Sprints and Training with Max Intent with Zach Dechant - Episode 32

When developing well-rounded athletes, it’s important not to overlook the qualities associated with training with maximum intent. This could be from sprints, jumps, medicine balls, and more.

In this episode, I’m joined by Zach Dechant from TCU. We talk about training baseball athletes, setting the stage for athletic success, and using sprints and velocity work to train with max intent.

Full show notes: https://mikereinold.com/sprints-and-training-with-max-intent-with-zach-dechant

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Transcript

0:31

On this episode of the sports physical therapy podcast. I am joined by Zach daikon. Zack's the assistant athletic director of human performance at TCU and oversees the baseball and sports performance internship program. And this episode, we talk about training baseball athletes. Setting the stage for athletic success and using sprints in velocity, where to train with max intent.

Mike: 1:03

Hey Zach, how's it going? Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining.

Zach: 1:06

Yeah. I appreciate it, Mike. Um, I've, I've been a, uh, long time, uh, fan of all your work, so I appreciate you having me on. It's a real.

Mike: 1:14

Yeah, no, likewise. Uh, we've talked in the past and it's really been great to, to get to know you a little bit and bend your ear a little bit, to be honest with you, and, and learn from you because, uh, I really, really like your. I like your style, like your coaching style, like your educational style. It's, it's really been been fun to learn from you, um, over the years and all the great stuff you're doing from, uh, T C U baseball and all that stuff. So, uh, it's an honor to have you, uh, on the program. So, um, You know, why don't we start with that. Uh, you know, t c u baseball's probably your, your primary concern. I know you have some upper level management type stuff where you help run the department. You run the internship program at T C U a little bit. Um, uh, tell me a little bit about that. How'd you get started working in baseball? Was it, was it intentional? Did you, did you love baseball? Did you just fall into it?

Zach: 2:03

Yeah, that's a a great question. I actually just talked about this with my interns this morning. You know, I played college football. and a job came open when I was ging at Missouri State University. Uh, my alma mater, uh, with the LA Angels and the, at the time my head strength coach was making the move to Notre Dame. And when you're a ga you, you look for anything that's gonna pay you real money, right? And so I jumped at this job to go to, to, to Arizona to work with the angels and, and got it. Spent two years there. And what I told my interns today, cuz they asked me, they said, how did you really get into. I wanted to be a football strength coach forever. I left the angels, went to the University of Wyoming for six months as a football strength coach, and the job at T C U came open and it was football and baseball. I had football experience, obviously because I played the, uh, the, the, the head coach, Jim Schloss, NLE at the time at Texas a and m now wanted somebody who had been in pro ball. So I, I was a perfect fit and really baseball just kind of happened. Um, I never thought this would be my. And the reason that I, I told my interns today, it became a niche for me was because I was very outside the box when it comes to training baseball athletes. I trained'em like football, like track and field. Um, that, that's how I trained'em. I trained'em like athletes versus at the time when I was back in pro ball in, in 2000, you know, that was 2006, 2007, there were minor leak facilities in Arizona that didn't even have weight. that had no weight room attached to it whatsoever. Or they had a, uh, series of machines. At the time I was with the Angels, we had 15 hammer strength machines, and it was one set

Mike: 3:42

Yeah.

Zach: 3:43

20 reps on every machine down the line. And so I was, that, that was how I kind of made I made my way in baseball was that I believed in speed development. I believed in like sprinting our guys in acceleration and all the, the common training things.

Mike: 3:59

Yeah,

Zach: 4:00

think of today. And

Mike: 4:01

That's

Zach: 4:02

that's, yeah, that's just what you do with athletes. But back then I was like, I was, I was, I was the crazy guy off on, you know, the back fields doing acceleration work

Mike: 4:11

Right.

Zach: 4:12

he doing? Um,

Mike: 4:14

and the, and the, the, the coaches probably freaked Right. When you're out there actually trying to help the players get better. Right. And, and they're used to doing those, those planet fitness circuit machines, right. Is what that sounded like. Right. Like that must have been a, a big shift. Yeah.

Zach: 4:27

A hundred percent. And so we used to do barefoot warmups. This is back in 2006. Barefoot warmups temple runs without your shoes on. I mean, the fields are meticulously maintained in Arizona. Right? Beautiful fields. And I had a coach that was in his late seventies, early eighties come out and scream up and down at me because these kids were gonna step on glass or nails or something in the outfield and tear their, feet up and weren't gonna be able to play. And I. I mean, these, these fields are unbelievable. Who, where's their, where's their glass on the field? But,

Mike: 5:01

there's

Zach: 5:01

so I would, again, I was just getting beaten up for the, the ideas and the, uh, methods that I used to use back then. So,

Mike: 5:09

That's funny. Well, so let, let, let's hear a little bit more about that. So, if somebody coming from the football world going into baseball, uh, what are some of the things that you think, um, somebody needs to consider to work with baseball athletes? You, you talked about treating'em like athletes cuz they are Right. But are there some unique considerations that you, you use with baseball players things? you, you try to really emphasize and maybe some things that you try to avoid, or do you just treat'em like everybody?

Zach: 5:37

Yeah, I mean, it's a. Both. Right. One of the things that I've learned over the last, whatever it's been, 16 plus years in, in baseball, is just the ability to have some feel. Um, that's one of the big things that I think that some of my interns sometimes miss out on when they go into pro ball is they don't realize you gotta, there's a little bit of a baseball feel you gotta have. Right. Walking into a, a locker room to the training situation that baseball is as far as the, uh, actual training. The big differences for me focus around the spine. Pars fractures for us are a huge, huge issue that we see at the high school level, the junior college level. Um, you know, an example is six out of 12 athletes we had in an incoming class one time had current or previous pars fractures. So we have to be very, very cognizant of the spine. the pelvis. That's where everything starts for us. The pelvis is the foundation. It's the first thing we teach in the, uh, in the, um, foundation program that I, you know, that I detailed in movement over Max's. Um, and then obviously you, you've talked about it, you know, I, I'm, I'm following your work with the shoulder. We have to be very, very cognizant of the shoulder, um, because football and, and, uh, and, and the demands that are put on baseball athletes are very, very, very d. you need that functional armor up top. A lot of times with football athletes, they're not, they're not overhead, they're not specialized in anything there. And so, uh, you gotta be very, very conscious of the, of the shoulder, the scapula, the rotator cuff. We, we know those things.

Mike: 7:11

Yeah. Yeah. Make, makes sense. And, and it's interesting you bring up the spine. Um, have you, have you seen that increase lately? Is that going up in your mind?

Zach: 7:21

Um, for us, I would actually say it's probably. here at T C U I would say it's probably going down or maybe staying the same, I guess. Um, we sought really, really bad in, let's say, probably around 2010 to 2015, and maybe that was just because we were starting to figure out what it was. Here's what would happen in, I think my early years, 2008 to 2010, we would get athletes into the weight room. I would screen'em with the f m. And, uh, to be honest, at the time I really didn't know what pars fractures were probably. So I didn't know how to find those in my initial screen, even though there, there's the extension based test that, that, uh, goes along with the pushup that you could probably weed that out in. I just didn't know how to ask the right questions, which now I do, I know how to dig deeper. Um, but we get these athletes in and they'd be on campus for three, four weeks. They're training every day with us. They're swinging every. they're doing a ton of skill work that they're not used to. And so what happens, their pars fracture flares up and a lot of times you didn't know that they had this previous injury from six months ago that they didn't tell you about or a year ago. And so it flares up. And so the first thing a coach or anybody on in your organization thinks is, well, they got hurt. You know, we're not really practicing yet. They probably got hurt in the weight room. It's squatting, it's it's deadlifting, it's something along that, along those lines, and. the coaching staff and I would butt heads a lot because they always wanted attribute back to the weight room. Yeah, you heard'em in the weight room, now you're squatting too much, you're doing too many deadlifts, whatever the case is. Um, but then we started bringing in smarter people than all of us. And you know, we, we've got specialists in every area as far as the shoulder, the spine, the hip, um, medical specialists that work with us. Our, um, our spine ortho basically came in, presented. We, we talked back and forth to him. I mean, we're very, very close. And he's, he told us, he's like, here's what's happening. You've got pars fractures. I see gymnasts, I see N F L linemen. Um, I see, you know, all walks of life. Have these issues there. Here's where they're coming from. Here's what we need to do to, to prevent this, or whatever the case was, and started opening up our, uh, minds. So what these problems were so that we could find'em ahead of time. And really what it comes down to is me asking the right questions before our athletes ever step under a bar or put a baseball bat in their hand. It's, it's digging deeper to see if they've really ever had any injuries that we need to refer out to have them looked at before we start doing this stuff. So it's, the screening process is what's changed for me. Um, let's find it before we, we, uh, do something stupid and, and somebody gets hurt. After that it, it became, you know, eliminating back squat. A lot of the extension based stuff that we do, it's been modifying that. So that's why I became a huge front squat guy. Um, and then even since then, we've modified even more, more so continual con, continual improvement, hopefully.

Mike: 10:18

Yeah. And you, you know, the reason why I ask too is I, I do feel like I've started to see this a little bit more in our, uh, probably more our high school athletes than our college athletes. And, you know, you gotta wonder, you know, the whole world is just focused on numbers. They're focused on exit velocity. They are taking max effort swings. All freaking winter now. Right. Where, where, where they weren't in high school before. They weren't doing that. And you just, you wonder how much that's a part of it, but um, you know, great uniqueness of our sport.

Zach: 10:48

right? So, and one of the reasons I think you are seeing that more, and I could be wrong, but you're in the Northeast, right? Cold weather 10, 20 years ago, the training wasn't what it is today because of social media, really, because of companies that can do remote training and all these other things. So in my opinion, Uh, I presented actually in Philadelphia. This was probably 7, 8, 9 years ago, something like that. And I talked about this. I presented on par fractures and how we work around those. And most of the coaches there had never heard of it. The PTs, the strength coaches had no clue what I was talking about. And then I realized it's because we're in the south. My kids are playing baseball year round, which they do. They play baseball year round here. It's a warm weather climate. but the coaches that I were meeting, that I was meeting from the north in any cold areas had no clue what par fractures were because they, a lot of'em had multi-sport athletes or the, the athletes didn't participate in, in baseball during the winter months, and so they didn't see'em. And so that could be why you are seeing more is just because remote programs, athletes know that they need to train year round now, and so now they're doing skill work year round up there. That could be the.

Mike: 11:57

Yeah, I mean this, this, this, this, uh, early youth special specialization is just becoming more and more prominent in, in probably all of the, our. Our areas of the country. Uh, but we're definitely seeing it. We're seeing kids just not try out for winter sports anymore and just get ready for baseball and, you know, I actually think that's acceptable at a certain point of development. Right. But, um, it's happening earlier and earlier and, and there was actually a study that's just published that shows us, like we have kids as young as 10, 11, 12. They're starting to specialize in, in one sport already. Um, yeah, I can just imagine what what that does to somebody, especially as. Growth spurts and, and maturation periods are different in different people. Right. So somebody just does it at the wrong time and, and, you know, they're, they're outta luck. Right. It's, it's, it's, it, it's the nature of the game we're playing with now, but, um, As a college strength coach, right? Somebody that's working at the college level, what percentage of athletes coming into you, and you guys are a great program, so it's not like, you know, this is, these are not motivated athletes, but what percentage of the athletes coming into you, uh, have a very low training age, you think? Are there, are, are we starting to, to see them all get after it in high school? Now? Are you still seeing some people that it's relatively.

Zach: 13:11

So it has, uh, it has greatly improved since I started. So this is starting my 16th season and really along the same line of, of, uh, of, uh, the pars fractures issue I just talked about 10 years ago. I would have athletes that came in that had never, honestly never been taught to squat. That's where the movement over max is, the foundation program all came from, because I had so many high school athletes that had never hinged, had never squatted. At one time I had an Emeril B guy who was throwing 99 mile an hour, this was seven or eight years ago. And I told him, I said, you know, we're gonna go in and hinge and do an R D l. And he was like, what? He had never in his life been told what a hinge was or an R D L. He had never been taught either of'em. This guy was at the highest level throwing 99 mile an hour. Um, yeah, it used to be a real problem anymore. I don't see it that much.

Mike: 14:00

Oh, nice. That's

Zach: 14:02

yeah. Virtually every guy that we have come into our program and. One of the benefits, I just talked to a bunch of coaches this morning. One of the benefits of writing movement over Max's, and I'm not trying to plug this here on the show by any means,

Mike: 14:14

No, you

Zach: 14:14

of the, one of the benefits of that has been that all of our incoming athletes, Either hear about it or know about it by the book, and are trained through that program by either themselves or their coaching staff before they get on, before they get on campus. So my, the kids coming in know the five, you know, big patterns that we're gonna focus on. They've already been trained in it. And so my work is, it's, it's a lot easier if

Mike: 14:38

You, you, you built, you built an on-ramp program for your incoming freshman. I mean, that's actually an interesting way to think about it, right? All right. So, you know, and I'll, I'll plug it for you because I, you know, uh, Zach's got a product movement over Max's, and one of the big things in it is his foundations program, which I just thought was brilliant. The way you've laid it out here, it's a foundation program that's designed to take somebody, um, you, you have to graduate. through foundations before you can start to get to some advanced training. And I think everybody wants to jump to the latest and greatest and the cool things they see on the internet. Um, and everybody's gonna progress through different pillars in those foundations differently, right? They may be great at Hinge, but not so great at Squad, for example. Um, I really love the way you outline that. So if you're looking to, to get into some, some baseball strength and conditioning stuff, uh, Zach's movement over Max's program is, is, is fantastic for you to check out and, and follow. Yourself, give it to your athletes. Uh, it's a great program. But, um, so my follow up question for that then, Zach. So these guys are coming in with a training age. Uh, how many of them do you think are doing things well though? So are they just, are they just going to the gym and like you said, just putting strength on top of dysfunction? Or are they actually coming in and going through your foundation program successfully and doing a good job? Uh, what are you seeing in, in the last few?

Zach: 16:29

Yeah. Um, you're still gonna see some of the, some of the things where it's, there's a lot of breakdowns and movement and it becomes, The weight on the barb that matters. Um, I still see that all the time. I still hear it from kids. Kids. Uh, we set the standard when they come in that, that you're essentially gonna move through the program at our pace, at my pace. So I dictate the weight on the barbell for almost everybody. We educate all of our athletes and R PEs and, and what they need to feel in the movement so that we can get quality movement first and foremost. This year has. as good of, uh, any years that I've had with any incoming class. As far as, uh, movement proficiency goes, we moved very quickly through it and we have some really, really strong guys. Strength for us is just a byproduct of the consistency in our habits. That's really all it is. If you are consistent in your habits, you move really, really well. The strength is gonna come. It's, it's falling out of a boat and hitting water. Super, super, super easy. So the message for the listeners out there, That have young athletes, high school aged athletes, you don't have to chase strength at the at all costs. You don't have to chase strength at all costs. It will come if your athletes are consistent in their habits, that's all they have to do.

Mike: 17:50

and nothing will come quick and easy. Right. You, it's, it, it's, it's about that persistence. I agree.

Zach: 17:56

Exactly. And the consistency breaks down so often, especially in season for high school athletes, we see it here all the time. They train their tail off in the off season. Soon as the in season hits, I can't do it. The summer comes, I got, uh, you know, I've got select teams and travel teams and all this stuff, so I can't do it then. But guess what, when September comes back around, I'm gonna train really, really hard until December. and then, you know, seasons kind of, kind of ramp up and then I, I'll be done for another six or seven months. And you're like, you do, do you understand how much, how many, how many gains you're leaving on the table by not training consistently for six or seven months. It's just, it's crazy to me.

Mike: 18:34

Yeah, I, it, it's so shortsighted. And, and you know, I, I, the, the more I do this, the more I come across people that I just think I'd put'em in a bucket of they don't like working out. And I, I dunno if it's the effort, they don't like the soreness, but, uh, that can't be it because you, you shouldn't get sore once you get going into a program. I don't know what it is about it, but some people just don't like the. Right. And, and I don't know, I, I, I, I don't, I don't know how to handle those people, but, you know, I've seen some really successful major League baseball players that were like that. So, you know, it, it, it's stinks. We're frustrated because we think, like you said, that we're leaving some gains on the table, but, um, unfortunately you come across'em every now and then.

Zach: 19:15

Yeah. Yeah, you do. And really it's a lot of times, you know, it's with the high school athletes, it's not the high school athletes fault.

Mike: 19:22

Mm-hmm.

Zach: 19:23

talk to high school athletes, I've. That are like, yeah, I'd love to work out in season, but my parents, you know, we, it's just, we, we don't have the time and, and you know, I don't have a high school aged athlete, so I don't know what it's like driving'em all over town, I suppose.

Mike: 19:37

it's pretty, it's pretty bad actually.

Zach: 19:39

yeah, so I gotta, ima I hear horror stories, but, um, at the same time, if, if you're really concerned that much about their development, then that needs to be a piece of it in my.

Mike: 19:50

Right. Yeah, I, I agree. And we're getting better, right? I think the community around us gets it. I think the local towns around us and, you know, Boston has a lot of good, you know, prominent strength and conditioning facilities, so that's probably part of it too. But like, I think it spreads, right? Like you have a couple of players on a team that they get after it one off season, and then they spread the word with their friends and teammates and, you know, hopefully it sticks. But, um, So we talked about movement. I like that movement over maxes, which is, you know, such a great phrase. Right? A good way of saying that. So clearly when, when people are coming into you, you like to look at their movement, uh, what, what other type of testing do you like to do other than just their, their movement skills. You know, what do you do with incoming freshmen or, or what do you do as re revals and, and how much you actually testing them versus just tracking their training data over the course of the.

Zach: 20:41

Yeah, that's what it really is. Um, it, it, it. It is testing through training. Um, that's, that's the big thing for us, especially with speed work. You know, we track speed, power, and strength. Um, as far as the speed work goes, we, uh, we use the Tony Hauler method where we're, uh, we're basically recording, uh, what does he call it? Rank record and publish I think. So we. We have a, uh, electronic timing system. We time the guys in their speed work all the time. We time them every week when we're doing our Max V, um, our, our max velocity work. Uh, again, I talked to the, to the baseball, uh, coaches today about this. Um, we wanna make sure we're very, very frequent with our, uh, with our, um, max velocity. When we're training Max Velocity, sorry, I'm running through a thousand thoughts here, Mike. When we're training Max, max velocity, we wanna make sure that we have, um, a stimulus about every week and we record and, uh, and, um, time those those runs because objective information creates intent with all of our athletes, and I wanted our athletes to be running their very fastest. So our big focus on any of that testing stuff is gonna be. And we just do it. We, we set the timing gates up every week and we test that as far as, uh, power numbers go, we've got force plates, we've got jump pads, all that type of stuff. Again, it's, it's testing through training. We put jumps in the middle of, uh, of a, a, a set of squats. As a complex, you'll go over and jump. And we'll record those numbers. We'll just record'em on a weekly basis. Did we see the trend going up? Great. Did we see the trend going down? Okay, let's, let's have an intervention here. Um, we have our forest plates that we use less frequently just because of the time that it takes so that we can get, you know, all the metrics involved, gives us, um, with power outputs and, and, uh, forces and things like that. Um, but really that's, that's what it is. It's training, it's testing through training, and not training to test. Um, I talked about it real quick with our interns this morning. So we actually had two guys that went up and tested a single on their bench press today. And, you know, that's hearsay, right? Doing a one rep max on a, on a bench press. But I, I used this as a learning moment for our interns who just started, uh, this past week. These guys were moving the bar really, really, really fast on a tendo unit. We were at 90. and they were hitting speeds that were 0.5 to 0.6 meters per second on a Tinder unit, which if you don't know, that's moving the bar fast at 90%, which tells me, Hey, they've got plenty in the tank. So I said to these two athletes, I said, do you guys wanna work up and hit a few singles? Yeah, sure, coach. I feel great. So we let these guys work up and they both hit 20 plus pounds over what their, their, their number set for, uh, bench press was. And we've never maxed'em. It's always just kind of a working max based on what we. So they ended up hitting, uh, we had a 300 and a two 80 from two outfielders today. And so I pulled my interns aside and I said, this is why you don't do like a one rep max testing day. You have athletes.

Mike: 23:47

right?

Zach: 23:48

It's, it's terrible because no athlete, they're not, they're not all, they're not all ready for that day, right? They're, they don't have all the same readiness levels. And I said, this is how you handle one rep testing or any testing that you do. You bring'em in. These guys look really, really good over here. Whatever the case is, let'em go for it. Let'em have a few singles if they're going really great. Take a few more and see if you can and see if you can, you know, get up to something heavy. If they're not feeling good, don't worry about it. You live to fight another day and we just go on with the workout. So, you know, and so we have guys go up to heavy singles when they feel good in season all the time. And that's how we can, that's how we can, you know, see what our strength levels are in season without worrying about having a max day or anything like that.

Mike: 24:30

I love it. And, and the forest plates have done so much for us in that, in that manner too, where you can just have a jump. You can do an isometric mid dip, pull, or a squat squat. Alting type thing. Like there's, there's, there's so many things you can do right there without having to, to do a rep max day. Right. I mean, is there anything worse than, than the, that day? Right. Like it's just, it's, it's the worst testing process ever.

Zach: 24:52

Yeah, and so many athletes, because they're not all ready at the same time. So many athletes fail. they, and, and if it's, it's a terrible, like, it's a terrible event on their psyche because then they think they've trained their butt off for the last, you know, 6, 12, 16 weeks and made no progress. And so I, I think it's just a terrible, terrible thing.

Mike: 25:14

Right. Well, I wanna dig in a little bit on the max velocity thing, because I think that's something, um, if, you know, just following you online and just knowing your, your educational stuff, I think that's one thing I've learned from you a little bit and the importance of it. But I still feel like your, what, what you're saying about sprints and max velocity and your baseball players, I still think it's, it's not the. Right. And I see a lot of programs in colleges and I see a lot of pro teams that, that probably still aren't doing that. Tell me a little bit more about your thoughts on this. What, why do they need to get Max Oxy? Why sprint? How does that correlate to baseball performance, both position and pitchers? Uh, tell me a little bit more about that because I'm, I'm intrigued in. It's something we've started doing a little bit more with the White Sox, but I want to hear more from you,

Zach: 26:00

Yeah, I've, I've gotta clarify some thoughts after this start of that last question too. So for us, our principles for speed work are gonna be fresh, fast, and frequent. Fresh. I want my guys feeling really, really good on the day. That we're running fast. So we optimize, um, all of our workouts, or we organize our workouts accordingly so that we can optimize recovery. So we're fast on those days. We want those guys to feel really, really good. We train at high speeds, 95%, uh, plus or more. That's the fast part of the, uh, philosophy. And then the frequent is we want exposures to this every week or so. Right? If you look at, um, Vladimir Isans, um, training residual. Basically, you know, whether you know anything about that or not, speed stays in the system for about seven days. So if you're not, you're not hitting some high speeds every week, you're risking soft tissue injuries with your athletes, especially your thoroughbreds. You know, we've got slow bad athletes. They never pull hamstrings, right? It's the D, it's the, it's the high c n s dominant, the fast, explosive thoroughbreds that this is gonna cause a problem. So if you haven't sprinted for three or four weeks and then you're asking him, you're asking him to go out and. They're not prepared for the demands. And so guess what? You're gonna end up having soft tissue injuries, maybe not on that day, but 2, 3, 4 weeks down the road, the accumulation builds up and you've got problems. So those are our big principles. Um, and, and like I talked about earlier today at a, at a conference, uh, with our baseball coaches, maximal speed is the, uh, is the, uh, tide that, that lifts all ships. So it's gonna help with acceleration as well. You know, the studies, uh, the, the, the, the work by Ken. With N F L combine athletes talks about, um, the guys that had faster max vs. That were just faster athletes that also had faster accelerations at 5, 10, 15, 20 yard segments. So I used to be this young strength coach that was told, don't ever run max velocity stuff. Don't ever do high-end or high end speed work because you're gonna have guys pull hamstrings. All you know, team sports is all about acceleration. So as a young strength coach, I thought, okay, all we gotta do is acceleration. and you would see when I was with football, with football programs, football programs were always terrified to run forties, but at the end of every spring, every football program in America gets out there in times forties and has guys hurt hamstrings. So it was, it was this continual cycle of we ran a 40 guy hurt a hamstring. No more top speed work because we can't run fast, because that's, that's what happens when you run fast. Well, we were creating the problem and that we never ran. just like I talked about, you weren't getting that speed every seven days. And so when you don't do that stuff, guess what? Guys get hurt. Guys would get hurt, stay away from max speed, only do acceleration. And so it was this continuous cycle. And so, um, we make an effort. We sprint every single week with our guys pitchers and position. We do high, we do high, uh, or I should say, um, really, really fast. Max V if they don't feel great on the day, if they're not. we say you need to stay a half step to one step under max, which is our, basically our 90 to 95% range. We're still gonna get good quality work in, but we're not gonna push to be faster. So it doesn't matter where we are in the, in the year, our guys are running some type of 90 plus, um, sprint at

Mike: 29:25

I was gonna,

Zach: 29:26

everybody does.

Mike: 29:27

I was gonna say that too. And that's all year round. You do that in season and off season.

Zach: 29:31

So with our guys. Yes. And, and, and I had a coach ask me this morning, well, how do you do this when you're, uh, practicing and this and that? We do it in the warmup, microdose it into the warmup, so, Especially with your outfielders, your guys that, um, and I shouldn't say outfielders, especially with anybody that's not playing regularly when they're playing in the games we've seen on G P S, our guys are hitting a hundred percent. So that goes against the thought that you only need acceleration in team sport or only need acceleration in baseball. These guys are hitting a hundred percent. We saw 104% on our GPS guys hitting over their PR in game, so they're running fast. So the guys that are playing in game, they probably don't. The guys that aren't, that are riding a pine, those are the guys that need that, that, um, that residual to stick around because as soon as somebody goes down and they're into the game, guess what? They're gonna be running really fast and you don't wanna have them break it down.

Mike: 30:21

And you have a big spike in their, their workloads. But, but, but you're still running the center fielder though. The guy that's, that's a hundred percent of the games. They're still running with you once a week though.

Zach: 30:29

they're still, they still do buildups with us, essentially. Yeah. With their warmups. They're still doing high, uh, high speed buildups and stuff like that. Multiple times per week. Yes.

Mike: 30:39

And, and what are we talking about? Like a handful? Like how many, how, how many are we talking about Four? Like what do you do?

Zach: 30:45

as far as reps go, Like, like, yeah. So what we would do is we essentially have our, our 13 minute warmup that we're gonna do, we go 50, 75 and 90%, 30 yard buildups. Those are our warmup runs. And then after that we'll do a 30 yard with a 10 yard hold at 90 to 95% for two reps. Just microdose it in.

Mike: 31:06

right.

Zach: 31:07

like I told coaches today, you can also piece it into your base running stuff because what, what do we do? We go warm up and then straight to base running. So that's why we warm our guys up to be ready to sprint. And then if I didn't wanna do the flies, we can take it over to base running and say, all right, we're gonna do, you know, two hard reps of, uh, a first to third or something like that. I want you to reach 95% on your speed so you can tie it into the actual skill development so it's not taking up a another segment of your.

Mike: 31:34

Yeah. And, and, and it's definitely one of those areas. More cautious you get, it seems like the more it backfires, like you said, like the, the more you avoid it cuz you're worried about getting hurt, the more you, you end up getting hurt it

Zach: 31:45

The more, yeah, the more it's gonna come show its face.

Mike: 31:48

Yeah. So, and you know, and we're seeing hamstrings in our position players. And our pitchers. Right. So I, I, I, I like that concept. Um, are, are you, do you think there's something to be said though about this max velocity also for their performance? Does it help them also be more explosive, uh, for swinging and, and, and pitching, or do you think this is just more for injury?

Zach: 32:10

Yeah, I mean, it's hard to relate it directly or transfer. See, transfer directly related to, you know, swinging and, and, and pitching possibly. But at the same time, you think there's nothing more powerful of a C N S stimulant than sprinting. It's the most powerful thing we do. The stretch, shortening cycle, the athleticism, all the things that go into it. I mean, we are rotational beings. Like sprinting is just a rotational movement, really. All the things that go into sprinting, I. It's just too good to leave out for the athlete, whether it really produces transfer specifically to pitching, hitting, throw, you know, anything in the baseball field. I, I don't know, but it's too much, it's too good of an athletic, uh, uh, uh, quality to leave out for anybody. In my opinion. Everybody should be doing it.

Mike: 32:57

Right. And, and just a good part of well-rounded athleticism too, of just, of getting people to move fast. If you never, ever move fast, you know, you're, you're, you're a slow person. You don't use velocity based training in your gym, you know, that type of thing. And it's always slow, you know, adding those sprints is, it's, it's, it's such a contrast to so many people that are used to going slow. Um, it's definitely worth, um, you know, considering. So, um, I, I, I love how you do that and, You know, the importance of, that's, that's really good. I mean, hamstrings continue to be like, you know, probably the number one injury in baseball. I mean, taking it while taking out the pitching injuries for the arm. Um, you know, and, and, and we see this, uh, coming from lots of different directions. And, and I agree with you wholeheartedly that, that one time you get an injury, everybody says, uh, we gotta run less. You know, or you gotta, you gotta point your finger at the weight room. It's, it, it's frustrating.

Zach: 33:49

and to me so much of that. I didn't mean to cut you off

Mike: 33:52

no, no.

Zach: 33:53

but to me, so much of that comes from the fact that a lot of times the athletes aren't prepared for the demands that they're gonna face. And we talk about that all the time going into this period right now in that, I mean, I've trained, I've had groups of 30 plus, you know, professional baseball athletes train with me in the off seasons at times, and I've seen the intent sometimes that they'll put into to their efforts and for years, Pitchers didn't believe in throwing hard before they got to camp. They didn't believe in it, right? I, I would, I, it was like smacking my forehead on a wall. You, let's take live abs. Let's get, once you ramped up to a hundred percent before you ever step into camp, so that way you're prepared to make this team that you don't know if you're gonna make or not. Because the bull pins that you see, the bull pins that you see in the off season with a lot of, uh, pro athletes. are really, they're in an 80% range and there is a massive difference between throwing 88% and a hundred percent with intent against a, a, a hitter in a competitive situation. It's a massive difference. Um, you know, just in an example, we did a, uh, staff education with Brian, uh, Heche from the University of Wisconsin, who was, uh, he's the lead researcher for hamstring um, injuries in the N F L and. The difference between, I can't remember his specific example, but the difference between, I think he said 92% or maybe it was 95% and 100% sprinting is exponentially more stressful. Um, that difference between 95 and a hundred, just that half step of

Mike: 35:35

Right,

Zach: 35:36

I'm pushing with more intent was exponential. More difficult on, on the structures of the human body. And so when you think about a pitcher throwing a bullpen at 85 or 88% and then going in, they're not prepared for the demands. We see the same thing with the pro athletes in sprinting. You know, we'd always have a hard time getting guys to sprint full speed in the off season. The timing system helps greatly. But you still see that all the time where they're like, eh, you know, I mean, yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll kind of do my sprints. they're still not with max intent. And then you get into camp and you're trying to make a team and I gotta, you gotta bust your, you gotta bust your hump. Exactly. And then you're not prepared for the demands. And guess what happened? A soft tissue injury.

Mike: 36:22

Right. Yeah. And, and I should say too, like as I, I, I said earlier that we see so many people working max intent swings all winter at, at the younger levels. Um, you, you have to do it to, to, to your point, you have to do max effort, bullpens, max effort, like BP sessions. But, but you can't do it every day in, all day, every day. I think that that's the point. You, you have to expose yourself to those things. And if, if you're training at 80% all the time, then you're gonna be 80% Right. it's a, it's a, it's a, it's, it's a, it's a slippery slope. Right? Um, so, all right. So, I, I, I can see your athletes doing a great job with this. Uh, what's an on-ramp look like for people that haven't been doing this? So freshmen coming in, or maybe somebody that spent the summer away, uh, and you know that they didn't sprint. I mean, if, if you have'em do their max effort sprints, week one, you know, that's, that's probably gonna be a big spike for them too. How long's your on-ramp for that? Is it, you know, four weeks, six weeks? What, what do you like to.

Zach: 37:16

Yeah, so for most of our, uh, the foundation program for the most part is gonna be a four week OnRamp. it's for us. The, the, the, uh, foundation of our sprinting is buildups, right? Buildups for us start at 0%, essentially at the, at the goal line. And you're gonna build up to the, uh, distance that we have, which is 20 to 60 yards, and we set an intensity parameter on it. So if we say, you know, 90% at 20 yard, They're gonna ramp up their steps gradually and try to hit 90% at 20 yards. But we know because we've set the distance at 20, that's gonna dictate true intensity. We know if they're building up gradually, they're not gonna be able to truly hit 90% at 20 yards. So all we do is we ramp those percentages in that distance, um, up and out over the course of that four weeks. So that's how we build in. Our gradual progression to to max V. And then by the end of that four weeks, we will start using, um, our gates, our, uh, free lap system, what whatever we're using at the time, uh, to time those athletes in a flying tin. Um, usually after four or five weeks, but it's, it's just build up for us. It's gradual, uh, acclimation to, to, um, to speed. That's really all it is.

Mike: 38:31

which makes sense o obviously, but it's, you know, some, I, I've seen people get excited, say, oh, everybody needs a sprint, let's start sprinting next week. Right. And, and you have to be careful, like a max intent sprint has to be something you're prepared for. And, and, and, you know, I, I, I think, uh, you know, just making sure the young professionals understand what you're saying there, I think that's, that's important. How much of this information do you apply to rotational things and oblique injuries? We're talking hamstring injuries. Right. Well, what about oblique injuries and rotational velocity? Uh, do you do similar progressions and max intense stuff with like med balls and, and hitting programs, that sort of thing? Is this, does this parallel with o.

Zach: 39:12

Yeah. I mean, to me it's, it's, it's all one in the same language, right? You've, you've just gotta use progressive overload and progressive, um, increases in volume and intensity with anything that you do. For us, it's gonna start with extensive means for the most part. Extensive means are gonna be sub maximal, um, you know, and we usually say 50 to 70% on that. So we'll start, our med ball throws with extensive med ball throws 50 to 70% intensity, and we're gonna ramp up over the course of two to four weeks into a maximal, into a maximal throw. Essentially everything we do, we're gonna start with those extensive means and then intensify. If we add anything to our program in the middle of, uh, a semester, we start with extensive. As an introduction and then we intensify it over the course of a couple weeks. So let's say, you know, in block two we're gonna add, um, some type of, of jump in block one. Halfway through we start adding that jump in at submaximal va at submaximal intensity. So 50%. So if you were gonna do a, who knows a trap bar jump, let's add that trap bar. Jump in. But we're not gonna use Max intent, so we're gonna get familiar with the. and then two weeks down the road when it becomes part of our program, instead of just randomly throwing it in, and now we're jumping really, really high, fast, whatever, powerful, with a, with a load, we've already had exposure to it. Sub maximal intensities, everything in, to me, everything should happen like that. Throwing programs, hitting programs. Your, your, your energy, energy system development, everything. Like we see, we see way too many coaches and athletes just jump into something. you know, full intent right away. High volumes. And those workloads spike, like you said, and, and the result is usually not.

Mike: 40:58

Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I, I agree. And, and, and I, I think this is a great episode, right? Because I think the whole concept of training with intent and this max velocity, those types of things, I, I think it's something that we can all continue to improve on. And I, I, I think you've, you've made it a science. Right. You've, you've developed a nice way to on-ramp it and to monitor it and to quantify it. And I, I think that's, that's the way to go. Um, so, um, you know, to me, I think this is something that people need to pay attention to when you, when, when you do, it's not just what do you do, but how do you do it. And I, and I think that's one thing that you've done over your 16 years at TCU, is you've figured out a little bit of, of, of the recipe, right? Not just the ingredients, but you've, you've, you've figured out a little bit of how to apply that. And I think that's the part that's really neat about your.

Zach: 41:45

Well, we're, we're trying every day. We're trying to improve so that we can have our athletes withstand that first four weeks. I mean, that's when everybody gets hurt. Really.

Mike: 41:53

right?

Zach: 41:54

it's the first four weeks. It's for the pre-season. you know, major league baseball. The injury rates are highest during the spring training. That's it that that first eight weeks that you guys have in spring training, in the first couple weeks of the season, that's when the injury rates are highest. We've gotta build resilient, robust athletes to be able to withstand the practices so that they can get to the games. That's what our goal ends.

Mike: 42:16

Yep. Movement over maxes resilient athletes. I love it. Awesome. All right, well, great stuff. Zach. Uh, before I let you go, I'd like to end with a little high five section, five quick questions, five quick answers. Um, you just wanna hear a little bit about what's going on in your brain a little bit, right? So first question is, what are you currently reading or learning? What are you doing for your own professional development right now?

Zach: 42:42

Oh boy.

Mike: 42:45

I mean, I, I know you, you got a young family, a lot of but I'm sure you're still, you're still learning.

Zach: 42:53

Uh, yeah. So most recent book was, um, oh, what was it? It was, uh, one of Alex Hermo. Don't laugh. This is one of

Mike: 43:01

Yeah. Yeah.

Zach: 43:02

A hundred million dollar Offers by Alex Hermo.

Mike: 43:05

Nice. There you go. Did you make any yet?

Zach: 43:09

I, I wish. Yeah, I haven't seen that check yet. Come in. There hasn't been much time for that, so,

Mike: 43:16

That's awesome. That's a good, that's a good one. All right. What's one thing that you've recently changed your mind about?

Zach: 43:22

I guess one thing I've changed my mind about has been the, um, just being able to objectify rotator cuff and, and scapular strength. Something that I haven't done in the past. We've been using the, uh, arm care app to do that with our athletes, and I've seen some really, really impressive things recently. So, um, I didn't, didn't realize that was important. As important as I think it, it's, um, in the.

Mike: 43:46

I love it. Yeah, that's great. That's, that's, that's my world right there. So I, it's good to see you coming on over to appreciating that. That's awesome. Um, alright. This one's easy. This one's easy for you. What, what's the biggest piece of advice you love to give your interns?

Zach: 44:02

The biggest piece of advice is take care of your body. It's the only one you get. I heard that from Warren Buffet. He said, if you only had one car your entire life, how well would you take care of it? Well, that's your body and my body is, is old and broken down and so my biggest piece of advice to any up and coming coaches take care of your body.

Mike: 44:23

That's actually good. You know, I, I, we, we don't focus on that enough, right? We're, we're, we're always helping other people. We never help ourselves.

Zach: 44:30

Yeah.

Mike: 44:30

a good, that's a good one. Awesome. All right. What's coming up next for you? What are we gonna, we gonna find anything new coming from Zach? Any new products? You speaking anywhere, anything, uh, in the works?

Zach: 44:41

So right now I'm actually developing, uh, finishing up a, um, an in-season program for pitchers to basically do remotely. Just something that, that, that, you know, high school college athletes can just kind of jump on. It's gonna be on the bridge app where they'll have access to, you know, four a six day. a week, workouts, um, anywhere, cuz a lot of, a lot of athletes don't have access to that. And so, uh, this is something we're kind of finishing up for the end season so that, you know, maybe, uh, maybe pitchers can take care of themselves a little better.

Mike: 45:14

That'd be great. That'd be a great addition. I love that. Um, and then last thing is how do we learn more about you? I know you have a website, some social, where do you wanna send people? Where, where are you the most?

Zach: 45:25

Yeah, so Zach Dcon, um, is the handle at Twitter and Instagram, and then the website is Zach Dcon, you know, happy to answer any questions. If they ever reach out, they can shoot me an email through the TCU website. And happy to help as much as I can.

Mike: 45:41

That's awesome. Well, thank you so much. Really appreciate you coming on the podcast today, Zack, taking some time out. Good luck this season and uh, hopefully we'll get you on another podcast in the future. We'll talk about something else.

Zach: 45:52

I really appreciate it, Mike. Thanks for having me.