How a Gold Medal Strength Coach Builds Faster, More Explosive Athletes | Cal Dietz

Cal Dietz (0:00)

I've been able to train 21 Olympic and World Champions. Those people move better. The brain's not worried about you squatting 1000 pounds. It wants to survive. I want more athleticism. Like, I would rather have some of this, a lot more athletic and a little less strong. I'm okay with it. If you can't absorb the force, then you can't change directions or reapply it. What I'm doing today is setting me up for 18 weeks later to be successful, and people don't wanna wait 18 weeks for nothing. This is the most beneficial weight room exercise. The first day that we tested this, went back over to sprints, and some of them were moving 0.7 meters faster in that sprint that day. Sleep's number one in recovery, but the next thing that people have ever tried was a 20-minute walk. If you don't have passion for what you're doing, you're never gonna practice that hard with that intention. There's just no way.

Mark Bell (0:47)

All right, Cal Dietz. It's been a while since you last been here, but somehow while you've been gone, you won a Gold Medal.

Cal Dietz (0:55)

Yeah, thanks for having me back. I do appreciate it. It's awesome to get back here and talk shop. But yeah, I was fortunate to be part of the Gold Medal in the 26th Olympics in Italy. Milan, Italy, one of the best sandwich shops I ever had in Milan. Yeah, it was unbelievable. My daughter got a visit and brought me this sandwich. And if you ever go to Milan, look up the best sandwich shop in the world. Their claims are the best.

There's a line.

Mark Bell (1:18)

What kind of sandwich are we talking about here?

Cal Dietz (1:20)

All kinds, but it was the bread, the way it was made in the past, the pesto, yeah, it was the real deal.

Mark Bell (1:26)

Man, this is exciting.

Cal Dietz (1:27)

Yeah, yeah, and then we won the Gold Medal. So I was like, I think I put, I was pretty good with my weight during the Olympics until the end when I found that thing in the last week.

Mark Bell (1:35)

I probably put on eight pounds because I was, yeah, it was, it was like, I gotta go to the sandwich shop and try, you know, a bunch of different ones, right?

Cal Dietz (1:42)

Absolutely. You can't just knock them down. Yeah, so yeah, I've been very blessed to be part of something special that when that Gold Medal in Italy with the US Women's Olympic Hockey Team, it was awesome.

Mark Bell (1:54)

You've coached a lot of different sports, and I imagine like, you know, most sports, it's like, okay, well, it doesn't hurt, I think in every sport to be like explosive, to have some good strength, to have some good endurance, to have some, you know, good coordination. But maybe what's unique? Maybe people don't know that are listening. What are some unique things that you run into with something like hockey?

Cal Dietz (2:18)

Yeah, it's honestly, you would consider it's one of the most, and I've coached wrestling, swimming, football, right? All of them, right? As a strength coach, mostly. And the one thing about hockey is you need the speed, but yet you need the endurance to sprint all that time. And then there is the lactate part. So you need all three energy systems. It's one of those sports that rarely is uses all three of those energy systems, the short sprint, the alactic, the lactate, the aerobic, and you need them all to be developed.

So other sports, there's more focus towards one.

Mark Bell (2:56)

Would it be maybe, I mean, obviously depends on your position. If you're goalie, then it's different, right? Right. But would it maybe be a little similar to maybe soccer, maybe rugby? Like, is there some crossover?

Cal Dietz (3:09)

I would say it's closer to maybe soccer. Yeah, soccer rugby is a good example.

The short sprint, though, compared to soccer would be more intense, right? Because, I mean, a lot of hockey is like sprint for three to five seconds, rest like three to five to see where the play is going and then sprint again. So, and then you do that for about 40, 45 seconds and you should be off the ice because you start to slow down and a lot of that sprint is probably pretty intense because you're on ice, right?

Mark Bell (3:34)

So you've got to like, you got to kind of gun it, you got to accelerate.

Cal Dietz (3:38)

It's harder than sprinting when you, right? Because you think, oh, they only sprinted for five minutes. But compared to the sprint, like they're, because it's, I think sprinting and running is more natural for the human and that skating is not. So you're using different muscles that you would not normally and it's, you're using more muscles. So it is definitely more taxing. And then you got to do that over three periods, right? You might get, you know, from eight to ten shifts a period and then you're going to do that for three periods.