May 2004 Interview with Athletic Engineeing's Todd Pratt

Todd Pratt is a Seattle-area strength and conditioning specialist who has focused his considerable experience and creativity toward developing a functional training regime specifically for Russ Wicks’ racing and World Speed Record challenges.     View Photos

Part 1 of Stephan Schier's interview with Todd Pratt

Q. How long have you known Russ? Tell us about the nature of your relationship.

Pratt: Fifteen months. Rehabilitating from spine surgery is no simple endeavor, especially if you’re going to push the envelope like Russ. Fortunately, he plugged into our medical network including his spine surgeon (Dr. David Hanscom), physiatrist (Dr. Stan Herring), physical therapist (John Rumpeltes), and myself. Our “team” maintained constant communication until Russ was ready to step it up at Athletic Engineering. This ensured that everyone was on the same page so that Russ could avoid the typical chop-shop that many athletes, even professional, often experience. It really was a symbiotic collaboration from surgery to elite-level fitness.

Wicks is driving on the edge…he's really looking to take speed to another level. When an athlete of his caliber is injured, there has to be a fitness team of equal intensity to ensure that his long-term wellness continues into his endeavor. That way it’s not just left: “Well, your surgery's over. Your so-called rehabilitation is done. Now go hop in a boat at 400 miles an hour. Good luck!”

Q. What was the point where you decided to work together more regularly - post rehab?

Pratt: We actually hit it off while he was still rehabilitating. I really respected the boldness of Russ’ vision, and I believe that he saw the value in my work. In addition to sharing the same intensity for achieving his goal, we also saw eye to eye on the seamless transition from rehab to elite-level strength and conditioning that it was going to take to get him there.

Russ, John, and I maintained constant communication early on to make sure we were on the same page. I guess the decision to work together was more a result of our symbiotic collaboration early in his rehab more than anything else. John and I put our heads together to create an extremely aggressive game plan for Russ’ full recovery. When it came time for more advanced biomechanic work, he was already accelerating so rapidly that my work was then a natural extension of John’s work with him.

Q. Symbiotic collaboration?

Pratt: Absolutely…our network between surgeon, physician, physical therapist and strength and conditioning professional that really doesn't exist everywhere in the country. Many incredible athletes still have to deal with fragmented, sub par medical and physiological support. Once plugged into to AE, that won’t happen. We’ve established a team of the best fitness professionals out there to work together on our athletes’ behalf. We’re in constant communication to make sure that it really is a symbiotic collaboration.

Q. Can you give a thumbnail of your background?

Pratt: I’ve always been a fitness junkie. It began as a mixture of classic American sports and some martial art work from the day I could walk. I competed collegiately in track and field at Texas A&M and then endured a brief and injury-riddled professional career before retiring to train athletes full time. Experiencing the frustration of my own vehicles’ inability to realize its physical potential due to injury motivated me to make sure it never happened to any of my athletes.

I served as a strength and conditioning coach at Texas A&M for 3 years before coming to Seattle to do that with the Seattle Seahawks. It didn’t take me long in the NFL to realize that I wanted to get out and start my own elite-level fitness company where I could make sure my athletes received the highest quality training...with no compromises.

Q. In college were you studying in A&M's exercise physiology program? Don't they have a good program at Texas A&M?

Pratt: They have a great program. Currently, the fitness profession is inundated with prehistoric knowledge and training practices. It was extremely valuable to build such a strong anatomical and physiological base at A&M so I could push the innovative training parameters with solid data…and a clear conscience. If an individual is willing to entrust you with their physical well-being, then you better make sure you know your biomechanic basics backwards and forwards. You owe it to them and yourself. A&M provided an invaluable atmosphere to get me started.

Q. Tell us about your experience in the NFL? And why you chose to depart?

Pratt: Massive destruction. It’s gut-wrenching to work so hard, to have one of your athletes so hard, only to be torn apart on a weekly basis. It can be pretty frustrating. You just burn so much to see your guys succeed come game time, but not at the ethical expense of seeing them limping around 5-10 years later. I’m interested in developing lifelong athletes, who can still function powerfully as they age and live life to the fullest. You think Russ is going to let age slow him down? No way! I’ve got to keep that man in permanent super-shape because I know he’ll never slow down! Now that’s fun…

In addition, I mistakenly assumed the NFL was going to be the pinnacle of strength and conditioning and I learned in many ways it was the basement. Don’t get me wrong, I still intended to work with professional athletes, but more or less the ones I wanted to work with. Think fringe athletes…your snowboarders, your climbers, your kayakers, your martial artists, your racers. The ones that haven’t received the same attention your more classic American sports have. Likewise, I was also committed to treating 70 and 80-year old clients like the most important athletes in the world. I want them to be proud of bending over to pick up the garden hose without back pain because they trained their rear off to do so. Your typical "three sets of ten" down a row of machines at the corner gym won’t achieve it anymore. Guys like Russ deserve better.

Q. So, what do you want to see for Russ, in terms of his body?

Pratt: One of the many problems current training methodology is that it's based on the ages-old bodybuilding mentality without any strength transfer or correlation to the needs and demand of sport. That said, I think Russ needs training specificity. I have to design strength and conditioning protocol that closely mimics, and even supersedes, the unique biomechanic demands of his endeavor. I want his pound for pound strength off the charts…which it is approaching rapidly. I want his neuromuscular reflexes to fire radically faster and more efficient than normal. I want his proprioceptive awareness to be cat-like. And he’s getting there! He’s really become a physical force to be reckoned with.

Q. Are other people in racing doing functional training like you are doing with Russ? The guys I know racing are living out of hotels and generally unfit. Do you know what's going on in the industry, for racers?

Pratt: What we're doing at AE is especially unique, even amongst other racers’ training. It has to be so because Russ’ biomechanic requirements are especially unique. If he's got the courage to get in a watercraft seeking speeds of 300-400 miles per hour, then it’s absolutely vital that our training addresses the intense physiological demands to ensure that he not only functions at his highest neuromuscular capacity but also stays safe in case anything was to happen. It is my goal to over-build him.

As far as what other racers are doing…you're absolutely right in that they're a significantly unfit athlete population. The few who are trying are going about it all wrong. They’re still trained like slow bodybuilders instead of dynamic racers. You don't ask a cheetah to be a water buffalo, and you certainly don't train him like one. The standard heavy squats, bench presses, anything in slow, heavy, single-plane movements is only going to dumb down the nervous system and ultimately prove more detrimental than good...

Q. Because you're teaching someone a repetitive movement that's limited biomechanically?

Pratt: Absolutely, you've confined them to a slow single-plane box. Instead, Russ needs to be somewhat amoeboid physically…the dynamically spontaneous neural product of dynamically spontaneous training. Alright, you’re laughing at "amoeboid" so I’ll throw this out there: I want Russ' training to be so biomechanically chaotic, that driving [a 400 mph watercraft] by comparison is easy. And his endeavor should be easier than his training, by comparison, if we do a good job.

Q. What people experience in a race is never duplicated or exceeded in any other place than the race. Unless you put a helmet on and attach the bungee cords [and do the types of specific exercises Wicks and Pratt have been doing]...

Pratt: Absolutely.

Q. But now you can actually duplicate... like standing on one foot on a medicine ball, while you've got something in your hand, while somebody's trying to swat it out of your hand...

Pratt: While your insane trainer is beating the snot out of you! That’s right; we replicate those race conditions as best as possible. It takes some innovation and some applied movement creativity but we do actually surpass Russ’ racing experiences at time. This type of training is not for the weak of heart though. Hands down, it’s some of the toughest fitness training in existence.

It's easy to get someone in the door and put on muscle mass - certain morphologies and metabolic rates aside - it's not hard to meathead a program. You see all these [training] magazines and increasingly there is some semblance of the functional [training] revolution, but it's very, very simple and basically furthering the same old "how do you get your biceps bigger?" mentality ...well let's give you a bicep workout for the next three weeks on a big inflatable ball this time!

Click here to read part 2 of the interview