Today’s episode features coach and inventor, Rolf Ohman.  Rolf was born in Sweden but grew up in Brisbane, Australia. He has worked for over 40 years in international sports, as an athlete (Decathlon) and as coach at International and National level.  He was the Head Coach for the Dalian Olympic Sports Center 2016-17 and Assistant Head Coach Chinese National Team Sprints/Jumps 2018-19.  Rolf is the inventor of the 1080 Technology (such as the 1080 sprint device), and has substantial experience in both the data-based and practical aspects of coaching and training.

In the recent Randy Huntingon podcasts, Randy spoke about how doing hurdle hops over too high of hurdles had the tendency to “kill elasticity”.  Rolf Ohman has worked with Randy, and has substantial experience linking the ground contact times in plyometric exercises, as well as the impulse times of various movements in the weight room, to what is observed in athletics.  Track and field athletes have faster impulse needs than team sport athletes as well, and Rolf has worked with both populations, and understands which metrics should be optimized in training for different situations.

On today’s podcast, Rolf will speak on the specific drawbacks to using too high of hurdles in bilateral plyometric training, and gives his specific recommendations for which heights he feels are maximally beneficial for both track and team sport individuals.  He’ll speak on various elements of transfer in the weight room, such as the progression of the Olympic lifts, as well as thoughts on the transfer present in different elements of gym training, such as the impulse dynamics of lifting seen in elite athletes.  Rolf finishes with some thoughts on youth and long term development on the terms of speed and power.  Ultimately, this episode helps us to better understand closing the “gap” we often see between the gym, and the forces present on the field of play.

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Timestamps and Main Points:

4:42 – Rolf’s take on the height in hurdle hops, and how it impacts the elasticity of the exercise, as well as drawbacks to using too high of hurdles in the movement

11:13 – What the typical hurdle heights Rolf uses for track and non-track athletes in plyometric training

17:50 – Why Rolf chooses to progress the Olympic lifts in the course of training like he does

24:37 – Rolf’s use of partial vs. full ranges of motion in strength training for athletes

38:29 – Thoughts on oscillating isometric exercises with lifts, compared to a Keiser or air-powered machine setup

52:08 – How contact times and hurdle hop heights change for team sports vs. track

58:59 – How limb speed gets “set” before the age of 15 in athletes, and if athletes miss critical speed windows of training, they will be in a limited place in future performance

“There aren’t a lot of guys around who can produce any sort of RSI index from 1 meter drop jumps… when I use high hurdle hops, which I rarely do, it might be in a setting when I’m seeking some kind of force production”

“If I build maximum strength for my long jumpers with contact times in the 250-300ms range, is that going to help me?”

“If whatever you’re doing in training is on one end of the spectrum, and competition is on the other end of the spectrum, that is “gap-osis”… if that gap is too big, you are going to be in trouble”

“In the first 100-150 milliseconds (of a lift) the athletes who are the best really shine there”

“We’re coordinating the neural system (in the weight room) we are creating...