Matthew Rains Strength & Conditioning

Matthew Rains Strength & Conditioning Co-Director and Head of Athletic Development at AVOLVE Performance

22/06/2026

The 2 biggest errors I see coaches make when programming plyos is 1) programming too much too soon, either with advanced options/too much volume or 2) not understanding what they are trying to stress and often picking 2 or 3 options that do the same thing, make them redundant.

Programming plyos, like strength training, shouldn’t be complicated.

You just need to understand the level of stress you’re applying so that you can appropriately program for any experience level as well as understand what it is you’re trying to stress.

This is the system that works best in my brain, and hopefully you get 1 or 2 takeaways to help add into your own plyometric system

15/06/2026

“Why isn’t my technique improving”

Commonly it’s because, “you don’t have the facilities for that big man”

Technique and movement strategies comes from the combination of kinetics and kinematics.

Purely looking at how the movement looks and not the underpinning forces at play or are required is not only missing a huge step but it’s also beating your head against a wall.

At the end of the day you can’t ’bend the rules’ without acknowledging and establishing the rules in the first place.

11/06/2026

Love this little challenge from and thought I’d see where I’m at as the big 30 year birthday is steamrolling in this year 👀

I think in the last 10-20 years, as a majority, we’ve all come to started to acknowledge the importance of strength training as we age in reducing things like falls risk, sarcopenia, bone mineral density and general overall health markers.

This was something I studied and researched as an Exercise Physiologist in university and working with population groups with chronic health conditions.

As my expertise has shifted into athletic performance based training and power training, I often wonder how beneficial power training would be as we age.

Power/speed qualities is the least loyal quality and the quickest one we lose, even before strength.

Our ability to stand up out of a seat, walk up stairs, preventing falls all become a growing issue as we age and is often the catalyst for other co morbidities to develop as a result of generally being less active.

All these general lifestyle actions require force, which is why strength training can be beneficial, but also some sort of speed element.

The speed at which you can catch yourself/re steady yourself if you fall, the ability to generate enough power to stand up, even markers like bone mineral density are positively developed by impact or power training.

Although there’s a big difference between a 30 year old doing a broad jump and a 80 year old walking up stairs, I think the world could benefit from a more widely appreciation for power training in the general population - and challenges like this might be a nice start 🔥

10/06/2026

The ironic thing here is these red flags I learnt the hard way in my early career.

I’d constantly try to over complicate and over explain exercises as I was self conscious of my own knowledge and what I didn’t know - when in reality the more I learnt the easier it was to convey a complex idea into a simple method.

On paper, I was still ‘busy’ as a coach working with lots of clients, but my results weren’t nearly as good as what they today.

The issues that some of these red flags create is dependency and low efficacy with clients/athletes. It keeps them paying for your service and believing you’re the holy grail to their training, but long term is doing them a disservice.

I believe our job at AVOLVE isn’t to create reliance with our athletes. Although that may be a bad business model overtime, the job as a coach here is to teach, support, empower and create self efficacy where athletes come out with the skill sets that benefit them not only for that session, but, for a lifetime of training.

09/06/2026

FIT OUT - EPISODE 1

Not only is the gym getting upgraded, but, what better timing than now to start up a YouTube channel and give you guys a deep dive into all the behind the scenes action happening.

The first episode features a breakdown of the facility and the plan for each space, a Q&A answering all the most commonly asked questions we’ve received since announcing as well as some on the gym floor training clips to showcase what’s its like to train at the home for all athletes 💪🏼

LINK IN OUR BIO FOR THE FULL VIDEO!

05/06/2026

Elite athleticism is built upon consistent small wins

Training the in the gym won’t directly make you faster, but it helps an athletes develop more tools in their tool kit to take on building a house in which is their sport/track.

It’s been fantastic to see the hard work .ronto has been putting in is showing on the track with an outstanding season gone by.

04/06/2026

True single leg squat loading isn’t as simple as just doubling the load for the same given weight on bilateral loading options.

Torso and unloaded leg weight distribution shifts the loading parameters, resulting in a greater exponential loading in single leg movements with the same increases in external load when comparing to bilateral movements.

These findings are in line with the work done by .natera in previous experiments utilising a smith machine single leg squat set up.

07/05/2026

Should athletes choose high bar or low bar squats?��As with most modalities, both are useful for different goals/contexts.

We saw similarities with peak force at the same weight between both variations.

I believe this would have come about for different reasons. As mass was controlled, acceleration is the main contributing factor. High bar squats generated greater acceleration at later stages of the lift as ROM was larger, whereas low bar squats being more efficient was able to generate greater acceleration earlier indicated by shorter TPv & TPp scores.

Peak power was also similar however occurred at different loads, low bar at heavier 160kg and high bar at a lighter 140kg which may play a role in what variation we use at what loads.

In summary, like many squat variations, I believe both are useful and probably have little impact in our overall force development.

What do you think? Leave a comment below!

22/04/2026

Big bro .physio and I had very similar athletic qualities growing up whilst playing the exact same sports and eating the same dinners every night, but when we got to our 20s - we decided to part take in completely opposite sports and thus training stressors.

The result - we both have our own unique strengths and movement strategies.

If you’re the slow athlete who blames his genetics for not being fast and springy (trust me I was one of them) - maybe give more sprint training a crack.

If you’re the weak athlete who can’t gain size, maybe it’s a just a matter of lifting and eating more.

There’s no question that genetics play a massive role in our physical make up and development. However, using it as a ceiling over your head for your capabilities is a dangerous, career altering game to play.

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