BenBreeg

We have settled on these: https://baseball.epicsports.com/prod/125179/champro-featherweight-tube-style-socks-pair.html They are as thin or thinner than dress socks, come up over your calf, and just over $3/pair (or just over $2/pair if you buy by the dozen). They last a long time. We tried Thinees. For me they were too short, I like over the calf. My son wore them a bit longer but they are expensive, not as thin as other options, and piled a lot.

Yeah, the rating might stay the same because they have a standardized testing protocol that tests within the length of the stick. But cutting it down changes the actual flex performance.

This topic comes up all the time. It's not all that complicated. It's going to be harder to bend something with the same physical properties if you cut it shorter. The "flex rating" of the object doesn't change if they are measuring from set points, but you aren't holding the stick at set points. You are holding it at the butt end and the other point is the blade on the ice. If you cut it, the two points are closer together.

We don't disagree. As you said, the margin for error is greater, and I said it is easier to moderate the force, two sides of the same coin. But just the act of pulling up or pulling across itself doesn't create or reduce the force.

Tension is tension, if you pull outward, you aren't putting force on that eyelet, but you are pulling on the one below it. Maybe easier to moderate the force, but that would be it.

So the biggest thing I like about my Quad 0 is the asymmetrical profile, the flatter rear and smaller radius front. So wouldn't a key decider between these be symmetrical vs. asymmetrical? I don't really care about the argument of continuous blending, the quads have easements, you don't pop from one section to the other.

I know what you are talking about. There was a shoe repair guy in a Pittsburgh, Bucky Palermo that did that for the Pens. I remember Makita’s book talking about reinforcement built into the skate, like wire mesh like a window screen between the layers of leather, although it’s been years since I looked at it and I could totally be remembering wrong. The book might still be at my parents.

That's because out to in and in to out are the same lacing pattern, just in reverse order. They apply pressure the same way, half the lace is going over the facing, half is going under.

My dad had skates like those, they are awesome. I had one hockey book growing up, by Stan Mikita, loved reading about the equipment. He described how they used to break them in and how higher end skates had some mesh or something up the back of the skate for support.

Good info because I also assumed that Fits 1, 2, and 3 generally correlated to Vapor, Supreme, and Nexus.

Well, If Sparx considers the above scenario a valid use case, maybe it should have been accounted for in the design.

I'm 48 and have been lifting and working out I guess since HS sports. There are a few things I do differently now, based on all kinds of sources, Joe DeFranco has some things, some of it is just knowledge and common sense. I have a lot of chronic issues at this point: nerve impingement, lower back issues, as well as random stuff that just shows up and goes away. I'm probably at 80% what I was in my late 20s/early 30s for the most part. 1) My warm-up is much longer than it ever was, at least 10 mins on the treadmill, a general dynamic warm-up, then slowly working up for the first set. I don't lift a working set for probably 1/2 hour after getting into the gym. 2) I don't do 1 rep max any more. My heavy lift is 3-5 reps. 3) Learn to work around injuries. You can't just rest completely. First, you are always having little aches and pains, so you might be off more than on. Second, activity helps healing. 4) I do trap bar deadlifts, single leg work exclusively. I don't do squats right now as I work through my back issues. Sled drags and prowler pushes as well. This isn't only for older people, lots of transition to the TBDL even for younger athletes. WAY easier to teach and pretty much the same effect (Jim Wendler tested this with his HS football players). You can do the same thing you like, just understand how each component affects you. Sleep is really important. My sleep pattern stinks, and it kills me. I wake up almost every night at 3 am, it's weird, and am up for an hour or two, then get up at 5:30. The days I get a full night's sleep are so much better.

Yes sir, I am over it because you have deemed it not worthy of discussion. It was a question, get off your high horse.

Was there today, here are the pics of the top edges of the boot opening.

I can try to explain it, and I only saw the Pro and the SVH. From what I remember, the inside liner of the Pro came up and was folded back down, with the edge rolled back and "sandwiched" in the layers, creating a rolled edge. The SVH simply had all layers together with all their edges exposed. You could only see it when you looked down on the skate. If I get back to the store I'll take pics. Zoom in on the top skate second image and you can see the rolled edge: https://sidelineswap.com/gear/hockey/skates/5116182-true-catalyst-pro-size-7-5-skates

Speaking of the injury thing, here is a great book around that, Gift of Injury. Stuart McGill is a leading expert on backs, I do his Big 3 every day to try to keep my lower back under control. Brian Carroll squatted 1306 after a back injury when working with McGill. https://www.amazon.com/Injury-Stuart-McGill-Brian-Carroll/dp/0973501863

Gotcha. While I don't have any insight internally, I have done new product development for over 20 years as an engineer, human factors lead, and product manager. I teach it for certifications and speak to college classes on it. I would think there are activities happening in parallel depending on a longer term roadmap rather than simply jumping from one model to the next. It depends on the requirements, but also the priority of the requirements. There are always tradeoffs. Durability at the expense of weight, etc. You are always getting feedback, whether it is from customers using current products or internally. So you can be testing and developing things in the "lab" to maximize a certain aspect of performance. As you look toward the next product, you can start incorporating new learnings and iteratively test and build, test and build. Then you start to see how things work together in combination and again, iterate until you are confident in a final product. Most of my career was in Class 2 and 3 medical devices, so not only did we have to iteratively test (driven by regulatory requirements based around risk), we had the time and budget to do so. But there are still approaches when you have fewer resources. As for testing, people don't have to know they are testing a specific model, and NDAs are pretty straightforward to do. So I don't know how they actually do things, but the process for iterative development is pretty well-understood.

Can you clarify what you are asking? I'm not sure what you mean by build a finished product halfway through development.

Not to derail but Joe D just did a podcast where he revisited an article he wrote 18 years ago. Some things still held true, some things he does differently now. I've been following Louie Simmons (RIP) and Westside stuff since I was in college. I came home one day and my brother told me he just got off the phone with Louie. 45 minutes the guy spent on the phone with my brother, who was like 19 or something at the time, after he just cold called him. The guy was all about sharing knowledge. Check out the Westside vs. The World documentary if you haven't already.

Had the Cat Pro and SVH in my hands at the store, Cat Pro has a finished, rolled top of the cuff, SVH just unfinished edges like previous Trues.

Yeah, but given they never had them it stood out that their "tailored" skate now did but they didn't add it to the full custom. Looks more finished if anything.

Durability should be the easiest thing to test TBH.

I just looked at them today, the Pro and the SVH. The Pro had a nice rolled comfort edge top, the SVH didn't. Seemed odd not to include it on the very top end skate. Is there a reason for this?

Some of this assumes everything is linear, that they don't start working on the next thing until finished with the current one. In reality you would have research and prototyping happening all the time, hoping through that iterative process you will identify processes, designs, or technology that you can leverage in future generations of products. For a physical product, while feedback from the market is important post-launch, there are certain things I should already have confirmed before launch. As I said before, we really don't know what their process is like, what data they have available, and how they are thinking. It could be bonkers or they could be getting the results they want. But I do think the small number of players in the equipment world is not good for consumers.

Think about it, it may not seem obvious but the S&C coach's #1 priority has to be keeping guys on the field/ice. If you are explaining to coaches why guys are hurt or banged up from the weight room, you aren't going to be working for long. Check out The Hockey Strength podcast, tons of NHL and NCAA S&C coaches on there talking about their experiences and approaches. Yeah, they are 100% always open to learning and trying new things, but managing workload, stress, etc. is always in the equation. Guys like Joe DeFranco and Jim Wendler hardly ever squat or do straight bar deadlifts with their guys, either because they are training vets who are so beat up from years of playing and training, or because they learned new things. Wendler coaches HS kids now. He said he switched them to TB deadlifts, and when they would periodically test their squats, they were going up. So he is increasing whole body strength in a way that doesn't have the risk of a traditional back squat. This is coming from a guy who was an adherent to Westside, so that tells you how open minded you need to be.