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Isaiah Rivera, pro dunker, and John Evans discuss anything related to maximizing athletic performance, and in particular, jump training. Strength and conditioning, jumping technique, weight room practices, and general fitness and health tips and advice are shared on this podcast.
If you're watching this video, it's because you want to jump higher. We're your people. I have a 50.5 inch vertical. This guy right here coached me from a 42. We've also coached four of the six officially recorded fifties on the planet, which is insane.
Isaiah:Like, wrap your head around it. Crazy. And together, we coach thousands of athletes to jump higher. Average athlete gains four inches of vertical in six months. That's based on pull we've taken.
Isaiah:I'm not pulling that number out of my booty. It's an actual number from from pull we've done. That includes the guys that said one inch. It also includes the guys that jump 12 inches, six months. No no exaggeration.
Isaiah:And if you wanna join that group of people, click the link in the description or in the pinned comment. You get six free months when you get the year plan. Having said that, we're talking about machines today, not the large language model AI machines that are gonna take over the world. The machines that you see when you step into a beautiful establishment with a lot of people sweating, a lot of people grunting, you know, you're in there, you're walking in with aura because you're you jump trains, you look athletic, jump really high when you do your plios, but you shouldn't be skipping those machines. You might have heard stuff out there that they're not as good as as free weight loading.
Isaiah:So we're gonna talk about when you should use machines, how to use them, how we've been using them in our recent training because we actually like them quite a bit.
John:Yeah. And, you know, it's funny. You actually talked about something that I just remembered. I got in one of the biggest arguments with a classmate of mine when I was in college when I was a sophomore. It was, before we went into our group fitness class, some dumbass class that we had to take.
John:And he was I was talking about why machine loading is stupid. And I was like, well, if you're an athlete, there's way better ways to get better. And this is after, like, my first internship with Mike, and so I'm very impassioned about why machines are dumb and how you don't need them. There's no utility and whatever else. My classmate at the time who who butted heads with me constantly and is now a physical therapist, was insistent that machines are there's so much utility.
John:You can just take gets just good. And we just went back and forth, it was this heated exchange about machine use, which is funny because it seems so contrived now, as Mike likes to say. It doesn't really matter. You can get better with machines. You can get better without machines.
John:Do I prefer not using machines? Of course. That's how I'm gonna move the needle the most and how I'm gonna get my athletes better. However, there is definitely a time and place to use machine based loading. We're currently in a position where it's a it's a really good example of this, and I do it oftentimes for guys with injuries.
John:You got an ankle sprain. What are you gonna do? Are you gonna squat? You're gonna get you're gonna put load up 350 pounds on on the bar and and go to
Isaiah:snuffs. Your
John:Yeah. Peroneal tendon. Subluxing your peroneal tendon. So we've since well, I've I've I use them very sparingly, but when necessary, I think that they're good. And I I do think that, again, there is utility.
John:Like, if you want certain adaptations, it's easier to get on machine based loading. Like, yesterday, Mike was talking about how he did exercises that would just absolutely kill people, and we've done them with you. We've we've done eccentric loading at end ranges with 600 pounds on the bar lowering it, and it's it's ridiculous. It looks ridiculous. It's relatively unsafe, and the risk is generally higher than the reward.
John:Is that always the case? No. Do I think it's awesome? Yes. Do I like it?
John:Yes. Do I think that every athlete can do that? Absolutely not. You really have to be a special person, if you will, like Isaiah. Someone who's willing to ride or or balance on a very a blade's edge, and one side is lava and the other side is a pit of vipers.
John:Right? And he's willing to do that.
Isaiah:Very I love my you know I love my risk.
John:Yeah. I know. He does. I we we raced an RC car today, and that was Allegedly. Something else.
John:Allegedly. We didn't race it. We saw some in Mexico. Yeah. Yeah.
John:And so we witnessed a race in Mexico against an RC car. And
Isaiah:It was a it was a we saw a Hellcat Durango versus an RC car.
John:It was really cool, though. Yeah. But, yeah, it was it was a little
Isaiah:yeah. A closed course in Mexico.
John:Closed course in Mexico. No one around. So we anyways, Isaiah likes risky. It's totally okay for him, but there's times when machine based loading is good, as I said. So two up, one down is a great example where you can get really, really high loading with relatively low risk.
John:You can do an up phase with 200 pounds on leg extension, two legs, one leg down, 200 pounds on an eccentric overload. You're getting close to that the leg's ability to yield, and there's a lot of benefits to the sarcomeres. You get sarcomereogenesis potentially. Did you intentionally zoom in that that intensely? I like that.
John:This is this is fun. So that's one of the benefits. The you look like a meme right now. I can't even take you seriously. If you're listening to this, Isaiah zoomed in so far in his head.
John:I swear I can see every detail on his face. And I think another reason why is is ankle sprains. I think ankle sprains, you get on the leg extension machine. Obviously, not the leg press. You won't be able to do that.
John:You can't really do seated, you know, calf raise or something, but you could do unilateral seated calf raise. You could do unilateral leg press on the non effective leg. I think with back pain, it's another really, really high utility exercise. You can do leg extensions, and that's not gonna piss off your back. You can do lying hamstring curls.
John:It's probably not gonna bother you. But if I load you up an RDL or I load you up in a back squat, that's gonna be really provocative, and you can still follow all the same training periodization guidelines. Again, we talked about this yesterday on the podcast how you force is force and tension is tension and time is time and velocity is velocity. And whether you're jumping and and you're doing that hundreds of times or you're sprinting, you're doing that hundreds of times or squatting, doing that hundreds of times, yeah, certain things are gonna maybe be better and more effective at improving or modulating the different things you wanna work on, but you can get a lot of work done on the machines and you can achieve a lot of those girl goals. You can get sarcomereogenesis.
John:You can get tendon stiffness. Now the maybe the big detriment is it's gonna be hard to get the same neural, absolute neural drive from something like a leg extension as you get from a really heavy backswatter or a power clean. I think maybe that's the biggest detriment that you're it's gonna be really hard. You're gonna be hard pressed to get the same central nervous system. Know that.
Isaiah:Your adrenaline Yeah.
John:I mean, the peak intensity
Isaiah:is low. On your freaking back.
John:Like
Isaiah:Yeah. The the Like, on a on a heavy
John:You use less muscles. Period.
Isaiah:Yeah. Like like, on a heavy back squat, you feel like you're gonna unalive. Like, it yeah. It's scary. Like, just just from putting the weight on your back, it feels like that versus the leg extension, you don't get the same the same sensation.
Isaiah:I don't feel
John:like my face has ever been this close to you in my entire life. I just have to say
Isaiah:You forget you forget all those those moments we've
John:had. I got for that recently making jokes like that. So
Isaiah:I'm trying to
John:turn over a new leaf. Just kidding. Absolutely not. I I really cherish those memories. Yeah.
Isaiah:Me too. Me too. And it's
John:just like
Isaiah:it's just friends. It's friends.
John:Yeah. It's just it's just like sometimes our lips meet sometimes our lips meet and like Yeah. I don't think anything about it. You know? Just do more of
Isaiah:my day. Friends just loving like not Yeah. Like, in a relationship type of way, but just I mean,
John:people in Europe do it all the time. You know, a little peck here, a little peck there. I mean, you see Sometimes we leave our mouths open, but so what? There's two
Isaiah:NBA players. I think it was, like, Charles Barkley and another one from the '90 and Magic Johnson, I think it was.
John:They kissed? Yeah. No way.
Isaiah:It's like right before a game. They just kiss each other on the lips.
John:You're you're actually joking.
Isaiah:I'm being dead serious. Should we
John:I have screen share? I I'm gonna try to find it real quick, but that is the most unbelievable thing.
Isaiah:You're telling me look for it. While you look for it, I do wanna say when I like using machines, my favorite time to use machines is accessory work. Because when you're doing specifically, when you're doing very high intensity lifting, by that time you ran, you've cleaned, or done some sort of power exercise, you squatted really heavy, The last thing that I wanna do is RDL or hip thrust or, calf raise on a barbell or something like that. When I can just get on a leg curl machine, on a Smith machine, just hammer out accessories, you get that that loading. I think you can actually get more intent when you do that versus when you have to set up for a free weight accessory exercise.
Isaiah:John, it looks like you found the video.
John:I'm sorry. It's not Patrick Johnson. It is Charles Barkley, though. Alright.
Isaiah:So Who is it? It's Charles Barkley and who?
John:I guess, like, I don't even know a referee.
Isaiah:Oh, yeah. Yeah. This is this is it.
John:Was this the video?
Isaiah:There's enough there's there is another video. What the hell? I didn't know they showed it on inside the NBA. That's crazy.
John:Why did that happen? Why did that happen?
Isaiah:That's the one. Isaiah it was Isaiah Thomas. Go up. It was Isaiah Thomas and Magic Johnson.
John:Oh my gosh. They do actually kiss. There's no way they actually kiss
Isaiah:on video. It's before a game. It's right before a game. Is this are you
John:sure they don't Wait. Right here. Are you sure they don't kiss?
Isaiah:No. No. No. This is it it's before a basketball game on every it was them two. Go oh,
John:scroll up.
Isaiah:Scroll up. Scroll up.
John:There's no way this is real.
Isaiah:Yeah. Kiss. Magic Johnson.
John:Way.
Isaiah:No. That's not it. It literally
John:Oh, there's that. Oh my gosh.
Isaiah:I think that is it. It was right it was literally right before a game. There's video of it. Imagine they wiped it from the from the Internet. There's only a picture.
John:Oh, it might be right here.
Isaiah:Yeah. Like, right before the game or something.
John:Either way, this is absolutely iconic. We know that there's some fishy things going on in the NBA right now. Anyways so, yeah, Magic Johnson does it. Isaiah Thomas does it. So what?
John:Yeah. We don't actually kiss. I wanna be clear. This is a 100% a joke. And if you can't take that seriously or if you take your life a little too seriously, I don't know.
John:Just stop. Don't take yourself so seriously. Okay? Yeah. Jokes are fun.
John:Jokes are funny. Like Mike said, make choice. We support all people. We support all people and make you fun of all people. Yeah.
John:Okay. So back to machine based loading. I agree. I think it's great for back pain when you don't wanna load something really, really intensely. I think it's great for sorry, dude.
Isaiah:Do you want me to zoom out again? Am I making you uncomfortable, John?
John:I can't take this podcast seriously. I I feel like I have nothing else to say. I'm so today is so unhinged.
Isaiah:You know what's funny? When when I literally looked at the time, we were three minutes in. I was like, that's off of the podcast. It just seems like great.
John:Kiss your friends on the list. What the hell? Oh my gosh. Why don't we talk about something else just for a little bit? We already got the viewers here.
John:So let's just pivot.
Isaiah:I don't know what we can pivot to. Are you thinking, like, just for anything?
John:No. No. I think that's long gone. I think that I think that that ship has sailed. You wanna do machine made loading, build build your sets up week to week, decrease the reps, increase the loading, and then once you're ready to go back to a bar, do it.
John:That's pretty much what it is. And do leg extensions, do leg curls in in exchange for RDLs and squats. Don't do power exercises. Don't do cleans. Don't jump.
Isaiah:I'm gonna ask you I don't have anything else. I'm gonna ask you jump training related questions. You have to answer it in, like, one sentence or less. Okay.
John:I like that. I'm a give
Isaiah:you something hard. What is long conjugate sequence system's securitization? One sentence or less.
John:Do everything at the same time in differing amounts. Oh. That was bars.
Isaiah:When should you use volume versus max strength versus absolute strength?
John:Start with volume and with absolute strength.
Isaiah:Okay. Okay. What is power?
John:Force times distance over time.
Isaiah:What is, what is impulse? Force times time. What if you
John:A change actually, don't need these. Yeah. It's it's a change of momentum. Impulse is a change of momentum.
Isaiah:What is the most important metric to track readiness with?
John:That's a hard one. One How are you jumping how are you jumping each week?
Isaiah:Okay. Okay. Okay. If you had to implement one thing to keep someone healthy regardless of injury, what would it be?
John:Irrespective of injury?
Isaiah:Yeah. And, like like, you use you have an athlete. You know they're hurt. You have to get you have to implement something with them. Like,
John:you Ask yourself ask yourself what you can take away, not what you can add.
Isaiah:Oh, expand on that. Bars. Expand on that. Expand on that. That's fire.
John:If someone if someone has an ankle sprain, don't ask yourself, how much more can I add to this person's training to get their ankle healthy? Ask yourself, what am I doing right now that might be making this worse and stopping it from getting better? If that's jumping, stop jumping. If it's sprinting, stop sprinting. If it's doing squats, stop doing squats.
John:If you have back pain, don't ask yourself, what exercises can I add to my current program to get me healthy? Ask yourself, what can I take out of my program that is going to make my back feel better? Okay. If my back hurts, I'm not gonna do RDLs because RDLs hurt. I'm not gonna do back squats because that's compressive forces on the spine.
John:So I'm gonna take that out. I'm not gonna do power clean. Don't ask yourself what you can add. Ask yourself what you can take out. And then after you take that stuff out, you can maybe add some stuff.
John:That's better
Isaiah:for Alright. We're gonna end the podcast with a game. It's gonna take one probably one to two minutes. I've seen that you've seen this game before. I've I've I've completely forgotten.
John:I've one play the sound of a car, and then I have to catch it. I love that game.
Isaiah:It's I'm gonna say words, you have to choose one of them.
John:I have to choose one?
Isaiah:Yeah. You have to choose one.
John:I have to choose one word. Yeah. Just have a list.
Isaiah:I'm gonna give you two choices, basically.
John:Oh, I've seen this. I've this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
John:Yeah. Yeah. I saw that one creepy doctor that was on Epstein Island do this. Okay.
Isaiah:Okay. Okay. Exercise selection or periodization?
John:Periodization. Should I say why?
Isaiah:You can. Like, yeah, you can.
John:Exercises in and of themselves don't necessarily make someone better. You can make someone better with basically anything if it's correctly periodized.
Isaiah:Periodization or load management?
John:Load management because if you're hurt, I don't care how good your periodization model is.
Isaiah:Load management or athlete's mindset?
John:Athlete mindset because if they don't do the workout, it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter how good your load management is if they don't even do the load management or they don't train or they don't wanna train. Athlete's mindset or coaching? Athlete mindset. I don't care how good your coach is.
John:You can't you cannot you can do your best to do motivational interviewing. Maybe that would be the counter, but you can't instill inspiration and deep intrinsic motivation in someone. I think they either have it or they don't. Mean, I how what am I gonna do? Try to, like, take you back in time and have a have some traumatic life experiences so that you have something intrinsically different in you and motivating you?
John:Won't do that.
Isaiah:Athlete's mindset or shock collar.
John:Oh. Shot caller, for sure. I think that changes behavior. Yeah. But you can't I mean, that's not ethical.
John:Yeah. Oh, well, I mean, not
Isaiah:Well, I guess okay. A better one. I'm fine. Athlete's mindset or understanding reinforcement, like behavioral psychology. Because and I'll give you I'll give you an example.
John:I think I think I think understanding yeah. Motivational interviewing. That's what I just said. Yeah. Understanding behavior.
John:There that's a tough one.
Isaiah:I because you could have someone with a poor mindset, but if you know how to reinforce their behavior, like, you know
John:But to what extent is that Like, they love cookies. But to what extent is that reinforced that late in life? Like, we're not talking children here. We're talking athletes.
Isaiah:Yeah. So you still go you still go athletes mindset?
John:I go mindset. You can't I'm not your I'm not with if you're a parent, behavior. If you're a coach, mindset. Yeah. You can't I am not with you.
John:I'm with the guys twenty four hours a day. However, I will say that. And even then, it comes down to them. I can do my damnedest to reinforce the best behaviors possible, but at the end of the day, it's their choice to follow that reinforcement.
Isaiah:Last one, athlete's mindset or genetics?
John:That's a tough one. Probably athletes' mindset. I think that genetics I mean, if you sit on the couch and don't do anything, it doesn't matter. Like, you could have Usain Bolt's genetics, but if you don't sprint, who cares? And you can't change your genetics.
John:So I'd rather have an athlete with good mindset. With a good mindset, this is the course. Mean, it depends on it depends on what your goal is. Like, what's your goal? Is your goal to get better?
John:Mindset. Is your goal to be the best? Genetics in that case because there's some there's some there's going to be some you cannot not everyone can break the world record. I don't care what, that one person said in their claims years ago that anyone can be a world class athlete. That's just not true.
John:It's not true. You I cannot go out no matter how hard I train and break the world record on a 100 meter dash. I will never do that. My mind's saying it could be the best in the world, but I'm not breaking the world record. I'm not gonna break the world record vertical jump.
John:I'm not gonna break the world record high jump. I do not have the genetic predisposition to do it. However, I can get closer than I ever thought I could. I can get down to running a ten eight, which is pretty damn good. I can get down to I can jump a 43 inch vertical because I have a great mindset.
John:So as a coach, I'd rather take the mindset. If your only objective was break the world record, then, I mean, genetics are gonna win out. It just depends on what your out what your outcome goal is. For me, personally, I want someone with a better mindset than I than I care about genetics. I want someone that wants to work hard and does everything perfectly with mediocre genetics than I want someone who's wildly talented but doesn't do shit and doesn't wanna get better.
John:Drop the mic. Mic drop. Alright. Thanks for watching, guys. I hope you enjoyed this.
John:It was a wild ride. We haven't done this we haven't had a wild ride in a while. Probably since 2020 was some of the wildest podcast we had, and this was it was getting up there. So, hopefully, you guys enjoyed it. We'll see you guys tomorrow.