🇺🇸 S&C Daily — Fast Is Fast

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In a new SimpliFaster piece, Trinity Western head strength coach Cole Hergott explains how losing access to his campus gym pushed him from testing 20-meter sprints to testing three-meter sprints, and why it turned out to be an upgrade.

The gym filled up with classes and camps, and he went from testing whole teams to catching 30 or 40% of a roster. The only room he controlled was his weight room, an 1,100-square-foot converted classroom. Five meters and four left no space to stop. Three worked.

Effort was the surprise. Switching to three meters had athletes running up to 15 trials chasing a teammate’s number, which is 45 meters of sprinting against the 40 he used to get. He ranked the soccer team’s three-meter times against their 20-meter times and the leaderboards matched over 80%.

His argument is that the shorter test is also the more sport-specific one. A soccer or basketball player rarely sprints 20 meters flat out. They burst for two or three steps and stop, over and over.

A new study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research split recreationally trained men into two groups. One trained chest with nothing but the dumbbell bench press. The other trained chest with nothing but the dumbbell fly. Twice a week for 10 weeks, each man doing the number of sets he was already used to.

Ultrasound measured chest muscle thickness before and after, at three points across the muscle. Both groups grew, and neither grew more at any of the three. The press group averaged about 13% and the fly group about 15%, a gap too small to call a winner in a study where only 26 men finished.

Brad Schoenfeld is a co-author, and the researchers had expected the fly to win because it loads the chest hardest when the muscle is stretched. It did not.

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The Cowboys have been practicing indoors on turf instead of outside on grass, and head coach Brian Schottenheimer said sweat testing is making the call. Dallas has gone nearly two months without measurable rain, and Wednesday was the eighth triple-digit day of September.

"We’ve got these cool urinals. I don’t know how much they cost, but they must be expensive. It tells you whatever your urination levels are. It’s crazy," Schottenheimer said.

Both outdoor practices last week started at 8 a.m., and the usual early-afternoon slot has carried a triple-digit heat index for weeks.

In a new Athletech News story, Elizabeth Ostertag lays out how much recovery hardware NFL clubs are buying. Hyperice says every team in the league has ordered from it in each of the past four years. Ammortal says its full-body chamber is in 12 buildings. Sleep Number, the league’s sleep partner since 2018, says 83% of eligible active players have gone through its program and bought a bed. Whoop has been the NFLPA’s licensed recovery wearable since 2017, with players keeping ownership of their own data.

Some of it starts with the staff. Ryan Bellerose, director of sports science for the Panthers, used a Rally massage device himself before putting it in front of players, who then asked how to buy their own.

North Carolina baseball hired Eric McKibban as director of sports performance after five years in the same role at Charlotte.

Minnesota Duluth promoted Cade Barrett to head strength and conditioning coach after one season as the Bulldogs’ assistant.

Brandeis promoted Liam Gallinagh to head strength and conditioning coach in his fifth year on staff, where he has covered all 19 varsity teams.

Wichita State baseball added Brian Commerford as assistant director of sports performance after eight years running strength and conditioning at Inspiration Academy in Florida.

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