Erik Huddleston: Breaking Down the Force Production Cycle and Its Training Applications for Athletes

It was great to have Erik Huddleston back on Smoothies With Rufus and to hear about his new role as a strength coach for the Indiana Pacers.

In this episode Erik dives into one of his recent instagram posts on the force production cycle and ties these concepts into countermovement jump data and making better training decisions for the athletes he works with. Erik also discusses how understanding this cycle can be useful for return to play, working with different populations of athletes and with his exercise selection.

 

Thanks for coming on Erik!

 

Here are the timestamps:

0:00 Intro and Eriks Role for the Indiana Pacers

4:08 Using Sports Science to Create Positive Changes in Players

6:25 Using Data to Make Decisions

8:40 Erik Breaks Down The Force Production Cycle

14:55 Diving Into Unweighting and Braking Phase of a Countermovement Jump

20:28 Countermovement Jump in an NBA Player vs. Youth Athlete

24:00 What Role Impulse Plays in a CMJ

28:08 Training the Breaking and Unweighting Phase of a CMJ

35:35 Training Slow Tempo/Eccentric Work

41:00 Why Unweighting is Difficult for Taller Athletes

45:46 The Propulsive Cycle During a Cut

52:23 What Difficulty With Unweighting Looks Like In Sport

57:07 Reading Limb Asymmetries in a CMJ

1:01:50 CMJ and Return to Play

1:06:00 Erik’s Considerations for Return to Play

1:09:40 How Your Biases Impact Decisions

1:12:11 Why Data Doesn’t Always Tell The Full Story

1:22:25 How Erik’s Experience Prepared Him For the NBA

1:28:35 Where to Learn More About Erik

 

For more info on Erik check out his instagram @eph.24