413: Justin Lima on Applied Speed and Power Development

Today's podcast features strength coach, educator, and consultant Justin Lima. Justin owns the Strength Coach Network and has extensive experience as a strength coach in American Football across the B1G, ACC, Ivy League, and CAA. He holds a Ph.D. in health and human performance and has significantly contributed to the development of numerous coaches and athletes. In athlete development, zooming out and viewing the entire training process is crucial. Understanding a sport's skill and physical demands is essential for effectively complementing an athlete's sport play with strength, speed, and conditioning programs. In today's episode, Justin discusses balancing a speed program with sport, the nature of in-game speed, 1x20 strength programming, alternative power training methods, and the importance of collaboration between strength and sport coaches. Justin is a comprehensive and practical thinker and communicator, offering a profound perspective on the sport training process. Today’s episode is brought to you by TeamBuildr and Plyomat. TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at https://teambuildr.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing.  Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Main Points 3:46- Enhancing Coaching Through Strength Training Synergy 9:18- Strategically Tailored Sports Training Schedules 12:21- Optimizing Athlete Training Through Coach Collaboration 15:09- "Preference for Strength Programs in Track Coaching" 24:45- Enhancing Game Speed Through Max Velocity 30:10- Tailoring Speed Development Programs for Athletes 32:41- Rotational Training Plan for Athletic Success 47:25- Progressive Learning Approach for Young Athletes 50:07- Strength Building Through Systematic Progression and Variation 59:19- "Optimizing Muscle Mass with One by 20" 1:00:49- One by 20 Training for Weight Class Athletes 1:02:18- Enhancing Athlete Performance with Alternative Power Training 1:08:10- Overtraining Risks from Olympic Lift Preferences Justin Lima Quotes (00:25:10) “So in a GPP phase, you know, we're going to talk about 1x20, but I called it 1x20 on the field, where we would need to get some, accell, some max velocity, some curvilinear, some change in direction, and some agility work just a little bit each day” Justin Lima (00:30:50) “oh, it's minimal effective dose. What about, like, max recoverable volume? How can we push, right. It doesn't always need to be do the least amount of work to get it done. Like, sometimes you have to actually bake the cake, do the difficult things so that way they can hold on to those gains longer. And that minimal effective dose can be, you know, it is valuable at the time that you go to apply it” Justin Lima (00:32:41) “Instead of trying to tell them, hey, run it, you know, 80% of your max velocity. Sure, no, run as fast as you can, but we're going to constrain your arm so you can't hit that max velocity” Justin Lima (00:39:00) “I work with Desmond at the University of Iowa, and they tried saying that he was slow because he ran a 4.54 40 in his pro day. Why was he first team All Pro punt returner and second team All Pro corner in 2018? Because he was game fast. Like game fast. Understood. Understood when to accelerate, understood when to change direction”Justin Lima (00:41:00) “Another example was Daniel Raymond hit 22 miles an hour, this fastest recorded speed ever. But he was in Pads. But like you said, he was on the backside of a play where they were running like a swing pass to the running back, and he had to take a pursuit angle dive, shoestring, tackle him. And in that process, he ran the fastest he's ever ran wearing pads, which shouldn't happen, but it's because he had that external. I've gotta go” (00:55:20) “Typically, your best athletes maybe don't like to train, but what they start to see is they start to see this linear path of like, all right, I come in, I'm doing this one by 20 thing. And like, you get to, it's almost like misery loves company. And, like, you earn your stripes. It's like, yeah, I went through that one by 20. Like, oh, man, it was boring. But, like, you know, he was right. I got stronger” (01:07:00) “Like an example, our. Our skill players, instead of always doing the weighted jump, we would do an approach jump, or we would give them a. We had a bunch of foam dodge balls, and we didn't have low level dunks, but we would do pretend dunks, and they would go. And they would do a windmill and, like, slam it into the. The low ceiling that we had” About Justin Lima Dr. Justin Lima is a high-performance consultant who has worked with elite American Football players across major conferences such as the B1G, ACC, Ivy League, and CAA. He holds a PhD in Health and Human Performance and a Master’s Degree in Strength and Conditioning. Justin is also the owner of the Strength Coach Network and is active in coaching education. Throughout his career, he has had the opportunity to present at the Catapult Sports American Football Conference, and work with 30 NFL Draft Picks, 8 Super Bowl Champions, 12 NFL Pro Bowlers, and 7 All-Pros. He contributed to the successful 12-0 regular season of the 2015 Iowa Hawkeye Football team and served as an NCAA Div 1 Coordinator of Football Performance. Additionally, he has coached multiple All-Conference Track and Field Throwers and Team Champions, and worked in four top college football conferences, including during a 2016 Rose Bowl berth. Dr. Lima has also assisted over 50 amateur athletes in preparing for their professional sports careers.