Matthew Rains Strength & Conditioning

Matthew Rains Strength & Conditioning Co-Director and Head of Athletic Development at AVOLVE Performance

07/05/2026

Should athletes choose high bar or low bar squats?��As with most modalities, both are useful for different goals/contexts.

We saw similarities with peak force at the same weight between both variations.

I believe this would have come about for different reasons. As mass was controlled, acceleration is the main contributing factor. High bar squats generated greater acceleration at later stages of the lift as ROM was larger, whereas low bar squats being more efficient was able to generate greater acceleration earlier indicated by shorter TPv & TPp scores.

Peak power was also similar however occurred at different loads, low bar at heavier 160kg and high bar at a lighter 140kg which may play a role in what variation we use at what loads.

In summary, like many squat variations, I believe both are useful and probably have little impact in our overall force development.

What do you think? Leave a comment below!

22/04/2026

Big bro .physio and I had very similar athletic qualities growing up whilst playing the exact same sports and eating the same dinners every night, but when we got to our 20s - we decided to part take in completely opposite sports and thus training stressors.

The result - we both have our own unique strengths and movement strategies.

If you’re the slow athlete who blames his genetics for not being fast and springy (trust me I was one of them) - maybe give more sprint training a crack.

If you’re the weak athlete who can’t gain size, maybe it’s a just a matter of lifting and eating more.

There’s no question that genetics play a massive role in our physical make up and development. However, using it as a ceiling over your head for your capabilities is a dangerous, career altering game to play.

09/04/2026

3 STEPS TO SET UP YOUR NEXT PRIMER SESSION

Primers can be a great way to possibly get some improvements in speed and power qualities for a competition performances within 24 hours.

Obviously, it’s not the be all and end all - you can very well perform incredibly well without these. It’s simply a nice option to cover those 1%ers, but also, giving yourself another opportunity to work on your overall power training.

If you’re hesistant about introducing a primer session and not sure where to start. I would suggest starting very small, maybe it’s just a mobility session or 1 power exercise to kick it off - assess how you feel the next day and adjust accordingly.

30/03/2026

The sounds of the track 🔈

25/03/2026

Fail to prepare, then prepare to fail

With in season about to kick off for many field based athletes, making sure you get your in season loading is one of the vital pieces to get right for a successful season.

Having a set routine throughout the week or a game plan in mind for when those short turn around come in hot is an effective way to manage training load and continue progressing your athleticism during the in season demands.

There’s plenty of ways to schedule and plan it out, these are just some of my go to plans I’ve found worked well in the past 💪🏼

17/03/2026

I’m not a massive wall drill guy, but I do prefer an option like this over your more traditional wall drill

Wall drills can be useful for introducing basic acceleration positions and reinforcing some postures and exchange speeds.

However, for a positioning drill, it definitely misses some key positions that we need to find and reinforce in effective acceleration mechanics.

02/03/2026

AFL EXAMPLE SESSION w/

Check out this example session for an AFL athlete working on speed, power, change of direction and injury resilience during the pre season.

POWER
1) Lateral Bound to Vertical Hop 3 x 3 e.s
2) Hang Clean Pull + Power Clean 2+1 x 3
3) High Pogo 3 x 10 (tracking RSI)

STRENGTH & ACCESSORIES
A1) Trap Bar Deadlift 3 x 3
B1)Smith Machine Bench Press 3 x 5 @ >1m/s (not shown)
B2) Supinated Chin Ups 1x 3 top set, 2 x 4 back offs
C1) Cable Loaded Hip Flexion 2 x 12 e.s
C2) Ankle Run Specific Iso Hold 2 x 30s e.s
D1) Harop Curl + Pulse 2 x 3-5
D2) Adductor Medium Lever Hold 2 x 20s e.s

20/11/2025

Here’s a quick case study looking at one of the intro speed sessions for an OzTag athlete. We worked on two key positions to develop her efficiency and speed in max velocity.

If you’re keen for a FREE GUIDE to some of my go to coaching cues for creating effective changes in a few critical technique components for both acceleration and max velocity, comment ‘CUE’ and I’ll send it over to you!

06/11/2025

Linear progression is a myth

Otherwise everyone would be olympians 🤷🏻‍♂️

Athletes will look at their progress in the gym and being able to increase the weight on the bar week to week and see it as a standard for progression, but in most cases they simply increasing the intensity at which they train at or reducing the reps in reserve.

When consistently utilising velocity trackers and timing gates, we see progression in its true form, and it’s a little more chaotic than first assumed, however, gives us valuable information about whether our training programs are actually working or if things need to be adjusted.

Not measuring training consistently, assumes you’re getting better, when in reality you might be beating your head against the wall for months and years on end.

30/10/2025

Band assisted jumps are commonly touted to be an effective stimulus for developing greater speed and contact times.

This little experiment set out to see how much of a difference the band made to not only contact time but also force production for bilateral jumps.

I found that the bands didn’t achieve a dramatic or significant difference in contact times, even performing slightly worse for one athlete, compared to unassisted pogos as well as reductions in force production with assisted pogos.

Now, movement strategies are very unique and we can probably achieve some faster contact times with a few cues which may affect the results (also often resulting in less force and lower jump heights), but, without instruction, it was interesting to see not much of a difference on time spent on the floor here.

There may be a few possible reasons for this result from the top of my head I can think of:
1) repeated jump performance is heavily dictated by coordinative factors - having low exposure to band assistance may impact that ability - more exposure may influence this?
2) reduction in body weight load and landing forces may reduce elastic energy stored and sequential stiffness created
3) Achieving low ground contact times is a complex skill that goes beyond just simply a reduction in bodyweight loading

Or even just luck and needing a bigger sample size (particularly those newer to plyos or trying with single leg maybe have greater difference). Either way, if you’re looking to progress your plyos - maybe a band assistance doesn’t achieve the massive decreases in ground contact times you may expect and can also take away the amount of force we’re looking to transfer in those short time frames.

Keen to hear your thoughts in the comments below ⬇️

22/10/2025

ARE HATFIELDS CHEATING?

Now full disclosure, my bias sits with the Hatfield set up. I’m a fan of them and see them as a nice tool to take away the stability of a lift to maximise the load used and force generated in a particular position.

I’m sure there’s plenty of limitations with this small n=1 study and probably should have tested at heavier loads (couldn’t be assed loading 260kg again) but from this data, it’s probably fair to say that Hatfields will still require you to work hard and will be a good stimulus for force development.

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