Based on a recent review, this blog explores the mechanical and technical factors that influence eccentric overload in flywheel training. This blog breaks down what actually determines eccentric overload when using passive flywheel systems, and how Exerfly's motorized technology is designed to fill this gap.

Flywheel training presents a promising and versatile training tool to improve performance and during the rehabilitation process. As its popularity has advanced, more flywheel testing and monitoring tools such as limb asymmetry test have come to light to help better inform practitioners of training decisions.

Exerfly Motorized Flywheel Training provides a unique spin to flywheel training by amplifying the mechanical benefits of flywheels with motorized resistance. This allows for eccentric overload to be provided to each rep across a wide range of movements, loads, and speeds, and the precision to progress by 1% increments. In this blog, we breakdown what Exerfly Motorized Flywheel Training is, why it’s beneficial, and how you can safely and efficiently introduce it and progress it to reach different training goals. ‍

Exerfly gives your facility a more versatile, space friendly, and higher-performing alternative to traditional machines or cable stacks. With just one unit, your customers and clients can train multiple movements with adaptable resistance and take advantage of the benefits of eccentric loading while receiving real-time feedback through the Exerfly app.

Eccentric strength is what helps an athlete ‘hit the brakes.’ And the faster you can brake, the quicker you can push off and accelerate again. That’s why change of direction training really benefits from eccentric overload exercises. Flywheel training forces the nervous system to handle aggressive velocities, like when you’re controlling the descent of a flywheel squat. It teaches the body to absorb and re-apply force quickly, which is exactly what athletes need in sport.

Eccentric and isometric strength form the physiological foundation of rock-climbing performance. While eccentric strength allows climbers to control momentum, absorb impact, and move fluidly between holds, isometric strength sustains positions, maintains body tension, and supports technical precision.

Eccentric strength training exercises such as Nordic curls can enhance SSC efficiency, while flywheel resistance training (FRT) offers considerable benefits by providing consistent tension, continuous motion and eccentric resistance.

Integrating flywheel training into dynamic effort day can be a great way to surpass your plateau or increase your athletic performance. Flywheel training can provide greater eccentric loading and improved SSC efficiency which can ultimately lead to greater power output, increases in rate of force development, and improvement in athletic performance.

We’re proud to announce a new and strategic partnership with BTS Bioengineering, marking an exciting step forward in sports technology and movement science. Exerfly is now the exclusive representative and official distributor of BTS Bioengineering’s P-6000 force plates and PODIUM system across the United States.

Dive into the results and discussion of this new flywheel study, which shows how flywheel leg curls outperformed conventional training in improving hamstring strength, architecture, and flexibility. The findings suggest flywheel training may play a key role in reducing reinjury risk and supporting return-to-play strategies for athletes.

Throwing and hitting in baseball demand high power and rotational strength, making them key targets in performance training. Flywheel training offers a unique way to build rotational power, deceleration, and shoulder stability, helping athletes hit harder, throw faster, and stay injury-free.

Exerfly has been featured in a new peer-reviewed paper on how flywheel resistance training (FRT) can build strength and resilience in runners. Given the paucity of research on FRT, existing evidence is synthesized to formulate loading parameters and training guidelines aimed at optimizing running performance through the application of this technology.

Flywheel training devices such as the Exerfly Ultimate and RackFly can quantify a variety of mechanical outputs (e.g., velocity, torque, acceleration, etc.) across both the concentric and eccentric phases of a movement. When used effectively, this data can provide numerous benefits within sports medicine settings, such as the rehabilitation of patellar tendinopathy (PT) or other similar musculoskeletal concerns. This blog provides practical examples and recommendations for using flywheel testing efficiently for these purposes within athlete training and rehabilitation settings.

Patellar tendinopathy is a very common knee injury and is often treated with eccentric training. FRT has recently taken the rehab field by storm due to its versatility and its ability to apply eccentric overload across a wide range of rehab stages.

Flywheel resistance training may help to prompt specific adaptations that contribute to improved strength, power, and endurance. As well as the added benefits of muscle coordination and efficiency helping to enhance economy of movement and combating fatigue during prolonged rides.

Flywheel training already delivers great eccentric benefits—but if you’re ready to level up, there are three key ways to push the stimulus even further. These methods help increase eccentric output beyond what you can achieve concentrically, unlocking greater strength, power, and resilience over time.

Flywheel training is becoming a staple of off-ice training all across the globe. Recent hockey researchers have revealed that FRT can achieve similar and potentially superior results with overall less volume/time in comparison to TRT due to its ability to effectively load both the concentric and eccentric phases of the exercise.

While FRT has a few unique characteristics, getting new users started does not have to be complicated. By helping them understand key differences in how the movements feel, providing quality demonstrations and cueing, gradually progressing intensity and volume, and using reasonable loading parameters, you can get new users up to speed with FRT within just a few sessions!

FRT can be a valuable tool to help develop the required neuromuscular capabilities that allow athletes to brake hard and fast. This can help athletes perform at the highest level, reduce their risk of injury, and avoid detraining during busy times of the competitive season.

Integrating flywheel resistance training into a team setting requires careful planning and a structured approach, especially when working with beginners. By assessing athlete readiness, educating them about the training, and progressively introducing the exercises, coaches can effectively enhance their team's performance capabilities.

Velocity based training (VBT) has become a popular tool for prescribing and monitoring intensity/volume for traditional resistance training (TRT) exercises among strength and conditioning coaches. Although there are many methods that you may utilize VBT, one of the most common implementations is velocity zones.

Flywheel resistance training (FRT) allows for an adaptable resistance which can be tailored to targeted outcomes. Yet many athletes and coaches, being unsure of where to begin in programming, fall into the trap of believing it is only effective for high reps and high-volume flywheel workouts, largely because many studies have used such protocols.

The Exerfly Platform was recently used in a study on the cardiovascular adaptations resulting from different high-intensity resistance training methods.

Although hiking and running downhill are less strenuous on your lungs compared to hiking uphill, they can still place significant strain on your core and quadricep muscles. A nine-year study by a researcher at the University of Innsbruck revealed that a staggering 75% of hiking accidents happen during the descent.

A question we often get at Exerfly is how to progressively overload for flywheel resistance training (FRT). At the simplest level, you can progress FRT the same way you would traditional resistance training – by manipulating one or more training variables (i.e. volume or load/intensity).

One of the unique benefits of flywheel resistance training (FRT) is the ability to load multi-directional movement patterns across the force-velocity relationship. For this reason, it is not surprising that FRT has been well adopted within sports where explosive rotational actions are required, such as baseball, golf, and tennis.

Strength and power development are important characteristics of athletic performance in many sports. Researchers have highlighted the benefits of strength training for middle to long-distance endurance runners to improve their endurance performance.

I often talk about how flywheels can improve performance, ideas on how to implement it, and the classic sets and reps in most of my blog and social media posts. I tend to neglect the psychological effect of introducing new technology to the weight room or to new clients. This is partly because it is extremely hard to quantify. As coaches we don't hand out surveys to find out motivation levels, the weight room buy in, or exercise preference.

Muscle injuries among athletes are common and often occur during high-speed running, sprinting, and kicking actions. These injuries are responsible for time lost to competition and training.

Flywheel resistance training (FRT) is revolutionizing the way athletes can enhance their athletic and sporting performance. This innovative training modality utilizes the principles of rotational inertia to provide resistance, making it possible to achieve greater eccentric overload compared to traditional weight training.

One of the proposed benefits of flywheel resistance training (FRT) is its ability to achieve accentuated eccentric loading (AEL) (3). AEL is achieved when the eccentric mechanical output is higher in comparison to the concentric mechanical output (ie., power, velocity, force).

Flywheel resistance (FRT) is an effective and efficient method for increasing strength, power, and measures of athletic performance across different populations. Much like traditional resistance training (TRT), FRT is typically divided into sets of pre-defined numbers of repetitions with several minutes of rest in-between. But there is growing interest in the use of cluster sets (CS), which break up each set into clusters of reps with short “intra-set” rest periods in-between.

In preparation for competition, an athlete or coach, a team must consider many factors such as physical demands of the sport, specificity, technical and tactical skills.

My observations from post-game workload for bench players is that most teams only really worry about high-speed running and sprint distances after a game. I understand as there is a lot of research behind it. However, I believe many clubs are focusing too much on research and not on the players and the environment on any given day.

Ricky McFarlane, Head of Performance at Crawley Town FC and PWR Sports & Human Performance, shares valuable insights into the importance of integrating flywheel resistance training into warm-up routines.

Limited training load and monitoring guidelines for flywheel training exist. One possible reason for this is that with flywheel technology, determining a true 1RM is not feasible since there is no maximum load that can be lifted. Rather, an athlete needs to accelerate the flywheel during the concentric phase, which then releases the stored energy during the following eccentric phase.

The versatility of the flywheel via a wide range of exercises targeting specific muscle groups and movement patterns allows coaches to keep workouts safe, interesting, and engaging for young athletes.

At this time of the year, it's customary for athletes to undergo a training phase to maintain baseline fitness levels, address any technical weaknesses, and incorporate strength training for performance improvements and injury prevention.

In the world of Judo, where range of motion (ROM) and explosive power are paramount, athletes are constantly seeking innovative training methods to gain a competitive edge. One such technique gaining traction is the integration of Exerfly Flywheel Training equipment into Judo training regimes.

We are thrilled to announce how Charlton Athletic have been using Exerfly, which resulted in a remarkable reduction in overuse injuries, the men's first-team will continue utilizing Exerfly equipment.

One of the biggest perceived weaknesses in my programming up to this point was an inability to expose my athletes to high-eccentric force. After adding the Exerfly into my athletes off-season training this past year, this has been inarguably our best year ever with regards to player availability as well.

Stability has become a bit of a catch-all term, in my opinion. If someone gets hurt, "they needed more stability!" Nothing is more stable than a cast or a splint allowing zero movement. My challenge for the reader is to question what stability is and means while finding alternate ways of training "stability" and understanding the dynamic importance of all motor functions!

One of the most common metrics an athlete can measure their power and strength is performing a vertical jump. There are two types of athletes that find their way into a typical strength and conditioning program: the wiry athlete that can jump extraordinarily high but lacks overall strength and the incredibly strong athlete who can squat the house but barely gets inches off the ground.

Whether you are a weekend warrior, a high-level competitive athlete, or somewhere in between, every step you take begins from the ground up. Each person's most powerful muscles in the foot and ankle complex are the soleus and gastrocnemius, which have tendons that join together to form the common Achilles tendon.

Eccentric strengthening is something that many individuals are missing out on the vast benefits in gyms worldwide, both for performance as well as looking good in front of the mirror. In his book "Triphasic Training," Cal Dietz referred to the Eccentric phase of dynamic movement as "the deceleration or lowering portion of the movement. It is associated with muscle lengthening.During this phase, kinetic energy is absorbed and stored in the tendons of the muscle structure to be used during the stretch reflex." Let's take a deeper look at eccentric strengthening, specifically for the hamstrings.

Tennis is an intermittent sport with gross bodily movements within a small playing area (average distance per point 6m) [1]. The physical demands of tennis are more explosive type movements, which can be in any direction. Thus, a player’s ability to accelerate, decelerate and change direction is pivotal. In my experience, regardless of the level of competition.

In her latest Youtube video, Coach Bott discusses how flywheel resistance training stacks up against traditional resistance training for improving power and change of direction ability based on a systematic review of the Effect of Flywheel versus Traditional Resistance Training on Change of Direction Performance in Male Athletes by Chaabene et al. (2022).

Maintaining joint integrity is crucial if you are a young performer or simply looking to live an active lifestyle. It is known that individuals who suffer an injury to a joint like the knee (ACL rupture, for example) will likely develop early-onset osteoarthritis, which can impact their quality of life.

The Moxy Monitor is a device for measuring oxygen delivery and utilization within the muscular tissue. These devices are called Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) devices. However, it has been used in many sporting environments, primarily in endurance sports such as running and cycling.

Behind the likes of record-breaking sprinters Tiffany Townsend, Jacob Norman, and Hezikiah Jones, is one of the world's youngest elite professional coaches: Will Collins. Every sprint coach wants to produce the fastest athletes. But for Will, it's all in the details. This means taking a detailed, science-based approach to training using Exerfly.

Exerfly is proud to be working with Andre Mattson, Head of Performance for the Santa Cruz Warriors and previous strength and conditioning coach of the New York Knicks and the Charlotte Hornets.

The incorporation of flywheel specific hamstring exercises into your training program has been shown to be as effective and potentially a superior method of training in comparison to TRT exercises.