We just finished! I wanted to blog my experience while it is fresh in my mind.

We had an intimate group of coaches come in to learn at Paul Cater’s gym The Lab in Monterey California. We aimed to discuss how to implement flywheel, conical, and pneumatic resistance with clients and athletes. You can probably tell I have been interested in these tools as of late with my training. I have been working through some applications of iso-inertial resistance, but I keep circulating back to three primary focal points:

• Potentiation with Flywheel or Conical resistance
• Hypertrophy with Flywheel or Conical resistance
• Work Capacity with Flywheel or Conical resistance

My lectures were built around how I came to program with those filters, but in a way that hopefully brings a new perspective. As I was writing the lectures I kept coming to a central question “Why is this necessary?” I have to admit this is a hard question to answer. Sometimes, and I am being honest about this, I simply found it interesting and am curious how it felt and how it works. If I am being completely candid, I felt like it was not intuitive and that was frustrating. A great tell for something is not being intuitive is explaining something to someone else by saying the name of it over a useful analogy. For example “It’s a flywheel, you know like a flywheel, a flywheel.”

It is worth sharing, but when attempting to learn something new I pull from as many research articles as possible. I like this strategy because the abstracts and introductions have a succinct message on why this is important. I find this helpful to build a solid foundation of understanding why this is necessary to learn and understand, which leads to asking better questions and furthering my understanding.

Beyond Barbell Research Review

The next thing I had to work through was being overly attached to traditional gravity-based resistance from a barbell, dumbbell, or kettlebell. I am not saying that I want to abandon gravity-based resistance, I merely want to understand if I am being rigid and not adequately evaluating something like iso-inertial types of resistance enough. I want to be as thorough on everything that is not based on gravity but on forces that are based on momentum from a flywheel or a cone. Part of the issue is that gravity-based resistance is so effective at loading in the sagittal plane and within the horizontal and vertical vectors. That translates nicely to traditional KPIs such as sprinting and jumping.

This leads to the questioning of correspondence to performance and whether the KPIs we create matter relatively more so proving gravity-based resistance is good. A thought I kept having is that I have built this narrative that I am only as good as my ability to develop speed, power, and capacity. I then force a heightened level of focus on things more correlated to speed, power, and capacity. I choose exercises that are more easily standardized with uniform techniques and normative data. I then select methods that develop said exercises within a vector of improving speed, power, and capacity. I essentially created a reality based on an outcome I said was important. That importance may or not be relative to performing in your sport. You are stronger in a squat pattern that will be correlated to jumping higher and that may not be relevant to performing at a higher level.

Let’s pause for a moment. I understand this may sound insane and I am saying everything that I do is based on the notion of substantiating the value of gravity-based resistance. I then confirm that with tests that are more strongly correlated to gravity-based resistance such as sprinting straight ahead or jumping higher. If I did not improve in that I try to find other methods to reach higher levels of sprinting and jumping performance. Try to consider for a moment that maybe we are creating a feedback loop that makes anything we choose to do harder and harder to dispute. This is based on the beginning and end are based on the same underlying logic to continuously prove something that may never have been relevant to the goal. Essentially we have created an illusion of independent thinking with our programming by creating a narrative that we have accepted as true without any context.

If you came to this blog for a testimonial on flywheel training, I am sorry.

But if we abolished the thought that gravity-based resistance was the only way to train. This could come in the form of saying from the onset that gravity-based resistance is the only way to create propulsion and loading forces on the body and I will commit to using all available options. It could also come in the form of saying our KPIs do not have to be running faster and jumping higher. It does not matter why we revisit what is training, we just have to revisit training. This is precursory to iso-inertial resistance. Because it does not follow the same vector as gravity-based resistance such as progressive overload. That point matters because the principles of training such as progression and progressive overload are based in the context of gravity.

The reason flywheel resistance even exists is to provide overload to muscle, connective tissue, and bone within anti-gravity environments such as space. How do we prevent atrophy when astronauts are in space for extended periods? Take that a step further, how do we organize how much resistance and how long with that resistance to someone without the context of being within gravity? The existence of this means we have to question the notion that gravity-based resistance and the entire reality that governs us are incomplete. Gravity-based resistance is not complete and not universally true and we need to expand the thought of what is training. It’s the same thing as saying that quantum physics is not real because it disproves the reality that Newtonian physics is universally true.

If we start with the question that our value as a strength and conditioning coach is not exclusively how much you can get someone to squat but how well an athlete can perform in competition, we can expand our potential decisions. This becomes a more important statement when you explore that iso-inertial is not limited to the sagittal plane and vertical vector-based loading and propulsion. Iso-inertial is not based on gravity, so you can create propulsion and loading within the transverse plane, the frontal plane, and the rotational vectors. We can continuously accelerate in multiple planes and vectors with both flywheel and conical resistance. Gravity-based resistance is perpendicular to gravity and does not allow for continuous prolusion and loading in that direct line. This nuance corresponds to open chaotic environments.

All of this is to say that before we can embrace an alternate form of resistance we need to accept that gravity-based is not complete. The same would be true for is0-inertial resistance if this example was in reverse. Flyhweel or conical resistance serves a purpose when gravity-based cannot. The value can only be there if we are open to leveraging that value. The value is immense if allowed for.

Coming full circle the proportionate loading (eccentric) load to propulsive (concentric) forces is the first thing to unpack. The harder we pull or push, the greater the eccentric load. It is an autoregulated, maximal intent load. This creates tremendous potentiation towards subsequent exercises. For instance, if we wanted to run faster, jump higher, or lift more. We can enhance our ability within a gravity-based environment with potentiation from a resistance that is not gravity-based.

From a hypertrophy perspective, the initial thought would be the increased eccentric load. This is significant and does have an impact on increasing cross-sectional area, but I tend to think of flywheel or conical resistance’s value as more so from constant tension. Tension is king for hypertrophy. The more tension we can create the more muscle we can build. Iso-inertial is 100% tension that creates maximal intensity to match the muscle’s level of fatigue to elongate that period of tension within a set. We get more from the same period from the constant and carried out maximal tension toward hypertrophy from iso-inertial.

The last part is the work capacity. The simple logic is that iso-inertial is resistance. It does not matter if it is heavy or light, what matters for work capacity is the duration and rest we apply that resistance. Work capacity is about going longer, resting less, or both. The real value to me is the ability to effectively hit multiple planes of motion and vectors with that resistance. Energy system work becomes cyclical over time. It’s just easy to elevate intensity and alter rest with simple redundant activities. With is0-inertial we can replicate the reduncy aspects with more rotational movements that cross through multiple planes at any given time.

You could argue that I did not need the preamble with the internet benefits listed just now. My opinion is that we would make the excuse that I can get potentiation from gravity-based resistance, I can get hypertrophy from gravity-based resistance, and I can get work capacity without iso-inertial. This is all true, but potentially we get more from is0-inertial towards those outcomes in less time. More importantly, we may get a different benefit altogether. Pushing iso-inertial through potentiation, hypertrophy, and work capacity filters could very well likely trying to force something into an understood reality. That rationale could be limiting the larger impact of iso-inertial. Instead of forcing everything I do into predetermined KPIs, there needs to be an attempt at saying how it feels and where you see the value. We all have a certain level of intuitiveness with movement. Movement is centering on our body, our mind, and our spirit. If all we use is one form of resistance we become off balance and we will struggle to receive the full benefit from moving.