Basic Reason We Do Impulses
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August 11, 2025
All right, so I want to clear up the basic reason that we do impulses— whether it's like impulses on the hyper arm:
Or it's impulses with just like an impulse rope:
Lower body, upper body, or even something like depth drops:
The basic reason that we do those is: If we look at what training is, training is an opportunity to provide input into your system and so input into your system can you can start to think about that as there's some force that's acting on your system and the force that we provide the acts on your system then to some degree dictates the adaptation that we get out of that. Right.
So if we simply think about putting force into the system in the sense of impulses, if we look at what happens during a sprint when your leg strikes the ground and you're going at top speed.
That is an impulse going into the leg that's shooting up into the rest of your system. It's literally like a rapid impact against the ground where you're actively stabilized into that position, and then you come out of it and then you go to the other leg.
It doesn't mean that we have to think about it as high force, and that's something I want to get into too. It doesn't mean that we have to think about it as high force, but it is an impact that's going into our system. Like the knee extension impulses or the hamstring impulses, or even the depth drops. We're looking at taking that same basic principle, applying force into your system. Making it simpler, like with the sprint, there's a lot of moving parts in an impulse or in a death drop, and there's few moving parts so it's very simple.
We're able to then kind of take that basic principle of applying force in your system and do that with the impulses. That's the reason that we do it. If we're going to ask ourselves to do that in our life, in our sport, or whatever we want to have something within our training that prepares us for it. That doesn't mean that that's the only thing that we do. If we look at kind of like everything that I'll use in programming impulses, they're just one thing or something that's like rapid force. It's just one aspect of it. We'll also do joint moves.
So, like the joint moves that we'll do, there's literally zero impact in that, in terms of like external force, other than a little bit of gravity acting on it. Right. That's like the exact opposite. But we'll do those. We'll do heavy loads where we're going normal speed.
You will go at a very slow tempo. Those would go very fast tempos. Impulses aren't the only thing that are included in the program; but they are a part of the program because that is something that we want to be prepared for. Right and so it's really not anything more complicated than that. Other than, if we look at all the different stressors and things that we want to be able to handle, we want to be able to do those to some level or some degree in our training
Now with that being said, what I'll say in regards to others the impulses we'll talk specifically about impulses or depth drops, because that's mostly what this is about. But when we look at those, we want to do them at a level where your body, like literally, feels better after than before you started. Take, for example, a single leg depth drop.
And I'm trying to land from as high as I possibly can. And I get to a point where it's like my knee literally snaps. That is obviously too much force going into the system. And so we don't want to do them in that manner. We want to actually do them in a manner where, when you're done, like you literally feel your leg, your body like energized and you feel lighter afterwards.
And like you've actually utilized your tissues, you utilize your body in a way that is designed to be used, versus applying too much force and too much stress to where it feels like you feel like extremely fatigued and feel like you got hit by a truck. So there's context to that as well, right? Like the exercise isn't just simply the exercise. There's different ways that we can do the exercise. And so there's not only the exercise, but we also want to consider how we do that. And so how we do that is in a way in which it actually leads to you feeling better when we're done, feeling more prepared when you're done. And then also in addition to that, if you're taking, you consider how do you feel the day after, how do you feel two days after.
Does your body or system feel like it got hit by a truck? Or does it feel like it's actually better and it's energized even a day or two after? So that's something to take into account as well. So all that to say is: like basic point of impulse is put force in your system. There's context around how we do them, but I do think that is an important thing to include in the program because if we don't do that, then the only time that you're really doing that is when you're operating in your sport in your life.