Velocity based training: preventing overtraining AND undertraining with Jeremy Jacobs (Assistant Strength& Conditioning Coach at LSU)

Welcome to the Paisy Performance Podcast. Today, I'm speaking to Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach at LSU, Jeremy Jacobs. Hello, my name is James, I'm the coach and I'm the coach at LSU, and I'm the coach at LSU. It's interesting to get Jeremy's take on on why, but also just dive into the basics and the benefits of lost to base training, but also which of them benefits are actually implementable within a program or specifically the LSU program, and which are more difficult to implement and potentially why. We also look at combining data, so combining VBT data, GPS, heart rate, forceplates, etc, to make really informed decisions, which is what goes on at LSU. Then we have a little chat around testing weeks and the need for testing weeks and how Jeremy not only runs a VBT program, but also runs a program that includes percentage-based training as well and how them to really play off and play with each other in the program. So if you're interested in VBT or potentially implementing VBT, this episode is definitely for you. This episode of the Paisy Performance Podcast is sponsored by Perch. Perch enables a velocity-based training no strings attached. Pensioned at MIT, Perch uses small and mobile cameras to monitor and manage weight-room performance without detracting from it. By passively collecting speed and power data, delivering in real-time to athletes and storing it for post-workout analysis, Perch enhances workouts, reduces injuries and saves time. Perch works with every level of organisation from the 2019 National Championship LSU Football Team, to the NFLs, New York Giants, Military installations, high schools and to a number of growing sports performance facilities and even individual garage gyms. Perch is portable, easy to install, intuitive to use, making it ideal for every facility and every training goal. No more pre-workout setup, no more attachments to athletes and barbells, no more broken strings, set Perch up once and optimise every rep. Reach out to Perch today and for exclusive deals and offers, tell them Rob's sent you by going to Perch.fit/paisy. This episode of the Paisy Performance Podcast is sponsored by Kitman Labs. So Kitman Labs partners with leading sports teams to help them consistently achieve the highest levels of performance by increasing the impact of their data. So over 200 teams across the globe rely on Kitman Labs' performance intelligence platform to quantify the cost of performance and injury and receive the right insights at the right time. Through unique outcome-driven analytics in the most advanced athlete management system, teams can align their organisations on a shared view of what it takes to drive performance and health and move with the speed of sport to adjust and continuously improve. If you want to know more about Kitman Labs, head over to www.win.kitmanlabs.com/impact. This episode of the Paisy Performance Podcast is sponsored by iMegyU. So used by leading sports practitioners and biomechanics researchers worldwide to capture and compare multi-limb inertial data in the field. iMU step from iMegyU is a dual sensor and a lower limb load monitoring tool which helps practitioners optimise returns play for running-based sports. So iMegyU have just released their new and improved waterproof sensor Blue Trident, which includes ultra-high G capabilities to quantify high impact steps such as cutting, landing and sprinting, longer battery life to collect data all day, real-time feedback to aid immediate interventions and faster workflow so practitioners can review long-trained sessions within minutes of training completion. iMegyU now part of Vicon works with Military Pro and collegiate coaches and athletes from around the world, including the Australian Institute of Sport, US Department of Defence and Collegiate and Protein from around the world. If you want to get to know more about iMegyU head over to the website iMegyU.com or follow them on Twitter or Instagram @iMegyU. So now further ado, over to the episode with Jeremy Jacobs. Thanks to you and into the Paisy Performance Podcast. So this afternoon I am delighted to welcome Jeremy Jacobs, so welcome to the podcast mate. Appreciate it Rob, thanks for having me on. Thank you for giving me time. I don't know who you are, you just want to give us a bit of background on yourself, education wise and you all roll currently LSU. Sure, so currently I am one of the assistant strength conditioning coaches here under coach Tommy Moffit. I was born and raised in Wisconsin just outside of Milwaukee in the suburbs and group that I guess the first level of my life was football. And through playing football I fell in love with the weight room and realizing I'm a pretty genetically I guess a pretty average athlete. And so something that I loved with when I found the weight room as a 13 year old was it was something that I could control. It was like I could control my effort and my attendance and just showing up every day and doing the work. So that was something that always intrigued me. And then I can't be brief and kind of talked about this. I don't have your traditional path to becoming a collegiate strength conditioning coach. Yeah, so I like I said I've always loved football, always loved sport and training was kind of it, but I was all set to go to college out of high school. Either could have played like some low level D3 football or I was looking at going to school for maybe some sports medicine and I really didn't know what that meant. It just it sounded cool and you know I was I was like it sounds like I can make career but I can be around sport basically. And and then 9/11 happened so after 9/11 I joined the military I joined the army and I spent four years in the army. I had a few deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan with the second Ranger Battalion out of Fort Lewis Washington, which is by Seattle. And so after my four years I decided to get out and but I had no idea what I wanted to do. I ended up working as a government contractor for four years for the government doing background investigations, doing all sorts of stuff. And I believe it or not at the end of that I started playing a lot of golf and through that I found myself living in San Diego at a professional golf school. I was going to be a golf professional. So I did that for two years and I'm talking like assistant golf professional like teaching professional not like playing. Yeah. And so when I started working in the golf business I realized very very quickly that I don't know if I can do this rest of my life. But when I did discover through that it was actually through a cross-fit gym I found weightlifting again. And I hadn't cleaned in jerk and snatched since high school when I played football. So I started weightlifting and fell in love with it all over again with the bar. And loved it so much I spent so much time there that the weightlifting coach there started asking me to coach and asked me if I wanted to get my USAW and start coaching for him. And so I started doing that. And next I knew I was enrolled in at 29 years old I was enrolled in an exercise science program back in my undergrad and at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. So I went back to school got my undergrad in exercise science at UWM in Milwaukee and worked for that school. It's a smaller D1 school doesn't have football but all the other sports so that was my first like introduction into college. And then I was very fortunate there because the head strength coach at the time was a guy by the name of Brian Weissmann who's now the basically the Olympic director Ole Miss. And he had been an assistant previously at Ole Miss under a guy like Aaron Osmos and Noel Durphy at Duke and at USC currently. So he was like hey if you what are your goals I said I want to be around major college football and he said well if that's what you want to do you need to find a way to work for Coach Moffitt at LSU. And so I found myself I started as an intern like all of Coach Moffitt's assistants do and then went to grad school here at LSU. And then before I had finished grad school Coach Moffitt hired me full time and this is now my fifth season here with them. So when we spoke of the day you said well have a little chat about my background because it's not traditional. Instantly I thought I wonder if you're military. I don't know what we hadn't obviously spoken face to face. We spoke on the phone just thought yeah I got that feeling. And I met him and you know so a lot of guys here I have played college football right that's the normal like strength coach route here. Or at least been around college athletics but it's funny the correlation between military and what I did in the military and a thing like college football there's still so many similarities that you can use as teaching. points with these guys, that it's just like a different path to get there, but a lot of the same lessons apply. What comes to mind when you say that? Just like teamwork, and rotary hard work, going through adversity. That's one thing that's made Coach Moffett's program so great is, one is rooted in the fundamentals, but two, it's tough. You can't be mentally weak and make it through four years at LSU going through this rank conditioning program yet you just can't. Teaching guys lessons of stuff that I've gone through even in the military, of pushing through, embracing the suck or whatever you want to call, you've heard plenty of people describe that stuff. All those lessons apply. Apply to football. Even just taking authority and being coachable and being. So, something we talk about a lot of these guys is you can't be a true leader until you've been a good follower. So teaching these guys how to take coaching, and then at that point you can build them as a leader. What was it like going back to college as a mature student? Yeah. Yeah. It was tough. It was tough at first. I remember, I came out of the advisor's office when I saw the blueprint of like, this is going to take some time. I was like, well, at some point I'm either going to be 31 with a degree or 31 without a degree. So I just need to start. And I realized college is maybe not as difficult when you're 28, 29 because I had a clear goal of what I wanted the whole time. A lot of people were in these exercise science programs and they asked them, well, what do you want to do? And people really don't know. I had to. I want to be a head-srank coach and you know Mitch College football. And so having that clear purpose every day made it very easy to sit in front of the classroom, take notes, do your homework, take it all seriously. And what was cool was I was also working at UWM at the time as a strength coach. So some of the stuff I was learning I could directly apply immediately to athletes in the way room. And I was still coaching weightlifting for a company called Milwaukee Barbell. So I was spending a lot of time around athletes and coaching them. So I got to kind of be in the fire as I was learning it. So I think it was a. It helped me progress maybe a little faster. When you've got that advice to say that you need to work on the coach, how did you then bridge that gap to actually become an intern to him? Yeah, great question. So, you know, I sort of listened to him on podcasts. I started listening to what he did and the more I listened to him, I realized like because at here at LSU were rooted in the fundamentals and rooted in weightlifting. So we cleaned and jerked and snatch. And so having that background helped me. The way coach teaches the lifts and the way he learned them through Gail Hatch and all the. All his mentors is very similar to how I learned them. So coaching here was very easy. But originally I was going to go to. I was going to intern on a coached Irfie at Duke and then trying to bridge that gap with coached Irfie to come down here to LSU. And then one day I walked into the way in the UWM and the head strength coach Brian was like, "Hey, did you see football scoop today?" And I said, "No." And the first posting was LSU internship. So I. He's like, "You need to leave right now. I go get stuff in there." So I went home, got all my stuff in. And that's funny. So the person, one of the other assistants here, Jake, who does the internship program, I applied to him. I didn't know who Jake Readle was. And then I looked him up on Facebook and it said we had three mutual friends on Facebook. So he's from the same area. I'm from in Wisconsin. I didn't know it. So we had mutual friends through when he was in Wisconsin and my time there now as a weightlifting. At one point I was the vice president of Wisconsin weightlifting. So I knew all the clubs and we're putting meets on. And so through that I was like, "Hey, do you know this guy, Jake?" And some of the other coaches were like, "Yeah, he actually interned at our facility back in the day." And long story short, they shot him a message and the next day, Jake called me and still I had to go through the process. Like you send in videos down here. You got to make sure that you're a good lifter or that you have experience, all that of the stuff and that you really will do want to be a strength coach. And then that, yeah, the next day I knew I was, I had to look up bad and lose on a map. I was like, "I know I'm going, I know it's Ellis you, I know the brand, but I don't, I got to figure out where I'm about to go." Yeah, absolutely. So I watched your, you talk at MIT. Was that last year? Was that in that? I think it feels, no, it was 2020. It feels like it was about a few years ago. Yeah, it's just a spring. Yeah, okay. So what was, and that was on velocity based training, which I didn't come to watch because it was really interesting. It was really, it was really, it was really short. Wasn't it like 15, 20 years? Yeah, it was, I've never even heard of this MIT Sports Analytics conference before, but they have a separate stage area that's called your competitive advantage talks. And those are shorter. Those are like 20 minutes and under. And so they, and they crank them out all day. So you're got their, they're pretty disciplined on the time frame of what you're talking to be. So yeah. So you stop while you, you go in? Yeah, it's literally like, hey, they're giving you flashes like, hey, you got one minute left, you need to wrap this thing up. Yeah, okay. So with that in VBT, where, where do you interest come about with regards to VBT? So velocity based training is something that, you know, you read about an old Russian literature about just tracking the velocities of the bar and where they found the greatest velocities at what percentage is. And then obviously, Tendo units, we had some Tendo units at UWM that we used. And then here, Coach Moff has been doing some sort of EVT for, since he's been here for 20 years. So we had Tendo's when I first got here. The issue with the Tendo unit is just a footprint that it takes up and the fact that you kind of have to move the string and is the string at the right angle. And unfortunately, the little cord, the cable that connects the Tendo to the micro computer is pretty fragile, especially to be like laying on the floor in a weight room. And so that tended to break quite a bit. We'd have issues. And really, you can only get them fixed through Sornex. And if Sornex can't fix it, then they have to send it actually to Tendo in Slovakia. And so you have this giant, you know, weight-to-dial time frame, you know, and you'd get it, you'd sip it there and you'd see it a month later. So it made it very cumbersome to use it. And so we didn't, we only implemented it during certain times of the year to just kind of chase, like, you know, rate of force development and power and all that stuff. But it wasn't something that we could just implement daily without the headache of, because we have 22 platforms here. So there's a lot of moving parts when you have a big group with our team. And it can cause a lot of extra, almost like a safety hazard. When you have 20, two platforms going with Tendo units getting moved around and shifted and bars getting dropped. So it was something that limited our ability to, I think, use it. And then we connected with a company called Perch. And when Perch came in here, the Perch product has made it so easy and seamless into our racks that now we can use it every single day. And it's changed how we look at VBT. Because it's something that we don't ever have a group without it used or turned on. I'm interested to know about that transition between Tendo and Perch. Obviously, a relatively new company in Perch. And obviously, Tendo's been around forever. Everyone's had one or, they still got one, something back and forth, just a little back here. But how did you go about that transition knowing that what you were getting was going to be firstly better than what you had? Well, valid, reliable, all the kind of stuff. So Perch's CEO and founder, one of the founders is Jacob Rothman. So the Perch came about by three guys out of MIT that looked at how velocity-based training was done and thought maybe there's a better way to do it. So they created this product. And they just called emailed TwitchMuffet. Hey, would you be interested in seeing something like this? He forwarded it to me and said, hey, check these guys out and find out, like, is this something worth doing? So it really started with a Skype call with Jacob about explaining his product, what it could do. And then we said, well, hey, send us a demo unit. So Jacob actually flew down here. He's out of Boston. Flute down here, set it up for a showtuce. And we just played around with it for a while. So it's the nice thing about it because it's a camera-based system is there's no strings. There's no attachments to the bar. And we, you know, the way our racks are set up, we squat and clean and everything outside the rack and then we bench inside the rack. So the camera moves itself depending on which exercise we're doing. And so it makes it very easy to interchange, to go from exercise to exercise. And then it displays it on the tablet that's just magnetized right to our rack. And so I turned all of our wide receivers here. And so I had it down on my wide receiver racks for six months and just getting to use it. And then the best part about it is because purchase one, they're so new, but they're customer service-based. So I would go to Jacob and say, hey, what if it could do this? And he would ask, well, is that something that you think more coaches would want? And I would say, yes, that would make sense. And so they'd go back and they'd re-engineer something and they'd fix it and then send out a new update. And then it would be fixed or whatever the issue was. So it's actually changed quite a bit from the first time that we started using it to where we're at now. And then I would start moving that Perch demo unit around on different racks so all the different coaches could use, have a chance to play with it and just give feedback. And then we'd take all that. feedback and send it to Perch and then at some point we you know it actually helped what we did was you know because everything in this world is about budgets and logistics and all that other stuff right so we actually had one of our A.D.'s come and lift on it and so he came in and did bench press on the rack and he saw the bar graphs go up on the tablet and said "sad up" and said "what do we need to do to do this?" and that's all took you know and so yeah right so that's all it was and now we have you know 22 racks or 22 Perch units on it and it's definitely made how we train different interesting so from a practical level and we've all not maybe all but there's a lot of research out there when it comes to VBT but the benefits of velocity based training for you as an assistant strength coach at LSU what are they? So the one of the big benefits and I and by no means would consider myself a guru with this right there's Dr. Brian Mann there's so many people out there that have put out stuff that I've read to just learn about it but taking what they've done in research and then trying to apply it on a daily basis and here is kind of what we've been what we've been doing and it what makes our job easier is it makes programming easier because you get a true snapshot of where your guys are at and we still use the speed velocity zones that that that that Brian Mann has created and shown and so when we're looking at what percentages are we in what zone should we be in and what percentages correlate to those speed velocity zones and where we should be if we're trying to train power or for trying to train true strength or whatever it is we use that and so there's a little sticky note on coach Mop its computer that sits right there and as he's programming he just uses a reference guide to make sure he's staying within what we're trying to do another huge thing that Perch does is that it's a cloud-based system and so it sends all that data to the cloud and then I can sit on my computer and I can export all of it in Excel like real-time and so at the end of every day now I export the data and I make some charts and graphs just looking at what we did that day and so it takes the guesswork out of what we did we know where everybody lifted that we know whether this athlete you know because we still base are we still programmed based on percentages and then there's days where we say here's what we'd like to hit at this velocity but regardless hit this velocity and then there's certain days like in a different part of the season or the offseason we'll say I don't care what the velocity is we're gonna stand this percentage and like it just gives you a gauge of where your guys are at CNS wise and bodies recovering so that you know with the Tendo the next rep happens that data's gone you know unless you're keeping a real-time log of it which we did for a while and it's just very cumbersome to do now I can export it the end of the day I get everybody's lift I get everybody's percentage I get what velocity they do it whether it's peak or average I get their peak power output their average power output and then you get stuff like eccentric time that they use an eccentric velocity so you get certain metrics in there that just give like I said paint a whole picture of where your guys are at in the weight room and it's kind of like I guess I equate to like the GPS that was you know on the field stuff that we've been doing now for over a decade it's like taking that technology now and finally actually getting it in the weight room so now we're tracking this portion as well so it makes our job easier and it makes coach Moffitt's job easier because you can see A is his program being implemented properly the way he would like it to be done because ultimately as an assistant that's what my job is it's not to whether to agree or disagree with him it's to make sure that I'm being an extra voice for him and implementing the things that he wants to be done and so it's a way for him to kind of look at that and say yes we're coaching it the way I want we're hitting what I want to do and we're getting the training effect that I'm trying to get when I write this program I have had the feeling for a while that despite all the VBT research that's out there and there is people obviously like yourselves here implementing it it seems like it's it's one technology that maybe the research there's a lot of but the actual implementation I don't know if it's just my narrow view of what people are doing out there but it doesn't that that transition doesn't seem to have been made super super well right and there seems to be some kind of disconnecting it almost feels like there's I don't know that the research is out there that's 10 out of 10 but what's actually implemented in practice is would be one or two out of 10 right and this seems to be that disconnecting compared to something like maybe GPS where the practitioners seem to be maybe driving the research it's maybe the other way around right right right right why do you think that is with Emma do you think I'm completely off there no if so do you think there's a reason for that well this is on my I guess my hypothesis on it but I think some of it is the technology is finally catching up okay right and and so now I I can like I said I can you know we've had this now for almost two years I can go back and I have two years worth of data that I can pull and look at or before with like a tender unit you can't couldn't necessarily do that and I think that will help you know synthos GPS we can go back and we can look at how long we've been using it here for 12 to 13 years you know you have that much data to look at start painting a picture of teams and how you guys are performing but I wonder some people sometimes people get stuck in down the rabbit hole like VBT being only one type of thing like I have to program first based off velocity which is I guess what true VBT is we're not gonna talk about percentage we're just gonna work off of when you hit 0.8 meters per second that's what we're trying to do and where when you kind of couple that with all of the research that's been done on percentage based or traditional based programming and you pair that with VBT you start seeing how the two kind of can merge and you can and you can see how they like help each other and so that's something I think we're starting to find not just because we accumulated enough data we can go back and we can look we have another system on staff here is Tim Johnson he does a lot of charts with this stuff with like load velocity profiling and with like tonnage reports so the and not traditional tonnage of just how much volume I did but like how many reps did we do at this percentage what was our normal velocity at that percentage and how many what was the total number of reps per set that we normally did at that velocity so we've got to see where was our volume accumulated how well did we normally move 60% on back squat what's your VLOB in that and then we start comparing team to team and you're looking like well last year's team we could move 57% at this speed or this year's team we're actually moving 61% at that speed so are we getting better and I think that what velocity based training does is yes it helps you from overtraining 100% but it also helps you from under training so there be days where you're looking at a GPS report up of a practice and say wow like those dudes that was that was a banger yesterday practice they're gonna come in tomorrow be hurting and so maybe we need to pull back a little bit in the weight room because of how hard practice was yesterday well then they get in there and if you do based up velocity guys were smashing weights the next day and you're like oh like I might have pulled back harder if I didn't have this but I'm looking at what you're doing this thing and it allowed us to keep more weight on the bar so now I know I'm training where that guy CNS is optimally to make sure that we're still reaching the goal that we want which in the sport of football is peak power right like it's a power sport we want to make sure the power fall on Saturdays everything's all about making sure that they're ready to go on Saturday so I think that helped us from under training just as much as it did from overtraining and something coach mob is all the time here is too much looks like not enough and sometimes overtraining looks just like under training advice versa so you can't really tell so this is just helped us kind of steer us and guide us to make sure that we're staying within those parameters on both sides and I think that it's shown as far as like injury rates of tissue injuries have gone down dramatically since this because guys are putting more intent into the bar every time they lift it because there's a certain velocity that they're chasing and we don't just say move it as fast as possible we give them a target and we found that that is a better way to motivate them or have them hit rather than say hey I want you to squat this as fast as you can say no I want you to squat this at 0.85 meters per second and you be surprised they squat one and it's 0.84 and then you're like you're close but that's not it and then the next rep they're at 0.85 or 0.86 and you can see that just that little extra intent I think that carries over to some of the injury prevention stuff that we've also seen with it so it's going to take a very quick break in the chat with Jeremy I hope you enjoy in part one so I've been part two more along the lines of the barriers to the VBT implementation but also really interestingly I know I've hinted at a few times as we've gone through part one but combining data so combining velocity based training data GPS heart rate force plates and the plethora of other devices that are potentially used within the program how that's all pulled together and really used to inform, programming and decision making. So a really interesting part to coming up with Jeremy. But just with all we do, dive into part two. I wanna say a big thanks to Hawking Dynamics for sponsoring this episode today. So Hawking Dynamics offer the world's first wireless force plate testing system. So the Hawking Dynamics system is built around what coaches want so they can test in the real world and not just in the lab. So we're able to capture reliable data on all athletes in a matter of minutes and monitor progress from their cloud-based system from anywhere in the world. So as I've mentioned, the Hawking Dynamics force plates are wireless, which means they're portable. And they're also trusted by teams at a number of different levels in a number of different sports. So integrating force plates into your athlete monitoring system could not be easier and more affordable. So if you want to get to know a little bit more about Hawking Dynamics or actually see their plates in action, head over to the website, which is hawkingdynamics.com, which you can do and you can also schedule a demo and follow them on Twitter @HawkingDynamics. And also sponsoring this episode today is Blackbox Fitness. So Blackbox Fitness are a sports performance, equipment manufacturer based in Belfast in Northern Ireland. So if you are looking for a full gym fit out, if you're looking enough to be looking for a full gym fit out, I just want to add additional pieces to what you've already got, whether it be barbells, dumbbells, plates, maybe a new rack, some flooring, et cetera, et cetera. Have a little look at what Blackbox Fitness can offer. So you can head to their website, which is blkboxfitness.com or for a more informal view of what they do. Head over to their Instagram 'cause they've got some really cool images of some of the recent projects that they've run in Australia, in the UK, in Europe, et cetera. So head over to their Instagram, which is @BLKboxfitness and they're the same on Twitter. Good little questions. We'll get onto the integration of various different data streams in a little while. Before we jump onto that, velocity loss is something that again, going back to the research, a lot of work out there been done on velocity loss. Is that something that you implement LSU? Is that something you've tried and not gone with? Where's the guys head up with the lost to boss? - Yeah, so I've used some of it with, like I had other teams, not just football when I first started, now I just have football, but before that, you know, coach or volleyball team, I've coach track and field, I coach swimming dive here. And so with some of my teams in LSU program, I've done some of the velocity-based stuff where hey, we're gonna do as many sets as it takes until you break a threshold and then we're done. And that's a way, 'cause I've seen studies, you know, there's a 2011 study I think it was that talks about people program to a 20% loss versus people that program to a 40% loss. And the difference between just the total volume that the 40% group did extra just to achieve that loss and velocity and then what that carried over to their performance metrics. And they saw better performance with less volume based off the VBT because as soon as your body quit, then they would stop training. I've done it with almost like conditioning style stuff in the weight room with like some other sports, like for instance, if you have a sport like swimming and diving, I don't need to condition them 'cause they're in the water, but maybe my divers do, but they're not runners. So I'm not gonna go out there and run them all the time from, you know, so I would do some type of conditioning in the weight room. And some of that was you're gonna lift, we're gonna do as many runs as we can of certain exercises with this, like maybe rest, work to rest ratio, and we're gonna face it up when you're velocity dips. So I have used that stuff currently with the team, especially right now in season, just because of the logistics of the limited number of time we have with them in our hours per week. We can't exactly get dialed into that, but we definitely look at, like right now we're doing more of a true velocity based program where we have say, regardless of the percentage, we want you to hit this velocity, regardless right now. And then week by week we track whether they're actually hitting those percentages or not hitting those percentages, do we need to pull back a little bit, do we need to add a little bit, that kind of stuff. So we program on a week to week basis right now in season based off what we see from the perched data. - And you may have just answered that, but is there any particular times in the year and what dictates that time, the reason why you would do purely percentage base per VBT, armics of both? - So in season mostly pure VBT, especially with our, like two deep guys, we know we're playing on Saturday. Some of our more developmental guys that like are in the program, we just know need to get stronger. We might stay a little tighter the percentages and hey look, that velocity dropped a little bit, but at some point if you're gonna play here at LSU, you need to be able to lift that weight. Where out of season, this is actually kind of an interesting. So like we're still kind of relatively new to this. So like last spring we came back after the national championship and you know, we knew this team was going to be young, a completely different team than the team that had just won the national championship because of, you know, we lost 16 guys at the NFL and then you throw in stuff like COVID and all that stuff that happened after that, you know, it just changes the dynamic of your team. But when we first came back before COVID hit and we started our off season program, we were the talk was we're gonna focus on technique. So let's not use the perch, let's just work on technique so we're not, guys aren't chasing numbers and blah, blah. And the first day we had front squats program. So we're front squatting and Coach Moth comes up to me and he's like, what do you think they're at? You know, and I was like, I don't know, I mean, it looks good but I couldn't tell you. And so he's like, you know what, after the first group, he's like, let's just let's let's perch the front squat. Let's let's do the front squats. Let's let's at least start doing that. And it wasn't because we were chasing a number. He just wanted to see, all right, am I in the hypertrophy zone of my speed zones? Or am I doing, are these guys hitting it where I would like them to hit it and moving it the way I want them to and perch because it's so easy being in the rack, it just was so, we just flipped it on, logged the kid in and hit start and he was able to start getting that data and it just helped his programming. So we weren't doing a true VBT where we were programming off velocities. He was just using it as a gauge as he programmed week to week of how they were handling the load. - When this talks about in the research lies force, what's your profiling? Is that something that you've utilized, especially with the big turnaround of athletes to get an idea of where people are at and how you guys should be programming? Again, you made your sense to that question. We've coached MothFit, but - Yeah, I'm going to teach you all some of that. - We have slowly started and this goes back to some of the charts that Tim makes. We've slowly started to, as we get more data, you can build that whole profile. And a true velocity profile would be, you start at like 30% you do if you actually slowly work your way up. We haven't done that with the guys, but we have worked through enough percentages between 45% and maybe a true 1RM that you get that data, you can start to predict some of that force velocity curve. And then you can also see just on rate of force development, are we starting to push that curve to the right? Are these guys starting to move heavier loads faster? Are they handling it better? Which would be a good metric to show for like a sport at football? So, and then you can also tell what's interesting when we start plotting these charts and not like I'm not a sports scientist, I don't love statistics, but some of the basics of stats. When you start looking at the R-squared value, you can tell an accomplished lift or a guy who's been in the program for a while or who came from a good high school that came from a good lifting program. His training age, if it's higher, he will have a higher R-squared value closer to one. So, you see this scatter plot on the chart of where he's at from percentage to percentage is much tighter. You get a kid in here that maybe didn't lift in high school, came from training from a track program and just starting at squares zero and we're starting with the basic barbell movements. His scatter plot is all over the place 'cause he's just inconsistent. So, that's something we see as they train their R-squared value on these force velocity profiles gets a little tighter so we can make a true prediction on some stuff, but that's been, I guess, one hurdle is based on training age. We have used it to see where at what velocities are most guys if they ever failed on a 1RM, what does that occur at? And so, we put off velocity thresholds of once the bar drops below this number on back squat, I don't care if they hit it or not, they're done. Just for safety, right? And it's something Coach Moff has talked about as far as, we're in the business of creating strength, we're not necessarily in the business of displaying it. So, yes, we would like to see their numbers go up, it looks cool, we put it up there, we send it to Coach O, and he likes, obviously you want to show that progression that your program is working, but now you can also show that with velocity. But hey, look, he moved 315 pounds on bench press at this year ago, look at him this year, like he is getting more powerful in the weight room. So, that's another way that we've used it. Have you found that figure to be different based on the different guys that have come into the program from, like you say, track under, maybe a little bit under training terms, the weight room stuff that they've done, Versus the guys who. - Absolutely. - You want to stop lished, yeah? - Yeah, I found that, I think the research shows this way. As your training age right goes up, then those velocity zones actually start shifting to slower zones. I've seen some guys that were maybe even competitive powerlifters really grind out some heavy numbers where if it was somebody that had a lower training age, they would have been stapled and that would not have happened. So that's for sure. I can tell looking at it, like if I have a freshman coming in, that cutoff might be a little higher than a fourth or fifth year senior of where we're at. And what the nice thing is is I've, I've known my guys really, really well, you know, having worked with them every single day and it out with the receiver group. So I know what good numbers are and where they should be at based on their percentages. And I can tell how they're feeling and functioning based on where they're hitting. So even in the in season right now, if they're not hitting certain velocities at certain percentages, I'm, you know, hey, what's up? Did you not sleep last night? What's going on here? Home live, are you eating? And we're trying to get to the root cause. Are we overtraining? And look at the mileage that we give from the GPS. Hey, have, are you just putting out way more mileage than some of the other guys is beat you up? We got to pull back. And then I communicate that with our wide receiver coach. And so we have a good relationship to where he, every week at a certain time of the week, I sent him the mileage of the week and he starts basing the rest of our practices leading up to game time and how guys are going to get reps based off of what the mileage is to. So I've painted that whole picture. Hey, just guys doing great this week. This guy's coming in and then we try to keep them like the razor, you know, or the like is, this razor pointed at the end, leading in a Saturday. Yeah, interesting. Again, I've got one more question before we go on to that integration of all the, of all the day. It sounds like to me that the real value is the, is the data that you've accumulated over time. Whether that be the tender and obviously moving into your, your transition over to, to perch. Do you think that people are maybe a little bit quick and this may come back to the usability or the integration of the technology? Maybe a little bit quick to move onto something else or expect something more like here and now from VBT rather than seeing the benefits of collecting it long term and really get, then get in the value of it for the down the lines, really start to understand the athletes that you've got three, two, three, four years down the line. Yeah, I think it's, you know, and I don't think anything in this business is, is, is microwavable. You know, everything is about, you gotta, you gotta put the working and you gotta be consistent over time. And a lot of the stuff that we've learned from this was stuff that Coach Moff has been doing for 20 years. It's just now we have dated it back up and show like, yes, this is why it works. This is why you still do these movements. And I don't want to debate whether you should do this movement or do that movement, you know, because that world in social media gets, you know, beaten to death every day. Yeah. But something I appreciate is, look, like we're rooted in the fundamentals, we're gonna pull, we're gonna bench, we're gonna clean, we're gonna snatch, we're gonna jerk, we're gonna press, we're gonna do pull ups, we're gonna run fast to get fast, we're gonna do post-eater chain work. You know, all that stuff, it's all rooted in that program. And all this data does is make sure that we're doing it right and really we're progressing it correctly. Like are we taking two big of a jumps? Hey, are the guys ready for this? Are we even, some of it we might do and say, you know, I wouldn't like that. Let's do something completely different or we're exactly where we need to be. But I do think now accumulating the data over time will definitely help. And it's, you know, you can't just come in here, move a bar fast once and expect to like get faster, right? But doing that repetitively every single time you come in, and it's really not about how fast did you move it all the time. It's about your intent. Did I intend to move it? If I'm pulling a heavy deadlift, that bar's not gonna move fast. But am I putting the same amount of intent into that bar to move it as fast as I can, is gonna be the training effect that I want. And then I'll see taking light weights and moving them even faster. So yeah, I think that it's something that over time helps. And what it does is what I'm starting to realize is you can really take, 'cause every team is different year to year. You can take the 2019 LSU football team, we have all this data on it, and you kind of put it in a box and you put it on the shelf. And now we're accumulating data on the 2020 team. And you put it on a shelf. And then in the future, you'll be able to go back and say, this team looks like that 2019 team, like we're there. Like we should expect that same type of at least athleticism on the field. Whether they can play football, that's a different argument. But so that's, I think the more, as time goes on, it gets better and better because you just get a better picture of. But I think we're there a little bit with GPS because we've had it for now over a decade. And so you have the yardage, like how traditionally how they, and even through the season, like did we keep doing more yardage or did we slowly start taking yardage off as we got deeper in the season? You know, what's our heart rate at? What's our, cause we use polar. So what is our heart rate at? What is our yard permitted at? What are our excels and decels at? All that stuff paints a picture as well. And now with something like Perch, the VBT, I think we're starting to get where you can, you know, look back and say, hey, look, we used to snatch like this and not our snatch like this. Good and bad. You know, maybe you need to make a different program or maybe you need to continue doing what you're doing. You can show progression though through that. On the readiness side of things, another, again, another thing that's, that spoke about when it comes to velocity based training, is that something that you actively do in terms of maybe like I'm involved in a wall up and actually take note of that? Or is that something that you do elsewhere? Yeah, we don't do a test of it, but we also have force plates. So they jump on the force plate twice a week, whether we're in season or out of season. And we track, you know, all the different metrics to force plates, but we look at our side, which is a good metric for readiness. And then looking at concentric rate of power development divided by body mass, we look at their eccentric braking. So we look at their peak power. And so we look at all those metrics on the force plate as well. So something that was cool, I would create these charts and I had a might thing on that presentation for the MIT thing where it was the whole season. And it was every set of back squat that we had done. And it was like on Monday lift, every set of back squat, some type of bench or floor press or whatever we were doing 'cause we changed that exercise up. But we always back squat it on Mondays and we always sumo deadlift it on Mondays in season. Something that perch and the VBT thing changed is we squatted lighter throughout the entire season than Coach Moffat has ever done before. That was last year? Last year. Because we saw the numbers, the velocities, they were able to move that power output at and how it correlated to our RSI numbers and consents are great at power development numbers. So we saw positive trend lines through our force plate data based on what we're doing in the weight room. And we were able to track that over in our season last year with the playoffs and everything turns out to be like a 23 week season. I mean, it's a really long stretch time. And so that's your longest chunk of training block that you have for the entire year was happen to be our in season program. So we have to be getting better throughout the in season program. Otherwise, you're wasting too much time. And so we were able to see that we were squatting in a certain way using sumo deadlift as a strike movement and the progression of our force plate data in the positive trend line throughout the entire season. And then we looked at our GPS data and we ran our fastest speeds in practice on the practice field the week of the national championship game. And I know it's not just what we did, but hopefully we definitely helped impact that in a positive way. And so that has changed something that like he has done is what we realized is, so I create this daily chart after every lift. And it has four metrics on it. We look at your average velocity, per set or per set of the exercise. What percentage did that correlate to? Just so we know. And then we look at peak power and watts and we look at what was the average load on the bar for pounds. So we look at that and I create that give to Coach Moffat, you would look at it and that's how he would progress our week to week program. But we started realizing that certain percentages we hit higher peak power. So let's stay within those percentages, especially in season. And so we ended up with a squatting lighter and maybe even using the back squat as more of a power movement in season. And then using sumo deadlift as a strength movement, instead of vice versa. So it changed a little bit now for sure how we program. But it correlated, but it was cool to see the force plate data continue to increase and get improved throughout the season. Even though they're beat up, we normally see a dip on Mondays, they plan Saturdays, we see a dip on Mondays, but then by Thursday we knew we had a number that we were trying to reach back on the force plate data. And we knew that they were recovering properly if one we were hitting that number. And then they go play again in Saturday. And so that was kind of the wave of the season. We look at that. So Pete Powell was being maintained in the Scots and sumo deadlifts. Yep. But the way it wasn't getting ramped up like it normally would. Correct. But when you were seeing the benefits on the force plate because that's what was in progress. OK. That was important. And then also we had guys PR, their sumo deadlift in season. Because if we program a velocity forum and they felt good, Eric. rip and wait up for fun. And so it was like, well, put some more on, put some more on. And then some guys would get, you know, and they're competitive too. Last year's team was very, very competitive. They competed in everything. So they look over at the platform next to them, see the bar, see the, see where the velocity was and be like, I can do that. They'd walk back over and they'd rip the bar for the floor. And so I'd be like, well, we were supposed to hit 80% today, but you just hit 102. So, but like you still, you're still moving it at 0.56 meters per second. So I can't, you know, and killed it. So that was a cool way to see like, hey, we're still getting stronger as well. We're not losing that strength base. And but we're still, our rate of force development though is helping us perform and be twitchy. And then when they get on the field, use that to play football. Interesting. We'll finally get it to the integration of the different tech. You've mentioned heart rate, mentioned GPS, obviously lots on BBT. And that's obviously the holy grail pulling all this together. Right. Very different moving parts to make the panic clearest picture of where the guys are up. Do we need to pull back? Do we need to, are we, are we all right to push? What does that look like from a physical point of view from a, I suppose just day to day point of view? How do you pull all that together to make a meaningful, get a meaningful picture? Yeah. So one of the huge benefits of being in a place like LSU, right, is you have the budget in order to have a, all of these technologies to look at. And then B, we have a staff where, Coach Mopit has done a great job as far as just delegating responsibilities to different members. So by all means, I do not do all the semi-owned first and foremost. It is, you know, we have Vic Valoria. He does all the GPS data. Myself and Tim Johnson look at all this perched stuff. Modern Avers does all of our fourth plate data stuff. And then we'll take all of that and we'll give it, basically give it to Coach Mopit. And then as a staff, we sit down and we meet and we talk about like what do this look like? How we, you know, and so there might be certain parts of the year where maybe one person is more important than the other, I guess. But it's really a collective staff effort to bring all this data together. And then how do you make sense of it all? And that's how we kind of come together and we talk about what do we see? Is there differences we need to do? What do, you know, and then Coach Mopit will say, this is what I think we need to do. This is what I want. And then we, it's our job to then take that and then implement it. So it really is the benefit of having a staff like that he's created of not just guys in the weight room, but guys who are dedicated to strength and conditioning and want to get them better and love it every day. Like that's all you want to, you know, you come into work and you talk about. And so I think that has created a very seamless and easy daily discussion amongst us, right? And between all the, because you can make with Excel and you can make all these charts and graphs, it's just really easy to make something simple. And I've realized by going up to the sport coaches, they don't necessarily love strengthening the way that they just want to see. Are we getting, but they want the heart like, yeah, it's a yes or no answer to them. And so if you can give them a few nuggets that show real progress or show real readiness to play, they, that's all they need. And so we kind of take what we think is important. We make it, you know, I don't want to say dumb it down, but simplify it to show who wants to see it. And then as we nerd out on it as much as we can to just make sure that we're doing everything we can to put a good product on the field. So with such a successful season last season, does that mean it's just take two, just go again, or does that completely change? Because you've got to be sure. It's a great learning experience, honestly, for me, you know, going through watching, we can now look back and we watch that team get built over a few years of maturity level of growth both on and off the field. And you watched it just, you know, we had an inkling going into last season like why we could be really good. Like this, we have some really good players that are really bought into this program that do everything it takes on and off the field. They love the way you're room. They train hard. They compete at everything. Like it didn't matter if it was a stupid game on the bus. Like these guys were competing at something. And so you, you saw that and like I said, now it's kind of you, you take that whole picture and you have a good idea of what a team like that looks like on paper. And now this year, because of, you know, the environment that college football is in now as far as guys leaving early going to the NFL and then you throw COVID and opting out and all that other stuff into it, your team just looks very different. And so by no means can we do the same thing and expect to just get the same result. And so it really is a team by team, you're by your basis. And so that's part of the, I guess the struggle or the, that's what you're trying to overcome for us as coaches every year is how do I make this team the best possible version of it. And we're, that's a week by week basis right now. But we're finding, you know, but we do compare. You start looking at like where were we at last year with this percentage, velocity wise, where we at this. And then with the COVID stuff this year, we're also it's so different. We've actually been in an in-season training program longer now than we normally would have been. So it's just a, it's a weird dynamic of how it's been and trying to balance everything. But I think that something like Perch, especially even coming back from quarantine, was something that helped us out a lot because we could kind of tell where guys were at immediately based on that. So I created chart when we first got back after a week or two of where did they move this percentage at pre COVID and now where they now. And so, and then we based on a percentage of like, Hey, this guy is deficient by 10%. This guy is right where he was. So he was clearly doing what we told him to do over the break. So it was able to kind of get a better picture of where we were. So when we program, we weren't doing too much too fast. But we certainly were doing enough to create a stimulus that we were getting better. Okay. One last question to round up. What's next for you in terms of your implementation of VBT and secondary question of that, when you think the technology is going in the future? So for me, I mean, I don't, I think it's, it's hard to imagine now programming without something like Perch. That is something that I think from now on will be whether however long I'm here or notice you never know with coaching where you end up going is that's going to be a staple in my program. I believe in it. You see athletes get better using it. You see athletes get better. I think maybe a little faster by using it. And so as far as me, it's just, it's going to be continuing to collect data and hone in on like those markers that maybe are important, right? Realizing like, hey, that's something that, like that, I would like to get to a point where I can circle and say like we need to get to this, this threshold or this velocity or this whatever to know that we're ready to roll. Like that's where, and I think that just comes with accumulating more data. As far as where is technology going, you know, we talk with Perch and this is, it's become a really good positive relationship between us and them. They're very open to suggestions. And so we start asked, you know, they have some really big ideas for where Perch can go as far as like, hey, that might be a year out, but like this is where we want it to get to. We have some ideas with them that I think will make, I don't think you're ever going to replace the coach, you know, I think you still need that human element, the relationship element to get the most out of the athlete, but if we can make how we program even easier by whether it's helping with some of our eccentric stuff or isometric stuff or how it calculates load or percentage or how it even shifts between athletes or, you know, you can play around facial recognition stuff as far as just identifying who is at the rack, what am I doing? It's an album even touching less buttons. I'm just at the rack and recognizes who's there. It switches that kind of stuff. I think we'll just make it even more seamless so that like once you train on something like that, you'd be like, well, I'd never do that without it. And that I feel like every weight room in the country should have something like that, certainly at this level to just optimize what you're doing. But for us, it just takes some of the guesswork out. I think the more technology advances, maybe the more dialed in, you can even get. Especially the post, well, during COVID and post COVID, well, the last year's, but last touch in the eye, whatever it is, the bad, yeah, there might be things that people are thinking a lot about, yeah. Nice. Well, thank you very much for your time, Jeremy. I do appreciate it. I enjoyed the chat we had beforehand. I know, obviously, this one as well, but I appreciate it. I think people get in touch with you, talk about any of this stuff. I'll put a link to that way to you as well. Okay. Me personally. Yeah, if you have any questions, my email is just it's JJ, ACO, 52 at lsu.edu. I'm on. Twitter and Instagram @JerisJeris315. I'm not, I use social media. I don't post a ton of social media stuff. So if you're, I mean, if you want me to post a bunch stuff that we're doing, you're probably not gonna find it there. But I'm happy to answer any questions or help anybody out to has any questions regarding this or at least, you know, and maybe some people, there's probably a lot of that, no more than I do, that, you know, I think that's something that recommendations for me, I'd be happy to hear it. - Yeah, perfect. Happy day. So I'm gonna let you get on with you day. We finished bang on the hour. So, I really crack on, but really, appreciate your time, Jeremy. I appreciate you, thanks, mate. It's a big day. - Thanks, too, Ninh. Episode 319 of the Pacey Performance Podcast. Hope you enjoy the chat with Jeremy. So, big thanks, Jeremy, for giving me a piece of time. But also a huge thanks to Halking Dynamics. I am AzureU, Black Box Fitness, Kitman Labs, and Perch for sponsoring this episode today. The podcast could not run its current form without these guys, so I really, really do appreciate it. It's been a busy time for Jeremy at LSU, especially around COVID and deal with everything that's going on. However, I really appreciate his time and coming on and being so open about the program at LSU and what they do, and potentially don't do with velocity-based training. So thank you for tuning in, and I'll chat to you next week. (soft music) (upbeat music)