Working Sets: Connecting Testing to Training with Hawkin Dynamics and the Youngstown Phantoms

Most performance staffs already collect more force plate data than they can act on. The hard part is turning a Tuesday jump test into a different training day on Wednesday, which is what this conversation is about. Geoff Ebbs, Head of Performance at FYTT and co-owner of Wave Strength Performance, is joined by Tommy Malloy, Head of Strength and Conditioning for the USHL’s Youngstown Phantoms, and Ryan Smyth, who leads hockey for Hawkin Dynamics. Ryan explains how Hawkin’s league-wide partnership gave every USHL club force plates and TruStrength units, and how teams logged more than 12,000 assessments in the first five weeks of the season. Tommy describes running a 62-game schedule with long bus trips and a roster that ranges from 16-year-olds to 20-year-old veterans. He reads fatigue in countermovement depth and time to takeoff rather than jump height alone, and he builds eccentric, explosive, and speed profiles that sort athletes into training buckets. Geoff then shows how that data turns into programming in FYTT. Hawkin results land as FYTT metrics, a FYTT Automation evaluates them against thresholds the coach sets and moves athletes into recovery, decel, or force groups, and one team program delivers different block variations to each group, so nobody has to write four separate programs. The session closes with practical advice on individualizing without losing control of the weight room, including Tommy’s “same meat, different condiments” rule. Chapters (timestamps are from the raw Zoom recording, which has about 9 minutes of pre-show. Subtract your trim point before posting.) 09:03 Introductions 12:56 Hawkin Dynamics and the USHL partnership 15:26 Why testing frequency matters 21:12 Tommy’s biggest problems: travel, fatigue, and a young roster 24:14 Reading fatigue in jump strategy 26:49 Eccentric, explosive, and speed profiles 33:53 Balancing health metrics and outputs 36:49 From a flag to a conversation: one freshman’s story 38:00 Decision trees with FYTT Automations 42:30 One program, many training groups 45:13 Keeping individualization manageable 49:35 Closing thoughts FYTT is strength and conditioning programming software that replaces the spreadsheets coaches use to build, deliver, and track athlete training. Learn more or book a walkthrough at https://fytt.io #StrengthAndConditioning #SandC #SportsPerformance #ForcePlates #HockeyTraining #FYTT