Dan Plews (00:13)
Doctor Adam Story, episode three, what's going on?
Adam Storey (00:17)
Yeah, well, episode three already. Excited, mate. I'm excited to be here. you've got quite a bit to talk about actually with the recent activities in the sporting world, the enhanced sporting world. But obviously, yeah, we've got another bordered headed person on the on the chat as well.
Dan Plews (00:34)
We do
indeed. We do indeed. I was just commenting before the the light shining off both of the top of your heads was overwhelming. But do you wanna
Adam Storey (00:41)
Mm.
Sam (00:42)
You can very easily
pick out who the two strength coaches are in the call.
Adam Storey (00:46)
Yeah, yeah.
Dan Plews (00:47)
Yeah, is it is it a prerequisite that to be a strength coach you have to be have less hair on the top of your head, maybe? but anyway, Adam, before Sam starts trying to introduce himself, would you like to introduce this fine young gentleman here?
Sam (00:53)
Yeah.
Adam Storey (00:54)
It is, yeah.
Yeah, no, too too kind of you, Pluse. it is it is a real privilege to have Sam Sam Purchase on as our very first guest for Endurox. And Sam and I have actually had a very, very long history together, actually. So many moons ago I had the privilege of supervising Sam for his master's thesis through AUT University, and I'll get Sam to give him a shout out of about his thesis and and where that evolved to, and now
Again, a very fortunate in a fortunate situation to co supervise him for his PhD. So yeah, it's been cool to see you grow, man, as as an academic, but also as a a really strong practitioner. And I know you've got some exciting news on your own personal business front, which you can obviously do a massive shout out on the podcast here about as well. But yeah, I'll hand it over you, man, just to give a bit of bit of background as to who you are and what spins your wheels.
Sam (01:58)
Yeah, I guess I've thank you for that. We actually we we've worked together for now, what is it, like six years maybe in the academic world, but we actually met twenty eighteen when you I was doing my ASCA qualification, international strength in addition qualification and you were taking the course and I was a lot younger then and so well so were you. But the
Dan Plews (02:21)
But you're
the thing is you're still young. Adam's not young anymore.
Adam Storey (02:24)
Ha ha ha.
Sam (02:24)
Right, right. We crossed the threshold there. Yeah, yeah. And I remember it
was it was hilarious 'cause it was the level one. So we had to there was a there was a competency component around coaching certain movements. And we got I remember we got paired up and you got assigned an exercise to coach another person and I ended up paired up with an old weightlifter of yours, Olympic weightlifter of yours. And the only movement I didn't want to teach was the cleaning jerk or clean.
Adam Storey (02:52)
Yes.
Sam (02:53)
And I got asked to teach the clean to this Olympic weightlifter who she was very gracious and she was very helpful about. But man, that was rough as. I remember that very well. but no, we've had we've W trial by fire, maybe. I don't know.
Adam Storey (03:04)
And of course that was an inten that was an intentional move.
Sam (03:12)
But yeah, that's yeah, like I said, we've been working together for a long time. stemming from my masters at AUT. and we decided to do the masters on force velocity profiling. it was a it's quite an interesting area of research and and those sort of things we set in motion,
Back then the holes we sort of found during that research have led to ans asking some more questions in the in the PhD thesis, which we'll obviously get into once we start talking about force velocity profiling. but I guess about me, I've been coaching privately for almost 10 years now. I've been in a number of team environments as well. but yeah, having my own coaching practice is is what I do now and and have for a long time now.
Yeah, yeah. Strength and conditioning is my is the background in terms of sport, trained for trained for powerlifting. played rugby, played basketball. Yeah. Need to give Hyrocks a go eventually.
Adam Storey (04:10)
You do,
but do you want to give us a a shout out for your your most exciting business adventure?
Dan Plews (04:11)
Yeah, you definitely do.
Sam (04:16)
should we talk about it now?
Adam Storey (04:17)
Well, I mean, just
give it a bit of a plug, mate. It's a it's a big move.
Sam (04:20)
So I've been at the same location in Ponsonby for the nine years now, nine or eight or nine years, it's whatever it is. but at the same location I got my start there thanks to Graham Green, the the owner of the the business. He he gave me a start as a contractor coaching privately coaching athletes and ginpop clients.
And but I've made the decision in the last little bit to to move on and open my own space just up the road in Grafton. So new business, it's called Chase Health and Performance. It's the last little bit of my name purchase. it's all set around chasing goals, chasing performance, and hopefully chasing podiums for athletes. But yeah, so it's my own space, my own training facility opens at the start of July. Yeah, very excited.
Adam Storey (05:09)
Amazing. Yeah,
Dan Plews (05:10)
He's not getting an assault
Adam Storey (05:10)
very common.
Dan Plews (05:11)
bike in there, he said. Can you believe it? Too noisy is not allowed an assault bike, but
Sam (05:13)
No, apparently it's too noisy. I'm not allowed.
Adam Storey (05:17)
Who who said who said too noisy?
Sam (05:19)
Yeah, just we won't business partners. He'll he'll listen he'll listen to this and he'll be like, He's calling me out. Yeah, too late.
Dan Plews (05:22)
Yeah.
Too late. but also sa
Adam Storey (05:25)
I'm all right.
Dan Plews (05:28)
Sam Sam also helps me with my my strength. He makes me he makes me massive, massively strong. Hey Sam.
Sam (05:33)
Yes.
We've been working together for what like about a year now? Almost a year? Something like that. Around that. Yeah. Any P Vs you get, that's all afforded to me now, right? That's credit credit where credit's due.
Dan Plews (05:37)
Is it yeah? Yeah, it's been good. It's been good. Yeah, it's been fun.
Definitely.
Definitely. But who's the strongest between you and Adam?
Adam Storey (05:45)
Yeah.
Come on, mate. actually, sorry,
Dan Plews (05:50)
Ha ha ha.
Adam Storey (05:51)
I I thought
you said between me and you.
Sam (05:53)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dan Plews (05:53)
No, no, no not
me and you. I'm not in this conversation. I'm I just wanna know who's stronger between Sam and Adam.
Sam (05:56)
Look, there's no shot.
Well, I mean I don't I would are we doing all time P Vs or current? 'Cause I would like to think current I'd be okay.
Adam Storey (06:06)
current, you'd you'd absolutely destroy me, mate, because I'm old enough to be your dead. Jeez.
Dan Plews (06:08)
No, all all time.
Sam (06:11)
Well but
y but Adam's from an Ol Olympic weightlifting background, so the only thing we could really compare is squat, right?
Adam Storey (06:14)
Yeah.
Dan Plews (06:16)
Yeah, let's let's do the squat then. Let's do the squat.
Adam Storey (06:16)
Yeah. Well
I I I did I did compete a powerlifting mate. Two two two twelve. Two twelve was mine.
Sam (06:21)
yeah, true.
Two twelve back squat. But was that after Olympic weightlifting? Was that Aster Grass or was that like pylifting depth?
Adam Storey (06:31)
no that was before before unfortunately. Two two twelve two twelve at seventy five kilo body weight.
Sam (06:33)
Okay, interesting. Should we give for context?
Should we give for context what Dan's won our back squatters?
Dan Plews (06:39)
Hundred and twenty kilos. Actually
that's not one RM because I did it for three. So
Sam (06:44)
You did it for three.
So that's what does that equal? Like a hundred and twenty five or something like that. my my best my my my best back squad is a two hundred and thirty.
Dan Plews (06:48)
Yeah. Basically I think.
is a bit.
Adam Storey (06:54)
Damn it. But that was at a hundred and
Sam (06:55)
So I I EQ out
Adam Storey (06:56)
fifty kilo bodyweight, wasn't it? Hundred and fifty kilo body weight?
Sam (06:56)
just a little bit. What's that? Yeah, I I've I've cut down a little bit. But yeah, I'm
Dan Plews (07:02)
Th then
who would win in who would win in the first the fastest time to do a hundred push ups? What about that one?
Sam (07:09)
are we doing full depth or are we doing half push ups, Dan?
Dan Plews (07:13)
We're doing them to the to the little phone roll. Actually, we know we know we know Adam would Adam would win on this one. I've seen we've seen his we've seen his we know Sam definitely wouldn't win on this one because one of the other PhD students at AUT said that you have the the most impressive fatigue profile of anyone he's ever seen. Because it's so aggressive.
Adam Storey (07:14)
У
Sam (07:17)
What you
We've s we've seen the video of it. Yeah. We've seen the video. Yeah.
Adam Storey (07:25)
Yeah.
Sam (07:28)
Well, you know.
What, 'cause it's immediate?
Adam Storey (07:42)
Well
Sam (07:43)
Look, I was not built for endurance. I will admit that hand on heart, I'll admit that straight away. I'm not built for endurance. Yeah.
Dan Plews (07:49)
Very good. Very good. Any
anyway, but now pleasure to have you on, Sam. But one of the things I wanted to start talking about is the most recent kind of spectacle in the sporting scene, which is the enhanced games. And Adam has been like thrown into the deep end as a resident expert in New Zealand of this as well. So you it was on you was that there was a national national morning TV, wasn't it, that you were on?
Adam Storey (08:15)
It
was and even I I was interviewed on the midday news in Australia as well, a live crossover. There were that one was actually quite cool. So they they had a live crossover in Las Vegas happening, obviously live as the name suggests. But they'd just finished the swimming event, so we'd sort of watched that as part of the news feed and then got flung over to me to sort of get give my views on it. But yeah, I mean the Aussie swimmer had literally had just come last in that heat, so there was a bit of bit of tension.
Dan Plews (08:24)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, well.
Adam Storey (08:44)
The old Aussie, Aussie crowd there.
Dan Plews (08:44)
Yeah, right.
And so, I mean I mean, let's go like Helicopter View. Bit of a flop, wasn't it, really? Overall a a disappointment generally. Lack of lack of world records, lack of impressive times. i it it it it really came across as more of a publicity stunt to to sell pr products more than anything. And I so
Adam Storey (08:52)
Mm.
Mm.
Dan Plews (09:13)
Which is good because I I'm I'm not sure it's gonna happen again.
Adam Storey (09:16)
Yeah, it it was an absolute flop, mate, as you said. Like it's you know, the fact that three supposedly undoped athletes ended up winning their events. I think share prices the next day I read something had dropped by about eight hundred mil overnight. and again, you you see these as you mentioned, it was like an infomercial on steroids, man. Like these even though the clean athletes were beating the doped athletes in the events, the commentators were still trying to sort of push the products and
Giving them the big thumbs up around how great the products were. It's like, well, come on, what's what's happening there? But you know, to your point around would it happen again? I mean, again, very next day, yeah, I think they're clutching at straws, but the founder had posted that he's gonna put up 10 million dollar prize money, just a one off 10 mil for anyone that can break Usain Boltz 100 meter record for the and that's for the 2027 enhanced games. I don't know, I don't I don't think it's gonna fly.
Dan Plews (10:08)
Yeah, well.
It's it's it's interesting, right? Because think it opens up a few questions. Like some questions I have is well or not question I mean not questions, but a few like theories. Number one is why why were we seeing the why were the drugs not seemingly working? Or you know, why were they not th they're they are performance enhancing drugs. They're banned for a reason because they're seemingly given an unfair and advantage unfair advantage. So is that happening because
Adam Storey (10:19)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dan Plews (10:43)
The athletes are past their sell by date. You know, they are the older athletes. They're not in their prime anymore. Or the prime athletes are still competing quote unquote clean. or is it that they're not as effective as we thought? So maybe we should just go, well, anything goes because the drugs don't really matter, they don't have an effect. Or the questi or the the response that I see a lot of a lot of people coming back with is, that's because we're already viewing the enhanced games, you know, athletes buy
Adam Storey (10:45)
Mm. Yeah.
Mm.
Dan Plews (11:12)
are already enhanced because they're all cheating anyway. So I mean what what i why 'cause I I think I think it was surprising to see that there was no difference, right? what what do you why do you think what was your what would be your theory? And maybe Sam you can chime in too on on on that as well.
Adam Storey (11:16)
Mm.
Yeah.
No, I mean th those are three great three great sort of options to choose from. Like pick your destiny. I think I'm gonna lean with option one, the fact that when you look at the the athletes that they pulled in for those forty-two athletes, the the vast majority of them, in particular the weightlifters, I can speak to the weightlifting cohort, they were sort of quote unquote past their use by date, sort of past their peak. So if anything, they would have got close to, I guess, their previous best.
But ironically, they didn't even get close to their previous best. Like they just across the board had shocking performances. So I guess when you look at it from that point of view, you'd think, okay, if they're on the gear and they've got that age-related decline in performance, you'd hope that, well you wouldn't hope, but you'd assume that the gear would get them back up to maybe their peak that they were maybe five or 10 years ago. But that wasn't even the case. So then again, you've got to sort of question: well, is it their actual
the the PEDs that they were on. Is their products actually a load of shit? There you go, my first swear with their sandmate on air. you know so I I guess that that's the the question to then ask. What what I did find particularly strange though, very strange, is that you know these individuals are trying to promote products, pushing their products, yet they were technically doped as well. Case in point the swimmers wearing those those banned swimsuits.
Sam (12:29)
I was asking if it was okay.
Dan Plews (12:30)
Yeah.
Mm.
Adam Storey (12:52)
So even if they did all the swimmers broke world records, like how can you then claim that it was the P D's versus actual swimsuit? I I don't know why they did that, but Sam mate.
Dan Plews (13:02)
Yeah, I mean the swimsuits
the swimsuits are very, very performance enhancing, hence why they're not being able to use anymore. Right. There's the swimmers who it really affected there was one swimmer in New Zealand, I think it was Moss Bermistor, who, you know, changing from those suits changed his career because it r it affected him so much and you know, and it and it seemed to affect some swimmers more than others. Like they could take they took it made a bigger inf performance enhancing effect on some swimmers than it did others for some for one reason or another.
Adam Storey (13:07)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Mm.
Sam (13:30)
It it made a
it made a confounding variable on the doping, right? 'Cause it was either is it the result of the is it the result of the doping or the or the enhancement or is it a mechanical doping effect that's gonna lead to the the wins? So it was but but I'm interested I saw there was quite a bit of discussion around the people who are making excuses for some of the enhanced athletes where some of them weren't given is it the length of the protocol or is it the actually determining how to best use a doping protocol to
Adam Storey (13:35)
Excellent.
Sam (14:00)
Does do they need a lot more time? Is there a better chance that next year when they've given given a long longer lead time to prepare? Is there more of a chance? What do you guys think?
Adam Storey (14:10)
Yeah, I mean like again, I'll circle back to the weightlifters. Like they were I mean there's video footage as well, you know, of a particular individual breaking the world records and training. You know, so again you you can't say that their their protocols weren't working. You know, I I don't know, it it sort of comes down to on competition day there there's a lot of factors which, you know, maybe PEDs don't come into play. Like I mean the mental approach to competition, like you can't have a I know they were on
cognitive stimulants, but that's not going to help control your nerves and your anxiety and things like that. So I g I guess it'll come into play as well.
Sam (14:43)
Yeah. What
what about the the fact that they they listed who was enhanced and who wasn't enhanced, but they didn't list what they were enhanced with. I don't know if there like is there a legal there's gotta be a legal reason behind that or
Adam Storey (14:50)
Mm.
Yeah, a hundred percent. And and that that's I think on the breakfast interview I pulled that up, you know, the interviewer, Tover O'Brien, fantastic interviewer, you know, was saying that I mean they're they're full transparency, that isn't that a good thing? And it's like, well, no, they're not. They're not fully transparent in regards to the protocol. They're not fully transparent as to how far above basal level they've pushed these individuals.
And their their kind of rationale for that is I didn't want copycats, you know, because apparently everything like Sam Purchase, here is your personalised PED prescription. And I don't want Dan Pluze trying to get that beautiful shaved head like like Sam. I don't want him to copy that. And I'm not gonna try and, you know, take his protocol because it could be bad for my health. So that was their kind of like caveat outstatement.
Sam (15:42)
This bald hit us from years of creatine abuse.
Dan Plews (15:46)
Well, it's funny you both have a bullhead and you both use a lot of creatine, I'm just saying. Yeah. Maybe maybe the myth the myths are true. The myths are true.
Adam Storey (15:45)
Yeah, excellent.
Sam (15:50)
The Yeah. As far
as I was aware, the only banned substances for the enhanced games was cocaine and heroin, right? That was it? Was there anything else? No. Anything else is go, right?
Adam Storey (15:58)
Mm. Yeah.
Dan Plews (16:02)
D
you know you know the other the other thing that I did think y I wonder if there's a a little bit of complacency that comes across in the way the athletes appl approach their own training plans when they know they're being enhanced as well. Because you would almost like, you know, do I need to do this training session quite so hard? I don't need to push that way, I don't need that level of intent, I don't need that level of detail because the drugs are gonna back me up anyway. So perhaps there's a a little bit of that as well.
Adam Storey (16:30)
Absolutely.
Yeah. And even even to the the it's a great point, please, even to the point of training, because you look at the the coaches that were training these individuals. Obviously, you're not going to get the best coaches in the world affiliating with the enhanced games for the entrance athletes. So they had some absolute Muppets, no name people helping these individuals train. It's like, well jeez.
Dan Plews (16:32)
But
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, well you know, overall I'm happy with the outcome. 'Cause my my biggest fear when I heard about the enhanced games to start was if it was a success, people like watching the freak show, right? They like watching crazy numbers, massive people doing crazy things, and that would in turn likely become more popular than the naturals the natural sports peoples, you know, and the the general Olympics and
Adam Storey (16:57)
a hundred percent.
Mm.
Really.
Dan Plews (17:20)
And if that is the case, it'll gain more money, it'll gain more traction. And that's encouraging your younger generations to want to be enhanced athletes over clean athletes. And I think it it poses a bigger global issue than than was re originally intended or realized it could have done. But I think thankfully that bigger issue is probably not going to come into fruition. So that's yeah, it's good. It's good, right? I'm happy about it. Let's see. Yeah, cool.
Adam Storey (17:25)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Hundred percent.
Dan Plews (17:51)
Alright, so let's get into some let's get into some high rats talk. And one of the so on episode one did you listen to episode one, Sam? Yes you did, I know you did. Yeah. And on episode one we talked yeah, he he better have done, otherwise we'd have to kick him off the call. In episode one we talked about Adam's trip to the High Rats Coaching Summit. And during that he presented
Sam (18:01)
Of course.
Adam Storey (18:04)
I hope so.
Sam (18:08)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What are we talking about?
Dan Plews (18:21)
the force velocity profile. And within the force velocity profile, we talked about different stations from your, you know, your your bur burpee broad jumps to your war balls, to your lunges, to your sleds, and how they would potentially fit within the force velocity profile. one of the main questions that we had from a lot of the listeners from that was they found the vo force velocity profile really interesting, but the question was, well, how can I measure my force velocity profile? How do I know where I sit?
How can that affect my training? And obviously in your PhD is literally focusing on these very points is that we you're looking to build protocols around ways you can measure your force velocity profile at home, basically using very simple methods without fancy laboratory equipment. So why don't we begin with a little bit of an overview, just to remind remind that if someone didn't listen to episode one?
what is the force velocity profile and why is it of consideration to higher ox athletes?
Sam (19:23)
Yep, yep. Feel free to jump in and ask questions or stop me from rambling if I get too deep, because I think it is really important when we talk about the force velocity relationship or the force velocity profile to what we're actually talking about is power output and measuring power performance. So if you remember back to back to physics, force times velocity equals power. So by modeling someone's force velocity profile, we're actually determining the
The relative contribution of force and velocity to that person's power output. So we're basically taking power and going the constituent force and velocity that makes that power. So if you imagine that you and I have the exact same power output in a squat, Dan, the exact same power output down to the watt, but my movement velocity was half of yours, but I lifted double the load and therefore had double the force, we'd still have the exact same power output.
That's a very exaggerated example, but what for that's essentially what force velocity profiling is. I could go in and do a a force velocity profile on an entire rugby team. and that would give me good insights into who's powerful and and we can track that over time and compare. but it doesn't tell me why someone is more or less powerful.
Dan Plews (20:34)
Yeah. I guess it's
I guess it's a similar idea to cycling, right? Like in cycling, people who who use like something called erg mode on a bike, it can you can sit on a bike and it'll set you at three hundred watts. And whatever happens to your cadence, it is set at three hundred watts. So if you're pedaling at a hundred RPM it feels quite light. The c the the because the force is less. If you drop your cadence to sixty RPM, suddenly it starts feeling really, really heavy because the force has to go up. So it's basically
Sam (21:02)
Totally. It's
more it's more force per rotation. Yeah.
Dan Plews (21:04)
It's like increasing the weight. Exactly.
So it's increasing the weight as you it's the same same concept.
Sam (21:09)
Yep. So first we just delineate between the force velocity relationship. That's a concept determined you know almost a hundred years ago now. A. V. Hill, nineteen thirty-eight, dissected some frog muscles and found that the force and velocity relationship at a molecular level is this hyperbolic relationship like the force curve force velocity curve that we s we see.
And I guess should I get into the sort of how why that why that is the case? Is that worth talking about? It's pretty nitty-gritty and it's not that relevant practically, but so you imagine in the muscle that these these tiny hooks called myosin heads, and then these these tiny ropes called actin filaments. w to produce force, those hooks have to grab those ropes and and pull.
And at slow contractile speeds, so when the muscle is contracting slowly, those hooks have an opportunity. They have the time afforded, the opportunity to grab a rope and pull and contribute force. But the opposite is also true when the muscle contracting is happening very quickly, those ropes, there's not enough time or or opportunity afforded for those hooks to grab the ropes. And that interaction between the myosin heads and the actin filaments is the reason we have that inverse.
curve. So the more force you have, the less velocity. Sorry, well the slower you go, the more force you can produce. And the faster you go, the less force you are able to produce. Different different to the force velocity profile that we talk about in the literature.
Where the force velocity profile of compound movements, because remember that was on the intrinsic molecular level of the muscle, that's the force velocity relationship, is that curve. When we're talking about compound movements like a squat, a bench press, an overhead press, whatever it may be, for all intents and purposes, we've proven that the force velocity relationship in the movement itself is linear, so it's a straight line. So you can extrapolate that out.
to find someone's maximum theoretical out force output and their maximum theoretical velocity output, which we'll talk a bit more in a bit. and we'll talk about how we how we
test for that or assess for that, but there is a distinction to make between the force velocity relationship in the muscle and the one that we use for movements. Because we've got to be really careful that we don't make inferences about someone's force velocity profile by bringing in because their force velocity profile is this in a jump squat, we can't then say that that's true for the quadriceps if it's for a jump squat, for example. so I suppose
I can give an example of a force velocity profile and how that might lead to someone being velocity or force dominant, which similar to like how I talked about before with the double velocity and the half load or vice versa. So if you have athlete A, which let's say that's me, if I have a 1 RM squat of 140 kilos, and athlete B, let's say it's you, Dan, has a 1RM squat of 200 kilos, you're objectively stronger than me, you can produce more force.
But if we do a maximum squat at 60 kilos, maximum intensity squat, sorry, at 60 kilos, you move as fast as you can. I move at 1.3 meters per second, and you move at 0.9 meters per second, you are you were slower. I'm more powerful. I'm about 250 watts more powerful in that in that instance.
If we then did that closer to a hundred kilos, both of us doing a hundred kilos, I'm now closer to my ceiling and my velocity drops quite a lot, but your velocity doesn't drop so much, we would see in that profile that I am a very velocity dominant athlete, and you would maybe be more force dominant if we're doing a relative comparison. You would be more force dominant than I would be.
so essentially we get this opportunity to look at the profiles and compare who is more force dominant, who's more velocity dominant, and that can inform our training prescription later.
Dan Plews (25:16)
So so bringing it into hierarchs though, what would that so say you we use that same example of you and me, with with we've we've come to the realization that you're I'm more forcivo dominant, you're more velocity dominant. Would that translate into certain stations that you would assume that I am better or worse at?
Sam (25:30)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. So like I said before, you can't make inferences. So if we go from a jump squat profile and we say that I'm velocity dominant, and then we go, we can't make the inference that my quadriceps are velocity dominant or my glutes are velocity dominant, but we can, we would be more happy to make the inference or the comparison to say a jump squat to the sled push, you know, because there's triple extension there. in the burpee broad jump. Again, that's a great one 'cause there's triple extension there.
Dan Plews (26:07)
And warballs would warbulls would be in there as well, I guess.
Sam (26:07)
If I'm more Yeah,
for sure, for sure. That's another one. Those three with a jump squat would be great. we can make those inferences across the the movements because they're using the same muscles and if it's maximal intent or whatever, you might have more force afforded to you or more velocity afforded to you based on your profile. and I don't know if you want to get into the prescription side of it just yet, or if you want to wa leave that till a little bit later, but essentially we want to build a profile of a person's movement
of the person's movements and we can make those sort of inferences around the other the other movements. Yep.
Adam Storey (26:40)
Yeah, I think I think it's a really important delineation to make early on. Cause I guess, you know, when I was I showcased that theoretical, and I need to really emphasize the word theoretical force velocity curve I presented for HIROCs. again, I think there's a little bit of confusion with people thinking that we were testing those specific movements and and forming individual profiles for each, which is not the case. So as Sam has alluded to, you know, we aren't profiling
stations in isolation that would only provide us with such a small a small snippet of information. It's about really showcasing and profiling movement patterns, which are which is the fundamental difference. And then once we understand the profiling of movement patterns, that's when you begin to group them based on understanding where they would sit. So as as you both mentioned, you know, movements that have the triple extension component would be your
relations to the baby broad giants, war balls, that kind of stuff as well. So yeah, that that's that's really critical. I was just gonna say because I think we're obviously gonna be leaning into your PhD shortly, which has a lot of relevance to the HYROX HYROX movements. But I think it'd be cool to almost just backtrack it for the the sake of the listeners to I guess talk about
Because you use Dan and yourself as an example. But I think if we if we learn into your master's research just ever so slightly, mate, because you did such a great amount of work with rugby, I think that could provide like a real good practical example, like forwards versus backs, what you showed the differences there. but if you also just want to showcase what was typically the movements that were used traditionally for force velocity and profiling, because that'll show the evolution of where you've gone.
Sam (28:27)
So I guess it's important maybe to start then with really quickly touching on how we assess force velocity profiling. We do what's called a load spectrum assessment. So
The force from the force velocity profile comes from the mass that's lifted, right? Mass times acceleration. So whatever the mass is lifted dictates the force that is output. So we need to find ways of changing a person's velocity. So the way we do that is by having either relative load, so you can do find someone's one rep max and then go twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, a hundred percent of their one rep max. You can do it based on their body weight. You just have to have some way of changing the changing the velocity of a person's.
During the movement. Because then if you think of that graph, we can plot each of those instances of a of a movement or of a repetition, and that's where we get that linear relationship. so as you said in the in my masters, we did the jump squat with a with a group of rugby players.
And that the jump squat is the one that, because jumping is so prevalent, it's such a good indication for lower body capability. Jump sp jump squat's been the big one forever in force velocity profiling. from there it sort of progressed into the bench press throw because we need to do a ballistic movement in force velocity profiling because the achieving a max velocity is what we're looking for, right? So
jump squat was the big first one. And like I said, that's what we did with my with my master's research. We got an entire team of rugby players, professional rugby players, to do five jump squats at different percent body weight loads, so zero percent body weight, which was just their body weight, and then all the way up to so twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, a hundred percent body weight. So we had
Big props, 120 kilos with 120 kilos on their back, jumping as high as they could. And essentially we would plot that in the in the graph and find their personal jump squat force velocity profile, which again is a great indicator of their lower body performance. And
We found in the forwards versus backs that backs tended to be a bit more velocity dominant, which if you think about forwards and backs in a rugby context, that makes a lot of sense. and forwards being a bit more force dominant just by but then even within those subgroups of forwards and backs, there were standouts where there was a back that was highly force dominant. There would be a forward that could be highly velocity dominant. So it is a bit of a mixed bag in that way.
Dan Plews (31:02)
So
Sam (31:02)
But then
actually overlaying all of those profiles on each other, as I said, you get that that linear profile bet of the force versus the velocity. Someone's line or their slope might be, let's say, here on that graph. The next person's could be up here. So their force and velocity is higher than the previous person. So overall, they're a much more powerful athlete, much stronger and faster. And that's what some of the sort of things we can try to that's what we're aiming for, is to push people up and to the right.
Dan Plews (31:22)
Mm.
Yeah. So basically d like to really simplify it, you're you're finding that the backs produce more power with lower weights and the forwards produce more power with higher weights.
Sam (31:44)
Yep. And typically the if you're stronger as the load increases you will just you'll be able to ex and you'll be able to express more power. It's just even at low l low velocities, at higher weights it's just easier to produce more power. So yes. Yeah.
Dan Plews (31:56)
Yeah. So so someone
if you if just as an expectation, bringing it back to higher arts, if you have two higher athletes, one who's from like a crossfit more strength background and the other one who's from like a running or a triathlon or an endurance background, you would expect the triathlete to produ p to be producing more force under lower more power under lower weight, or hard to say. Yeah.
Sam (32:19)
It's that's an interesting one. I would and
that's something we would really love to look at. That would be very interesting 'cause the coming from an endurance background, like we Adam and I Adam and I joke, you don't have a single fast twitch muscle fiber in your body. But the But th thanks to working with me, you're actually got quite a bit of force available to you now. No, no, I joke. But yeah, it would be an interesting comparison when you're taking someone from a massive endurance background that
Dan Plews (32:26)
You'd have no power either, would you? You'd just be like Yeah, yeah, yeah. My tongue is no, don't forget that.
Sam (32:48)
maybe doesn't produce so much v contractile velocity. they probably are actually maybe a bit more force dominant.
Dan Plews (32:54)
It's probably it's probably hard to s I reckon like th one of the things I I think is that maybe if you are from more of an endurance background, it's quite h it's quite hard to generate to push yourself to have more power through velocity. It's probably easier to train yourself to have more power through force.
Adam Storey (33:11)
Mm.
Sam (33:15)
I completely agree with that. I c I completely and that's what I think I've seen in working with you and working with some other endurance athletes as well. It's it is the velocity doesn't come naturally.
Dan Plews (33:20)
Yeah. With
which is contrary to general belief, right? Because if that's because with that idea in mind, the endurance athlete, rather than training your strength, endurance and your power, should be training their lower reps max force more than the the opposite way around. So if someone's coming from more of a strength background, they probably have that part and they want to go more towards the velocity side.
Sam (33:47)
Well yeah, you've touched on the sort of the key with the prescription and the individualization around force velocity profiling is that if someone is velocity dominant versus force dominant, you train the opposite. So if you're f velocity dominant, you get more power gains quicker by training the force side of things. And then again, if you're force dominant, you should be training with lower absolute loads, but with max as much sort of velocity as you possibly could. so apply metrics, jumps, all that sort of thing.
Adam Storey (34:13)
Mm.
I mean it's interesting as well, like go going back to the example of the endurance individual there, please, like I guess and it it circles back to Sam's beautiful myosin actin rope analogy at the start. So I mean you've you've got the slower individuals, you'll have slower contractile velocities due to the the slow twitch muscle fire comp composition. So you'll have longer contraction times as a default, which means you've got more opportunity to develop peak force, if if that makes sense.
So I guess yeah with with the endurance individual they'll have more time under tension, they'll get peak force calming up slowly. So yep, they've got the capacity to develop their strength component, probably more so and quicker than they would their their velocity power side. to to Sam's point, you'd definitely then I guess look to target their weaker area, which would be the velocity-driven stuff. But I think you'd need to first still
Dan Plews (34:45)
Yeah, yeah.
Adam Storey (35:14)
Prioritize that strength development first and foremost because their foundational level of that basic strength would still be relatively low, if that makes sense.
Sam (35:24)
Yeah, absolutely. I think there's an interesting point there with I keep stressing the point of when we're doing a force velocity profile on a movement, the result the resulting profile is very specific to that movement, to the point where you could be highly velocity dominant in a jump squat and be completely force dominant in a bench press. Right? So
Adam Storey (35:37)
Mm.
Yeah.
Sam (35:48)
Which would then be an interesting thought experiment, maybe, would be to think of the endurance athlete and is that force bossy profile a central you know, does the does their history affect the the whole body, the whole system? Dan
Adam Storey (36:00)
Mm.
Dan Plews (36:01)
That's really interesting
'cause I was just I would just assume that it's a whole system thing 'cause it's it's so related to a muscle fibre type and you would assume that if they've been doing that same endurance sport they would it would transcend through the body, right? Why why would the muscle makeup be different arms versus legs?
Adam Storey (36:18)
Yeah.
I I think it's not necessarily composition wise, but probably more so recruitment patterns as well. Like I mean, you you think about much like synapses coming together like in a in a central nervous system, like nissing together, like you know, neurons that fire together, wire together. so much like you, your endurance dominant athlete, like their the wiring down to their lower body is gonna be tremendous, absolutely phenomenal. You know, so in terms of their ability to then transfer that to strength gains through back squat and things like that, the wiring is there.
They just haven't built the built the foundation and built the strength. But upper body wise, I mean the only kind of stimulus you'd be getting is is from your swimming, so to speak. Yet there's not a lot of high force application.
Dan Plews (36:57)
Super interesting though, 'cause that I've found that with a lot of a lot of like high rats athletes, even in even in myself, is that when I you I went from triathlon years and years of Iron Man to doing higher roots and more strength and I found that my leg strength jumped so much quicker than my upper body strength. Like my bench press, for example, is so stagnant, it just won't really hard to shift. It's improved, but not nowhere near as much as my legs.
Adam Storey (37:08)
Mm.
Mm.
Dan Plews (37:21)
And it must and it obviously is a deal. But there's there's there's obviously the synapses, there's the capillarization, there's the blood flow, there's all those things that are affecting the adapt adaptation as well, right? So
Adam Storey (37:30)
Mm, mm. I'm
keen to hear your thoughts, Sam. I I th I think it's given the the context, you know, of of high rocks athletes, a lot of them, as as Please mentioned, are coming from that endurance space. So I guess what are your views in terms of where when when and where does force profile force velocity profiling become really critical for them versus doing the big rocks of maybe just getting them
strong so say for example I'll look at if they were new to high rocks and obviously moving the sleds if they went straight full noise into pro weights you know 202 kilos man they can't they they're struggling to lift that so strength absolute strength is their clear dominant limiter where would then force velocity profiling come into that mix is it worthwhile doing something some of that early on or what what's your take on
Sam (38:27)
I
I think you nailed the fact that, you know, if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. If they're very obviously too weak, you need to get stronger. And strength is the underpinning strength should be the underpinning thing for everyone.
Adam Storey (38:37)
Mm.
Sam (38:43)
Force velocity profiling should be it's an assessment. It's when you get to the point of feeling like you're maybe getting diminishing returns or you wanna better understand how am I actually achieving this performance? Where is my where is my performance coming from? That's when you wanna try to look at something like force velocity profiling and again trying to you're inferring performance from these
Again, basic fundamental movement patterns, a a jump squat or a squat is a very fundamental movement pattern, but we can extrapolate from that into these Hyrox movements. same with like in my PhD, the vertical press and the and the horizontal pull. Super relevant to the to Hyrox and we can make those inferences when you feel like those gains maybe aren't aren't coming there. Hyrux is such a complex sport. It's down to strength endurance, which isn't something that's super tied into the force velocity profile, because when we do force velocity profile.
and we try to be as fresh as possible and take tons of rest between reps because it's gotta be a maximal intent, a maximum expression of force and velocity.
Adam Storey (39:42)
Yeah.
Actually you you you brushed over your methodology so secretly and quickly there, my friend. So do you wanna I'm just gonna rewind you a bit. so obviously you talked about jump squats for your masters, but now give us an update on your PhD. Like why why have you chosen these novel movements? Where did that come from and what are these novel movements, man?
Sam (40:04)
Okay, so f I guess first of all, the there's w there was such interesting research in in the last sort of twenty years around force velocity profiling and particularly around making it an accessible assessment type. In two thousand eight, Pierre Samozzino seminal paper on doing the jump squat force velocity profile, he managed to model it mathematic mathematically in a way where all you need to
All you need to know to profile it is someone's body weight, the length of their leg and system mass and the height of the push-off. So how long
that jump phase takes, the propulsive phase takes. If you know those three things, which you can just do with a tape measure essentially in a phone, you can get an accurate force velocity profile. It's it comes out accurate every time. And then since then, there's Ramani, 2016, 2018 maybe, did the same thing for the bench press. So you can do a bench press throw and as long as you know the mass of the system, which is the barbell in this case, the height that the barbell achieves on the throw, which we do in a Smith machine, and the distance of the propulsive phase.
Just those three things. Again with a tape measure, a phone, so you can you can measure it in slow mo or with frame by frame, you can get an accurate force velocity profile. So that's this sort of accessibility part that really interested me. But in all of the force velocity, sorry.
Adam Storey (41:28)
Sorry, my friend. Sorry, my friend. And
do you just want to just quickly explain the propulsive phase, just for for clarity for the the listeners.
Sam (41:36)
So for example, if you're doing a jump squat, when you squat down and then you go to jump, it's the time that your foot is still on the ground. So the time that you're imparting force into the ground, because obviously once you leave the ground you're no longer you're no longer imparting.
force. So the length, the height, the the from the start point to the end where your toes leave the ground, that's the propulsive phase. In the bench press throw, it's the distance from when you start the movement to when your hand lets go of that barbell. So the whole time that you're imparting force into that bar, that's the the length of the propulsive phase. So if you know those three things you can get a a valid force velocity profile. Anyway, so the the accessibility really interested me and I thought if we can make
If we can just keep working on making these accessible protocols for practitioners, for athletes to do by themselves, maybe they can't afford the equipment, going to lab or whatever, that's a really cool thing and I think that's meaningful. But in the force velocity profiling literature, there was really only
Jump squat and bench press. Those were the only force bench press throw, sorry. The only v movement patterns that were being looked at. And from my background as a as an SNC coach and working with athletes and and people in the gym all day, every day, I use a lot more movements than just a squat and a th and a bench press.
So even if so the the movements that we we decided were high high value common movements that we wanted to assess in this way were a a bench pull, so a horizontal pull, an overhead press, and and a hip thrust or a hip hinge. super three super common movements in gym settings and
They are common in sports performance, but they're so common in the development of athletes, which is where my heart lives. it's so common in that context that I thought if we can better assess and understand these movements that we use with our athletes, that's just a benefit to everyone.
And if we can make it accessible on top of that, so that the athletes can do it by themselves or the practitioner out wherever without the equipment, if they can do it as well, then everyone wins. so that's what we've been working on and that's where those three movements came from. And they just happen to also be highly, highly relevant to HIROCs as a sport.
Adam Storey (44:01)
Yeah, that's that's amazing. So just give us a rundown in terms of their relevance, like where you see the relevance, and I guess give us a bit of a an example of maybe a pseudo case study of of of sort of testing someone like a high rox athlete and then sort of what training could then sort of evolve from from that force for study profile.
Sam (44:22)
Yep. so the what was the first part?
Adam Storey (44:28)
That'd be the relevance of the crossover to the the hierarchs movements and stuff.
Sam (44:30)
Relevant.
So we already talked about sorry, we already talked about the jump squat, highly relevant to sled push, a burpee broad jump, and a wall ball. So anything where your legs are going through that triple extension, you'll be able to make a pretty good inference across that. the overhead throw from our from our research, overhead throw, wall balls, the bench pull in the sled pull.
and even the roller actually as well. and the hip thrust movement itself, because it's just the isolated hip extension part of triple extension, it's relevant across a lot of those as well. and it's a more directed version of that. And in terms of a a a case study or a an example of working with a high ROX athlete, you might find if someone were velocity dominant in a
Again, it's if if they're velocity dominant in a bench pull, if they're force dominant in overhead throw, force dominant in a in a in a hip thrust, you would aim to have their training be s just the opposite variance of that dominant. So if they have a velocity, you go for the force side. And for high rocks, you might look at taking some of the movements that they do for high rocks in their regular high rock training and just changing the loading scheme, right? It's we do less load at higher velocities,
Yeah, it's i you would wanna still keep it specific because again we're specific to the movement and the movement pattern, the fundamental movement pattern. We wanna stay specific to that. Yeah.
Dan Plews (46:03)
So so as a to to to kinda concrete that down a little bit more, Sam, so if you have like an athlete, they come in, they're clearly velocity dominant and you're wanting to work the lunges, you might choose Bulgarians as a as an exercise. You you would but you would choose to probably load those up.
Sam (46:21)
Exactly.
Dan Plews (46:27)
more say they're doing a men's pro weight more than thirty kilos, you'd probably be looking to do fewer reps, maybe three to five reps, five sets, but you know, much heavier than what they would be doing in a race. So maybe, you know, four fifty, sixty, whatever whatever that whatever's horrible over those, like two reps in reserve over that range. Whereas conversely on the other side, if you're
Sam (46:41)
Totally.
Yeah and
Dan Plews (46:51)
If you're more force dominant, you might lower that load, you might go to like twenty kilos, but you might even be doing like jumping split squats, or you might be trying to do the Bulgarian so fast that your foot leaves the ground at the front every time 'cause the load is so low. Would that be the differences?
Sam (47:04)
Exactly.
Exactly. And that's and that's exactly how we would look at it. Again, it's the determining what the velocity dominance is in, what movement pattern are we velocity dominant in. And then it goes back to just classic prescription of of strength work. It's we prioritize the first thing we do in a session is what we're prioritizing. That's the highest move when we're freshest. So if you velocity dominant in the lower body, we've deter we've determined that through our assessments. We would be looking at doing some really high load, low rep,
single leg maybe because that's relevant to high rocks doing a Bulgarian for your lunges ex like like you like you said. And yeah, it's it's high load again in the other way if it's we're working on the the velocity stuff, we would still start the session with that. It's the priority is the is the velocity. So we would do single leg Bulgarian jumps or even just jump squats or or anything of that sort.
But you can tie it into what you feel like you're weaker in in Hyrocks and you can track your performance over the different stations and and that's what that's what you would focus. Yeah.
Dan Plews (48:07)
So where does like some of that French contrast work fit into all that? Because theoretically it's it's kind of double dipping a little bit, isn't it?
Sam (48:15)
Y do you wanna take that Adam?
Adam Storey (48:18)
Yeah, I mean it's it's a good it's a good point. I guess with the double dipping in the in the sense with well do you wanna do you wanna give a bit of a a an example of your French contrast, Deplosy? What's is top and one thing?
Dan Plews (48:29)
Well what what I see,
you know, often athletes will do kind of like some heavy squats into into a box jump, right? where you're kind of working like your low high high low velocity, high force in the squats and then you're doing high velocity, low force.
Adam Storey (48:37)
Yeah. Yeah.
Sam (48:45)
J just to
clarify that that's just crot contrast training. The French contrast is the high force, so a heavy squat into maybe a jump squat, then into an over speed training. So we like we've done before, we would do a band assisted jump. So you're doing over speed training. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly. So just to clarify.
Dan Plews (48:58)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I guess there's two, isn't it? There's a general contrast and the French contrast. I think I think the general
contrast is probably done even more than the French contrast. Yeah. So why don't we just talk about the general contrast actually? Yeah.
Sam (49:08)
Abs absolutely it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just general contrast, yeah.
Adam Storey (49:12)
Yeah, yeah, and not the Canadian French one.
Sam (49:15)
French Canadian.
Dan Plews (49:16)
Well,
Adam Storey (49:16)
Yeah.
yeah, no, I I think, you know, double diffing, it's it's a good it's a good question there, please. You know, think what you you look to utilize with that that methodology is an enhancement. We talked about enhanced games before, but an enhancement you're using a different tool to enhance the application or the ballistic component even further. So we're getting
Dan Plews (49:35)
So you so it's
really you it's really actually aimed at the force velocity side. You're kind of using your strep the the force to enhance the force velocity. Because the thing that I always think is like, you know, Martin Buschetti always talks about interference effect and I you know, is it is there you know, we get that we talk about the interference effect between endurance training and and strength training, but is there an interference effect going on where you try and combine too much at at once other than the compromisation of
the movement, you know, you you fatigue yourself too much, you're not gonna do it very well, right? But is that something that you we need to even consider? Because if that is the case, why don't we just do contrast training? 'Cause then we're getting the best of both worlds all the time.
Adam Storey (50:06)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, best of both what yeah. And again, great, great questions, man. so I guess with that, it it comes back to the fundamental like physiology principle of it's called post activation potentiation. So you're using that higher force stimulus and the the critical component, and what's that? The old pap, the old papski. And the critical thing there, again, just for our listeners, if you're not too familiar with the yeah, the PAP or post activation potentiation, is that you are performing and it needs to be a biomechanically similar
Dan Plews (50:24)
Pap. The old pap. The old pap.
Adam Storey (50:43)
Heavy movement. So again, it would be a heavy squat, your classic PEP kind of principle, contrast training. Heavy back squats paired up with a light squat jump. And again, essentially what the heavy stimulus is doing is it's getting an increased motor recruitment happening from the brain to the muscle group. But there's also stuff happening at actually at the level of the muscle in terms of like differences and calcium fluctuations, as an example. We won't won't go into that, but with the increases at the level of the muscle, you're getting increased contractibility occurring.
So again, I I use that enhanced games kind of tongue-in-cheek analogy. That that heavy stimulus is enhancing you to then perform ballistics better. Now, to your other question, why don't we just do that all the time? I guess the the issue is that you're not doing enough of either or to really benefit. So again, like the the strength component of the heavy back squat as an example is just it's not about you getting stronger and fatiguing at the max strength, it's just
Dan Plews (51:31)
Mm. Yeah.
Adam Storey (51:41)
priming your engine or priming your musculature, I'll say, to then perform the ballistic component better. So it's more of the ballistic side and of that equation that's the focus.
Dan Plews (51:51)
'Cause
the key is with the back squat you you're actually having a few more reps in reserve generally when you're doing that contrast method. Whereas if you're really trying to push yourself to increase your strength, you've got to go to at least two reps in reserve. So you're really going to match. And if you're really pushing yourself, you're gonna be probably jumping onto a box and failing and falling on your face, right? Yeah.
Adam Storey (51:59)
Hundred percent, yeah.
Yeah.
Sam (52:11)
Exactly. And
Adam Storey (52:11)
Yeah, yeah.
I mean
Sam (52:12)
it comes and it it comes back to that thing that you said where it's you you can't really ignore the compromise part of it where the the first thing you do is needs to be the priority and you will be compromising things later down in that session. So if you are pushing the heavy stuff first, you're naturally going to be compromising whatever comes later.
Adam Storey (52:23)
Mm.
Dan Plews (52:28)
Yeah. It's such an interesting concept though. And I I was on the the trainer this morning, I was just watching some YouTube videos and I was watching like Rich Ryan's one of his videos and he and and he was saying, he feels like strength the strength component of HYROX has been almost pushed aside by more and more coaches like it's not important, it's not important whereas and he said which he believes is not true. And I have to totally agree with him. It's
Adam Storey (52:53)
I agree. I agree.
Dan Plews (52:55)
It it's it seems to just be saying, strength doesn't matter, strength doesn't matter. Of of of course it matters. Like you need to be it's it's the it's the ceiling of everything. It's like saying VO2 match doesn't matter for for high rats. I s I even see that too why high rats why VO2 match isn't important for high rats. I can guarantee you having a high VO2 match will be very beneficial for high rates because at the end of the day it's your ceiling of everything. It it's your it's setting everything up. It's your overall capacity.
Adam Storey (53:01)
Yeah. I agree. I completely
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
I think
it's the maxing the matching t shirts that we were in, mate. was just gonna say it it's likening to the your VO two commentary the other day around the scaremongering with VO two max training. You know, and I think just 'cause it's the buzzword to sort of avoid that, it's too too harsh on the system. I I feel, you know, like the same kind of rhetoric has been spoken about strength and max strength work, you know, it's and it's kinda like
Dan Plews (53:32)
Yeah.
Adam Storey (53:45)
painting the picture that so many athletes and and coaches are just prescribing like these long three hour gym sessions, they're they're almost like powerlifting style sessions just for the sake of getting stronger. That that's not the case, you know, and it's putting a lot of people off the concept that, you know, at the end of the day, like strength is actually one of their primary limiters and they're they're probably not tapping into it as much because unfortunately they've heard so much commentary around it's all about strength endurance, strength endurance work. You know, so yeah, interesting.
Dan Plews (53:53)
Mm.
Sam (54:14)
If anything
was the most important for Hyrox, it would probably be the strength component and the VO2 max component. I mean the the from the strength side of things, Hyrox is interesting in that the the loads are known beforehand, right? You know what you're gonna be moving. So having more strength available to you just increases your opportunity for efficiency with those movements.
Dan Plews (54:36)
Yeah, I would s I would say that, but I do I still think that there is a there is a component though that like I I just think of Deadly Dozen, right? Like if I look at the Deadly Dozen, it's there's very you know, those the sixty reps, not that it's high rot, but it's still a good example, like it's a it's sixty reps, it's a lot of reps.
Like I I can do those. I'm not physically that strong a a bat squat, but I can easily do sixty reps without stopping. I can do the whole thing without stopping because I have that high higher strength endurance capacity. So it's it's not something that you want to ignore. But I would say that it y when you say it's the most important, it's probably is it the most I don't know if it we can say it's really the most it the most important to have the
Adam Storey (55:00)
Mm, mm, mm.
Dan Plews (55:20)
You know, is that determining the overall outcome the most, do you think? Really?
Sam (55:24)
Hmm.
Maybe not most important in that sense. The you you you can't do the movement if you don't have the strength available to you. And you can't do the strength the movement a lot if you don't have the strength available to you. So the strength endurance side of it is how efficient you are with the strength you've got. And you have high, high efficiency with the strength you've got. You know, like you said, you don't have the most strength available to you, but you're highly efficient with what you do have available to you.
Dan Plews (55:49)
So in in my particular case, it would be a case of improving my what what getting more available to me, whereas someone like you would be the opposite. Right. You would you would need to do a lot of like the slow tempo lifting, a lot of high repetitions. So so I mean I'm j aware of time and I and I really want to kind of close this out to to kind of bring it full circle to how we could bring this into
Sam (55:58)
Exactly.
Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Plews (56:11)
you know, someone listening to this who could bring in the force velocity profile and how you would program that into an overall lead up to an event. So for example, how how would we start? So for would we go, okay, we're gonna get we're gonna get the athlete, we do the force velocity profile, we assess their strengths and weaknesses, we say, okay, this person needs is very velocity velocity dependent, more velocity orientated.
We'll do a good strength block with them. And then as we do that, we can then build that up first. And then we move into the more demand-driven training that might be more kind of strength endurance, you more of your contrast kind of work. Whereas the opposite side, you might have the athlete who's more force dominant, you might start off with more velocity-based training and then get into the more demand-driven training. Because
Sam (57:02)
Yeah, that's kind of like what you
talk guys talked about in the last episode where in the lead up you you wanna be doing the the big changes to someone's sort of physiology. You wanna be doing that a a bit of a distance away from an event. You wanna be doing those big blocks if you're got someone who's velocity dominant and they need to be working on the force side. That's the stuff you do quite a ways away so that you can get into the more sports specific demand driven stuff closer to. The the thing with
Force velocity profiling when you have a clear dominance in something, because obviously there's there's scale to these dominances, you can be more velocity dominant than me, who's also velocity dominant, right? Your your proportion of that could be higher. The goal is to get to a point where that that slope, that relationship between the force and velocity in the movement, it's balanced, right? We're not actually forced.
Or velocity dominant anymore. We're we're more in the middle. Once we get to that, we've achieved the sort of the the right mix or balance of power output. And from there the goal is to go up and to the right. So you work on both equally, or you do one and then you do the other and you keep going back and forth. We want to the idea is to eliminate the dominance or the deficiency. So yeah, sorry. You gonna go?
Dan Plews (58:20)
Yeah, yeah.
Well it springs to mind, like I just think of like someone like Hunter McIntyre, who's I would say that he would be one person who I think of in the Elite 15 who is clearly everything's up and to the right. You know, he he's he's strong, he's got, you know, he's obviously got a high he can produce things under high vel with high velocity. so so the idea would be that you assess the athlete
you find out the where the weakness is, you push that side of the curve up, hopefully the other c side of the curve stays there as well. And then you j kind of just do more of an equal program where you're you're pushing the whole thing. But so would you say that it's I mean, how often would you have to then reassess that profile though?
Sam (59:01)
That's the beauty of these more accessible methods is we can do it pretty quickly and
Dan Plews (59:07)
Mm.
Sam (59:08)
Because we know that the relationship between force and velocity in compound movements is linear, you can actually get away with just doing two loads. So if we get an exposure at really high velocity and an exposure at really low velocity, so say 20% 1 rm and 80% 1 rm of a given movement, that linear relationship will be the same as if you did 10 loads or five loads.
Makes it really accessible and really quick to assess. So we can do it as often as you like. it depends on the it depends on a lot of circumstances. But if it's gonna be a six week block, we might measure at the start, apply the correction if we find there's a bit of a vel velocity dominance from where we wanna be. We'll apply that correction over the next six to twelve weeks, reassess at the end. Hopefully we made the change that we wanted to see. and go from there.
Dan Plews (1:00:00)
Very cool. Very cool.
Adam Storey (1:00:02)
Actually, Sammy, before we before we close off, man, like obviously you're in the final stages of your thesis now and we're doing the big data collection piece, which is mutually beneficial for anyone that gets involved. so with athletes out there, listeners who are keen to reach out and get a force velocity profile from you, from those movements we've got hip thrust, overhead press, and horizontal row, how can they get a hold of you, mate, and get some of this this data collected on them?
Sam (1:00:32)
That's a good question. I mean, I suppose Instagram is a pretty pla good place to find me, Sam underscore purchase on Instagram. You can send me a message. The the testing is all being held at AUT Millennium in Auckland. so as you alluded to, the you'd get a full force velocity profile on those three movements. All we need is participation. yeah, and hopefully we can give you some recommendations around training, depending on what we find in those force velocity profiles.
Dan Plews (1:00:58)
Do we get do you take all nationalities so we can even have some Australians flying over who are absolutely team? Or any any nationality really, you'll take anyone.
Sam (1:01:04)
I don't know. Are we allowing them? Yeah, we can allow the Australians, that's fine.
Yep, and and a and a key with that also is it's hi high rocks definitely, but we are looking for hybrid athletes. So if you've got interests in CrossFit, Hyrux, deadly dozen if you're just training for deadly dozen, any of those hybrid style sports and you've trained like that for at least six months, that's who we're looking for.
Adam Storey (1:01:25)
Mm.
Dan Plews (1:01:31)
Yeah. Well but I'm sure I mean w there's a loads of there's lots in in Auckland so male and female as well? Yeah. Excellent. Well, have you anything you'd like to add, Doctor Story, before we
Sam (1:01:36)
Yeah. Male and female, yep.
Adam Storey (1:01:38)
Mm-hmm.
no, I mean I I think that was a a really great chat and yeah, I I think it's it's we've we've touched on a lot and especially around the the max force side of things. And again, it's just about identifying what is the limiters for your athletes. Don't take that blanket approach and just say strength endurance is gonna be the the silver bullet that's gonna cure all. you know, it as Sam's amazing work both with his masters and
PhD is showing that, you know, that individualization with the training that's obviously gonna get the the most bang for your buck there. So exciting to see the results, man.
Dan Plews (1:02:20)
Nice.
Nice. And if anyone's in New Zealand, Sam, when can they come to your gym?
Sam (1:02:27)
we open the doors on July the first. so what is it? I think that's a Tuesday. But yeah, July the first, in Grafton. as I said, Chase Health and Performance website will be up. So if anyone wants to have a look, come check it out.
Dan Plews (1:02:42)
Nice.
Good man. Alright, boys. Ciao chao.
Adam Storey (1:02:44)
Awesome. Nice.
Sam (1:02:45)
Thanks guys.
