Randy Huntington: Keiser Seated Calf

In this conversation, Gabe Derman sits down with legendary performance coach Randy Huntington to discuss one of the most overlooked drivers of athletic performance: the calf complex. Drawing from more than 43 years of coaching experience with world-class athletes including Willie Banks, Mike Powell, and Su Bingtian, Randy shares how his understanding of lower-leg function evolved throughout his career and why he believes the plantarflexors play a critical role in speed, acceleration, force production, and athletic performance. 

The discussion explores the neuromuscular demands of elite sprinting, the role of the soleus and calf musculature in acceleration, and how Randy integrated the Keiser Seated Calf Press into his training systems. He explains what makes pneumatic resistance unique, how it allows athletes to train with greater intent and velocity, and why targeted calf development can influence performance across a wide range of sports. 

The conversation also examines how calf training impacts stiffness, reactivity, and force production, along with Randy's thoughts on the future of speed development and lower-leg training. Coaches, athletes, and performance professionals will walk away with a deeper appreciation for an area of training that is often overlooked but may have tremendous influence on performance outcomes. 

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All right, Randy Huntington. How are you, my friend? Good. It's a nice sunny morning here in Idaho. I'm liking

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it. Love to hear it. So last time we spoke, Randy, you, mentioned that you were working on becoming semi-retired.

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I've come to learn again that you're still working on being semi-retired. Yeah. So you're staying busy. What, what's

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new

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in your world? Well,

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I mean, you know, outside of Christian McCaffrey, and Luke,

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and, and Bijan

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for the, the last year, and

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not so much with Bijan. He comes in on occasion 'cause he's just... He's, he's, he's there. He's in Atlanta,

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and it's hard. But he comes in for a little refresher once in a while. And I

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think that what's important is for, you

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know, when you get these

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private, private coaches,

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you know, claiming my guys. You know, it's real easy to say my guys, but the really, the real

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issue is that these are the 49ers, and the Falcons, and the Commanders guys, and we are just along for

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the ride to get them ready for them. You know, it's important to always remember that, you know, with Shanahan,

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and Bobby, and both Dustin's taking care of business at the 49ers, it' really, really is that the real team,

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the thing that makes things happen for, like, Christian for instance,

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and for Luke, his people, and obviously a new coach in Atlanta for Bijan. So there's a whole lot of

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different things happening there. So it's fun. It's great to see these guys excel, you know, to work through the

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things that happen in

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football because it's a, it's a rough, rough game. My gosh, you know, you kinda forget. It's

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been a few years since I'd worked in it, since I worked with, uh, Christian's dad, with Eddie many, many

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years ago, 20, 27 years ago now. Yeah, to see them excel and then literally to help them- Yeah ...

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accelerate. Yeah. Yeah. And I was in, and I've been in China back and forth since we talked last too.

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So last year I w- went back to China for a bit to help with one of the province's jumpers,

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and they, they won their golds at their national games, which was what their goal was. And so that

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was, that was fun. You know, fun to see them do their thing. Will I go back to China?

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Don't

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know, you know. So when we think about, you know, semi-retired, we're gonna put the emphasis

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on the semi. Yeah. It's not as, it's, it's

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not like it... I guess it. would be like a semi-boneless ham. You know, it's still ham.

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There's still a bone, but it. just, you just keep getting pulled, and, you know, for me,

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the hard part is some of the guys I was working with are still competing, and,

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you know, it's hard

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to, it's hard

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to watch them fail when you- I appreciate it. Yeah. And, and, and really, you know, exciting to hear that,

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you know, you're obviously still involved. Obviously you had a, an amazing impact on so many people and, and so

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many athletes in the world of performance. So, you know, as long as we can keep you in it, I

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know we're all grateful. And before we get into

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this discussion related to,

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you know, the Keiser Seated Calf specifically, I'd love to start with maybe a bigger picture. We'll zoom out

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a little bit. You've coached for more than four decades some of the greatest speed and power athletes

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ever. Looking back, at what, point in your coaching career did you begin to realize that the, calf complex

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might be a bigger performance driver

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than maybe what most of us really appreciate?

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I think it's ... You know, I, I, I thought about this the other day, and I think it really

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goes back to, fundamentally goes back to a conversation I was having with Coach Robin Pound.

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It wasn't really a conversation. It was a little more of a heated

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discussion at the time. But not that heated. I mean, it was just.

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a fun, fun thing. Robin and I were contemporaries. She's a few years younger than me. But he, we went

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to school together. And Robin had contended that the calf... And he' was thinking, at that particular time, gastrocs. And

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I was thinking, yes, gastrocs were important, but the soleus was import- but,

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but, but the force you were applying to those was the first part of the equation.

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Of course, it, it' ends up being that that's the second part of the equation really. But

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that was kind of where it started. That was 1984 or '85, somewhere in there, you know. And then to

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take that further, I think that,

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you

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know, p- you, you, you were, you were asking me a little bit about when I came across the Seated

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Calf. And, you know, Dennis designed it

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for Willie Banks,

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so we were, we were user one for

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the Seated Calf, and, uh, we started using it in 1987 at UCLA. To put it in

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at UCLA, John Arce and Bobby Alejo were there, and Bobby Kersee, John Smith, all those guys. were, were still...

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They weren't using that w- w- that much, but Florence and, and Jackie were, and so they were utilizing it'

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early

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on as well, so. But it was designed for Willie, for Willie Banks. Right. So was there something there with

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the discussion of, hey, there's something that Willie is missing, or there's a missing piece of the puzzle here that

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we are not achieving through what is currently available that we need to address, so now, we need to design

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something- That- ... to accomplish

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that? At, that point, this thing was designed for, Willie's injury to help him rehab and work on his Achilles.

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And, you know, I had used the Seated Calf

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mass-based for a few years before that, and I could feel

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the difference. Uh,

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and I could see what was happening, why we needed to have this, that, you know, the fact that the

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soleus is the platform, the gastrocs are the active mover, and the soleus sets up the gas- set- sets up

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the gastroc. So the soleus is the

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stiffness, and the gastroc is the elasticity, if you wish.

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You can think of it' that way. And, and that was, that was where my head was going when,

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when w- And then when I got on the Seated Calf the first time, it' was like, "Yeah, okay.

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This gets it.

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Now, we're, now..." And, and, and the very first time anybody gets on it, and I'm sure you have experienced

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this, you, you get. that shaky calf, you know, th- that shaky motion, and,

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you

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know, it, it, it' was like, "Well, what's, what's wrong

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with, me," you know, kind of thing. That's what everybody asks. And not realizing that, you know, you're, you basically

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are set up

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to utilize everything in, the, your oral bi- is gravity-based, and those are your muscles firing in that sequence. It's

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sequencing and crap

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for, for 9.8 meters per second, per second. So that was... It took me a few minutes to

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figure out. It l- I' literally sat there that day, you know, why am I shaking, and came, figured out

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that it was because that's the rate my muscles were firing at, and they, didn't know, enough that the system

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was so fast that it' was catching it' in between firing. So it' was moving faster than my firing sequence

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and, and, that was a, that was an eye-opener

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right then, you know, that opened my eyes to, everything that, Keiser was doing 'cause I had used Keiser at

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Cal for... Put it, in at Cal in 1985 it

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was. So I had a sense of it, but not the se- not the calf. So take us to

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that, that, that Willie injury, that Achilles injury. Was it a tendinopathy? Was it a specific... Excuse me. I don't,

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I don't know. Was it a,

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uh- You know, that was the- ... a rupture? Well, it ended up being a rupture.

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That, that

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injury mostly came from-The shoes back in that, in those days, the heel cup, the heel counter,

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heel cup would dig, and whenever they'd go into full extension of the ankle, that heel counter would move into

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the Achilles. It was

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very sharp and very hard,

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and that was the, that was the main reason for a lot of Achilles issues back then. And do you

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recall Willie's first time being on it, maybe what his reaction was, right? You got on it, and you felt

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that.

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For Willie, nursing an injury- I don't-

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... dealing with an injury. Yeah ... you know, I, I don't recall. Well, he was s- he was already

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fairly recovered at that particular point, so we' used it.

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Yeah. Right.

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Later, like an- a year, almost a year later.

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Yeah.

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And, and then had surgery to repair it. But, you know, all we know,

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and all I can tell you is that during that year, we were able to get Willie to the point

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where he could land in his, in, in, in his hop and

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his step

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w- with a, with a

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almost a, a ball-of-the-foot landing, that he was gotten so strong that he wasn't dropping as much, and he wasn't

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absorbing as much, and that was the key. The key to being able to maintain his horizontal velocity

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through the jump was not absorbing, you know, we call them power leaks these

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days, absorption back then. But he was not absorbing. He was carrying his s- speed through and carrying the f-

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the, the force and the velocity through, and it was,

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that was key. You know, getting him to be able to not absorb all of that in the foot to

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begin with, and then the knee went, and then the hip went, and it just followed. So that, that

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foot set up the absorption of everything else, all the, the joints above it. Right. So it sounds like this

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calf press, once you were able to get on

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the Seated Calf, kind of became this eye-opener, right? You had the chance to experience it. You felt

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the shakiness. Then I imagine you

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started to think, "Okay, like, where does this fit into my training? Where do, where..." You know. Well, it fit

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in immediately. How

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do I integrate...

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Right. How do I integrate this with what I'm doing, you know? I'm just curious to hear

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your thought process and how that evolved from your first time getting on that through, like-

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It,

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there- ... "Okay" ... there wasn't- "This needs to be a part of it." It wasn't as complicated as that.

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It was,

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we need this, you know, obviously, 'cause it was him and Mike Powell and Al Joyner and Gordon Lane. All

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four of them were, were, were with me at that point.

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And, um, it,

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it, it became apparent to me pretty quickly what it was gonna do in terms of giving me ankle

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stability, ankle

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stiffness, you know, losing the power leaks in the, in the ankle. Whether it was in hurdling for Al

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or triple jumping for Al and Willie or long jumping for Gordon and Mike, you know, it, it... At

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first I was thinking it was gonna help with

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the takeoff, and then I realized, no, it's really helping more in the sprints, and 'cause the takeoff's flat-footed, we

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weren't, we, it didn't really help as much there. But it helped us in everything up until that point. So

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it was a, it was a, a milestone piece of equipment in my view. You know, and that was 40

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years ago almost, 39 years ago now. It's hard to believe. Yeah, I was gonna say, I mean, y-

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you are one of the most qualified Keiser historians out

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there. So- There's a, there's a few of us. N- there's a few of us. There's a few, a guy,

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other... Some of them are gone now. Yeah,

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I mean, I've, I'm

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in

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my f- 43rd year of using Keiser. Doesn't

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seem possible. 44 y- 44 years. Yeah. So as you've thought about, let's j- let's just kind of exclude Keiser

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here for a second, but w- in terms of the neuromuscular role that the calf complex plays, right, in track

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and field, in some of these events,

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long jump, triple jump, sprint, where do you see its biggest contribution? Before you had mentioned kind of this absorption

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phase or, or during power leaks. You notice now, during sprinting and not necessarily takeoff. Like, to you, where does

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this play the biggest role? And we' can break that down into different events even if you' want

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to. Yeah. Well, I think it plays two roles, but the first one is in acceleration. You know, when

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you've got a, a very good platform to push off of, and you're not absorbing that platform, absorbing in

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that platform and foot contact, that's, that is... You

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know, people don't realize how weak they are in the soleus. They just don't know. Your offensive lineman, defensive

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lineman are usually pretty strong there because they're already knee bent- Right ... and using it quite a bit,

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you know, in, in,

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in, in their, just in their positions. Rugby the same. But, you know, in,

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in the sprinting world, it's a static

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start, and, you know, you're, you're bet- basically postured in the blocks, and that first step, people just,

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they, they don't get that by step three to five you're already at close to 80%,

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75 to

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80% of your max velocity already. So, you know, in order to project yourself through that kind, those kind of

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forces, you gotta have a platform to push off of, and that's, that's

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it. Now, farther down, and I'm w- seeing it with Christian this year, you see he's starting to bounce off

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the ground again. You know,

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farther down the track, you start looking at ground contact times,

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you know? And, uh, when Ralph Mann was originally w- working, when I brought him over to China to work

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with Su, you know, originally S- it was one of the big flags

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for him was Su's ground contact times are too slow. And I, and I told him, I said, "Well, working

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on that, let's see what happens." And two years later, almost two years later, he had the fastest ground contact

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times Ralph had ever. measured, so which is, that's faster than Coleman and any of the guys in the States.

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So we, we'd accomplished that goal,

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and I can tell you, and, and this is something that's not negative to Keiser, but it' is something you

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have to, be prepared for, and that is that they can get so good at ground contact that they,

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it surpasses their ability to create force in that same contact time. And in Su's case, I actually had to

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take him off Keiser for three weeks and put him back in mass base so he could feel again,

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and then I brought him back. So I had to go back and forth a little bit because he lost

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the feeling of what it was to create force in the ground even though he was quick on the ground,

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and that worked very well, by the way. Y- you know, and, and when I say that, it's like it,

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it's not going to a mass based Seated Calf. It's going to plyos and other things to actually integrate that

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into your real world, and you probably hear me say, talk about integration a lot, and, you know, that's the

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art of coaching in my view. But it's also... But, you know, at the integration, I call them integration tools,

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and, you know, the stuff we do in the weight room, we have to have some bridge

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to the actual performance, and those

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bridges are 1080 sleds,

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plyos, hurdle hops. I mean, those aren't hurdle hop, but a, a series of other things, including just freaking running

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itself or sprinting itself. You know, or sprinting in spikes is much different than sprinting in flats. All those things

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are, are, are integration tools. Yeah, so-So rewinding for one second, those athletes that you see, like you had

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mentioned rugby, defensive,

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offensive lineman,

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right? Th- they, during their push off, right, they end up staying in knee flexion for longer periods of time.

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based on their sport. So they actually get that work in the soleus. Versus a sprinter,

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like you had mentioned from a static start, yeah, they're in knee flexion to begin, but after a few steps

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they lose that, a lot of that knee flexion during that push off, and now they're more in a

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vertical position and, you know, become maybe more gastroc, soleus activation like they were before. Is that correct?

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Yeah, and you can see it.

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You know, I mean, when you take it and you, you look at, let's say, the tracings, uh,

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the graphs if you wish, on 1080 or T-Apex or any of the other devices that are out there that

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have good tracings.

00:12:54.068 --> 00:12:58.708
You know, in, in Su... And, you know, these, this went for all the sprinters. And, and Tony Wells had

00:12:58.768 --> 00:13:04.328
pointed this out long, long time ago, geez, 40 years ago plus, that, like the third or fourth step most

00:13:04.448 --> 00:13:09.428
athletes collapsed in their calf.. And, and that was born out to be true when we started doing the 1080

00:13:09.488 --> 00:13:11.048
work. We saw step two,

00:13:11.168 --> 00:13:16.768
three, four, one of those you ended up with a collapse. Some of it was shin angle, where it was

00:13:16.808 --> 00:13:22.328
the shin at the point because it was positioning the foot so that it couldn't actually sustain the force

00:13:22.368 --> 00:13:22.968
or react to

00:13:23.008 --> 00:13:28.068
it. And that, that was a technical issue. But then we were looking at just the calf itself, which, well,

00:13:28.128 --> 00:13:30.228
Tony didn't do any seated calf work,

00:13:30.368 --> 00:13:32.888
you know. Tony was a great guy, and rest in peace,

00:13:33.008 --> 00:13:33.888
my man. But, um,

00:13:34.448 --> 00:13:37.738
he, he pointed that out to us very early. And so w-

00:13:38.028 --> 00:13:41.768
I always look for it. I was just wondering... But then it showed up in the graphs with Su. It

00:13:41.788 --> 00:13:44.968
showed up two and three were collapsing. And then you have video,

00:13:45.088 --> 00:13:50.758
slow-mo, and so you go, "Su, look, here's where you have a problem. You're collapsing here, and, and this is

00:13:50.788 --> 00:13:55.988
creating this problem in steps four, five." So, I mean, we were diagnosing steps right up through seven, eight, nine,

00:13:56.208 --> 00:14:01.228
and looking at how we can help him in his acceleration. And, and, and then, and then the ankle collapse

00:14:01.288 --> 00:14:05.008
was the issue. He was collapsing. And if you re- If you've, if you've heard me,

00:14:05.048 --> 00:14:10.338
talk about it, he had really, really weak soleus. I mean, it, was... I was shocked how weak his soleus

00:14:10.408 --> 00:14:15.528
was, seriously. 'Cause he has big calves, you know. They're not small. But they weren't strong. So once you're able

00:14:15.548 --> 00:14:19.768
to identify that, right, show him, "Hey, you have this collapsing here on these steps, and w- we need to

00:14:19.828 --> 00:14:24.868
now. address this. This ties into the re-engineering of Su, right? We've heard you speak on that before and present

00:14:24.877 --> 00:14:26.048
on that. Yeah. How long did it

00:14:26.108 --> 00:14:29.028
take, right, to start? Was this immediate, "Hey, we need to go right

00:14:29.068 --> 00:14:34.448
to Keiser seated calf. and, start working on this"? How many sessions? How long did it take to then see

00:14:34.508 --> 00:14:38.028
results where you're no longer seeing that collapsing, right? And, there's a couple other things to do

00:14:38.048 --> 00:14:40.988
with that. You mentioned 1080, you mentioned plyometrics. Yeah. Other ways other than

00:14:41.048 --> 00:14:45.328
just that. But, like, really, for you, how long did that process take to finally start to see, results? Was

00:14:45.368 --> 00:14:48.068
it immediate? Was it, you know- No. It, it took, it took a while, it takes

00:14:48.108 --> 00:14:55.108
a while. It's, it's probably full integration into your technique is maybe 18 months, maybe a little bit less. But

00:14:55.168 --> 00:14:56.028
it's a, it's a, it's a

00:14:56.248 --> 00:14:56.908
period of time.

00:14:57.428 --> 00:14:57.628
I mean,

00:14:58.068 --> 00:15:02.848
you're gonna get, you'll get fairly strong pretty quickly in the soleus. You know what I mean? You know, if

00:15:02.868 --> 00:15:07.288
you look at the, the details, I mean, the soleus accepts, I think it's eight... And, and, this is just

00:15:07.328 --> 00:15:11.968
in striding, is, you know, like eight times body weight, and the gastroc is, like, three to five times

00:15:12.028 --> 00:15:16.988
body weight. I mean, the soleus actually ex- is, is a much stronger, it's a slow-twitch muscle. It's not a

00:15:17.028 --> 00:15:22.988
fast-twitch muscle. So it can't react fast enough, you know. And that's the key. It's not a reactive muscle.

00:15:23.048 --> 00:15:25.278
It is a st- it's a, it's a structural,

00:15:25.328 --> 00:15:28.028
if you wish- Mm-hmm ... postural muscle really.

00:15:28.338 --> 00:15:31.048
Has other func- Right. As you mentioned before, it, it provides that platform. Yeah. It

00:15:31.088 --> 00:15:37.248
has other functions, of, course. And the gastroc that really provides that elasticity. Mm-hmm. And so for Su, we just

00:15:37.288 --> 00:15:40.108
start monitoring him. Okay, so now we're doing seated calf, we're

00:15:40.118 --> 00:15:42.988
doing sled march, heavy sled marches, which is

00:15:43.068 --> 00:15:46.188
also a part. So we'd seated calf, sled march,

00:15:46.588 --> 00:15:51.008
1080 faster, and then we slowly but surely... It literally took, it took him about a year and a

00:15:51.068 --> 00:15:54.018
half before we had moved through every,

00:15:54.488 --> 00:16:00.108
every step in his first seven steps was no, no collapse. And then there' was Tokyo, basically.

00:16:00.148 --> 00:16:00.848
You know, that's,

00:16:01.028 --> 00:16:02.988
I mean- What, what happened there? Yeah.

00:16:03.048 --> 00:16:06.048
You know, well, he was ready. He's just ready. I mean, fortunately

00:16:06.068 --> 00:16:10.108
in the final he, he, you know, he'd never run that fast. Anybody who ever runs that fast knows

00:16:10.248 --> 00:16:11.148
that what it feels like.

00:16:11.188 --> 00:16:12.428
You're, you're exhausted.

00:16:12.848 --> 00:16:13.948
You know, you really, it's really

00:16:14.008 --> 00:16:17.208
hard to do that. And, and on, on my, on my side,

00:16:17.868 --> 00:16:22.128
my faults was I probably never, did not do enough long speed endurance with

00:16:22.228 --> 00:16:25.968
him. I think for him that would be 120s, 150s, 'cause he just couldn't handle much

00:16:26.008 --> 00:16:30.208
beyond that. And, you know, so he wasn't really ready to take that

00:16:30.588 --> 00:16:32.828
speed that he got and, and handle it

00:16:33.108 --> 00:16:37.488
really well. Which you could see. It was pretty evident in the last 20 meters of that, that, that semifinal.

00:16:37.728 --> 00:16:41.048
But when it, by the time he got to the final, he was exhausted, and then you had a

00:16:41.068 --> 00:16:43.008
false start. And with that false start I knew it

00:16:43.028 --> 00:16:47.168
was over. I'm like, damn it, that was it. He had one left in him. With the soleus

00:16:47.528 --> 00:16:49.408
being more this structural,

00:16:50.088 --> 00:16:55.118
uh, slow-twitch muscle, can you expand on how you actually trained it with the Keiser seated

00:16:55.188 --> 00:16:59.968
calf press? Was it a lot of heavy concentric work, isometric, eccentric work? Like, how did

00:17:00.008 --> 00:17:04.808
you attack the training of that knowing that it needed to be developed for Su? It was a cou- a

00:17:04.848 --> 00:17:09.968
couple different things. We did, we did some isos, but that was second, that was the second part. First was

00:17:10.008 --> 00:17:15.258
just to get it strong. You know, that's always your first thing. Strength comes first. Control you could say comes

00:17:15.288 --> 00:17:20.907
first, but in this case it's on a machine, so control's pretty easy. But, uh- Mm-hmm ... strength comes first.

00:17:20.948 --> 00:17:25.968
So we looked at s- just getting him stronger, and then we started looking at power after that. So

00:17:26.008 --> 00:17:32.088
we'd get him up to about 240 kilos, in there, that range. And he's, and then, then once

00:17:32.148 --> 00:17:35.188
we hit that, we brought him back down to around two, and now we start

00:17:35.228 --> 00:17:39.328
going for, for, for speed, for as much speed as you can possibly

00:17:39.368 --> 00:17:44.008
muster. Which isn't a lot, but it's there. And the, and, and that, the result of that, of course, was

00:17:44.048 --> 00:17:45.008
the creation of power.

00:17:45.408 --> 00:17:48.988
And, and I think we always have to keep in mind that something, that power is something we

00:17:49.068 --> 00:17:54.468
create. It's not something that you train, you know. It's, it's, it's, I think people miss that. It's, it's a

00:17:54.528 --> 00:17:54.968
goal

00:17:55.028 --> 00:17:57.028
more than it is a training

00:17:57.208 --> 00:18:02.268
system. And that's really important to remember, because you can get yourself all wrapped

00:18:02.348 --> 00:18:06.768
up in, "I wanna train power today." And, well, wait a minute. No, no. Power is a result. So if

00:18:06.808 --> 00:18:09.118
you wanna train it, you're either gonna do force or velocity

00:18:09.448 --> 00:18:10.288
or some combination

00:18:10.308 --> 00:18:14.090
of the two to create your powerSo in any case, he went from

00:18:14.140 --> 00:18:16.220
that 760 range to,

00:18:16.700 --> 00:18:17.200
well, I think

00:18:17.680 --> 00:18:21.980
h- l- his last one was around 2,800 watts over a period of several years. And when you

00:18:22.020 --> 00:18:23.180
start getting that kind

00:18:23.220 --> 00:18:28.010
of power, then you're looking at... I do watts per kilogram. He weighed 70. Right. You could

00:18:28.060 --> 00:18:33.560
do the math on that. 28, 20, I think it was 28, 20-something, and divided by 71, and then you

00:18:33.620 --> 00:18:36.940
get watts per kilogram. And I've, that's, I'm looking for that change.

00:18:37.120 --> 00:18:43.340
So I'm looking at how can I relate his strength, power, disease to him, and then how can I relate

00:18:43.360 --> 00:18:43.900
that to

00:18:44.100 --> 00:18:50.120
others as well? So the watts per kilogram is where I always go for, for looking at normali- normalizing and,

00:18:50.140 --> 00:18:52.160
and being able to compare to others. Yeah, absolutely.

00:18:52.200 --> 00:18:54.000
I mean, you, you answered my next question

00:18:54.060 --> 00:18:58.000
right there' was, you know, do you start to develop some KPIs based off

00:18:58.060 --> 00:19:03.000
of that? And now taking watts per kilogram from the Keiser seated calf press,

00:19:03.320 --> 00:19:04.000
that kinda became

00:19:04.040 --> 00:19:04.840
your standard, right?

00:19:05.680 --> 00:19:05.820
40,

00:19:06.260 --> 00:19:09.060
right, watts per kilogram? Yeah, whatever that comes out to. I can't even remember. But yeah,

00:19:09.180 --> 00:19:12.700
it was- Roughly ... it was very close to that. Roughly. Yeah. And that was pretty big. I mean, I

00:19:12.760 --> 00:19:16.319
had, on the Keiser rack, the driver rack, on the ra- on the Keiser

00:19:16.400 --> 00:19:23.920
squat, I think my highest was Gao Xinglong, and he was very close to s- uh, 70 watts per kilogram,

00:19:24.180 --> 00:19:25.180
which was amazing,

00:19:25.560 --> 00:19:27.180
'cause he was really small and

00:19:27.220 --> 00:19:31.900
very strong. You know, he was a really light guy. I don't even think he weighed... He might've weighed 62

00:19:31.950 --> 00:19:33.100
kilos. That's a big

00:19:33.160 --> 00:19:36.260
number. 70 watts per kilogram is a huge

00:19:36.360 --> 00:19:37.880
number, you know? Absolutely.

00:19:38.080 --> 00:19:39.240
So did that

00:19:39.300 --> 00:19:44.040
become, did that become not only a training tool for you, right, but really from the start

00:19:44.080 --> 00:19:48.080
for anyone you're working with, potentially an assessment tool? Well, yeah. No, it was an assessment tool right away. Always

00:19:48.120 --> 00:19:49.000
had been, you know, from

00:19:49.040 --> 00:19:51.000
the time power showed up. You know,

00:19:51.040 --> 00:19:55.020
and I, and, and, and I think Ty did this a little bit too when he was at Texas. Now,

00:19:55.100 --> 00:19:58.270
I won't speak for him, but this is something- that- I was doing. When we didn't have

00:19:59.560 --> 00:20:04.010
Omega Wave or something else to give me HRV, or we weren't doing a jump test or

00:20:04.020 --> 00:20:08.190
whatever, you know, if we had a jump mat, we had the Wilson mat with Omega Wave, so I could,

00:20:08.320 --> 00:20:09.240
I could do a jump test

00:20:09.300 --> 00:20:11.160
and, and get neural load,

00:20:11.700 --> 00:20:13.260
uh, results. And then we used the Keiser

00:20:13.400 --> 00:20:16.980
squat, and it gave me neural load. I just looked at? the power every day. And

00:20:17.020 --> 00:20:21.220
you could come in and do four reps, boom, boom, boom, get out of there. You could do a lot

00:20:21.240 --> 00:20:26.480
of people very quickly, and you could see whether they're, where they are from, you know, day-to-day comparison. So it

00:20:26.540 --> 00:20:28.000
can be an assessment tool in

00:20:28.060 --> 00:20:28.560
terms of

00:20:29.300 --> 00:20:32.960
neural loading. And you can see. It- you can use it in the beginning to start

00:20:33.020 --> 00:20:34.890
to, to set up your,

00:20:35.100 --> 00:20:39.110
uh, periodization plan. You know, it's, it, it, it, it's a small little tool to help

00:20:39.180 --> 00:20:39.560
you get

00:20:40.160 --> 00:20:42.840
to know, oh, I did too much, so they're down, you know?

00:20:43.020 --> 00:20:48.020
And, you know, I'm gonna actually start using that again with, with Christian Bichon here, 'cause

00:20:48.040 --> 00:20:51.140
we're gonna do a little general prep for a couple weeks. And I don't wanna dig a big

00:20:51.160 --> 00:20:52.940
hole, but I wanna dig a little hole,

00:20:53.180 --> 00:20:56.960
you know? And that's gonna become the first thing we do every day when we go in the

00:20:57.000 --> 00:20:59.030
weight room, is we're gonna test and just see where they are