The Ektelo System

Our System

“None of what I’m teaching you today is an original thought.” It may sound counterproductive from a marketing standpoint – but it’s true. And this is how we begin any athletic performance clinic or workshop.

Here at Ektelo, we have taken a lifetime of personal experience as athletes and as coaches, and combined it with research – a lot of it. From that, we have created a system from several primary inspirations, including Mark Rippetoe (Starting Strength), Louis Simmons (Westside Barbell), Rob Shaul (Mountain Tactical Institute), and Dr. John Berardi (Precision Nutrition) and mixed it all. The goal? Take all of their expertise and package it into a bite-size, plug and play program that coaches and athletes can use without ongoing subscriptions, hiring outside coaches or pouring through dozens of textbooks.

Plus, there are enough coaches on Instagram making up ridiculous fitness “knowledge” that the world doesn’t need another.

The next step is to share the word. Unlike a lot of companies and coaches out there, you don’t have to pay us a $20 subscription to see a simple graphic about training and see our system. We call this the Ektelo Athletics Performance Pyramid, and it is the heart of our philosophy.

 

Ektelo Athletics Performance Pyramid

Sports Performance Method

Strength

It’s at the base of the pyramid for a reason; it’s the foundation of all athletic performance.

  • When we talk strength, we mean Relative Strength – which is the ability to generate a maximum amount of force relative to body size or weight. Or simply, be as strong as you can be, at your size.
  • Every athlete, regardless of activity, improves their performance by improving their Strength. This includes runners, Soldiers, firefighters, or badminton players, you get the idea.
  • We believe that barbell movements are the best way to build Strength.

Nutrition

You can’t get to optimum performance without paying attention to your Nutrition.

  • Focus on the basics, keep it simple for athletes, and results will follow.
  • Nutrition is a primary component of on-field performance and recovery from training.
  • We focus on eating enough calories, the right types of calories, and nutrient-dense calories. This is what you eat and what you drink.

Power

Power is the ability to apply force over time. Once an athlete learns the mechanics and has the baseline strength (force), we work on making them faster.

  • The athlete that can apply force quicker than their competitor comes out on top.
  • You see Power in sprinting, jumping, throwing heavy weights, or speeding up after changing direction quickly.
  • We use both heavy weights and bodyweight plyometrics to train Power; many athletes need to apply their power to an object, not just their own body.

Endurance

Often seen as a stand-alone, we view Endurance as a component of athletic performance that is supplemented by strength, not isolated from it.

  • Traditional Endurance athletes benefit from strength as a base of performance – if a cyclist is 10% stronger at the same bodyweight, they can put 10% more force into the pedals on every stroke with the same level of exertion as before.
  • All athletes have an endurance component to their performance, not only traditional “endurance athletes” – think about the fourth quarter of a basketball game or a Soldier on a 12hr combat patrol, or even a strong finish to your workout.
  • We define Endurance as a sustained activity where an athlete’s stamina becomes the deciding factor.

Work Capacity

A term coined by Rob Shaul, Work Capacity is how much effort an athlete can exert in a given amount of time.

  • Pushing through an intense Work Capacity training session is where athletes gain mental toughness as much as physical.
  • Almost every contemporary sports performance training system overlooks true Work Capacity.
  • We train Work Capacity as the no man’s land between aerobic and anaerobic activity, or between strength and endurance.

Durability

This our a catch-all term for mobility, flexibility, injury prevention, agility, and recovery. The Oxford Dictionary definition of Durability is “the ability to withstand wear, pressure, or damage.”

  • Many athletes fail to reach their potential because they are under-recovered – a mix of nutrition, hydration, rest and programming.
  • Durability is often missed by coaches and should be incorporated into every practice or training session.
  • We incorporate mobility work and a focus on technique as a means of injury prevention, a way to “prehab” and avoid rehab.

Sport Specific

This is the part where we hand it over to you, the coaches and athletes. Everything below the capstone of Sport Specific can be trained in the gym. This is why you train.

  • Firefighters: this is when you are carrying a rescued victim down a flight of stairs.
  • Football players: this is closing the distance and tackling someone 40lbs heavier than you.
  • Soccer players: this is the ability to outsprint a defender and still have enough in the tank to drive a shot on net.
  • Nordic skiers: this is where you stay up in a hairpin turn and make a pass on the uphill.
  • … you get the point.

Over the next few months, I will write a detailed article on each component of the Ektelo Athletics Performance Pyramid. They will be linked to this post and also published on Facebook and the home page. Stay tuned and enjoy!

In the meantime, check out the different ways that we can help your team make the next step.