362: Kevin Hollabaugh on Assessing and Developing Rotational Power and Sprint Performance

Today’s podcast features strength coach Kevin Hollabaugh. Kevin is a strength coach working at the New York Yankees Player Development Program, and is also the owner of Pro Force Sports Performance in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has been working in strength and conditioning since 2009. He previously served as the director of baseball player development, and also currently an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati. Pro Force SP happens to be only a few miles from my home in Cincinnati, and I’ve enjoyed spending time there to play ultimate frisbee games with pro baseball players, as well as observing the data-points and training process on the 1080 Sprint with Kevin and his staff. It's important to check your training process with some level of numbers and quantitative feedback to go with the qualitative process of coaching. Amongst other training tools, Kevin has two unique machines that allow him to pin data to athletic movements, on the level of the Proteus motion and 1080 Sprint. This show isn’t so much about those technologies and data points specifically as it is how Kevin has used the data to refine his speed and rotational training methods over time, how he now looks at training given those data-sets, and how it has evolved his programming. In this episode, we’ll also talk about the Ultimate frisbee game variation that ProForce athletes love so much (as well as myself), balancing force vs. elasticity in swinging/throwing and sprinting, training weaknesses vs. strengths, and more. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs and Exogen wearable resistance 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: 3:12 – The makings of the “Ultimate Frisbee Soccer” game that the ProForce baseball athletes (as well as myself) enjoyed playing immensely 15:26 – How Kevin started ProForce and his background as a coach 19:41 – The data-based backing of Kevin’s training and exercise selection process 27:09 – How the Proteus rotational training machine is helping Kevin to refine his core training programming 33:19 – The balance of training an athlete based on their strengths and weak-points, as per rotational power and linear speed in particular 41:14 – How to apply medicine ball training and rotational power to an athlete who relies heavily on the stretch shortening cycle, versus “concentric” muscular contribution 46:09 – How Kevin’s approach to speed training has been impacted by working with the 1080 Sprint machine and the associated data 56:53 – Kevin’s next steps in his coaching future Kevin Hollabaugh Quotes “It’s funny the evolution a simple game has taken, and how it can define the training in an off-season, but that’s kind of what it’s morphed into” “(In frisbee) you get those (high pressure) opportunities that you don’t necessarily get in sport that are more low key” “We’re all taught, here’s the way to teach speed, here’s the way to train core, and then you get on these pieces of technology (and data-based feedback) and you realize, “that didn’t translate”” “If you are struggling with the concentric strength and are good at strength shortening, we are using a heavier load (with medicine balls), with the proteus we are using a heavier load” “One way (to build concentric-start rotational power when you are mostly elastic) would be starting with static starts on heavier loads (with medicine balls, etc.)… by keeping it at a light weight you are just going to be able to whip it which you are naturally good at” “When there are increases in their hitting load, their pitching load, we back off on the medicine ball rotations and do more work on their non-dominant side” “I didn’t need to do 7 drills in a speed session (being able to dial in on what the athlete needs makes is simpler/more to the point)” “We used to teach a lot of kids to stay narrow when they accelerate, but then you look at the guys accelerate on the 1080 with good data points (in regards to stride width)… you are like oh crap!” “We don’t do a ton of marching anymore, that’s more like a low-level warmup exercise… we don’t do PVC pipe stuff anymore with the PVC overhead march, skips, etc. I still do running with PVC pipes from time to time” “It’s about choosing drills at what an athlete needs to get better at, it’s not a one-size fits all approach” About Kevin Hollabaugh Kevin Hollabaugh is a strength coach working at the New York Yankees Player Development Program, and is also the owner of Pro Force Sports Performance in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has been working in strength and conditioning since 2009. Kevin is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati, and was a Graduate Assistant at the University of South Florida. Keven started ProForce Sports Performance in a small spin cycle classroom in 2014, and it and has grown it to two Cincinnati-area training facilities and partnerships with four area high schools. He previously served as the Director of Baseball Player Development, and also currently an Adjunct Professor at the University of Cincinnati at the University of Cincinnati.