind of become your own little isometric
testing assessment battery if you will that way, And what
kind of tests do you see as having you know,
great bang for your buck? Right, we get a lot
of good information off performing certain isometric tests. And what
isometric tests do you feel are maybe nice if you
(13:56):
have the time, but maybe not quite as essential as
some of the others that way okay.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
In down here, we we have a standard number of
fixed test protocols that we used to test our a
as as the string of our athletes Mandy isometric mythipool
being the staple test to go to. We tend to
look at pickforce and as well as a false at
(14:23):
hundred milliseconds because that uh uh, that's like the measurement
for the explosive how explosive they are. Recently, we also
looked at we did a study on isometric squad and
we use the isometric squad to pickforce to predict one
r M. It's not too bad.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
The margin of error on average is quite low. If
you want to use uh, isometric tests to predict one
r M of isometric squad, sorry one our M of
your dynamic squad, you can have a look at our
research study. So what we actually found was that in coro,
(15:10):
consistent with many other research right on isometric tests and
correlation Belie, isometric stand tests and dynamics dynamic performance, was
that if you're you want, if you want to get
a high higher correlation, then the position where the isometric
test is conducted is performed has to be very close
(15:34):
to the position where concentric force is initiated for that dynamic. So,
for example, during our study on the isometric squad, what
we found was that uh at isometric squad at the
parallel position at the tip parallel to the ground position
(15:54):
has the highest correlation to the one r M squad,
So because that is where the concentric based. Okay, but
of course, if we want to have a high accuracy
of prediction, what we did was we duce the force
pickforce from three different positions, so parallel, ninety degree and
(16:16):
a hundred twenty degree to predict that one r M squad.
And generally there for isometric tests, you have other matrix
like early force development, real force development, in powers and
so on. We tend to look only at pickforce and
(16:37):
early force development for our monitoring our athletes basically because
it's more reliable. Results are more reliable. Real force development
tend to be unreliable because it's false time dependent. Right,
there's a you have to divide the force by time
(16:59):
and so on, so that we can become a lot
more variable when we perform pickforce. We want to get
we want to get the pick force. The best product,
the better protocol is actually to get the the the
athlete to just pull as hard as possible, not concerning
(17:20):
whether they are pulling it explosively, because that way they
can actually have a greater amount of time to develop
the force. And we're looking at early force development, or
some who are interested in looking at rid of force
development as well. What I recommend is to have a
(17:41):
standardized pretension, because if the pretension is not standardized, you
tend to see a lot of fluctuation in the results
you get, basically because all this are time dependent. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Absolutely, Now that makes so much sense the way you're
outline that, And I like how in relation to the
isometric squad you mentioned in your study, you looked at
three different positions instead of just one, and I think
it's essential to note, like it's not as simple as
just testing one position and having the keys to the universe.
Sometimes you have to dive in a little bit deeper
(18:19):
and look at things a little bit more holistically that way.
I also like your point on RFD and the time
dependent component of it. One of the things I've noticed
while just using a handheld dynamometer in the clinic, it's
just how wildly we can see RFD values vary from
one set to the next, right, Like, I'm seeing fifty
two one hundred percent fluctuations sometimes from one set to
(18:41):
the next, and you know, there's a whole cascade of
variables that can impact that, from your rest time to
even One of the most powerful things I've seen is
just the language in queuing you use around an isometric test.
And I think, just like the act actual setup and
protocol for the test itself has to be standing, the
language and wording you use for the test itself should
(19:04):
also be standardized to a certain extent as well, because
some of those different like additional cues that I've given
in the past, or if I start to like hype
someone up from a motivational standpoint a little bit, they
exert significantly more force. And I don't have any research
back to number on this, but just clinically, I've seen
the number jump up twenty thirty percent, if not more
(19:25):
on isometric tests, just depending on how I qe it
and depending on you know, what kind of encouragement we
give to the athlete that way. So I think it
becomes a question of, you know, how do you want
to deliver it yourself, And everyone's going to deliver it
a little bit differently. You know, not everyone's going to
cue it the exact same and that's okay, But I
(19:45):
think you just need to be consistent within your own
delivery of that to the athletes that you work with
so they get the same thing every time. Otherwise you're
going to be looking at the graphs and charts and
seeing these wild isometric testing fluctuations and can't make head
or tails of it. Right. It's it's just a matter
of having a very systematized process in my opinion, for
isometric testing.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yep. Yeah, it goes the same for every other tests. Yeah,
instructions and keeping everything standardized just so that we can
have a reliable results.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Absolutely. And as we've kind of walked through this process
so far, we went over some of the different types
of isometrics and how you think about them as either
PEMA ORHEMA in nature. We also just touched on the
testing element and assessing, you know, where's my athlete going
to fall on the spectrum here, what kind of things
(20:41):
do I want to intervene with them at? And I
think once you've got an understanding of the knowledge and
framework of isometrics, once you've gotten some kind of testing
assessment of some sort on the athlete. And obviously isometrics
are not the only thing here. There's plenty of other
great dynamic assessments and things that you can do for
your athlete. But when it comes to apply things, this
is where I think you, in particular have this amazing
(21:04):
gift of putting pieces together that way. I've seen some
of your different superset pairings and isometrics with plyometric or
ballistic type movement patterns like throwing objects or jumping that way,
and I think that there's something powerful about understanding how
to put the pieces together from an application standpoint that way.
So when it comes to fitting isometrics into your overall
(21:28):
programming that way, what's kind of been your own framework
for putting the pieces together from a programming standpoint? Do
isometrics appear early on? Do they appear later in your sessions?
Are isometrics scattered throughout the session? Do you follow a
microdosing model? What's kind of your own thoughts around programming
isometrics and what kind of other variability have you seen
(21:50):
in relation to that that you've really liked.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
So I go to the micro dosing pod first, Guess
I do get athletes to microdose on on isometrics, so
especially the hamstring for my track athletes, so what I
have advised is that instead of just doing a static stretch,
they get into the hamstring stretch position and just do
(22:16):
isometric heap extension all right, so they get you know
how we do the P and F stretch for the hamstring, yep,
So just do that instead of static stretch. You get
your strength increment, you get your range of movement as well.
So that is how I get them to microdoes on
(22:38):
isometric and generally I just get them to do maybe
two reps of ten seconds as part of the warm
up every session for their track and when it comes
to a training session, isometric is generally quite scattered all
around for the training. Again, it all depends on the
(23:01):
objective of that messo cycle. Sometimes I have isometric for
the whole session, sometimes I have isometric for maybe just
one particular body part. So for example with my tric
athletes as well, again isometric is always UH performed for
(23:24):
the achles UH the anchor joint right, So I always
get them to do either isometric half push or get
them to do an isometric step up with just the
UH the four food in contact with the platform. Then
loading wise generally one hundred percent bond maximum voundary contraction
(23:49):
and UH holding for ten seconds or so within a
set ten uh Yeah, within a set they will be
hold holding for a total of ten seconds. So it
can be a configuration of one repetition of ten seconds
or five repetitions of two seconds. So if my concern
(24:13):
at that point in time is just maximal strength and
strengthening the tendon, then it's one continuous ten seconds ten
to fifteen seconds. Sometimes, if at that point in time,
rail of force development is the concern, it would be
two seconds rapid contraction, two seconds repid contraction. Because there
(24:37):
is an interfering interference effect if you have and the
element of explosiveness and endurance. So if your focus is
on railar force development, you want to make sure that
you minimize the element of endurance at least within that
(24:57):
training session, otherwise there will be an interference effect. You
don't get as much improvement in relforce development as you
want for the whole isometric. I tend to work use
it during the earlier phases like I said, where my
concern is more towards hypertrophy, and at that point in
(25:18):
time we are working more at sub maximal level out
in the whole isometric But of course, if you look
at alex Na Terra's word, it does have this concept
of the isometric isometric catch. So it's like a very
(25:39):
rapid uh drop and then you need to hold as
fast as possible, sort of like performing a drop lending,
but you land stiffly, so you want to get into
the isometric state as quick as possible. That is something
I do add in towards the later face of training
(26:01):
as well, because you need to resist a certain amount
of force within a very short period of time. So
that works on the rail of fast develdment as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Absolutely, you outlined so many great points there, and just
to kind of build off of them a little bit,
you mentioned in relation to kind of those parts where
isometric training fits into parts of your session and it's
not the entire session that you're usually doing sets of
about ten seconds with one hundred percent MVC that way,
(26:33):
and sometimes you break it up into multiple sets of
shorter durations like two or three seconds, looking to accumulate
about a ten second total volume or total duration of
isometric time. That way, it sounds like for you, depending
on what adaptation you're trying to drive, it sounds like
ten seconds with one hundred percent MVC is kind of
your minimum effective dose if your intent is to drive
(26:55):
something more along the lines of maximal strength or maximal intensity.
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
More or less that way? It also because when right,
if I'm looking at hypertrophy, I want to accumulate a
longer period of tension within a single repetition. Yeah, so
I thought ten seconds is good because if I'm working
at hundred percent MVC, most people probably won't be able
(27:25):
to hold hundred percent for more than ten seconds. Some,
especially the more power type exposit top athlete, you see
the force dropping right after five seconds. But of course
with endurance athletes, some of them can hold as long
as twenty seconds. So we do in this case, we
(27:47):
do really have to look at the individual profile of athletes.
But in general I tend to work with the power
type athletes, and that's why ten seconds is what I
usually did you recommend.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
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Speaker 2 (28:40):
And as a.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Listener, you get free access to the complete training DM
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and receive your free breakdown on the model. Absolutely, I
love that and it's again it's a great piece to
the puzzle that way, I think knowing what that end
goal is. So if your end goal is we need
to get ten seconds volume, as you alluded to, there's
(29:01):
so many different ways to get there. You know, if
you can't hold it for ten seconds, hey hold it
for two seconds. We'll rest and then we'll come back
to it, you know. And I think it's important to
note that it's okay to rest during these sessions if
your goal is maximum intensity.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
If they can't hold maximum intensity and they dive down
to seventy percent max force output, there's no If your
goal is max intensity contraction and you're not getting that,
don't continue to push right, give them a break, let
them recover, and then go at it again. It's all
about keeping the main thing at the main thing, the
main thing at the end of the day. You also
(29:36):
brought up the isometric catch, which I'm also a huge
fan of that way, but kind of like you, it
takes time to progress someone to that point. It's not
something I jump right to day one or week one
in a rehab process that way. It's more what I
would consider you know, you're mid or late stage kind
of processed that way? What kind of things, what kind
of boxes do you look to check before you implement
(29:58):
ISO catches with the athletes that you work with that way,
and then how do you go about progressing those isoketches
over time that way? You know, if you're using like
a bar, you're just adding more weight on the bar,
or is there other means of progressing the isometric catch
and progressing to the point where you're programming isometric catches
for the athletes that you work with.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
First of all, definitely pain free because isometric catch is
a very fast action, right you, definitely pain free non
injured athletes. In terms of progression, it really depends on individual.
You know how I can get them to do just
(30:41):
you know how we do a snap down squad. Yeah,
so that is a that is an example of a
low intensity isokeatch, right. And then I think individually you
just have to look at whether they are proficient with
the lending mechanics. As as long as their proficient the
(31:01):
lending mechanics, there wouldn't be a problem with them doing isoketch.
And say, if I'm trying to do ISO catch using
drop jump, what I can start with is looking at
their counter movement jump hike. So say this person can
jump thirty cm, I start doing the drop lending with
(31:26):
Steve lending starting from thirty cm or plus minus ten
percent of that. So I think that is a good
benchmark to start with. Yeah, and then can slowly increase
the drop hike and so on.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, absolutely, and then you can add in several other
variables as well. Right, Going back, to the snapdown example
that you gave. You know, by no means do I
think the snapdown is the end all be all of
interventions here, but I think people overlook it and over
look how creative you can get with it. Right. One
of the many things I like to do with it
(32:05):
is actually give the athlete a medicine ball or some
type of weight implement, and as they snap down, move
that in a certain direction. And I tend to predefine
that direction ahead of time, like, hey, I want you
to move it here, or I want you to move
it here. And what that's doing is I'm introducing a
rotational element to the exercise. So it's not just hey
(32:27):
can you stabilize quickly, you know, getting to that isometric
state quickly from a strictly sagital plane. It's hey, can
I introduce forces in other planes of motion? And you
still get to that stability element? And sometimes I'll even
use it from an assessment standpoint, right, it's hey, can
I create a force? I don't personally care how much
(32:48):
that force is. I'm not going to measure every single
thing here, but can I create a force in a
new plane of motion, whether that be biasing you know
hip internal rotation or external rotation that way, and our
are you still able to stabilize quickly? What does that
stability element look like? If there is any kind of
compensation strategy, where is it coming from? You know, is
(33:09):
the foot and ankle complex shifting into a position I
don't like? Is the knee shifting into a position I
don't like? And I think that the isoketch and some
of these different implements can be so so powerful if
you just open your mind and get a little bit
creative with them, right, you can really you know, the
sky's the limit that way. It's just a matter of
you know, understanding what it's trying to do and how
(33:31):
you can introduce variability and chaos within it, and then
off of that as well. I also really like the
work that you've done on isometrics supersets, and I think
you might have had a post with Sportsmith about that
earlier as well. That way, and I think again, knowing
where isometrics fit into the framework is really you know
the secret sauce here that way, what do you like
(33:52):
to do from a programming standpoint for super sets upper
body versus lower body? What kind of combinations have you
come up with, and it's kind of your overall exercise
prescription as far as intensity and volume goes for you know,
pairing something like a pliometric with something like a max
effort pima if you.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Will, okay, all right, So two reasons why I do
contrast training ISO and bloometric training is. Firstly, we go
to some research showing that bloometric being very effective in
(34:31):
improving the active muscle stiffness. So that is important because
during a fast rapid stretch onning cycle, what happened is
the muscle get into a relatively isometric state and then
that's when the muscle whole hold itself steadily so that
the tendon can be stretched. All right, we want the
(34:52):
tender to be stretched so that when it records, we
get that fast explosive false right. So cliometric does that,
but pliometric isn't so good at improving the tendon stiffness.
Why we want stiff tendon again is because if you
can stretch a tendon, especially as stiff tendon, then you
(35:13):
get the greater recoil. Right, so we need another form
of mode of training. Tendon respond well to slow contraction,
slow but high intensity contraction. Right, So in theory as
eccentric an, any form of resistance training should work as
(35:34):
long as you can load the muscular tendon s bisness
at high intensity. So that's when isometric works well because
as mentioned earlier, you can repeatedly perform maximum voluntary contraction.
So in that case, you can repeatedly produce high and
(35:56):
slow strain to the tendon within a single session. That
will help the tended to get stiffle. Right, And because
one improved the tender stiffness and then one improved the
active muscle stiffness, then if I combined it together, that
(36:16):
should help me to improve my force development very well,
especially for those rapid structuring cycle action. And that is
the reason why I tend to recommend contrast training using
(36:37):
isometric and plowmetric. And recently I did post on my
Instagram on the study that actually showed that contrast training
with isometric and plowmetric resulted in written neuromuscular adaptation than
when they did a contrast training with dynamic and plowmetric.
(36:58):
So heavy resistance and cloud metric, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Think it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Right.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
You know, when you're not moving, you're able to produce
extremely high force output that way, so you're getting very
opposite ends of the force velocity spectrum that way. Would
you mind giving a few examples of kind of some
of the pairings that you like to do from an
ISO and plio superset combo here, and what's kind of
the exercise prescription parameters that you like to follow from
(37:25):
that the overall volumes, intensities and so on that.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Way examples of excess so so very simple ones like
I'll do the isometric step up and my step for
my trasty, my step up hy sony about fifteen to
fifteen fifteen centimes platform, So the knee to keep to
(37:50):
keep a floating hue, So this the this is the
platform does the foot they'll have a floating hue and
I'll get them to do that, and the knee angle
will be about maybe him and him and forty hundred
and fifty degree the angle, so it's like they're trying
to perform a step up. The main objective is to
(38:12):
u because when you're running, your heat and knee, sorry
your glute and cold muscle will be able to produce
a high mount force. But if anchor joint cannot hold it,
then you're losing all the force that the force will
be leaking. So the objective is to make sure that
(38:33):
the anchor is able to maintain stiffness, right, So I
use isometric on that, uh, and then I'll pair it
with maybe singlic hot singalic bounding, and Alex has this
isometric heat extension, so it's like a It's like a
(38:56):
heap trust but with a more strattened, more extendedly so
you work a lot more on the hamstring as well.
So I do isometric with that, and then I pair
it with the dynamic dynamic version of it. So it's
like you get the switch switch. Yeah, or I can
(39:19):
get my athlete to perform a short sprint after that
just to get dynamic hamstring contraction. Yeah. The pairing off
the isometric and plow metric is generally the action that
(39:39):
is but mechanically quite similar. So for example, I do
isometric split squad. I can pair it with a speed jam,
I do isometric squad. I can pair it with a
column with a jam or a standing broad job.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
It sounds like you keep as you mentioned before, you
keep things very simple, in particular with the pliometric component
as well. This is another area. Just like isometrics. This
could be a bit of a rabbit hole if we
let it be. But I think a lot of people
get lost here and they get so caught up in
all these different crazy advanced plio interventions that they can
do that way. And you know, I think at the
(40:20):
end of the day, if you do the simple things
really well right, if you're building repeat volume sprint contexts
with intent, if you're having your athletes jump bound and
hop in a variety of different patterns at a variety
of different angles, then you're checking the majority of the
boxes that you need to. I don't think you have
to get overly complicated with the work that you do
(40:42):
from a pliometric standpoint or an isometric standpoint. I think
a lot of times, to your point, the simpler you
can make it, the better off you're going to be
that way. And obviously a lot of the work that
you've know highlighted so far has been very compound in nature,
with the exception of hip extension, which I'm I mean,
there's so much great work about the importance of isolating
(41:02):
hip extension and how athletes are struggling to get that
hip extension or going back to that neurological component for
a minute. The amount of athletes that I've worked with
that can extend their hips, and I'll probably get some
hate for this, but they don't ever really feel any
kind of glute engagement. And I'm not saying their glutes
are not working, they just never feel it there. And
(41:24):
then we actually kind of get them to feel a
isolated glute contraction and then go into something that involves
hip extension. Right, maybe it's something like a sled push
for example, and there's like this light bulb moment that
a lot of them look at me with where it's like, oh,
you know, so that's what it's supposed to feel like,
and it's like, yes, like you're supposed to feel these
(41:44):
muscles work. And again, I'm not saying that they went
to sleep. I'm not saying that they weren't doing any
work before that way. But it's just understanding the importance
of so many of these things, but also understanding that
you check off so many boxes with the compounds. You
check off so much with the general applios that we
just outline, you check off so much with some of
the different compound ISOs that you outlined. Rather that be
(42:06):
the ISO push up, the ISO step up, and so
on that way. And obviously when you do need to
get more specific on things that your athletes struggle with,
like the hip extension, there's isometric setups that you can
just crush that with open chain, closed chain, whatever you
want to do that way. I think it's great.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Yeah, yeah, I tend to keep things simple because we
need to understand that our job is to improve the
physical capacity of our athletes, right, We're not trying to
turn them into circle the sole circus acrobats and so on.
(42:44):
You get what I mean, they have. What we need
to do is basically improve the physical capacity and that
is UH. And then we have to make sure that,
of course, during their spots training improve on their technical
side of things. We're not we're not trying to improve
(43:05):
them to be fantastic weight lifting athlete. Not not the
weight lifter weight lifted, but with UH, it's like resistance
training athlete. Right, those are different, really really different things.
You're not trying to increase their mortal ability in on
(43:27):
the weights in the weights room right in the west room.
We're trying to improve their overall physical capacity and they
need to perform well on the field, that's what we
need to do. Yeah, So I don't see the need
to get things too fanciful in the weight room, you know,
(43:48):
keep things simple and basic.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Absolutely, No, I completely agree with you that way. And
one of the other things you brought up was the
role of the tendon that way, And I mean, there's
just there's so many different tendons within the human body
that way, and I think the majority of the time
we overlook a lot of them, right Like, at least
for myself personally, I tend to bias myself towards you know,
(44:11):
achilles tendon, p teller tendon, peck tendon, rotator cuff tendons,
bicep tendons, tendons that tend to come up a lot
from a clinical practice. But there's so many other tendonnist
structures that way that we also need to train that
way that can have a huge impact and influence on
our performance and our outcomes and overall the health and
longevity of the athlete that way. And obviously you brought
(44:33):
up the tendon stiffness component that way. And I think
the other one of the other many things that I've
used isometrics for is to address some of the different
tendonopathies that come up, you know, in relation to athletes
just playing their sport. You know, basketball is probably the
first one to come to mind for me. That way,
the amount of different little Achilles flare ups and Pateeller
(44:56):
tendon flare ups I've seen, and I've seen isometrics being
in reredibly powerful stimulus for that population. And again, you know,
there's plenty of other options, right, Ecentrics also offer a
great stimulus for the tendon. Don't get me wrong, But
to the point that you made about keeping the main
thing the main thing, right, My goal is to get
them back to sport quickly and safely. And you know,
(45:18):
I've seen the most bang for my buck from going
with isometrics for that, right, the pain levels drop. They
personally there's just not as much of a fear component
associated with it. And I tribute some of that to
the fact that they're not even moving, you know. I
think a lot of times people look at the isometrics
and they're like, oh, that's it, I can do that,
(45:38):
no problem, and then of course they do it and
you get that crazy shaking effect that way. You know,
it's great to see, But what other you know, outside
of improved tendon stiffness through the pairing that you get
between the isometric and the plyer. Are there any other
tendonness type adaptations that you see coming from isometrics that way,
(45:58):
and are there any other key roles that the tendon
plays from a performance and just overall injury mitigation standpoint.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Yeah, yeah, ten tendon has been shown. We're doing a
review on review study on this. But what we're shown
is people tend to look at just the muscle because
that's the beautiful thing. When you strike a post, you
don't you really see the tendon. But tendon is actually
(46:25):
the the very important tissue that actually transmit the force
from the muscle. And so if you have a strong tendon, uh,
your rate of force avelpment will improve. Your risk of
injury will decrease as well. One of the hypothesis I
(46:46):
have with our athletes is that because I see a
lot of senior athletes as in those that are grown adults,
athletes tend to have a lot of tendon injury. One
reason I hypothesize is that when they were young. Singapore
(47:06):
being a more conservative country, many people have a lot
of misconceptions of what heavy strength training can do. So
when our athletes, at least for those earlier generation ones,
they tend to have a lot of tendent injury because
when they're young, they do a lot of ballistic activity
(47:28):
ploumetric running, jumpings and stuff like that, but there is
a lack of resistance training, right, and so there is
an imbalance in the development of the muscle and the tendon.
And when you're young, you recover fast, you have a
high collagen turnover, not an issue, right, But once we
(47:49):
get older, we start to collagen tendon collagen turnover tend
to slow down and we don't recover as as well.
So we've the imbalance between the strength of the muscle
and the tendon to start getting a lot of tendon injury.
(48:09):
And so that's why I believe that right from a
young age athletes start doing resistance training to tendon string
as well.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Love that point, that's that's really well put, Danny, and
I also want to just pick on real quick. I
mentioned the shaking component that we tend to see a
lot in relation to isometrics that way, especially your longer
duration hemas that way, and one of the many questions
I get asked is you know what is that and
what causes that shaking response that way? And I've got
(48:45):
a couple theories, but I haven't necessarily found a way
to prove anything yet. What is your thought behind why
we get that kind of muscular shaking response, you know,
in relation to some of these max intent isomet tricks
or some of these long duration hemas that way.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Okay, I haven't tested it out yet, and I have
I don't have the expertise to test it. What I
hypothesize is because within the muscle, it's not just one
motor unit, that not just one nerve that innovates every
single muscle fiber. Right, So within the muscle itself, we
(49:24):
have a number of motor units, and when you fully
contract maximally contract your muscle, the motor units don't fire
at the same time, right, But of course that's the objective.
We want them to fire at the same time, like
I mentioned about the Taco war, but we we it's
(49:47):
quite impossible for them to be firing so well synchronizing.
So there will be like this is this this model
unit contracting, the other model unit is relaxing a little bit,
So there is milliseconds of difference in how the contraction speak,
and probably because of that, that's why we tend to
(50:10):
share all right, relaxed contract, relax contract, and then there's
a bit of a vibration trembling, So that is my hypothesis.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
Yeah, absolutely, No, I love that. It's one of those things.
I've used kind of that shaking response for a variety
of different things. And like I mentioned before, in relation
to assessments and how I can introduce new you know,
movement patterns and variables into the same pattern and assess
how the body responds to me. I use shaking response
from the muscular system as a you know, kind of
(50:41):
screening tool that way. You know, if I get someone
to kind of achieve a certain range of motion and
all of a sudden, it's like everything starts quaking uncontrollably
to me, that's the body trying to tell us, like, look, neurologically,
we haven't quite figured out how to build stability in
this position yet, in this range of motion that way,
and then the other element too is you know, is
(51:02):
there a load component to it or a time component
to it? Right, So you know I might not need
someone to you know, hold a wall sit ten minutes,
but maybe they hold it ten seconds and all of
a sudden that leg shake starts to kick in. So,
you know, what can I do to mitigate that? Is
that more of a you know, volume thing from the
duration of time even though it was only ten seconds,
(51:24):
or was it a load thing? You know? Do we
not have the ability to generate force that we need
to from there? And I think, and this is just
my personal opinion. I don't have any kind of basis
of this, but as you mentioned in relation to the
fatiguing element, you know, there's there's certainly a transitional effect
of you know, fiber types that we see as we
(51:46):
increase the demand of the exercise, whether that's higher intensity,
whether that's you know, longer duration fatiguing that way. And
I think that as some of those smaller muscular fibers
fatigue and we see a transitional shift to other muscular fibers,
we kind of see this like fatiguing of fiber while
(52:07):
initial firing of new fiber that could cause shaking. Again,
I'm not one hundred percent sure on it. The other
theory I've thrown around is is it some kind of
internal battle between muscle spindles and gould gye tendon organs
within the body that way, you know, one is saying, hey,
you know, we need to change our muscular length, and
(52:27):
the other is saying, you know, we're actually good right here.
We can exert more than enough force. And it kind
of creates this internal battle between does the body move
or not move? And I think this shaking is almost
like the visual representation of the body trying to sort
itself out and figure out does it move or not move?
Speaker 2 (52:47):
Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, well some that's that's a that's
a good research topic for those who have the capability
to do it absolutely.
Speaker 1 (52:59):
I mean the other thing too, Like we talked about
the tendon and it's like, you know, some of the
tendoness research is very difficult to impossible to perform as
well from my understanding, correct, yep.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
Yep, it requires some It required specialized equipment of course,
people who are because you know, like a lot of
studies they use ultrasound and it's a very sensitive thing.
If you just positioned the ultrasound one millimeters different from
(53:36):
what you original way you originally put you get a
different reading altogether. So people who do all this will
have to be very precise and accurate with lots of
experience in doing that. I personally do not have that expertise,
so and that's one of the reasons why you don't
(53:58):
see it, you know, see me having research on all
this all this stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
Absolutely, no, there's a lot of different worlds that kind
of live under this isometric umbrella that way, And I realized,
even though we've talked about it for about an hour,
we've really only scratched the surface of this world of
isometric exercise, isometric training and the many benefits that it
has from an athletic performance standpoint, injury risk mitigation and
(54:29):
beyond that way. And I think the exciting part about
it is we're still learning so much. We're still you know,
we still have so much that we have yet to understand.
I think that's what makes the work of individuals such
as yourself so essential, is you're at the forefront kind
of you know, blazing the trail forward for the rest
of us like myself to follow. That way, Man, this
(54:50):
is a great conversation. Is there anything we missed or
any other closing thoughts that you have in relation to
our conversation around isometrics today.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
I think in general, we we touch on touch on
quite a lot of stuff. I say again, it's best
to keep things simple and not get too complicated, keep
to the basic training prisonaple when we prescribe isometric training
or any other form of training. And we did mention
(55:23):
about making sure athletes get sufficient recovery because we're training
them to perform, you're not training them to be fatigue,
all right, And we see a lot of research showing
that training to failure doesn't doesn't really provide any other benefit.
In in contrast, it takes longer time for them to
(55:46):
recover from training to failure, and that compromise the other
training on the field and stuff like that and further
increase the risk of injury athletes are fatigue. So just
remember as long as athletes are performing, working maximally at
(56:08):
each repetition and not uh getting them to train to
their the exhausted and stuff like that, that's uh, that
shouldn't be the goal.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, Danny. For people who want to find
out more about you and the incredible work that you're
doing in the field, that way, where can they find
you at? Online?
Speaker 2 (56:30):
Instagram? Danny Lam eighty two. I'm on LinkedIn as well,
and I'm on x as well, I do have a
web pitch under it's under constructed web page, the Performance
Concept dot com. I do sell some training programs and
(56:53):
I do have a guidebook on combining isometric and ploumetric training.
So so if those who are interested, they can get
on to my website and take a look at it. Yeah,
that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (57:07):
We'll link to all of that in the description below
from Danny's social media contacts to Danny's website and book
and beyond that way. That way, if you want to
find out more, you can just click there. Danny, this
was amazing. I really appreciate your time and the work
that you're doing in the space that way, Thank you
so much, man
Speaker 2 (57:25):
Thanks a lot, Thanks for inviting me.
Welcome back to another episode of the Brown Performance and
Rehab Podcast powered by Isofit and Firefly Recovery. Isofit is
my go to for all things isometric strength training. For
more on Isofit, be sure to check out isofit dot com.
Episodes like this are made possible by Firefly, the official
recovery provider of the Brown Performance and Rehab Podcast. For
(00:22):
more on Firefly, be sure to check out Recovery firefly
dot com. This episode is powered by doctor Ray Gorman,
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without relying on sessions. Get a free training on the
Blended practice model by following at Ray Gorman DPT on Instagram. Danny,
Welcome to the podcast. I'm super excited to work with
(00:44):
you today. Man, as we were just talking about, you
are a absolute legend in the space, especially around isometrics.
That way, you are one of the leading experts that
I like to go to, especially for your research contributions
and your writings. Man, it's so great to connect with you.
For anyone who hasn't maybe heard about you and all
the amazing work you do in Singapore, would you mind
(01:05):
fill them in a little bit about who you are
and how you've kind of gotten into this world of
researching isometrics and beyond.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Thanks Daniel for the invitation. I'm Danny. I'm from High
Performance Sport Institute of Singapore. We used to be called
Singapore Sport and still we recently just changed the name.
I'm a senior strength conditioning scientist down here. I started
my journey on isometric training like back in twenty seventeen,
(01:34):
twenty eighteen when I did my PhD. It actually stems
from me working with our judo athletes. I have one.
I had one judia athlete who was so big it
was like two hundred over kidogram and he wasn't very
good with his moto skill apart from his judo stuff.
(01:57):
So and we had pretty limited time to get him
strong enough to ball for the South as Asian Games.
So and so I started looking at different ways to train,
and isometric came along because I don't really need him
to be proficient in more the control stuff. I can
(02:21):
just get him to push against the bar and that
was it. From then on, I went on to use
isometric training with our swimmers and it worked pretty well,
and so I started my research on isometric training for
high performance sports, because back then there were very little
(02:43):
on it, very little studies conducted on high performance the
effects of high performance with isometric training, and that was
how it all came about. And so that's how we
have all the isometric research coming from simple and.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I think the effect of work from individuals such as
yourself is very well seen that way. I feel like
any time I open up Instagram or Facebook or TikTok,
I'm seeing more people training isometrics and more people talking
about training isometrics and how to implement that into the
framework that way, And I personally absolutely love to see that.
(03:22):
As we're talking about earlier, isometrics are a big part
of my work as a physical therapist, and I use
them throughout rehab processes, whether that's early on or in
the later stages that way. But I think ultimately what
makes you successful with isometrics is having a robust understanding
of the types of isometrics that you can do when
(03:42):
to call on each and again, putting the pieces of
the puzzle together, if you will, having a system or
a framework to go off of instead of just kind
of picking one that you like and throwing it in
and hoping for the best, there is an actual knowledge
based and understanding that goes into this whole thing. I
know this concept of without moving sounds simple, but I've
found it's a lot more complex than I think we
(04:04):
often give it credit for that way. So first off, Danny,
what's been your overall framework for kind of bucketing or
you know, systematizing isometric training that way? Where do you
kind of put in your overcoming, yielding, equis functional ISOs
isometronics all the different types of isometric type training that
we have right now? How do you go about kind
(04:25):
of organizing that in your mind that way for training
and strength and conditioning purposes.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Okay, I like to keep things very simple, So when
it comes to categoriing isometric we actually recently came came
up with a review paper which is still on under review.
The two types of isometric is the push isometric and
the whole isometric. Push isometric is what is also commonly
(04:51):
known as the overcoming and whole isometric is the yilding
isometric that that's known to practitioners. And I keep think simple.
I just categorize them into push and hole and other
than that, I look at isometric the adaptations to isometric
training the principles of adaptation. It's pretty similar to how
(05:14):
it works for dynamic training. So if you want to
be you want to get muscle hypertrophy, and then that's
related to volume of training. You want to get increasing
maximal strength. Then it depends on the intensity of your contraction.
And if you want to increase relar force development, then
(05:38):
we just have to contract rapidly. So from then on
that's when I start to plan my training. Right and
between push and hole, what we found was that whole
isometric tend to increase hypertrophy more with a given intensity
(06:00):
and volume of work, while the push isometric seems to
be better at increasing the neuromuscular strength. So in that case,
when the objective is more towards hypertrophy, then we'll add
in more of the whole isometric. And if we're looking
at ralar force development, we're looking at maximal strength, then
(06:23):
the push isometric comes comes to play, and then volume
of work intensity. It all depends on the objective at
that point of time. Right. In general, what is good
about isometric is that it's less fatiguing, It poses less
reads of injury than dynamic training, and you can basically
(06:46):
repeatedly exit maximal voluntary contraction within the single session. Unlike dynamic,
you can't possibly get a person to do a one
hour m intensity for multiple sets. That's the advantage of isometric,
and so because of that, it can replace some sets
of dynamic with isometric just so that you don't have
(07:10):
to over fatigue your athlete well can still get them
to work at very high intensity. It works very well
for rehab setting as well, because low result of injury.
Can get the athletes to contract as hot as they
can and still control control it because the moment they
(07:32):
feel the pin, they know where to where to stop. Yeah,
so that's a I hope that answers the question for sure.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
That was great, Danny. I mean it sounds like you
look at things, as you mentioned, a very simple framework
is what you're looking for. I like your breakdown of
overcoming versus yielding. Right, you're either pushing or pulling on
something or you're holding and resisting the effects of gravity.
It's one of the two, right, And all those other
many types of isometrics that people throw out there, right,
(08:03):
like your eqis, your functional isometrics, they all have a
component of them that I would lump under the overcoming
or yielding element right, something like an EQI I bias
that more towards the yielding, something like a functional isometric
I bias that more towards the overcoming right ballistic. I
consider that as a type of overcoming that way, So
it's understanding first off, what are the big rocks in
(08:25):
this metaphorical jar, and then what are the other little
grains that say in that way? And I think a
lot of it, again, like a lot of the isometric
work I do with the athletes that I work with,
I would say eighty to ninety percent of it, maybe
even up to ninety five percent, depending on the day
in the week, is either overcoming or yielding. It's one
of the two. Again, it's very very simple, it's very
very straightforward, but it drives a lot of good outcomes.
(08:48):
But again, you have to know when to call on things.
And you mentioned about the PEMA type contractions being better
for neuromuscular strength, and I think that's one of the
most overlooked things, or maybe it's just me that overlooked it,
but I came out of school thinking it's all about
building bigger muscles, right, because larger muscles contract with more
(09:09):
force and then we're good to go. But sometimes it's
not just about the horsepower that's in the car. Sometimes
it's about the skill of the driver driving the car
that way, and it's a matter of how do we
make that car run more effectively, more efficiently, and teach
that driver how to actually operate that machine right. And
(09:29):
I think, you know a lot of times we've done
so so good with athletes building up a lot of
horse power, but they don't necessarily feel themselves being in
tune with it, or they don't know how to sequence
it or put all the pieces together of it.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
You mentioned that in relation to the athlete that you
were working with early on that way, the judo athlete
was you know, you had a limited timeframe, and you know,
he sounds like you someone who, from what you mentioned
and what you shared, didn't necessarily have the best motor
planning strategy. So it's like, you know, hey, how do
we improve this specific thing in a short amount of time.
(10:04):
We're going to go in the thing that drives the
most neuromuscular intent that way, And I think in general,
a lot of us Again, maybe I'm just speaking about
myself have really overlooked the role of the neurological side
of movement, and we've maybe focused a little too much
on the you know, hypertrophy side alone that way, if
you will.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
So, if you look at a number of studies, they
have actually shown that at least for the early stage
when the increase in strength and the changing muscle size
don't really correlate that much. But of course down the
(10:45):
road in the long term development wise, we do want
that hypertrophy because the bigger your muscles are, the potential
to increase strength will be high as well. Yeah, and
I do tend to look at train when training for strength.
Sometimes I categorize it into am I training the muscle
(11:09):
cells and I'm trained? Or am I training the nervous system? Right?
If I'm looking at increasing muscular power maximum strength, then
get us more towards the neural side of things, because
we already have so. For example, like a type of war,
right you have, your muscles are like your the number
(11:29):
of number of teammates you have. Right, you can have
ten teammates in your team, but if they can't synchronize
the pull together, then the other team with a lower
number of teammates they might be able to win because
they each time they exert the forces synchronized. So that's
(11:51):
when that's probably one of the reason why even though
you increase your muscle hypertrophy, you don't get that same
amount of magnitude of increme money strength.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Absolutely, And as you mentioned, you know, it's not to
overlook the role of muscular hypertrophy at all. It's just
a matter of understanding what things have we maybe been
missing in our own training programs that way, and where
can we kind of fill in those gaps and bridge
those gaps that way. And I think the other piece
that I find interesting that you brought up was having
(12:24):
that kind of like separate bucket for rate of force
development that right way right you mentioned hyperchephe mentioned strength,
and then you have that RFD category as well under
your kind of considerations for isometrics. And it's interesting because
just this morning I was on a call with someone
from a D one university here in the US, and
they were talking about how they literally used the DSi
(12:47):
to you know, dictate their programming with the athletes that
they do that way. You know, they do the isosquad,
the counter movement jump they look at the force numbers
and then they're pushing their athletes towards a Hey, do
we need to do more of a like RFD type
of programming or do we need to do more of
a stretch shortening cycle emphasis type of programming that way,
and I think having that understanding of again, what interventions
(13:11):
you're going to what exercises you're going to reach for
based on how you profile your athletes, and overall the
considerations that go into the isometric test itself. To understand
where the athlete falls from a profile standpoint, it is
absolutely essential. I'm curious to hear your thoughts. I know
you've done a number of great research articles and studies
in relation to isometric testing that way. I've seen, you know,
(13:35):
the thigh pole and the first pull in different things
that way. What's kind of become your own little isometric
testing assessment battery if you will that way, And what
kind of tests do you see as having you know,
great bang for your buck? Right, we get a lot
of good information off performing certain isometric tests. And what
isometric tests do you feel are maybe nice if you
(13:56):
have the time, but maybe not quite as essential as
some of the others that way okay.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
In down here, we we have a standard number of
fixed test protocols that we used to test our a
as as the string of our athletes Mandy isometric mythipool
being the staple test to go to. We tend to
look at pickforce and as well as a false at
(14:23):
hundred milliseconds because that uh uh, that's like the measurement
for the explosive how explosive they are. Recently, we also
looked at we did a study on isometric squad and
we use the isometric squad to pickforce to predict one
r M. It's not too bad.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
The margin of error on average is quite low. If
you want to use uh, isometric tests to predict one
r M of isometric squad, sorry one our M of
your dynamic squad, you can have a look at our
research study. So what we actually found was that in coro,
(15:10):
consistent with many other research right on isometric tests and
correlation Belie, isometric stand tests and dynamics dynamic performance, was
that if you're you want, if you want to get
a high higher correlation, then the position where the isometric
test is conducted is performed has to be very close
(15:34):
to the position where concentric force is initiated for that dynamic. So,
for example, during our study on the isometric squad, what
we found was that uh at isometric squad at the
parallel position at the tip parallel to the ground position
(15:54):
has the highest correlation to the one r M squad,
So because that is where the concentric based. Okay, but
of course, if we want to have a high accuracy
of prediction, what we did was we duce the force
pickforce from three different positions, so parallel, ninety degree and
(16:16):
a hundred twenty degree to predict that one r M squad.
And generally there for isometric tests, you have other matrix
like early force development, real force development, in powers and
so on. We tend to look only at pickforce and
(16:37):
early force development for our monitoring our athletes basically because
it's more reliable. Results are more reliable. Real force development
tend to be unreliable because it's false time dependent. Right,
there's a you have to divide the force by time
(16:59):
and so on, so that we can become a lot
more variable when we perform pickforce. We want to get
we want to get the pick force. The best product,
the better protocol is actually to get the the the
athlete to just pull as hard as possible, not concerning
(17:20):
whether they are pulling it explosively, because that way they
can actually have a greater amount of time to develop
the force. And we're looking at early force development, or
some who are interested in looking at rid of force
development as well. What I recommend is to have a
(17:41):
standardized pretension, because if the pretension is not standardized, you
tend to see a lot of fluctuation in the results
you get, basically because all this are time dependent. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Absolutely, Now that makes so much sense the way you're
outline that, And I like how in relation to the
isometric squad you mentioned in your study, you looked at
three different positions instead of just one, and I think
it's essential to note, like it's not as simple as
just testing one position and having the keys to the universe.
Sometimes you have to dive in a little bit deeper
(18:19):
and look at things a little bit more holistically that way.
I also like your point on RFD and the time
dependent component of it. One of the things I've noticed
while just using a handheld dynamometer in the clinic, it's
just how wildly we can see RFD values vary from
one set to the next, right, Like, I'm seeing fifty
two one hundred percent fluctuations sometimes from one set to
(18:41):
the next, and you know, there's a whole cascade of
variables that can impact that, from your rest time to
even One of the most powerful things I've seen is
just the language in queuing you use around an isometric test.
And I think, just like the act actual setup and
protocol for the test itself has to be standing, the
language and wording you use for the test itself should
(19:04):
also be standardized to a certain extent as well, because
some of those different like additional cues that I've given
in the past, or if I start to like hype
someone up from a motivational standpoint a little bit, they
exert significantly more force. And I don't have any research
back to number on this, but just clinically, I've seen
the number jump up twenty thirty percent, if not more
(19:25):
on isometric tests, just depending on how I qe it
and depending on you know, what kind of encouragement we
give to the athlete that way. So I think it
becomes a question of, you know, how do you want
to deliver it yourself, And everyone's going to deliver it
a little bit differently. You know, not everyone's going to
cue it the exact same and that's okay, But I
(19:45):
think you just need to be consistent within your own
delivery of that to the athletes that you work with
so they get the same thing every time. Otherwise you're
going to be looking at the graphs and charts and
seeing these wild isometric testing fluctuations and can't make head
or tails of it. Right. It's it's just a matter
of having a very systematized process in my opinion, for
isometric testing.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yep. Yeah, it goes the same for every other tests. Yeah,
instructions and keeping everything standardized just so that we can
have a reliable results.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Absolutely. And as we've kind of walked through this process
so far, we went over some of the different types
of isometrics and how you think about them as either
PEMA ORHEMA in nature. We also just touched on the
testing element and assessing, you know, where's my athlete going
to fall on the spectrum here, what kind of things
(20:41):
do I want to intervene with them at? And I
think once you've got an understanding of the knowledge and
framework of isometrics, once you've gotten some kind of testing
assessment of some sort on the athlete. And obviously isometrics
are not the only thing here. There's plenty of other
great dynamic assessments and things that you can do for
your athlete. But when it comes to apply things, this
is where I think you, in particular have this amazing
(21:04):
gift of putting pieces together that way. I've seen some
of your different superset pairings and isometrics with plyometric or
ballistic type movement patterns like throwing objects or jumping that way,
and I think that there's something powerful about understanding how
to put the pieces together from an application standpoint that way.
So when it comes to fitting isometrics into your overall
(21:28):
programming that way, what's kind of been your own framework
for putting the pieces together from a programming standpoint? Do
isometrics appear early on? Do they appear later in your sessions?
Are isometrics scattered throughout the session? Do you follow a
microdosing model? What's kind of your own thoughts around programming
isometrics and what kind of other variability have you seen
(21:50):
in relation to that that you've really liked.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
So I go to the micro dosing pod first, Guess
I do get athletes to microdose on on isometrics, so
especially the hamstring for my track athletes, so what I
have advised is that instead of just doing a static stretch,
they get into the hamstring stretch position and just do
(22:16):
isometric heap extension all right, so they get you know
how we do the P and F stretch for the hamstring, yep,
So just do that instead of static stretch. You get
your strength increment, you get your range of movement as well.
So that is how I get them to microdoes on
(22:38):
isometric and generally I just get them to do maybe
two reps of ten seconds as part of the warm
up every session for their track and when it comes
to a training session, isometric is generally quite scattered all
around for the training. Again, it all depends on the
(23:01):
objective of that messo cycle. Sometimes I have isometric for
the whole session, sometimes I have isometric for maybe just
one particular body part. So for example with my tric
athletes as well, again isometric is always UH performed for
(23:24):
the achles UH the anchor joint right, So I always
get them to do either isometric half push or get
them to do an isometric step up with just the
UH the four food in contact with the platform. Then
loading wise generally one hundred percent bond maximum voundary contraction
(23:49):
and UH holding for ten seconds or so within a
set ten uh Yeah, within a set they will be
hold holding for a total of ten seconds. So it
can be a configuration of one repetition of ten seconds
or five repetitions of two seconds. So if my concern
(24:13):
at that point in time is just maximal strength and
strengthening the tendon, then it's one continuous ten seconds ten
to fifteen seconds. Sometimes, if at that point in time,
rail of force development is the concern, it would be
two seconds rapid contraction, two seconds repid contraction. Because there
(24:37):
is an interfering interference effect if you have and the
element of explosiveness and endurance. So if your focus is
on railar force development, you want to make sure that
you minimize the element of endurance at least within that
(24:57):
training session, otherwise there will be an interference effect. You
don't get as much improvement in relforce development as you
want for the whole isometric. I tend to work use
it during the earlier phases like I said, where my
concern is more towards hypertrophy, and at that point in
(25:18):
time we are working more at sub maximal level out
in the whole isometric But of course, if you look
at alex Na Terra's word, it does have this concept
of the isometric isometric catch. So it's like a very
(25:39):
rapid uh drop and then you need to hold as
fast as possible, sort of like performing a drop lending,
but you land stiffly, so you want to get into
the isometric state as quick as possible. That is something
I do add in towards the later face of training
(26:01):
as well, because you need to resist a certain amount
of force within a very short period of time. So
that works on the rail of fast develdment as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Absolutely, you outlined so many great points there, and just
to kind of build off of them a little bit,
you mentioned in relation to kind of those parts where
isometric training fits into parts of your session and it's
not the entire session that you're usually doing sets of
about ten seconds with one hundred percent MVC that way,
(26:33):
and sometimes you break it up into multiple sets of
shorter durations like two or three seconds, looking to accumulate
about a ten second total volume or total duration of
isometric time. That way, it sounds like for you, depending
on what adaptation you're trying to drive, it sounds like
ten seconds with one hundred percent MVC is kind of
your minimum effective dose if your intent is to drive
(26:55):
something more along the lines of maximal strength or maximal intensity.
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
More or less that way? It also because when right,
if I'm looking at hypertrophy, I want to accumulate a
longer period of tension within a single repetition. Yeah, so
I thought ten seconds is good because if I'm working
at hundred percent MVC, most people probably won't be able
(27:25):
to hold hundred percent for more than ten seconds. Some,
especially the more power type exposit top athlete, you see
the force dropping right after five seconds. But of course
with endurance athletes, some of them can hold as long
as twenty seconds. So we do in this case, we
(27:47):
do really have to look at the individual profile of athletes.
But in general I tend to work with the power
type athletes, and that's why ten seconds is what I
usually did you recommend.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
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Listener, you get free access to the complete training DM
my name Dan to at Ray Gorman DPT on Instagram
and receive your free breakdown on the model. Absolutely, I
love that and it's again it's a great piece to
the puzzle that way, I think knowing what that end
goal is. So if your end goal is we need
to get ten seconds volume, as you alluded to, there's
(29:01):
so many different ways to get there. You know, if
you can't hold it for ten seconds, hey hold it
for two seconds. We'll rest and then we'll come back
to it, you know. And I think it's important to
note that it's okay to rest during these sessions if
your goal is maximum intensity.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
If they can't hold maximum intensity and they dive down
to seventy percent max force output, there's no If your
goal is max intensity contraction and you're not getting that,
don't continue to push right, give them a break, let
them recover, and then go at it again. It's all
about keeping the main thing at the main thing, the
main thing at the end of the day. You also
(29:36):
brought up the isometric catch, which I'm also a huge
fan of that way, but kind of like you, it
takes time to progress someone to that point. It's not
something I jump right to day one or week one
in a rehab process that way. It's more what I
would consider you know, you're mid or late stage kind
of processed that way? What kind of things, what kind
of boxes do you look to check before you implement
(29:58):
ISO catches with the athletes that you work with that way,
and then how do you go about progressing those isoketches
over time that way? You know, if you're using like
a bar, you're just adding more weight on the bar,
or is there other means of progressing the isometric catch
and progressing to the point where you're programming isometric catches
for the athletes that you work with.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
First of all, definitely pain free because isometric catch is
a very fast action, right you, definitely pain free non
injured athletes. In terms of progression, it really depends on individual.
You know how I can get them to do just
(30:41):
you know how we do a snap down squad. Yeah,
so that is a that is an example of a
low intensity isokeatch, right. And then I think individually you
just have to look at whether they are proficient with
the lending mechanics. As as long as their proficient the
(31:01):
lending mechanics, there wouldn't be a problem with them doing isoketch.
And say, if I'm trying to do ISO catch using
drop jump, what I can start with is looking at
their counter movement jump hike. So say this person can
jump thirty cm, I start doing the drop lending with
(31:26):
Steve lending starting from thirty cm or plus minus ten
percent of that. So I think that is a good
benchmark to start with. Yeah, and then can slowly increase
the drop hike and so on.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, absolutely, and then you can add in several other
variables as well. Right, Going back, to the snapdown example
that you gave. You know, by no means do I
think the snapdown is the end all be all of
interventions here, but I think people overlook it and over
look how creative you can get with it. Right. One
of the many things I like to do with it
(32:05):
is actually give the athlete a medicine ball or some
type of weight implement, and as they snap down, move
that in a certain direction. And I tend to predefine
that direction ahead of time, like, hey, I want you
to move it here, or I want you to move
it here. And what that's doing is I'm introducing a
rotational element to the exercise. So it's not just hey
(32:27):
can you stabilize quickly, you know, getting to that isometric
state quickly from a strictly sagital plane. It's hey, can
I introduce forces in other planes of motion? And you
still get to that stability element? And sometimes I'll even
use it from an assessment standpoint, right, it's hey, can
I create a force? I don't personally care how much
(32:48):
that force is. I'm not going to measure every single
thing here, but can I create a force in a
new plane of motion, whether that be biasing you know
hip internal rotation or external rotation that way, and our
are you still able to stabilize quickly? What does that
stability element look like? If there is any kind of
compensation strategy, where is it coming from? You know, is
(33:09):
the foot and ankle complex shifting into a position I
don't like? Is the knee shifting into a position I
don't like? And I think that the isoketch and some
of these different implements can be so so powerful if
you just open your mind and get a little bit
creative with them, right, you can really you know, the
sky's the limit that way. It's just a matter of
you know, understanding what it's trying to do and how
(33:31):
you can introduce variability and chaos within it, and then
off of that as well. I also really like the
work that you've done on isometrics supersets, and I think
you might have had a post with Sportsmith about that
earlier as well. That way, and I think again, knowing
where isometrics fit into the framework is really you know
the secret sauce here that way, what do you like
(33:52):
to do from a programming standpoint for super sets upper
body versus lower body? What kind of combinations have you
come up with, and it's kind of your overall exercise
prescription as far as intensity and volume goes for you know,
pairing something like a pliometric with something like a max
effort pima if you.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Will, okay, all right, So two reasons why I do
contrast training ISO and bloometric training is. Firstly, we go
to some research showing that bloometric being very effective in
(34:31):
improving the active muscle stiffness. So that is important because
during a fast rapid stretch onning cycle, what happened is
the muscle get into a relatively isometric state and then
that's when the muscle whole hold itself steadily so that
the tendon can be stretched. All right, we want the
(34:52):
tender to be stretched so that when it records, we
get that fast explosive false right. So cliometric does that,
but pliometric isn't so good at improving the tendon stiffness.
Why we want stiff tendon again is because if you
can stretch a tendon, especially as stiff tendon, then you
(35:13):
get the greater recoil. Right, so we need another form
of mode of training. Tendon respond well to slow contraction,
slow but high intensity contraction. Right, So in theory as
eccentric an, any form of resistance training should work as
(35:34):
long as you can load the muscular tendon s bisness
at high intensity. So that's when isometric works well because
as mentioned earlier, you can repeatedly perform maximum voluntary contraction.
So in that case, you can repeatedly produce high and
(35:56):
slow strain to the tendon within a single session. That
will help the tended to get stiffle. Right, And because
one improved the tender stiffness and then one improved the
active muscle stiffness, then if I combined it together, that
(36:16):
should help me to improve my force development very well,
especially for those rapid structuring cycle action. And that is
the reason why I tend to recommend contrast training using
(36:37):
isometric and plowmetric. And recently I did post on my
Instagram on the study that actually showed that contrast training
with isometric and plowmetric resulted in written neuromuscular adaptation than
when they did a contrast training with dynamic and plowmetric.
(36:58):
So heavy resistance and cloud metric, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Think it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Right.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
You know, when you're not moving, you're able to produce
extremely high force output that way, so you're getting very
opposite ends of the force velocity spectrum that way. Would
you mind giving a few examples of kind of some
of the pairings that you like to do from an
ISO and plio superset combo here, and what's kind of
the exercise prescription parameters that you like to follow from
(37:25):
that the overall volumes, intensities and so on that.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Way examples of excess so so very simple ones like
I'll do the isometric step up and my step for
my trasty, my step up hy sony about fifteen to
fifteen fifteen centimes platform, So the knee to keep to
(37:50):
keep a floating hue, So this the this is the
platform does the foot they'll have a floating hue and
I'll get them to do that, and the knee angle
will be about maybe him and him and forty hundred
and fifty degree the angle, so it's like they're trying
to perform a step up. The main objective is to
(38:12):
u because when you're running, your heat and knee, sorry
your glute and cold muscle will be able to produce
a high mount force. But if anchor joint cannot hold it,
then you're losing all the force that the force will
be leaking. So the objective is to make sure that
(38:33):
the anchor is able to maintain stiffness, right, So I
use isometric on that, uh, and then I'll pair it
with maybe singlic hot singalic bounding, and Alex has this
isometric heat extension, so it's like a It's like a
(38:56):
heap trust but with a more strattened, more extendedly so
you work a lot more on the hamstring as well.
So I do isometric with that, and then I pair
it with the dynamic dynamic version of it. So it's
like you get the switch switch. Yeah, or I can
(39:19):
get my athlete to perform a short sprint after that
just to get dynamic hamstring contraction. Yeah. The pairing off
the isometric and plow metric is generally the action that
(39:39):
is but mechanically quite similar. So for example, I do
isometric split squad. I can pair it with a speed jam,
I do isometric squad. I can pair it with a
column with a jam or a standing broad job.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
It sounds like you keep as you mentioned before, you
keep things very simple, in particular with the pliometric component
as well. This is another area. Just like isometrics. This
could be a bit of a rabbit hole if we
let it be. But I think a lot of people
get lost here and they get so caught up in
all these different crazy advanced plio interventions that they can
do that way. And you know, I think at the
(40:20):
end of the day, if you do the simple things
really well right, if you're building repeat volume sprint contexts
with intent, if you're having your athletes jump bound and
hop in a variety of different patterns at a variety
of different angles, then you're checking the majority of the
boxes that you need to. I don't think you have
to get overly complicated with the work that you do
(40:42):
from a pliometric standpoint or an isometric standpoint. I think
a lot of times, to your point, the simpler you
can make it, the better off you're going to be
that way. And obviously a lot of the work that
you've know highlighted so far has been very compound in nature,
with the exception of hip extension, which I'm I mean,
there's so much great work about the importance of isolating
(41:02):
hip extension and how athletes are struggling to get that
hip extension or going back to that neurological component for
a minute. The amount of athletes that I've worked with
that can extend their hips, and I'll probably get some
hate for this, but they don't ever really feel any
kind of glute engagement. And I'm not saying their glutes
are not working, they just never feel it there. And
(41:24):
then we actually kind of get them to feel a
isolated glute contraction and then go into something that involves
hip extension. Right, maybe it's something like a sled push
for example, and there's like this light bulb moment that
a lot of them look at me with where it's like, oh,
you know, so that's what it's supposed to feel like,
and it's like, yes, like you're supposed to feel these
(41:44):
muscles work. And again, I'm not saying that they went
to sleep. I'm not saying that they weren't doing any
work before that way. But it's just understanding the importance
of so many of these things, but also understanding that
you check off so many boxes with the compounds. You
check off so much with the general applios that we
just outline, you check off so much with some of
the different compound ISOs that you outlined. Rather that be
(42:06):
the ISO push up, the ISO step up, and so
on that way. And obviously when you do need to
get more specific on things that your athletes struggle with,
like the hip extension, there's isometric setups that you can
just crush that with open chain, closed chain, whatever you
want to do that way. I think it's great.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Yeah, yeah, I tend to keep things simple because we
need to understand that our job is to improve the
physical capacity of our athletes, right, We're not trying to
turn them into circle the sole circus acrobats and so on.
(42:44):
You get what I mean, they have. What we need
to do is basically improve the physical capacity and that
is UH. And then we have to make sure that,
of course, during their spots training improve on their technical
side of things. We're not we're not trying to improve
(43:05):
them to be fantastic weight lifting athlete. Not not the
weight lifter weight lifted, but with UH, it's like resistance
training athlete. Right, those are different, really really different things.
You're not trying to increase their mortal ability in on
(43:27):
the weights in the weights room right in the west room.
We're trying to improve their overall physical capacity and they
need to perform well on the field, that's what we
need to do. Yeah, So I don't see the need
to get things too fanciful in the weight room, you know,
(43:48):
keep things simple and basic.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Absolutely, No, I completely agree with you that way. And
one of the other things you brought up was the
role of the tendon that way, And I mean, there's
just there's so many different tendons within the human body
that way, and I think the majority of the time
we overlook a lot of them, right Like, at least
for myself personally, I tend to bias myself towards you know,
(44:11):
achilles tendon, p teller tendon, peck tendon, rotator cuff tendons,
bicep tendons, tendons that tend to come up a lot
from a clinical practice. But there's so many other tendonnist
structures that way that we also need to train that
way that can have a huge impact and influence on
our performance and our outcomes and overall the health and
longevity of the athlete that way. And obviously you brought
(44:33):
up the tendon stiffness component that way. And I think
the other one of the other many things that I've
used isometrics for is to address some of the different
tendonopathies that come up, you know, in relation to athletes
just playing their sport. You know, basketball is probably the
first one to come to mind for me. That way,
the amount of different little Achilles flare ups and Pateeller
(44:56):
tendon flare ups I've seen, and I've seen isometrics being
in reredibly powerful stimulus for that population. And again, you know,
there's plenty of other options, right, Ecentrics also offer a
great stimulus for the tendon. Don't get me wrong, But
to the point that you made about keeping the main
thing the main thing, right, My goal is to get
them back to sport quickly and safely. And you know,
(45:18):
I've seen the most bang for my buck from going
with isometrics for that, right, the pain levels drop. They
personally there's just not as much of a fear component
associated with it. And I tribute some of that to
the fact that they're not even moving, you know. I
think a lot of times people look at the isometrics
and they're like, oh, that's it, I can do that,
(45:38):
no problem, and then of course they do it and
you get that crazy shaking effect that way. You know,
it's great to see, But what other you know, outside
of improved tendon stiffness through the pairing that you get
between the isometric and the plyer. Are there any other
tendonness type adaptations that you see coming from isometrics that way,
(45:58):
and are there any other key roles that the tendon
plays from a performance and just overall injury mitigation standpoint.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Yeah, yeah, ten tendon has been shown. We're doing a
review on review study on this. But what we're shown
is people tend to look at just the muscle because
that's the beautiful thing. When you strike a post, you
don't you really see the tendon. But tendon is actually
(46:25):
the the very important tissue that actually transmit the force
from the muscle. And so if you have a strong tendon, uh,
your rate of force avelpment will improve. Your risk of
injury will decrease as well. One of the hypothesis I
(46:46):
have with our athletes is that because I see a
lot of senior athletes as in those that are grown adults,
athletes tend to have a lot of tendon injury. One
reason I hypothesize is that when they were young. Singapore
(47:06):
being a more conservative country, many people have a lot
of misconceptions of what heavy strength training can do. So
when our athletes, at least for those earlier generation ones,
they tend to have a lot of tendent injury because
when they're young, they do a lot of ballistic activity
(47:28):
ploumetric running, jumpings and stuff like that, but there is
a lack of resistance training, right, and so there is
an imbalance in the development of the muscle and the tendon.
And when you're young, you recover fast, you have a
high collagen turnover, not an issue, right, But once we
(47:49):
get older, we start to collagen tendon collagen turnover tend
to slow down and we don't recover as as well.
So we've the imbalance between the strength of the muscle
and the tendon to start getting a lot of tendon injury.
(48:09):
And so that's why I believe that right from a
young age athletes start doing resistance training to tendon string
as well.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Love that point, that's that's really well put, Danny, and
I also want to just pick on real quick. I
mentioned the shaking component that we tend to see a
lot in relation to isometrics that way, especially your longer
duration hemas that way, and one of the many questions
I get asked is you know what is that and
what causes that shaking response that way? And I've got
(48:45):
a couple theories, but I haven't necessarily found a way
to prove anything yet. What is your thought behind why
we get that kind of muscular shaking response, you know,
in relation to some of these max intent isomet tricks
or some of these long duration hemas that way.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Okay, I haven't tested it out yet, and I have
I don't have the expertise to test it. What I
hypothesize is because within the muscle, it's not just one
motor unit, that not just one nerve that innovates every
single muscle fiber. Right, So within the muscle itself, we
(49:24):
have a number of motor units, and when you fully
contract maximally contract your muscle, the motor units don't fire
at the same time, right, But of course that's the objective.
We want them to fire at the same time, like
I mentioned about the Taco war, but we we it's
(49:47):
quite impossible for them to be firing so well synchronizing.
So there will be like this is this this model
unit contracting, the other model unit is relaxing a little bit,
So there is milliseconds of difference in how the contraction speak,
and probably because of that, that's why we tend to
(50:10):
share all right, relaxed contract, relax contract, and then there's
a bit of a vibration trembling, So that is my hypothesis.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
Yeah, absolutely, No, I love that. It's one of those things.
I've used kind of that shaking response for a variety
of different things. And like I mentioned before, in relation
to assessments and how I can introduce new you know,
movement patterns and variables into the same pattern and assess
how the body responds to me. I use shaking response
from the muscular system as a you know, kind of
(50:41):
screening tool that way. You know, if I get someone
to kind of achieve a certain range of motion and
all of a sudden, it's like everything starts quaking uncontrollably
to me, that's the body trying to tell us, like, look, neurologically,
we haven't quite figured out how to build stability in
this position yet, in this range of motion that way,
and then the other element too is you know, is
(51:02):
there a load component to it or a time component
to it? Right, So you know I might not need
someone to you know, hold a wall sit ten minutes,
but maybe they hold it ten seconds and all of
a sudden that leg shake starts to kick in. So,
you know, what can I do to mitigate that? Is
that more of a you know, volume thing from the
duration of time even though it was only ten seconds,
(51:24):
or was it a load thing? You know? Do we
not have the ability to generate force that we need
to from there? And I think, and this is just
my personal opinion. I don't have any kind of basis
of this, but as you mentioned in relation to the
fatiguing element, you know, there's there's certainly a transitional effect
of you know, fiber types that we see as we
(51:46):
increase the demand of the exercise, whether that's higher intensity,
whether that's you know, longer duration fatiguing that way. And
I think that as some of those smaller muscular fibers
fatigue and we see a transitional shift to other muscular fibers,
we kind of see this like fatiguing of fiber while
(52:07):
initial firing of new fiber that could cause shaking. Again,
I'm not one hundred percent sure on it. The other
theory I've thrown around is is it some kind of
internal battle between muscle spindles and gould gye tendon organs
within the body that way, you know, one is saying, hey,
you know, we need to change our muscular length, and
(52:27):
the other is saying, you know, we're actually good right here.
We can exert more than enough force. And it kind
of creates this internal battle between does the body move
or not move? And I think this shaking is almost
like the visual representation of the body trying to sort
itself out and figure out does it move or not move?
Speaker 2 (52:47):
Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, well some that's that's a that's
a good research topic for those who have the capability
to do it absolutely.
Speaker 1 (52:59):
I mean the other thing too, Like we talked about
the tendon and it's like, you know, some of the
tendoness research is very difficult to impossible to perform as
well from my understanding, correct, yep.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
Yep, it requires some It required specialized equipment of course,
people who are because you know, like a lot of
studies they use ultrasound and it's a very sensitive thing.
If you just positioned the ultrasound one millimeters different from
(53:36):
what you original way you originally put you get a
different reading altogether. So people who do all this will
have to be very precise and accurate with lots of
experience in doing that. I personally do not have that expertise,
so and that's one of the reasons why you don't
(53:58):
see it, you know, see me having research on all
this all this stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
Absolutely, no, there's a lot of different worlds that kind
of live under this isometric umbrella that way, And I realized,
even though we've talked about it for about an hour,
we've really only scratched the surface of this world of
isometric exercise, isometric training and the many benefits that it
has from an athletic performance standpoint, injury risk mitigation and
(54:29):
beyond that way. And I think the exciting part about
it is we're still learning so much. We're still you know,
we still have so much that we have yet to understand.
I think that's what makes the work of individuals such
as yourself so essential, is you're at the forefront kind
of you know, blazing the trail forward for the rest
of us like myself to follow. That way, Man, this
(54:50):
is a great conversation. Is there anything we missed or
any other closing thoughts that you have in relation to
our conversation around isometrics today.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
I think in general, we we touch on touch on
quite a lot of stuff. I say again, it's best
to keep things simple and not get too complicated, keep
to the basic training prisonaple when we prescribe isometric training
or any other form of training. And we did mention
(55:23):
about making sure athletes get sufficient recovery because we're training
them to perform, you're not training them to be fatigue,
all right, And we see a lot of research showing
that training to failure doesn't doesn't really provide any other benefit.
In in contrast, it takes longer time for them to
(55:46):
recover from training to failure, and that compromise the other
training on the field and stuff like that and further
increase the risk of injury athletes are fatigue. So just
remember as long as athletes are performing, working maximally at
(56:08):
each repetition and not uh getting them to train to
their the exhausted and stuff like that, that's uh, that
shouldn't be the goal.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, Danny. For people who want to find
out more about you and the incredible work that you're
doing in the field, that way, where can they find
you at? Online?
Speaker 2 (56:30):
Instagram? Danny Lam eighty two. I'm on LinkedIn as well,
and I'm on x as well, I do have a
web pitch under it's under constructed web page, the Performance
Concept dot com. I do sell some training programs and
(56:53):
I do have a guidebook on combining isometric and ploumetric training.
So so if those who are interested, they can get
on to my website and take a look at it. Yeah,
that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (57:07):
We'll link to all of that in the description below
from Danny's social media contacts to Danny's website and book
and beyond that way. That way, if you want to
find out more, you can just click there. Danny, this
was amazing. I really appreciate your time and the work
that you're doing in the space that way, Thank you
so much, man
Speaker 2 (57:25):
Thanks a lot, Thanks for inviting me.
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