Habits and Hustle
Episode 448: Henry Abbott: Preventing Injuries Before They Happen + The Soviet Secret to Athletic Power
Fri, 09 May 2025
Ever wonder why you keep getting injured in the same places despite your best efforts? In this Fitness Friday conversation on the Habits and Hustle podcast, I talk with Henry Abbott, author of "Ballistic: The New Science of Injury-Free Athletic Performance," to explore a revolutionary approach to preventing injuries before they happen. We discuss practical exercises to strengthen your feet, the fascinating Soviet origins of plyometrics, how proper landing technique can transform your athletic performance while keeping you injury-free for years to come, and much more. Henry Abbott is an award-winning journalist and founder of TrueHoop, a respected basketball media platform. He previously led ESPN's 60-person NBA digital and print team, which published several groundbreaking articles and won a National Magazine Award. His new book "Ballistic: The New Science of Injury-Free Athletic Performance" explores revolutionary approaches to injury prevention through the science of ballistic movements. What we discuss: Henry Abbott's book "Ballistic: The New Science of Injury-Free Athletic Performance" How most knee injuries originate from weaknesses in the feet or hips The importance of strengthening feet and lower leg muscles for injury prevention "Toe yoga" as a method to strengthen foot muscles The role of the nervous system in injury prevention The benefits of plyometric exercises as we age The Soviet origins of plyometrics through Yuri Verkashantsev's research Building progressive training approaches for those with existing weaknesses Thank you to our sponsor: Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout. Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers. Bio.me: Link to daily prebiotic fiber here, code Jennifer20 for 20% off. Momentous: Shop this link and use code Jen for 20% off To learn more about Henry Abbott: Website: https://www.henryabbott.com/ https://www.truehoop.com/ X: https://x.com/truehoop?lang=en Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements
Chapter 1: Why do injuries keep recurring in the same places?
Are you getting injured because you're training wrong and don't even know it? On this Fitness Friday, I'm joined by Henry Abbott. Henry is an award-winning journalist, the founder of True Hoop, and the author of the book Ballistic. We dig into the science of injury prevention, from why knee pain often starts in your feet or your hips,
and how toe yoga and better landing techniques can boost your performance. So if you're stuck in the injury recovery cycle or just getting old like me, this episode can change everything. Let me share my daily routine game changer with you. It's the Momentous 3. I've been using their protein, their creatine, and omega-3 combo for months now, and the results are undeniable.
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So if you want better performance, this is the way to go. Visit livemomentous.com and use my code JEN for 35% off your first subscription. That's livemomentous.com code JEN for 35% off your first subscription. Trust me, you'll be happy you did. So today we have on the podcast, we have Henry Abbott, who wrote this book called Ballistic, which is the new science of injury-free athletic performance.
We're going to talk all about how we can prevent injury instead of just treating it. And the funny thing is, not so funny to me, I hurt my knee last night. And today I have Henry on the podcast. Is that not coincidental?
I mean, I'm not happy about it. I would be more fun to meet you feeling 100%.
Thank you.
All right, let's explore.
I know, right? Of all the guests to have the day after, which is weird because I've had like a million ankle and Achilles injuries because of my love for running and cardio, which is probably terrible for my body at this point, but knees never hurt. So what's the most common injury, by the way? What is the most common injury for women? And what's the most common injury for men?
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Chapter 2: What exercises can strengthen your feet and prevent injuries?
You are, this is, we're opening with a pop quiz, Jen.
Yeah, we are. Are you ready?
I don't think I am. I can tell you this. So I spent three years marinating in this like movement data from this place called P3 in Santa Barbara, where they're 35 years into gathering it all. And almost everything that
goes through there these are thousands of athletes almost all the recommendations are to change something about how you move in the feet or the hips so like knee injuries mostly come from above and below and i really came to think of it did you i did not the answer doesn't have to be yes but did you take physics class where you do that egg drop experiment i did okay and you use like pipe cleaners and duct tape or whatever materials okay
I try to black, I try to like, kind of like not think about my years in high school, but I'm joking.
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Chapter 3: How do landing techniques affect athletic performance?
This book has tons of physics in it. I had to learn and like nod along, but I hated physics class. I just, it was literally, I was a great student, but I had that one class. I was like, I don't even care what you're talking about. But okay, so you got the little egg. Now think of your upper body is that egg, right? This is 80% of your weight is in your torso.
And our like pipe cleaners and duct tape is our legs. These are the little devices we have to make it so our egg doesn't shatter when you land from running. When you jump off of whatever, one of their biggest assessments they do is you step off an 18 inch box and just land on these force plates on the floor.
so they're really well designed for it you know we have a good system for this if you land correctly right right they want to land with your toes up on the balls of your feet and do this stiff ankle and the force is going to go into your calves and then you're then it's going to go into your quads and it's going to go into your glutes and those muscles can handle a ton of force
safely in the old age but if you get a little weird right we all move a little weird we sit a lot we you know exercise strangely we have odd habits for instance if you land on your toes then you're the next thing that happens is your heel slams down which accounts for all of the biggest measurements they have all of the biggest landing forces come from that heel slapping down because now your egg right yeah
is pushing on down through your knee onto bone the lower leg bone the tibia and it's like like a pull cue like punching the ground right it's instead of passing the forces through soft tissue it's passing through that bone like that's a very common and popular way to hurt your knee is like the force of the ground is traveling up to your knee through this hard device, right?
Horrible.
Yeah. So there's a little, this is what they're doing there mostly, you know, and then the other big area focuses the hips.
So if you think about it, like the ankle and these lower leg muscles control how the lower leg bone expresses the force of the ground and the hip controls how the upper leg bone expresses the force of your torso coming down and they're going to meet at the knee and hopefully they meet well, right?
And they sound like they have been for most of your running life, but maybe there's a little something. If you went there right now and they assessed you, my guess is they would find, you'd be there for an hour. They'd be like, hey, Jen, there's a little something. We got to strengthen this thing in your hip or we got to do some of this thing in your lower leg.
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Chapter 4: What are the Soviet origins of plyometrics?
Well, there's a whole bunch of, like you can go on YouTube and find, my daughter right now has a thing, she's doing toe yoga. I don't know if you've gotten into this. Have you seen this at all?
No, I did not.
I'm doing it with my hands a little bit, but if you like lift your big toe and you separately lift the little toes and like there's all these little muscles in the foot that you can strengthen.
Oh yeah.
So it's called toe yoga. Yeah, if you look up toe yoga, that's not really a PT recommendation that I've seen, but they do a ton of stuff. So, you know, if you think of our calf muscles, the kind of like, there's this kind of two lumpy muscles on the outside, that's the gastroc muscle.
Okay.
Underneath it is the soleus and the post tib, a tibialis posterior.
Okay. So let's not be so like, so science-y because people are going to like, basically stop listening to this podcast. Here's what's going to happen.
They're just going to be like, I assume he knows what he's talking about because in the first five minutes he said tibialis posterior. And now I'm good, right?
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Chapter 5: How do we strengthen lower leg muscles for injury prevention?
I was getting back to running after a back thing. I had to get to like, where I could really get to 15 slow raises before they let me start running.
Yeah. On one leg. Yeah. Okay. So let's say that, so like, let's kind of make this as simple for people as possible. So in order to strengthen our, I asked you about the feet, how to strengthen our feet. You said we need to strengthen the lower part of our calf, right?
So they're into, at P3, their recommendations are heavy on all of the muscles beneath the knee as a method to stiffen the ankle.
Okay.
So that when your foot hits the ground to have your powerful foot, the Achilles is loaded.
Okay.
So like you want to have, they call, they say to land toes up. It's like a little cue. It doesn't really mean you land your toes fully up, but that's, they say that you'll get your foot more on the ball.
Right. So if they say toes up, that means you should be landing on your heel. Right.
No. Great question. They want you on the ball of your foot, but with your toes a little bit flexed up. Instead of being sloppy with a relaxed foot, they want your foot tense and loaded because they want to activate the spring of your Achilles.
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