369: Brady Volmering on Shattering Strength and Power Barriers with Non-Traditional Training Methods

Today’s podcast features human performance coach, Brady Volmering. Brady is the owner of DAC Performance and Health. His focus is on increasing the capacity of the human being. Brady continually digs into what “training the human being” actually means and how that relates to improvements that go beyond the general, into specific sports performance and even one’s daily life. He walks the talk on a high level through his own personal workouts and regularly discusses his training philosophy on his Instagram page. Brady was a guest on episode 291 of the podcast talking about “human” level physical preparation, and high-volume training concepts. On the podcast today, Brady talks about his single leg depth drop practice, the recent changes he made in his programming to physically transform himself across the past year, and then how he has taken those programming concepts into his training for athletic populations. As an already well-trained athlete, Brady’s progress is incredible to see, and the methods he used are simple in nature, and also relatively non-traditional in terms of the typical “rules” we put on training. We also touch on oscillatory reps, high-frequency training, mind-body awareness, “wins and losses” in training, and more, in this episode. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs and Exogen wearable resistance gear, and the Sprint Acceleration 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. To learn more about the Sprint Acceleration Essentials course, head to justflysports.thinkific.com View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 3:45 – What led Brady to perform a 6-foot box drop jump 11:15 – How Brady scales drops and difficulty for the individuals that he works with 16:15 – Comparing high drops, to more traditional “serial” plyometrics, such as low hurdle hops 27:45 – Processing “wins and losses” throughout the training session and season 32:45 – The mind-body connection that exists between physical exercise, and sport, particularly within the scope of being presented with a failure 43:45 – The key pieces that have led to Brady’s physical transformation in the past year, one of which was based on training advice from Jay Schroeder 1:02:45 – Keys to high frequency, or daily, integration of a potent training means as opposed to using a training stimulus in a typical 2-3x a week frequency 1:10:45 – How Brady’s training regime filtered into his training concepts for athletes 1:20:45 – Oscillatory training reps and impulse rep concepts for the upper body Brady Volmering Quotes “Really with anything we are doing, I want to set up in a game format, where an athlete has a chance to succeed, an athlete has a chance to fail because that is going to bring that engagement up” “In a (single leg) depth drop, if you don’t learn to direct that intent, you are going to fail… you can learn to direct that intent into other places as well” “Everything after (a 6-foot single leg drop) feels much easier, much less stressful” “I ask, what does it mean when your body speaks to you? When you have pain, what does that mean? When you have tightness or restriction, what does that mean?” “I know what they are feeling right now, what would I do; when I am programming I want to gain enough information about what they are feeling, what they are experiencing… what would I do?” “That’s why I like a lot of the high rep, high volume stuff we do, where if you decide to stop, through that you understand how your system is processing that stimulus, what thoughts are coming in” “When you are training and the only thing that is stopping you is yourself, that is a mini-loss…. In the training session in that mini-loss where you have that threat of stopping, your body is going to that same place when you have had those bigger losses” “If I have all these other verticals that are also in my life, that helps the training; now the session is supporting the sport, the session is supporting the business, the session is supporting the family, the session is supporting the quality of other relationships” “I’m pulling myself further into position, I’m not trying to resist (in an extreme ISO), that little piece right there made a huge difference for me because I can apply that in other areas” “I would do slow lowers every single day, and do a heavy rebound bench and heavy rebound squat every day, and over the course of that time, the rebound bench started at 195, and has went up to 290… when I did that with the slow lowers, I understood how not to resist myself more fully” “For me, I pop up for a rep after (the 3-minute pushup lower) because that is signifying that you are recovering as you work” “Any time I do a new thing, there is going to be a time where I heavily bias that; and then you squeeze it out and there is nothing there anymore, and it goes into the more comprehensive cycle that I have” “We are doing a lot less normal bench press, and a lot more rebound rep bench press… and we are applying that to everything else” “Usually the first movement we’ll do is some sort of game setup” “In a perfect world, you would want to do the slow-lowers every day” About Brady Volmering Brady Volmering is the owner of DAC Performance and Health. After starting out in the world of baseball skill training, he’s since moved into the human performance arena, putting the focus on increasing the capacity of the human being. Brady looks at what “training the human being” actually means and how that relates to an increase in specific sports performance.