Casey Dashtban | Strength & Conditioning Coach

No frills, no nonsense. High level training for the serious and committed athletes. No exceptions. Ran by myself and @dr.j_base , two professionals who have the education and the receipts to back what we do. Begins June 1st. DM me “SPEED” to get started

With one foot takeoffs, there isn’t much of a learning curve for the technique. For the most part, athletes figure it out on their own. The same cannot be said about two foot takeoffs. Two foot takeoffs are a skill. It takes hundreds, if not thousands of reps to truly master its intricacies. This video outlines the most neglected aspects of the jump (IMO): - Large penultimate stride: possibly the most neglected. You need to cover a lot of ground on this. - Quick ultimate step: your last step on the ground should be extremely quick and snap you upwards. - T-Spine (upper back extension): I have a whole post on this for a reason. If we are trying to finish above the rim, we have to extend our body upwards to cover as much vertical space. If you can’t dunk, practice this technique without ball. Then try it with a tennis ball, then volleyball, and eventually a real basketball. You still need to get in the gym and attack the weights. But don’t neglect the technique either. #basketball #jump #dunk #vertical #technique #gym #plyometrics #sprint

Largely pioneered by the late great Charles Poloquin, tempo is a way of modifying the method of any given lift. For instance, in squats, we can write tempo like this: 10:1:X:1 Which means: 10 second eccentric (down) 1 second pause Fastest possible concentric (up) 1 second pause at the top With a tempo like this, the eccentric (lowering) phase of the squat is biased. For jumping this is important, as the eccentric phase is where the majority of force is produced, and a method like this increases our eccentric absolute strength Similarly, we can have another tempo: X:3:X:1 Which means: fastest possible eccentric (down) 3 second isometric (pause) fastest possible concentric (up) 1 second pause at the top This tempo would target amortization, the phase of jumping between going down (eccentric) and going up (concentric). It will challenge the athlete to generate a high amount of force without relying on elastic recoil, overloading the muscles at that position. Squats are awesome. But don’t just stop there. Also be willing to modify the tempo to reach your goals

Everyday is spine day Real talk, pain is normal. Back pain is especially common. But debilitating pain (which I experienced for the better part of 2 years) can take over your life, and stall virtually all athletic progress. I do not wish it upon anyone. Utilizing the @functional_range_conditioning system, we can improve our spine through specific inputs that are efficient and effective. This session was immediately after a leg day and in between training clients, and it consisted of the following: MB Spine CARs on the GHD: teaching the nervous system how to utilize the available workspace of the spine, while engaging the hamstrings Reverse Hypers: Strengthen the lumbar spine muscle tissue, not to failure (input 5 for my FRC people) Segmentation: possibly the most critical component of spine health. Without segmentation, we have hinge points and uneven load distribution. It is critical to reestablish and maintain segmentation for a healthy spine Spine takes time. Sometimes months, sometimes years. But your body will thank you for taking the time to address it

Pleased to announce that I will be joining the player health and performance team of the @honeybadgerscan of the @cebleague (CEBL) as a Strength and Conditioning Intern for the 2026 season. My career has always been focused on helping athletes achieve their true athletic potential. This is an opportunity that I’m incredibly grateful for both as a pathway towards support Canadian basketball, but also as an avenue to learn and grow as a coach. Huge shoutout to my longtime mentor, colleague, and brother @dr.j_base for advocating me for this role, and taking me under his wing.

Intent —> Structure —> Function For every exercise, we determined what we wanted to accomplish (our intent), the structure that needed to be changed, and the new and/or improved function as a result of that structural change In the case of my good friend and teammate @oscarkeyd , thats what we did. We assessed to find his exactly weaknesses, and made an intent-driven plan of attack from there Appreciate you trusting me brother! Your hard work is very commendable, and I look forward to the rest of our off season

QnA pt 2. with @dr.j_base To hear @casey.performance give his take on the same questions, it’s posted on our page right alongside this one!

Tendons don’t know what a isometric or eccentric contraction is. All they know is stress, strain, and time Specific adaptations require specific stimuli. In the case of tendon, if we want to increase its stiffness of the tendon, and improve its architecture (collagen cross linking and cross sectional area), we need to ensure the tendon is under a high enough amount of strain for enough time. Practically speaking, this means we need fairly high load, over a long-ish duration. Heavy slow resistance does exactly that, making it a staple in my tendon rehab/strengthening protocols

While training on a consistent and effective system is critical for all athletes, it’s arguably even more critical for adults who want to improve their athleticism. As a teenager, you have plenty of free time, less stress, and overall just a better environment for recovery. As adults, we have jobs and life responsibilities that get in the way, which means we need to make sure our little training time is being used as effectively as possible. This is why we use intent in our training programs. By assessing the individual an determining their goals, intent can be used to draw direction and create effective training programs even when time and recovery is at a premium

QnA pt 1. with @dr.j_base To hear @casey.performance give his take on the same questions, it’s posted on our page right alongside this one!

QnA pt 1. with @casey.performance To hear @dr.j_base give his take on the same questions, it’s posted on our page right alongside this one!

One of my all time favorites: depth drop to overhead MB throw The key is in the intent. You have to be willing to throw the MB as explosively as possible. 110% effort into every rep. By itself, this exercise won’t make you powerful if you are weak. This is something we tend to use after a long block of improving absolute strength so the nervous system can learn how to recruit its larger neural network in a time constrained setting. Typically I program this for 3-4 sets of 2-3 reps. Similar to programming intensive plyos. The goal is output, not volume