Drake Berberet: Strength 2 Speed LLC

💥This is a really cool study looking at fast food vs. post workout “fueling” supplements. They used known supplement brands so it makes it very applicable .
What did they do? The researchers matched macronutrients for both groups (fast food & supplement). They depleted the subjects muscle glycogen via biking and then refueled immediately after and also 2-hours post exercise. Macros are in the image above if you’re curious. They then had the subjects perform a 20k m cycle as fast as possible 4-hours post depletion .
The results showed no difference between groups for completion time, glycogen refuel, blood markers, and perception of exercise .
One might take this study and think...well here’s my excuse to eat fast food everyday. (and might be cheaper) Yes and no. Short term, yes you will get a similar benefit. However, long term implications of quality of food should strongly be considered 👍🏼 (I.e. gut health)

💥What is a “good” RSI value?
A lot of context first needs to be behind this question...what sport is the athlete in? Are they strong? What do they need to get better at? Will obtaining a high bilateral RSI even translate to their sport?
Something I learned from breakdown the metric into its variables. What makes up RSI?
If we do this we see that RSI is the quotient of Jump Height & Ground Contact Time. So we then must ask ourselves...what sport is the athlete in, and what are they deficient at? For most team sports they should be proficient at both fast and slow SSC, (classified as time spent on the ground). However, which one should they be “better” at?
FOR EXAMPLE, in basketball working more time developing a solid slow SSC might be more “optimal”. In the picture above (A) is an example of a lower RSI (using slow SSC) but a higher Jump Height whereas (B) is an example of a higher RSI (using fast SSC) but a lower Jump Height. Both could be useful in basketball...(B) might serve them better during a submax reactive rebound jump, whereas (A) might serve them better dribbling down the lane and dunking over a defender

💥Remember the last time you slept 5 hours...how did you feel the next day? Probably not optimal

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Athletes: Think of this graph when you hear “Go to bed”. Sleep more, hurt less.

💥Heart Rate Readiness .
This is a simple way to determine the readiness of your athletes using heart rate
This can be completed on the treadmill, during the warmup, or really any other protocol that is standardized daily that will elevate the heart rate for a period of time
The protocol I used here was a 1-min treadmill run @ 9mph. In the past I’ve also completed a 2-min run @ 7mph and also a 4-min run @ 6.5 mph (really arbitrary). Just anything that will initially spike the heart rate, keep it there for a little while, and then give it time to recover back down to baseline
How to track for sport-science: Look at the trends in HR max, how long it takes to get there, and also how long it takes to return to baseline. HR is an indirect measure of the autonomic nervous system, so any major deviations in this data could indicate that your athlete is in a lower readiness state. Which you could then make training adjustments based off this information