IRL Performance Coaching

The split jerk might be the most underrated power exercise out there.

Everyone loves the clean - fewer prioritise mastering the jerk.

If you’re chasing explosiveness, this one earns its spot.

The quick dip and drive builds serious rate of force development - how fast you can produce force, not just how much.

Which is more often than not the most important quality that actually transfers, because most athletic moments (a sprint step, a cut, a takeoff) happen in under two-tenths of a second.

In most sport movements, there’s no time to grind out max force. You produce it fast or you may as well not produce it at all.

Then comes the part most power work skips: the catch.

Dropping under the bar and slamming on the brakes trains eccentric force and deceleration - the same quality that lets an athlete land, cut, and change direction without falling apart.

Stack coordination, mobility, and overhead stability through the hips, trunk and upper back on top of that, and you’ve got one movement covering a ton of ground with plenty of room for progression.

For athletes totally new to this, I typically prefer to start with strict overhead pressing before progressing to push pressing, and eventually jerks.

Dumbbell and landmine variations are fantastic as well, and can be a great variation on their own, or a means of getting athletes comfortable with sequencing of the movement itself.

I included these in my new 16-week athletic training program, which you can try for free by commenting “athlete” below.

This is one of the more impressive, and more useful lifts I’ve seen from an athlete graduating high school.

Alex hit these heavy SSB reverse lunges towards the end of our Spring Phase back in June.

Committed to StFX X-Men Football this coming season, Alex Alex Law increased his training frequency with me this Spring & Summer and saw huge increases in his strength, speed and power, all while adding muscle mass.

I’m really happy about these lifts in particular because I’m a huge believer that split squat & lunge variations are some of the most valuable exercises an athlete can perform to move the needle for actual performance - especially those with variable movement demands.

Don’t get me wrong - heavy bilateral movements will always be a staple for absolute strength (his squats and deadlifts are also through the roof)

But the positional specificity, capacity to load each limb, and implications for linear multidirectional movement make split squat and lunge variations arguably more important.

Alex has been training with me for 3 years now and I couldn’t be happier with where he’s at heading into his first year of university ball.

Sample set x rep scheme ⬇️

- Comment “Athlete” for a free week of my new training program -

Eccentric strength qualities are incredibly valuable for athletes in both the upper and lower limb.

We usually talk about the eccentric side for the lower body: landing, cutting, decelerating.

But your arms are constantly absorbing force in sport.

Eccentric strength & power allows athletes to absorb and redirect high forces during sport, whether that be making or absorbing contact, throwing a baseball, or even just controlling a fall.

These demands show up in a surprising amount of areas, and having the tissue tolerance to withstand them is critical for both performance and health.

Typically my off-season progression for eccentric work looks a little like this:

Extensive eccentric (slow tempos) -> Intensive eccentrics (supramax eccentrics) -> Fast eccentrics (paused catch) -> Fast eccentric (reactive catch)

I find the bench press drop catch is a great, controlled way to develop these qualities.

Now, general pressing strength should always be priority number 1 before trying to program higher speed bench variations. It’s hard to move load at any significant speed & control without having the strength to move it well in the first place.

I’ve programmed these with anywhere from 40-70%, sometimes 80% of an athletes 1RM, and even 80% is fairly heavy. You don’t need as much load if you actually “pull” the weight towards you.

If the weight is light enough, I’ll program up to 6, sometimes even 8 sets. If it’s heavier, we do less volume (3-4 sets) - no surprises there.

I may set these up something like this:

Week 1: 6x5 @ 50-55% 1RM
Week 2: 6x4 @ 55-60% 1RM
Week 3: 6x3 @ 60-65% 1RM
Week 4: 6x2 @ 65-70% 1RM

Again - I’ll do these with a paused catch before progressing to fully reactive. Make sure you drop loads down when making this switch, as it will be more stressful.

Your fancy ladder drills are not moving the needle when it comes to speed.

I’m not saying burn your ladder.

As a warm-up, a coordination drill, a way to wake up the nervous system - sure, it has a place, and screaming that it’s evil is an by most coaches overreaction.

But if it’s an integral piece of your speed program, you don’t have a speed program.

You have a marketing tactic.

Linear speed is the product stride length x stride frequency.

With more powerful, lengthier strides coming from high force production and efficient application of that force into the ground.

And frequency a result of the quick & coordinated ability of the hip flexors and extensors to turn the leg over with each stride.

Quick and efficient change of direction and multidirectional speed comes down to decelerarative and accelerative power, and can be maximised with the support of ones situational awareness and ability to react to stimuli.

A ladder drill simply trains your feet to move quickly in a tiny space while producing very little force, all while covering almost no distance & responding to zero additional stimuli.

While some positions may seem comparable to on field speed, it’s lacking any similarity that actually matters.

If a coach recommends ladder drills to get you faster - run the other way.

Try these ⬇️

You don’t need to overcomplicate becoming a more versatile, athletic human.

While everyone wants to train heavy, few people are willing to address this often completely underdeveloped aspect of their physical ability.

& to be honest - most people’s bodies are absolutely starving for some high velocity exposure.

The amount of fit, healthy adults I’ve seen pull hip flexors and hamstrings after trying to break into a sprint after being out of competitive sports for a few+ years would shock you.

So, here’s some ways you can become a little more athletic in only 20mins/day, 2-3x per week.

**These are examples - don’t perform ALL of these in the same session. Pick 1-2 jumps & a sprint variation each day**

Jump:

- Low-High Pogo - 3x8/each
- Drop Jump or Depth Jumps- 3x6
- Forward Bound - 3x20yd
- DB Squat Jump - 3x5 @ 20% BW
- Approach Jump - 3x6 (3 each side)
- Broad Jump - 3x6
- Box Jump - 3x8

Rest 60-90s between sets

Sprint:

- 8-10x 10yd
- 6x 15yd
- 5x 20yd
- 4-5x 25yd
- 4x 30yd

Or ramp up: 2x 10yd, 2x 15yd, 2x20yd

You can also start out of various positions to add some variety. Lateral, plank start, etc.

Longer distance = fewer reps. Rest 45-60s per 10yds sprinted.

These should still be progressed like anything else from both a volume and intensity standpoint.

Start with shorter sprints and progress to longer. Fewer reps to more reps (within reason - volume doesn’t *need* to go up forever).

Did he get 28.9” in the air? 🤔

Click the link in my bio for a free week of training from my new program.

This may hurt some egos, but jump height is just one number.

A countermovement jump on force plates spits out dozens of metrics - how fast you produce force, how much you absorb on the way down, how evenly you’re loading left versus right, how fast you jump, and so on.

So when both of these athletes came in a few percent under their best jumps, I knew there was more worth exploring.

The reality: both of them set personal bests in relative peak power.

This is the result of moving more mass at the same or greater speeds.

Jump height is just the sum of the qualities & resultant outputs that we’re actually training - i.e. force output, power, RFD, etc.

That’s why jump height alone doesn’t always tell us the full story.

It’s also why one test on one day tells you almost nothing, and why I test these guys weekly at minimum.

The true value in performing these tests isn’t derived from a single test on a given day, but from what the long term trend tells us - that’s what gives us the answers we’re looking for.

Most athletes are training hard toward a metric that isn’t fully answering their question.