356: Dr. John Cronin and Joseph Dolcetti on “Beyond Barbells”: Wearable Resistance and Rotational Momentum in Sport Speed Development

Today’s podcast features Dr. John Cronin and Joe Dolcetti. John Cronin is a sport scientist with a physical education and coaching background, who after getting his Ph.D, has spent most of the last 20 plus years at Auckland University of Technology. He has published over 400 peer-reviewed papers on speed, power and strength, along with having the opportunity to train a variety of athletes and teams, ranging from youth development to world champion level. Joe Dolcetti has had a 35-year career in high performance sport coaching, science, and conditioning training across the globe. As an inventor, he has developed, and launched Exogen®, the world’s most advanced wearable resistance. All in all, Joe has worked with many of the world’s top sporting programs including the NBA, NFL, NHL, Major League Baseball, the English Premier League, UFC and many others. Sports performance training is making the shift from the classical “1RM” powerlifting mindset, into athletic speed development. This is great, but there are still many holes to fill in the athletic equation. We may obsess over bar velocities in the gym, but the gym is dominated by many force-oriented levers while sport is uses many speed-oriented levers (third class), such as limbs swinging in space. At some point we must expand our training awareness beyond the what (basic force) into the where (placement), and in the process deepen our understanding on how the body produces high speed sport movement. On the show today, John and Joe get into their journey of high velocity resistance training for athletes (such as wearables including vests and ankle weights, and then sprint sleds). We’ll talk about the differences between training “stance” phase of movement, and aerial elements, and how the latter is a missing piece of training the force-velocity curve. Finally, we get into the development of the Exogen system of wearable resistance, and how it encapsulates principles of high speed and specific training adaptation. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, and LILA Exogen Wearable Resistance Training Gear 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: 3:25 – John and Joe’s journey in exploring various wearable and external resistance training methods and how it led them to where they are now in their view of wearable resistance 16:00 – John Cronin’s early research and findings using weighted vests in pursuit of improved athletic performance 20:00 – Effects of sprint sled training versus weighted vest training 23:52 – Philosophy of training “stance” versus training what is happening in the air in athletic movement, and the implications of stance-based vertical force not being the holy grail of sprinting and athletic movement 35:35 – Lever systems, angular velocity, and ankle weights 42:18 – The principles behind the Exogen wearable resistance gear, and how it trains the angular momentum aspect of loading to improve athleticism 1:04:33 – Final thoughts on training sport speed through a focus on wearable resistance and angular velocity training Dr. John Cronin and Joseph Dolcetti Quotes “That’s where we’ve gone the last 6-8 years, unpacking that limb loading” “Where you put load, in many ways, is more important than how much load you are putting” “The one thing I’m confused with is the parachute, I tried them and just thought these are better for jumping out of an airplane” “(Training with a weighted vest) the vertical ground reaction forces will stay pretty much the same) when you put that mass on, you don’t jump as high, the center of mass displacement is compromised, and the (vertical) effect stays pretty much the same” “The weighted vest gives absolutely nothing in terms of horizontal force production in running” “You get a lot more horizontal force production with sleds (vs. weighted vests)” “What you are doing in the air is really really important (in sprinting) and that is something you don’t get with the sled” “Great for overload in the stance phase with the sleds, but the airborne phase, it goes missing” “Any sort of externalized load is working at the point of ground contact, but if you are a sprint coach, 90% of your work is what they are doing in the air” “S&C is kind of ground contact, what’s going into the ground… everything the coach is doing is what’s happening in the movement, with the ball, in the air” “It’s the kinetic energy of the movement that really really counts for things; it’s mass x velocity squared… we’ve shown a 120kg squat, the kinetic energy around the hips is exactly the same as a 500g load being moved by a fairly good sprinter, moving a light load really quickly” “Most of the work we are doing is in the grams and ounce range… in traditional resistance that would be 5-10lb… light is definitely the new heavy” “I was going through and found the fascial systems, and I looked at the cross fascial systems at the thoracic spine and the lumbar-umbilical region, those are the rotation points of your body and everything builds from there; I told the team that’s the construction lines we need to focus on. As soon as we put it on the body, people said, I don’t know why it’s comfortable but it’s comfortable” “I looked at (muscle) pennation, and I knew, that’s the answer, that’s what the load has to emulate” “What we want to do is get people to think: “Where are we going”… I think where we are going to go is a better understanding and appreciation of moving and connecting with the organic aspect of why people compete and play sports. Why do people play sports? Because it feels good” “This is why the natural athlete rejects what a lot of S&C does: Because they are like “I understand movement”, you don’t, “I know what’s fast”” “The part that’s missing at the bottom of the force velocity curve is the intuitive feeling of the athlete, and that’s not expressed in the parameters of the curve” “Three of the biggest variables that drive adaptation have been force, velocity and length, and we have been very force centric for many years, but people need to understand that there is another variable” “Weight training is not just about more anymore… my goal is to empower strength coaches with the ability to solve problems” Show Notes Weighted vest jumps and ankle weight high knee runs added to a strength program found superior to a standard strength training program alone for vertical jump and, particularly, 40 yard dash speed, in trained college athletes: https://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/Citation/1980/02000/The_Effects_of_Plyometric_Training_with_Ankle_and.2.aspx Plyometric exercises with ankle weights found superior for improving short sprint speed and change of direction ability versus an un-loaded plyometric program with high school soccer players: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33121121/ About Dr. John Cronin Dr. John Cronin is a sport scientist with a coaching and PE background. His early career was in physical education. He has spent most of the last 20 plus years at Auckland University of Technology lecturing in the Undergraduate and Postgraduate programs in sport and exercise science. He is currently a Professor in Strength and Conditioning at AUT. He has published over 400 peer-reviewed papers on speed, power and strength, and has supervised 30 PhD and 30 Master’s students to completion. He also has had the opportunity to train a variety of athletes and teams, ranging from youth development to World champion level in sports such as rugby, track, boxing, cricket, and more. His personal research interests are in human movement research around strength and conditioning for strength, power, speed and change of direction, and more recently youth athletic development, sport technology and wearable resistance research themes. About Joe Dolcetti Joe Dolcetti has had a 35-year career in sports science, high performance coaching and conditioning training across the globe, and has had the privilege to rub shoulders with some of the greatest athletes in history. Joe has an extensive background as a sports performance coach, and his athletic background includes competitive boxing and rugby. As an inventor, Joe conceptualized, developed, and launched Exogen®, the world’s most advanced wearable resistance. The flagship product of Lila®, Exogen is rapidly gaining ground as one of the most significant advances in specific coaching, technical conditioning, movement correction and speed training for sport, rehabilitation and fitness. All in all, Joe has worked with many of the world’s top sporting programs including the NBA, NFL, NHL, Major League Baseball, the English Premier League, UFC, World Rugby, Track & Field, PGA and ITF. Over 9 Olympic cycles, Joe has prepared and trained elite athletes in Canada, US, UK, China, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand and Argentina. Joe splits his time between driving Lila and consulting elite sport and athletic programs on the integration of Exogen.