The Elevated Athlete Podcast with Colin Griffin

Welcome to the elevated athlete podcast, the show that dies deeper into the philosophies of some of the most accomplished coaches and via practitioners in the industry. This is how the elite minds think, how they solve complex problems and how they build systems that actually hold up under pressure, with clear takeaways that you can apply immediately. But that's not it, where every podcast release will also be producing a piece of study review exclusive to Elevator IQ subscribers that takes you out of the classroom and onto the pitch. If you want to understand how the best in the business operate and come away with actionable blueprints, then Elevator IQ is a place for you. Now, let's get into the episode. Welcome to another episode of the elevated athlete podcast. I've got Colin Griffin with me today, so if you are aware of Colin's work, you'll know that he's a master of cast and Achilles. And so Colin, welcome on me. Pleasure to have you on board. Thanks, Alan. Thanks for having me on. Did I have to be here and have a look at our good chat now on the next one? Yeah, I've got some, I've got some comfort balls that are going away, mate. So we'll see, we'll see where it goes. Just for the people listening, do you mind giving us just a real brief intro to you, what you do and kind of your previous work that's kind of led you down this path? Sure. Yeah, so I'm based in Dublin. I work at the UK and C Sports Certificate, which is like a sports medicine department, because part of a, I suppose, a network of sports medicine centers around Ireland under the UK and C Group, which is a hospital company based out of Pittsburgh. So they bought our parent hospital sports certificate about three years ago. So a little bit of change over the last few years in terms of management and that and how we operate, but I suppose the fundamentals have been there for the last 10, 12 years. So I started working in the sports certificate back in 2014, so 12 years ago, come in from early sister and ignition coach, who have been sort of pigeonholed down the sort of lower limb rehab specialist area and specialised a lot in the killers and calf injuries. And to the point where I did a PhD in the kid is rehab and lower limb body mechanics. And I finished that just almost three years ago. So yeah, so a few that's a little different strands of my role, primarily like lower limb injury rehab, performance, SNC and research, and I suppose they've been around the education side as well. And then prior to that, I had a good career in elite sports, but I don't say good, I had a mixed career in elite sports, as well as actually stay with never always perfect, but you don't have to run the lot along the way and go for a few hard knocks, but yeah, a competition internationally has 50k race walker, got to two Olympic games, retired as well as like most at least incomplete sport like I do as much like I do, trying to move on into other areas. So I guess my only experience as an elite sport inspired me down this career path. I always say to people I wasn't the most talented at least I was a bit of a grafter. I'm always trying to master things, had a very curious mind. So I was always kind of seeking out expertise and trying to learn a bit more on the settings better, had a dual, I suppose, coaching career alongside competing as an elite fellow at least Olympic Games in London 2012. And then it was also about the partitions I would have worked with as an elite over the years who definitely left an impact on me. Just two different things in terms of at least partitions of interaction, being able to dig deeper to try and problem solve. So some of those people, again, too many to name here, but a lot definitely made me the American me as well. And that alongside people that worked it over the years and have maybe had within me one work environment and then people, you know, if I've chat as well as I still have my work also as well have had an influence on me. Hello, Virgione. I'm already about to go off piece on this podcast here. Colin, did you ever suffer with any kind of coffee, a kelly'sy foot issues that kind of almost sparked you down that route as an athlete to then go dig deeper or not? So much a small bit of a killer is injuries in early 20s. It wasn't a common injury in race walking. It doesn't get the same way as running. Had a lot more to be out of interior tendon type injuries or a teen to send a virus injuries. Had a few hamstring injuries, hip and growing stuff, low back stuff. Not so much caffeine in a kelly. So so I'm going to start out working in the clinic, seeing a lot of runners initially and seeing a lot of calf injuries and just questioning, you know, back then, you know, everything was, you know, the clue is, you know, our problem, solve every problem. Whereas I was like, you know, actually, why don't we think we're building a capacity in the calf muscles and made it fit for purpose? And even the whole area of tendon research was, I think, asking the wrong questions, you know, very much one dimensionally. Essentials only or is it? Essentials only or how does that prepare someone to get back playing competitive sport if we're just focusing on one next size more? And again, in fairness, some people have pushed for two different models in terms of like, you know, working through your plyometric phases and building up the capacity to get back to running. So again, that was, that was in, in touch to me to sort of ask deeper questions and that was, took up a good program at PhD. Well, we'll get into the, we'll get into kind of the overarching philosophy around those kind of calf injuries in a bit. But one of the things I did want to ask you on, and this is what we talked about offline was a little bit around like anatomy and diagnosis, because I think for, particular, dip for physios too, but particularly for the SNC coaches, there's probably a little bit of, you know, smoking mirrors and a little bit of confusion around, well, if I've got a central tendon or I've got an apple on your horses or I've got X, Y and Z and this is the greeting. What does that actually mean for my timelines and what should I be doing with that in terms of my rehab? So, do you mind going through a little bit of an anatomy kind of overview and the diagnosis around some of the big ones we see? So differences between delays and gastroctares, medium lateral tendon versus no tendon involvement and just kind of give us a bit of an overview so we can kind of get our grasp of it. Yeah, I suppose, what's beginning to announce to me is suppose the most important consideration is that the aponurosis is an anchor point for most of the fascicles to transmit force. So you've got your peripheral aponurosis. Some regions are like pure aponurose, it's a tissue or the reason they're more kind of softer, more professional tissue. So, and that's where your classification is, come into play there. So again, and then you got your intramuscular tendons or aponurosis, like your central tendon and soleus, your meat, your gastrointramuscular hyponurosis, your proximate tendon is arched and, you know, same and any muscle you got your intramuscular tendons, but hamstrings, you know, and rect femenins and all the rest. So they are like, you know, they're like a flash tenon tissue that has to act as an anchor point for muscle fascicles to transmit force within the muscle, between compartments and the peripheral aponurosis have to transmit force between neighboring muscles. So undergo is a lot of stress, you have a lot of anatomical variations which will probably deviate a little bit more later on. So and again, a good chunk of the muscle, particularly the soleus, by 12% of the soleus muscle is made up of an eventually muscular, of connective tissue. So you know, even though those strong muscles like the soleus, they're quite strong, they're quite metabolic deficient, but the aponurosis is supposed to, it's very exposed to a lot of force going through it and sometimes tenon tissue remodels at a slower ratio, you know, then muscle tissue and you can get newer adaptations for our quickly tendon, like tendons, structural adaptations. So that's the challenge when it comes to injuries. I think understanding that is a starting point. In the soleus, you've got like your central tendon is continuous with the killer's tendon, so if you look at the soleus, say in short, access, the central tendon kind of sticks out like a tongue, at the bottom or the fuse with the killer's tendon and it kind of crosses the soleus. If you look at the side, it's kind of crosses back to front and it starts on the anterior aponurosis. And if you look tap down, you've got like a little ring or an arc, which is called a posterior proximal tendon as arch. From that, the medial and natural intramuscular aponurosis hang down. So then you've got your own attempt at varying C, you can have a bigger intramuscular aponurosis on one side, so you might have a bigger in the lateral or a bigger medial or vice versa. You can have different sort of morphologies of a central tendon, you can have an accessory central tendon, and you can also have the absence of a medial or lateral intramuscular aponurosis, you might only have one. So again, no one knows it in the anatomical variations and recognize them as important. And then if you look broader, then at the gastrox, you've got more peripheral aponurosis, that covers the medial and natural gastrocnemus. And then as you run this leaf on the medial gastrox, you've got a free aponurosis tissue called the free gastrocaponurosis or the gastrochronaut. And the forms where I describe as a V junction, where the aponurosis fuse but the soleus is aponurosis. So I kind of treat that similarly to the T junction hamstrings. You've got a junction that has sort of opposing shear forces from individual muscles, and sometimes you can have a combination of a mechanical fatigue. And the aponurosis tissue or a mis-timing or a force vector that can cause a terror or rupture to that kind of zone after the medial gastrox drains. And as well as if you put it all together, like the kid is tendon is made up of fascicles from the tree muscles and an injury to the tendon can impact how those muscles coordinate and so if you get in the killer tendon up, in most cases you see the lateral gastroch suffering a lot more, loses tension a lot more because it's got even though the tree muscles we simplify them and call them the calf, but they've actually got different types of architecture. The lateral gastrochron is more longer, most of the fascicles compared to the medial gastrochron. The soleus has got more multi-pinished fascicles, so they can vary to fiber ribbons around the different needs of the muscles. So they do differ. And our bodies can find clearer ways to coordinate and change how those muscles, at an individual level, can function and can change the architecture of it. So the gastrochron would attend an apathy can suffer a lot more. Would it take a lot of rupture? Oftentimes the medial gastrochron can suffer a lot more because when you have a rupture and you have a repair, do you lose that kind of spiral and ask me that the kid is tendon has and that can impact various tension risks. So I've often got a bit there now. It's something you want me to come back on for your free time. So I think it's safe to say from an anatomical perspective, it's complex, there's a shitload going on. And you have to be very skilled to be able to pick apart the different diagnosis and understanding what that means relative to timelines, relative to exercise selection, relative to KPIs, all that stuff. that rehab coaches do. If we were to pull back a little bit and simplify it up a little bit, how do you approach the kind of, you mentioned the whole intramuscular tendon and the central tendon, how do you differentiate in terms of just beginning to lay out your rehabs between no tendon involvement and tendon involvement at a really basic watch your general kind of headlines that you take away. If it's an intramuscular tendon it's going to have a worse prognosis, it's going to be a longer time frame and you've got to take your time and take off your KPIs and be absolutely sure, especially if it's the first time you want to get a right, if it's a recurrence, you do need to try and take your time in it and get a right second around. So yeah, the intramuscular tendon is going to have more of a more worse prognosis because you have a lot of force, it's transmitted within the muscle. If it's a peripheral apprenosis, probably more favorable prognosis, if it's more my facilitation, like in A, it's again, it's more favorable prognosis. Again, you need your gastroxtrains, particularly like your which bends your classification to go with, but if I kind of generally lean towards pedra, self-sterm classification, so like your two A to B and your ones are more favorable. But the sole is going to, sole is the most return and is going to have a longer prognosis if you're talking, you know, the best case scenario of 30 days, which could be 40 days or more, you know, depending on the injury, the player profile, the athlete profile, the mechanism of injury, you know, the type of sport they play, the position to play all that sort of stuff. And again, instead of their physiology, whether they're more explosive athletes or more of a metabolic sort of grinder, you know, that's going to impact you, your directory, where you haven't, to watch your clock, does he want to take as you return them back? Well, we'll get into, we'll discuss a case study and kind of specifically go through the kind of phases and the progressions a bit later. But one of the things that you just mentioned there that I was kind of curious on is you, clearly inside your head have all these contextual factors that, you know, if this is involved, that's this mechanism, it's this type of athlete, it could be this athlete's age, etc. Do you have, do you have any like roles of thumb that you apply to almost like add multipliers to the timeline generally? So as I was in this stance out to you specifically that makes you go, this isn't just simply a to be or a to see, is there anything that can, they can almost apply a little bit of a more context that then changes your opinion on that timeline? Yeah, if I can access their my scans that we'll look at it even if they have their diagnosis and the radiology report, I will look at the images to look for any anatomic variants. Look, see, have they got a bigger or smaller, um, medial elastic compartments off, have they got a bigger medial compartment? Because the center turn is this more naturally, so you got a bigger volume of muscle on the medial side, and a safe example is that if there's a medial intramus graph in your osse, that's injured and it's a bigger muscle, a bigger apinoid tissue area and a bigger volume of muscle compartment, that's going to have a, that's supposed to work as prognosis because you rely on that, and that in that compartment you put a lot of force to that compartment. So in my head I'd be thinking about trying to build up the other side, the less dominant side and maybe add some hypertrophy to it and a bit more, you know, a bit more foresharing, so look at the broader lateral gastro-lock of the perineals, um, try and just build up the lateral compartment a bit more to take some load off the medial compartment. And while at the same time building up a capacity when the time is right on the medial compartments, um, sorry, cool. John Penn, would you use your eye? I know obviously you've got a big skill set around reading scans and be, and almost be surrounded by a bunch of great consultants who can read scans and provide great level detail in the reporting. Would you, would you, if you didn't have access to that, for example, like just a regular feziouin clinic, would you trust your eye from a cross-sectional area perspective when they're doing calf raises, whether that be neutral, whether it be envy or devourted, would you use that or not? Yeah, no, it's a good question. I would, yeah, I mean, I would, um, obviously you can't really, you can't really get it now, you for like, within the sole is what the compartment dominance is, but you could look at the shape of the medial and lateral gastro-lock that might give you some clues, you've got a really big medial gastro-lock and a very lateral feet lateral gastro-lock that might suggest the lateral side is less dominant and, um, not doing a spare share. Watch how to do a calf raise, if they tend to, as most people do, turn the foot out and do the calf raise, um, it would probably give clues that they tend to rely a lot on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on load on the major side, and they'd like their lateral side. Yeah. So those at least can, and then you could look a bit broader and look at their inversion, inversion strength, look at the synodric, and if they weaken, the inversion, then again, the pronials aren't really functional properly, so again, that way just had to, had to build a picture, look at how they roll as well, and you know, put, what are the fit and the sort of prolation, supination and the spectrum, or somewhere in between, and have the load to the foot during mid stance and the stadium, the sort of the social. Here's the, here, again, let's, let's just, let's just throw all the podcast notes out of the window and just go down a rabbit hole, why not? Um, so when you're watching somebody run, I, I love this conversation. So you're talking about, you're watching them supinate, pronate, mid stance, touchdown, toe off, what are the things just generally that you're looking for? Like, I know that's a very hard question, tantacres is not just a specific, but generally, what are you looking at? I try to match up what I see in my assessments, my clinical assessments, my imaging, my performance tests with what is with the running pattern. So again, as we say, in clinical picture, and so again, for example, if I saw someone with a, a cave is foot type, a high arch, quite stiff, it was like running and have the ability to unlock or not, and that's just what be there anatomy. And we've got to work with that. So we got to, in that case, we've got to make sure that the pernials are working properly and about the e-version strengths. If someone's under in the spectrum and got a flat foot type, we've got to make sure the tip hosts are working properly and they've got some bit of medial, medial foot strength and capacity built up. So, maybe there are things that we're looking at trying to match up my assessments. Again, just looking broadly, like quite where the fish and that sort of, I often lean towards that kind of due-laxis framework that is a Dutch guy, Vanuverin, proposed back in 2021, this paper, and James Huyl, as a similar sort of model and I like that because you can just subgroup at least into where the fish and that's in the spectrum where they're more cadence or frequency dominant, more straight length dominant, more fly time dominant or other s, so where the fit on that. And if someone's got like short step high cadence, they're going to be more hit dominant and maybe not loading the calves as much whereas someone's quite long on the ground. And big pushers, they're probably relying on the soleus because it's a big accelerate of the center mass and a big supporter with the vast majority of muscles of mid stance, pervian vertical support. So again, just trying to match up, how would they move, how would that might potentially load the muscles that are affected, how would they match up with my assessments, and then try to, I suppose, another thing that I might put a plan from there. Absolutely, love it. So just to clarify that, that is, so if they are, what I recall, I call them a dump part, but basically if you prune it heavily through stance and you really rely on that big tool and connect and through that kind of medial arch, you're saying that your tip post is an important one to try and almost bring that arch and try and give that arch a bit more stability and then vice-fit. So if you roll to the outside of your foot a bit more, if you're pair in the ears, which aren't going to act as slightly more pronators, if you want to try and almost balance the profile by going after that. Yeah, I mean, again, don't do it, but you may not change someone's architoke, you know, if they're under flip foot in the spectrum and that deforms, they're kind of building up over the other years, you probably not going to change that. They may benefit from an anotaric, again, there's a time to pace for that. But for me, just make sure they're enough capacity, make sure the tip post is actually strong and working to enable function properly and make sure they're stronger and more in range positions. So they have the capacity to handle those stresses on the metasite. The voice first, the perennials, they're not going to change, someone's going to stiff-cave his foot, we're not going to make them more but in a lock post, we've got to make sure that we can make the perennials stronger and have more capacity. Yeah, we'll be trying to lean more towards that. Yeah, I love it. And then obviously, I'm a big believer in that. If you've got this big long rolling stride where your shin discipline is kind of like, you know, you let that tip of your roll forward and you're pushing you, propulse more than you bounce, then your your salacious is obviously going to be a huge contributor to that. So therefore, that's something you can have to take care of if it's not up to par based on whatever the standards are. That's actually awesome. Yeah, plus, that was absolutely epic as a little rabbit hole. Before we carry on our philosophy chat, a quick thank you to our partner Output Sports. Now, I've used Output religiously for over 10 years now and I can honestly say it's been one of the most influential pieces of technology and how we built and objectified our rehab pathways. From mobility assessments and velocity-based metrics to jump height and contact time data, the versatility of Output means we can track almost any exercise and crucially take it anywhere with us. If we're going to talk about progression and decision-making today, it has to be grounded in objective measurement and that's exactly why I back Output and recommend it to any coach with value data over guest work. Now, let's get back to the episode. I sent you a picture earlier of something that you posted on Instagram, but you also wrote an article on it and it's essentially a it's essentially your philosophy around calf strain rehab going from capacity to the muscle through to your through to your jumping, your extensible image, your speed prep and then to your to your return to training. Can you just give me and the people that are listening just a bit of a general overview of how you just generally see that and how your approach sets? Something I was resting in front of while, you know, again, if I look back and some of the stuff I would have presented on five, six years ago, definitely, like anyone else, and it should be like your knowledge and understanding of all. So, yeah, and for me, as well as that big mismatch of my mum online between neural adaptations, which can be done quite quickly, first is like tendon structure changes and scarimaturation, which takes that a little bit longer. And you know, there is that most people and then this model can play any injury, like hamstring, wreck fem, whatever, you know, I just apply to the calf because I kind of see them a lot more, and trigger the soleus, but yeah, you've got that, you know, you, you, you, you, You can restore EMG function or most activation properties quite quickly, but if you session and you can use things like eStim and all the rest to help with that, you can get four stop quite quickly as well and just purely to your limitations initially. It takes a little bit longer for structure to change to occur. So you can get the point where day 20 you could be hit in twice by the way, for example, like in the CDCalf ISO, you could be hit in 25, 30 reps and it's thinking like Calf and Jr. Test or be close to it. You can be handing those initial plyometrics maybe more fast, SSC type stuff and you can be back doing a little bit of running but you're in that danger zone where most people will actually re-injure during that kind of return to run part. And the question as well is, is the house in order for that? And I suppose there are some rehab blind spots in terms of being able to quantify apneurotic healing and remodeling and scaring maturation. So again, in an id world, a repeat MRI scan around about that day, 28 day, 25 mark and help along with everything else. So yeah, there is the kind of high risk zone where you're getting back running or even towards the tail end of your sort of plyometrics progressions before you're back running where the risk is high or you might have good function purely from neural adaptations and maybe that but got as I said, that tissue is still vulnerable. So it is as well as what you can do within your control and you rehab to try and influence that and get your decision making as well as clear and accurate as much as you can and look we've all been stunned by re-indries. I suppose what we learned from it and make better decisions coming from forward. So for me, I suppose, again, we can talk about this later in a bit more detail but it's combination of your performance KPIs, like your eyes, your capacity tests and your plyometric tests also like your training exposures. How many context exposures to mixed plyos have you had and then having enough running build up over a consecutive session for your back doing un-pitched stuff if your field sport at least and so on? So that's the suppose what I've been resting with for a while and the suppose put that kind of framework together, hoping for someone to take a tear apart and challenge me on it and again, I really good seem to have kind of brought into it but again I'm open to dialogue on that and it's not completely any means but just feel good. Well, I will do it because I'll put that as long as you say it's okay, I'll put that image in the show notes for people to reference because that will give them so much more context or conversation. In terms of talking about it in a little bit more detail, a couple of things, you said about the repeat scanning which again is a luxury that some people have, some people don't, if you do have it and I would suggest probably if you are one of those recurrent cast streams that just keep coming back, you're going to have to go through that scanning process to understand healing and restoration of qualities etc. What exactly are you looking at? You talked about restoration of healing in the scan. What is it you're looking at from where you get the natural scan and it's just the demon whiteness just damaged? What picture are you looking for generally to be able to say okay, I think we've got restoration of neural call, is restoration of forced production but also restoration of biological healing. Yeah, so you want to kind of like a fairly clear black, tick black line and the demon rounded looking fairly neat so not like a messy cotton wool type appearance. So you want to freely even ring around it and that's a sign of scarring, mature enough, fully complete but it's in a good place and when you see that you're by comfortable loading someone into length and introducing the client as an ultimately rolling. So look at that messy appearance, even though foot of performance metrics are in a good place, it's still just by an extra bit of time, by an extra few days just to nut your things needlessly. I might throw down some images of that in the show notes as well some people understand. Yeah, and this is a little bit observable by the Spanish group. Yeah, there's some past ones by Carlos and others. Yeah, these are incursible. So yeah, I'll chuck those in there. And in terms of standards, I've just picked up very quickly. Two times body weights of LAS ISO, is that in plant or grade, is that dorsiflex? Is it totally neutral? How are you measuring that? It's a bit of a debate there too, and it's how you can standardize it. I'm happy enough if they're in double digit dorsiflex. So for simplicity, I use the Force Frame now, but I do need an extra wider pad under it so I also use a hamstring slider pad just to caution a small, but I should have in two much cushing. So use a flash rubber corn marker as well under it. Yeah, and just to check if it's comfortable under it. With the footflag, we'll have the knee sort of forward so that the knee sort of over sort of the base of the first MTV joint. And we're in some dorsiflexion. And to be honest, a few degrees here and there, I don't think I'm going to make a big difference. I see a lot of people testing in plant reflection. It's not really true measure of peak force. It's a measure of force at that joint angle, but it's not really a measure of the true peak force at that muscle. So you need that length tension ratio to get that. So I think it's a double digit dorsiflexion idea. And again, this different dorsiflexion argument for standardizing it, because someone might come back with a head anchor surgery, they're not going to be comfortable in dorsiflexion and go on neutral might be better. And so again, this is different arguments as well. So once you're comparing with yourself and you're fairly consistent with your retes, I guess I've argued about it. And I guess I've argued about it. If you taste in plant reflection, probably a little bit too high, it almost becomes redundant in terms of the possession of your retar landing end or propulsing from properly where the stress rates are, where the stress rates are higher. So it doesn't really tell you whether somebody's relative for the demand of the task. Exactly. And it won't challenge the upper ear also tissue when you've got sluck in the system. So you want that length to endorse it. So basically, you knock them down to the point where they're trying to do healers, they can't healers really move that much. Small, like minimal displacement. Yeah. Cool. That's excellent. And then the other one was your 25 to 30 calf capacity. Is that just quadlocked out full range? Ented or�? Yeah. Ented, in bored or office, offer a small block. So definitely working to length the test appropriately. And sometimes if someone has, and I've seen it before, where someone's had like twice body weight or 2.2 tons body weight, and I see the calf oizzo, and there would be 3d fatigued of 20 reps in the calf raise, I'd hold them back. They haven't got the capacity yet. So again, you know, we've all learned the hard way in the past from that, but yeah, I definitely would hold them back for an extra little bit until we get that up. And you find those pitate, because I've had a couple of cases like that as well, one of which stung me. Do you find that particular type of profile? It's actually your explosive, like high performance athlete, the one that can create loads of force quickly, they're probably really well wired. You ask them to reach it over and more, and they can. Yeah. Yeah. So again, I'm just trying to, you know, just work their physiology as well and just getting a little bit of filler gap that's probably don't actually have. Yeah. So the fill the gaps are the fill the gaps are present. Along with their exposures, along with their exposure, you know, a bit more capacity work with the calf training and then enough, I suppose, moderate to high volume, plyometric exposures, like mixed fast and slow, SSC type stuff and more standard stuff. That kind of leads me onto my next question. Yeah. And I'm fascinated what you're going to say here. What's your take on the role of extensive plios and calf rehab in terms of, to me, an extensive plyometric is low magnitude, high levels of volume done repeatedly throughout the week, versus what typically your plyometric or your categorization of a true plyometric would be massive magnitude, massive rate and by by nature that limited volume and probably done far less frequency throughout the week. We are just, we are doing extensive plios set for you in the in the calf rehab process. Yeah. No huge. But it is to me, it's really good stress test for the calf after when you're rehabbing it. Again, it's doing everything really, you know, you're fast off as well. I do think, you know, clapping up to 100 plus comfort context of your per leg, doing low to moderate magnitude, moderate to high volume plios is really important. And if you've just, you know, tree exposures to that and even you slow stuff like, you know, we folks Latin the fast stuff, the point to of a second content. But for me, like slow it down a little bit, make it more bloody like repeat the CMJs, repeated box jumps, let them yield on the ground a little bit, do kind of low sort of leapy type, maybe you want to call them jumps in those kind of low positions where the type of the calf is stretched. Yeah. So band resistance band resistance, like so in that low position with that resistance band is pulling you down. Yeah. And seeing those low positions and feel that burn, I think that's massive. And then like uphill hopping bounding and one leg multi directional stuff, you know, chest the calf and those really fun repositions, even doing some rebounds off like an interlang board. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. So I definitely think exposing and exposing it at least to that is quite important and prudent. And if they've got through that as well as hitting some of their KPIs or most of them, I'd be kind of confident that they're fit to having a bunch running at that age. Yet there should be the process of it and be able to progress on a bit more. And is there a bias that I've introduced an extensive before intensive or not? Do they typically blend in together? And I've got another question about one bond barge. Yeah. No, good one too. I mean, I think with solace, like a midfield sport at least, I would probably go more like your fast SC type stuff first. I think you can get away with it if that's the way it were to use. Yeah. Introduce this low volume and then try to build your volume on your kind of your slower bloody plyometrics and top of that. And the same return to run. And sometimes comes, I can get away with some speed preps off early on. And what the volume is low and even just one sub max. And you know, doing some sub max flies, some, you know, your dribbles, your ASKyps, all that type of stuff that can be done in the background. And while you're still kind of working in progress to have enough capacity to get back into volume running. You answer. And it's just understanding the function of the solace. Like when you're jogging, it's working high. 85% of it has max force capacity. It's force peaks that are in seven meters per second. So sub max speeds. It declines a little bit at max speeds. And that doesn't mean you can go out and do speed work, but you can do a small moment and be safe doing what you're still working in the background and building up the capacity. Obviously the flip side is, you know, the first it's at the hamstring where speed is going to challenges where you can get a little more kind of lower intensity rolling. You answered my follow up dynamite question call and you're one step ahead of me and you answered it. Basically what you're saying is because the soleus is going to be slightly more active, more dorsiflexion compression that's longer contact times lower speed you can probably bring in those intensive plios a bit earlier to that one before you can really load in the extensive plios for loads of volume and would you vice versa that on the gas stroke as well. So gas stroke slightly more active and kind of more elastic and higher velocity movements. So extensive first and then intensive or not quite as clear. Yeah, I believe in the same direction because with the gas stroke immediately gas stroke strain like it's vulnerable when you're going when you're when you're plantar flexing and knee extending at the same time or the voice or when you're decelerating when you're when you're when you're knee flexing and dorsiflex at the same time. Yeah. So decelerating when you're accelerating that's when it's vulnerable because you got that kind of opposing shear force at the junction and timing and mechanical fatigue is going to be a big player there as well. So I was still doing off exposures to your your your slow SSC type plios as well. And yeah, so again, it again depends on their and their sport as well and the type of pair of the air what do you want to get back to. Yeah. Class or track sprinter if you're a track sprinter maybe not so much of the slow plaudi plios like maybe more the faster elastic type stuff if there are field sport player and you know there's a bit of volume involved I would yeah then expose them to the to the slow plios in the context. And does making us in play a part for you as me going off piece again sorry. And making us in play a part for you here. So if you've got somebody who reports that there are calf has gone when they land off a but let's just say they land off a dread lot they land off a higher higher speed exposure. So you're you're quite the seller of an eccentric in nature versus somebody that quite clearly pulls up when they push and they're more propulsive. Is that change it for your total or is it still part of a larger thing where you're just building qualities to on both sides of the of the coin. Yeah. Once it changed drastically it's just something a factor in in the return to play part so I make sure they have exposure to those landing positions and can handle you know landing with different challenges in chaos chaotic situation to one of them so that the robust in those movements again yeah I've got the company like you might do an ACL or Michael Spain or nothing else. Yeah yeah so that's probably just a little bit more focus put on it but it doesn't completely change the process. Yeah for sure. And then my next one for you was running rehab you kind of touched on it but I constantly battle this concept in my head around if you've got a salacious and we know that you're active early so you go out for a jog that salacious is going to be working really hard straight away. So do we bias our drill based running first to build up a bit of tolerance and capacity around those kind of more elastic contacts and then go into our slower type high volume is running under fatigue and then flip it and for a gas stroke which is going to be slightly more active at higher speeds it's going to be slightly more active in elastic contacts. Do we pull back some of our elastic conditioning or our elastic type running and bias a little bit more of our kind of plot I call it plot base which doesn't sound great but like our slow volume type stuff. Yeah for solace but I feel sports at least I would lean more towards bringing in some low volume higher intensity running and drill stuff and play us early on and then build volume at top of that. But the distance under distance at least you've not choice but to get back into some volume early on but I might maybe give a little bit of exposure to your kind of I might accelerate it a little bit quicker. Yeah yeah yeah and so yeah maybe a little bit of like higher intensity players and then build volumes up with that but I suppose when they're running just got to be sure that him is right when they get back because they're going to be explosive volume running anyway. Yeah and would you would you bias that ever so slightly so let's say rather than doing big like you know big long duration and your world those big long duration runs of like 10k, 20k etc. Varsers doing more like almost like temple track base stuff would you would you bias that way to bridge the gap or is that it's are we going down a rabbit hole by doing that do you think? It's one way like it's still can't really cheat that aerobic development you need to get back running and if you're if you're a distance runner so what I might do is like work out for 3 days cycles so like have them initiate on the first week back running run every third day and then being at them to every second day and then jump with a cross trainer or walk like in between and do their do their like their volume aerobic work a face a little bit and then yeah just try to build the running volume initially every third day and then every second day and then two days on a day off so that's the best way we would kind of work distance out the back. Yeah okay. Obviously when you're doing a field sport at least it's you have to get more scope because you're not going to be running every day so you can you can periodize a week a bit more more and cleanly that way. Hard life being an aerobic athlete isn't it? Yeah yeah I know. All right so we've kind of gone through we've got a better overview of your philosophy which would be brilliant, a better chat round extensive plios and running rehab and we don't have that much time left so what would you are kind of top non-negotiables be for people to take away with them around calf rehab it doesn't need to be super specific just as a rule of thumb what are you are non-negotiables that you're just you leavens where by that other people can maybe take home with them. Yeah and before you're working to Dorsey Flexion Ranges you know around the road to day 10 plus or minus depends on the injury classification and be pain-free doing a singular guise or be pain-free doing a passive stretch and then as well as go before you're to introduce them to your plios and particularly your volume type plios have at least one and a half times body weight and see the calf isle know that you're going to be close with the character in twice body weight have at least 25 reps in singular key and raise endurance tests through range and be pain-free doing double eye cups in an ideal world and have some indication of good scaring maturation on an MRI scanning that will be complete and then before you go back into volume running have at least three to four exposures to you know singular clios mixed intensity mixed multi-planar movements and you know get no hundred plus context per session per leg twice body weight and your cd calf isle 30 reps or more on a single leg he raised test and have reasonable asymmetry like I would say minimum less than 15% again to an S-year sport or event gives you that function asymmetry for a jump athlete you're naturally going to be more asymmetry is going to be higher to be fully asymmetrical and may not need to be chased too much and then I suppose if you're a feeling sport at least to be back playing or even even back to say doing like full counter training you know have enough you know have maybe two and a half to three K of tempo volume running clucked up upper tree tree concept sessions and have enough exposure just to high speed running maybe you know a couple of meters of high speed running and some acceleration stuff and then enough exposure to your decals your tackles your jumping your landing and all that rest and kicking and then have two or three full contact and team training sessions where you're match ready so it's not your last kind of mind they become a my pick KPI so it's a combination of like your performance metrics and you're from your testing and you're training exposures because as we can lean on up towards your isometrics and you can come in the morning bang out a massive isometric score big CMJ big drop jumps what are you like in a third and fight when you've had a few pitch sessions and an S&C session in between a little bit fatigue how robust are you then so you have to kind of trust your prescription and trust your your exposures I love that that's so good there's so much stuff that people can take away from that as class and then we're going to finish off with I asked people at the end of the podcast to talk about something that's kind of got them excited got them kind of they're getting their head into recently etc and I know you've been spending a bit of time around the role of nutrition in and around kind of ankle calf tendon type and where are you at with that how's that going yeah I suppose nutrition for tendon health hasn't really been well researched to now there's been a little bit on college and again we're not fully convinced it's it's you know it's a deal breaker in terms of rehab you know I would say chowed in and we're in my practitioner hat it'll do not harm and some studies would say that if you take getting enough weight protein in your diet the college may not be as effective there's one study that maybe you might as contradict that little bit suggesting that and with weight protein around exercise you can actually it can actually lower your glycine levels which in glycine is a big part of the collagen so taking collagen might have to negate that so there's a little bit more to be tease out around that area and knowing what we know in our about tendon health and particularly chronic tendon up these where you've got vascular changes neural changes and more metabolic shifts in the tendon is that we can do nutrition wise and medication wise to influence that so we can look in a bit more at the role of blood flow restriction training even as a primary is party warm up and because when you get vascular change in the tendon you get like dilatial blood vessels that are quite leaky and quite permeable so a lot of that intend is oxygen rich blood and nutrient rich blood does actually get to the injury site so I guess leaked away and some of that leak just leak it just can stay in the nerve endings and give you that sort of sensory pain response so is what you can do to try and improve support vascular health and vascular function make the walls a bit stronger and less permeable and as well as change the sort of that hypoxic like a legit environment in the tendon so experiment a bit with blood flow restriction is part of warm up to try and get some you know get that occlusion initially and then when you go about your normal sort of main part of your session might get that sort of refill and better profusion as you're exercising if you have taken something like collagen beforehand you might get better blood flow to the area or the tendon is mechanically sensitive and look at other things too that might alter the non-resolve in the flammetry process that happened when it tending up with you and so you know things like some of your omega-3 fish oils, especially omega-6, which is rich in lipoxin, which is a specialised sort of pro-resolving mediator. Again, going a bit of attention here, but there's definitely something that's been kind of explored in basic immunology, but hasn't been done in 10 years. And things that can also alter the signature of the cells, because in the chronic 10, then up are the cells of program for metabolic response for non-resolving inflammatory, or chronic inflammatory function, as opposed to an adaptive and resolving function. So can you do something to alter the cell function as well? The main part is rehab. So exercise is the most important part. None of this is going to substitute exercise, but can you do something that's going to work with exercise and rehab to actually enhance the whole thing? So I'm mapping it at one or two studies at the moment that's probably much to answer that question, or could be wasted time, which has definitely something that's been kind of resting with for a whole year. It's very interesting. Oh my god, sex just went on my vitamin list, just so you know. Tell me, mainly for not for me, obviously not for me. The role of alcohol and I'm kind of 10 health, etc. I have noticed categorically a difference in how my knee feels, where I had a scraping, a tendon scraping done in summer. If I drink half a bottle of red wine, my knee feels shit all the next day. My head too, generally my knee feels worse. Yeah. So what impulse out there on that around alcohol consumption, tendon health? Yeah, there have been some systematic abuse that I've looked at risk factors for a tendon up. There's one by Robert DeVos, a doctor researcher, a sports medicine physician, who was back in four or five years ago. And no other risk factors don't like admit certain medications like certain antibiotics again, corticosterioris, all that. But alcohol is one of them as well that does elevate the risk factor. Again, very from person to person, some people can tell you more than others, but then some people might have a more of a negative impact on tendon health. I would be thinking more, I don't know, like, acute alkaline taking versus like, you know, if you're a bit of a certain number of units a week, if that's maybe more of a. Not gone. Of course, that's really decent. These are, you know, first to happen, you're less too of red-wired at the weekend. Yeah, well, what I'm taking from that, I call it, then say, "Don't sound robust enough for me to start my class." I'm very, very tired of trying to do that. Amazing. Look, I think what we're going to do now is we're going to jump into jump into case study once we wrap up here. But Colman is, honestly, the amount of notes that I've made of that is absolutely unbelievable, like such, such good information. I hope other people have enjoyed it as much as I have. I think we'll also definitely need to consider getting you back on to talk pure tendons rather than violent catheters, because I think you've just got a wealth of knowledge to give. Thank you, thank you so much for being on. Hope everybody enjoyed it as much as I did, and I would jump into case study once I've once I have followed on this one. Thanks for taking the time to listen to today's elevated athlete podcast. We hope you found it as interesting as we did. If you want to hear more from today's guest, then be sure to check out LVIQ for a full case study overview showcasing how the philosophy we discussed translates into real world practice. Featuring annotated clips, progression criteria, KPI discussion and downloadable implementation guides, you'll find it all inside LVIQ. Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you on the next one.