333: Kyle Dobbs and Matt Domney on Practical Principles of High Intensity Training and Athletic Outputs

Today’s episode features strength coaches Kyle Dobbs and Matt Domney. Kyle Dobbs is the owner and founder of Compound Performance, has trained 15,000+ sessions, and has experienced substantial success as a coach and educator. Kyle has an extensive biomechanics and human movement background which he integrates into his gym prescriptions to help athletes achieve their fullest movement, and transferable strength potential. Matt Domney is the Head Coach at Compound Performance. He is a competitive powerlifter in the USPA, 275lb weight class, and in addition to powerlifting coaching, has years of experience in general population training.. High-intensity training is a fundamental component of athletic performance. For a long time, “strength and conditioning” was (and still is) based largely off of the (very intense) powerlifts. Training that is more athlete-friendly on the level of exercise selection and rep ranges has become more popular in the last couple of decades, and pendulums of corrective movements and exercise selection have swung back and forth in the process. Powerlifting itself is generally the most polarized expression of how we express strength, and although sport is much different than powerlifting, the pure intensity of the efforts within the sport (are) lend to a key facet of our human nature. To understand the “middle ground” better, it helps to understand the poles well. In this case, the poles of the powerlifts on one side, and then low-level corrective exercise on the other are helpful to consider when we are to make an efficient, effective and practice program for the athlete standing in front of us. On the show today, Kyle and Matt talk about variability within heavy strength training methods, look at the balance of high outputs in sport play vs. the gym, speak more into corrective exercise in the scope of higher intensity work, and then give their take on movement screens, warmups and more. This was an exercise with a lot of wisdom that offers a great perspective on how to make maximal use of training time and efficiency. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, Lost Empire Herbs, and the Elastic Essentials online course. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for FREE (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points: 2:24 – A discussion of the variables within a powerlifting program, versus a team sport training program 11:18 – Variability in higher rep sets, versus when to use a heavier, more “powerlifting” oriented approach to developing force in athletics 14:30 – Looking at innate force outputs in sport, and then what type of strength training would be an ideal pairing (heavier force output lifting, versus more or a 1x20 style pairing) 19:14 – Kyle and Matt’s take on the balance of “corrective” work and hard work 27:45 – The importance of facilitating changes with a greater load in the system athletically, as opposed to low-load correctives 39:29 – Corrective movements in the realm of powerlifting vs. corrective exercise for lower intensity activities such as running 46:16 – How compressive exercises can be highly “functional” for some athletes, such as narrow intra-sternal angle individuals who need to experience those ranges of motion under load 49:24 – Kyle and Matt’s take on movement screens, and the difference in screening individuals between powerlifting and athletes who require more tasks 59:45 – Thoughts on approaching the warmup given the main movements of the training day “I am probably going to use a lot of bilateral sagittal lifts if I want to improve force output (for team sport athletes), not because I want to improve the skill of the lifts (squat, bench, deadlift), so I will probably use a trap bar. I might use a different squat variations. Squatting to me is largely based on morphology” Dobbs “With a trap bar deadlift, you can do each rep slightly differently and still complete the task. If you want to give someone more degrees of freedom, giving someone a trap bar deadlift and not caring if it’s hingy or squatty or more of a hybrid between each one is going to be a significantly more useful variation in a way that you can drive output” Domney “Task completion is different than a specific way to complete a task” Dobbs “How much max effort jumps does an athlete take in the course of a basketball game? Not a lot true max effort” Dobbs “In my experience working with gen pop and athletic populations; most people when we start talking about the need of corrective exercise, they just are not very strong…. they get stronger and the issues kind of correct themselves” Dobbs “The breathing drills are effective in the right context, but they are not effective in every context” Dobbs “One thing I see in powerlifting with people who do a lot of correctives; once we get back to actual training, the issues flare up again, or people have dropped so many kilos off their lifts, we have to extend their training out to get them back up to what they have been at” Domney “There are things I can do, while keeping the stimulus high, to keep them from shifting their hip” Dobbs “Pin squats are one of my favorite “corrective” exercises for squats” Domney “If we are looking at a corrective exercise for deadlifting, one of the best things I use is cluster reps” Domney “The nervous system has to receive a reason that this position or pattern is better than that other one was, and if I can’t give them that through exercise selection, then I am just putting more junk volume in the program” Domney “I had a person who was a very narrow ISA, and at the time everything was just about restoring expansion, but with this particular person, the exercise that fixed all of his problems within 2 weeks, was barbell back squats” Domney “I’d rather watch athletes exercise for the sake of exercise selection, than using a movement screen” Dobbs “Ironically, some of the most deconditioned people I’ve worked with did the best on the overhead squat because they had the least muscle tone” Dobbs “If people are lacking movement qualities, I’ll move their core work to their warmup” Dobbs “Nothing is going to loosen your hips up for a squat, better than squatting” Domney About Matt Domney Matt Domney is the Head Coach at Compound Performance. He is a competitive powerlifter in the USPA, 275lb weight class. Before Compound Performance; he was a personal trainer and fitness manager at a large gym chain in NJ and Texas About Kyle Dobbs Kyle Dobbs is the owner and founder of Compound Performance which offers online training, facility consulting and a personal trainer mentorship. Kyle has trained 15,000+ sessions, been a legitimate six-figure earner as a trainer, managed and developed multiple six-figure earners, and has experienced substantial success as a coach and educator. Kyle has an extensive biomechanics and human movement background which he integrates into his gym prescriptions to help athletes achieve their fullest movement, and transferable strength potential.