Today’s show is with Angus Bradley.  Angus is a strength coach and podcast host from Sydney, Australia.  He coaches out of Sydney CBD, co-hosts the Hyperformance podcast with his brother, Oscar, and is also an avid surfer.  Angus appeared previously on episode 249 of the podcast, talking about compressive strategies in weightlifting, as well as the impacts of those compressive effects on narrow infra-sternal angle individuals in particular.

Angus is one of the most brilliant, and practical individuals I know in the world of strength training biomechanics, and connecting it to movement and practical outcomes.  When it comes to making sense of how our body structure and pressure systems fit with different setups in the weight room, and how this might apply to dynamic movement, Angus is a top individual to learn from.

So often in the weight room, we will say that it is all “general” (which technically it is) but then use that as an excuse not to understand the movements we are utilizing in detail that fit with greater concepts of the gait cycle.  Connecting strength work to the gait cycle is key in better strength training practices, as well as individualization.

On the show today, Angus covers the dimensions of exercises based on center of mass position relative to the foot, and how this connects with the gait cycle, as well as how much an athlete is being “pushed forward” (and why that is important).  He’ll cover delayed knee extension in both lifting and sprinting (and how they might connect), concepts of foot shapes, and gait, as well as his take on “floating heel” work not potentially being everything it’s cracked up to be.  Angus will also give some practical ideas on giving more sensory information to athletes unable to access early stance well, how far to take wide and narrow ISA types in terms of “balancing their weaknesses”, and much more.

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View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.

Timestamps and Main Points

4:25 – How doing the “wrong” intervention in training can still lead to positive results

11:30 – Understanding the implications of working through the various positions of the center of mass in relation to the position of the feet, and what this means for degrees of freedom in movement

18:30 – Some performance implications of wide-vs. narrow ISA’s in regards to mid and late stance, and jump technique

23:15 – The idea of “hamstring curling” one’s self out of the hole of a squat in order to delay knee extension

28:45 – Where Angus sees the benefit in “floating heel” training, and where he finds it not very beneficial

34:45 – How to re-train athletes to “let their femurs be” in squatting when they’ve been taught to shove their knees out in the past

39:30 – Thoughts on oscillatory squatting (and split squatting) and its impact on the mid-stance phase of lifting

43:30 – A discussion on developing mid-stance, narrow ISA’s and single leg squatting

49:00 – Flat vs. high arched individuals and what this means for how this impacts athletes in early vs. late propulsion

56:50 – How Angus’s lockdown sprint work went, and lessons he learned with squatted running

1:02:00 – Thoughts on the role of the adductors in movement, why some people may feel them more (or less) in sprinting, and how to train them in the gym

“You can grab (IR and ER) if you just start pulling athletes back… heavy lifting just has a tendency to shove people forward”

“A sign of a good athlete to me, is they will respond to their environment”

“You can simplify it by looking at where they are in the sagittal plane and looking at that map of the foot, looking at where they are in relation to that base of support… if the center of...