The Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group puts on great conferences

This past weekend I was able to go to one of the best conferences I have ever had the pleasure of attending.  This was the
2^nd annual Hockey & Basketball Performance Symposium in Boston, MA, on the campus of Northeastern University.  Being a basketball strength coach myself, I knew I could get a ton out of the event.  I really had no idea how much I would learn, not only from the presentations, but from the conversations with attendees that took place outside of the conference.  I am sure that I will be referring to advice I received this weekend for the rest of my career in the Strength & Conditioning industry.  For those who were unable to attend, I am going to provide some brief feedback from the basketball presentations and keynote speakers that you can possibly take back to your own programs.

Day 1

The first presentation of the day was by Tim Beltz of the University of Pittsburgh on Strength Development for College Basketball Players.  Tim not only works with the Men’s and Women’s basketball teams, but the baseball and softball teams, so he provided some outstanding real world perspective on practical training methodology.  As an aside, Tim was probably the most entertaining speaker I heard this weekend from the standpoint of his humor and general personality.  Some of the points I took away from Tim’s presentation:

• If you do anything with your basketball player, EVALUATE them.  I believe the more assessment we do, the more understanding we have of our athlete and the more effective our program design becomes.  Some evaluations that Tim uses that I want to integrate into my program are:
  • Side Bridge:  Tim does a side bridge hold on both sides and averages the two sides.
  • Hyper hold ISO
  • Specific angle measurements of the hip / knee in a squat pattern: Tim measured the angles before the hip tucked under.
• Tim also sets goals for each training phase and categorizes them by importance, which is something we could do a better job of to see if our athletes are meeting our training objectives.

The most important thing I got took from Tim is the importance of developing relationships with our athletes.  Tim explained how he looks to his seniors on feedback on what they want to do in their training and incorporates these suggestions into his own workouts to give the players a sense of accountability.  Again, Tim was an outstanding speaker who I would highly recommend seeing if you get the chance.

Next up was Amanda Kimball from the University of Connecticut, who spoke in Building a Champion.  Amanda works with several programs at UCONN, most notably being the two-time defending National Champion Women’s basketball team.  Amanda was very down to Earth in her presentation and was very open to questions afterward.  Some things I got from her presentation:

• Competition is essential in your program.  Amanda was someone who introduced competitive situations between upper / lower classmen, on-court positions, and even between other teams in the department pretty regularly.  It doesn’t really matter what the competitions consists of, just choose things that are appropriate to your population and have kids compete.
• Variety is another essential, especially if you are dealing with a population such as basketball.  The bottom line is that basketball players want to play basketball, not train to play basketball.  By keeping variety in your training routines, through various warm-ups, tweaks on exercises, or competitive situations, we can keep the athletes engaged in doing the “boring” things (corrective exercises) that they must do.
• Building accountability and camaraderie is only possible through consistent exposure to competitive, uncomfortable environments.  This does not mean putting our athletes at risk for injury, but it does means pushing them past their threshold at times.

Amanda’s philosophy of KISS was evident when she explained the nuances of her program.  It was a great opportunity to see how hard athletes who were so successful competed and bought in to the culture that Amanda creates.

Next up was the always entertaining and controversial Dr. Bill Sands from the Monfort Human Performance Lab in Grand Junction, Colorado, who spoke on the misunderstood topic of recovery.  I had the pleasure of conducting my thesis data collection with Dr. Sands and from firsthand experience I can tell you he is one of the most brilliant minds in the field of human performance and exercise testing.  Although touching on all of the great points Dr. Sands made would take an entire paper, here were some of the main tidbits I took from his lecture:

• As strength coaches, we don’t know nearly enough about recovery.  Our methods of recovery are more reactive than proactive, meaning we wait until symptoms of overtraining are manifest rather than making sure our programming helps our athletes avoid overtraining altogether, and bottom line is that this in unacceptable.
• The idea that a program we design can have “non-responders,” meaning we have neutral or even detrimental effects on some of our athlete’s progress, is absurd.
• Athletes that adapt to training and reach the period of supercompensation should be relatively free of fatigue, swelling, and injury or illness.  But how often have our athletes on the cusp of important competitions demonstrated one if not several of these characteristics?
• The best methods for recovery seem to be simply resting, practicing good post-workout nutrition habits with a bar or protein-carb blended drink, and reducing exercise-induced swelling.
• Athletes today are competing far too much in order to recovery sufficiently.  Dr. Sands showed evidence of the correlations between the increasing numbers of competitions and the decreased performance levels, especially in track & field (Sands et al., 2007).  This seems to be due to the fact that as our athletes reach their genetic performance capacity, the athlete’s performance outcome is more of a product of their level of fatigue than their level of training.
• We cannot accept guesswork when it comes to whether or not our athletes are recovering.  Recovery needs to be programmed into our workouts.  Dr. Sands talked about keeping track of body weight and heart rate on a daily basis and tracking whenever the value falls outside of 2 standard deviations of our mean value.  This can only be done after you’ve collected sufficient data in order to establish a baseline of function.  He also agreed a test like a vertical jump, when performed off a power plate, is a great indicator of fatigue because it would allow us to look at factors such as jump height, contact time, and the rate of force development, which can all be impacted by the level of fatigue.

I believed Dr. Sands opened the eyes of a lot of attendees in the room and made us understand that we must serve all our athletes in continuing to improve while under our care and that understanding the role of fatigue in programming could help us do so.

The next speaker was Keith D’Amelio from Stanford University who spoke on the topic of Performance Assessment for Basketball.  Keith has spent time in both the college and NBA levels, so he has a tremendous understanding for what qualities are necessary to make it to the next level.  Some important things that Keith touched on were:

• All the NBA combine tests (and NFL for that matter) are assessments of athletic potential rather than true predictors of performance success.
• The lane agility test, ¾ court sprint, and bench press pretty much suck for predicting likelihood of making it in the NBA.  The lane agility has too much of a backpedal component and too long of a shuffle component to reflect the true demands on the court.  As Keith put it, if you shuffle more than twice, you’re already beat.  The ¾ court sprint is too linear and rarely occurs on the court before changing direction.  And the bench press is…the bench press.  It’s a tool in the tool box, but not necessarily a predictor of NBA potential.
• The 4 Jump Test is an outstanding, catch all type of test.  This was the consensus throughout multiple presentations.  Not only do you see power output, but elasticity (average of 4 jumps / max no-step vertical) and their coordination with a multiple response test.
• Another solid test is the Hop & Stop.  You are able to test power when applied unilaterally, stability at the hip, knee, and ankle / foot complex, and asymmetries between sides.  Keith uses it as a return to play test as well as a performance test.
• Be critical of our own tests for performance.  Keith is part of Nike’s team that came up with new testing protocols for the NBA combine, which will be implemented next year.  That isn’t to say that Keith only uses these tests in his own training.  Keith also utilizes the Pro Agility, 10 Yard Sprint, 4 Jump Test, and the Hop & Stop tests when evaluating an athlete.  If you can justify why you are testing it, and you’re consistent with implementation, more tests equal better understanding of our athletes.

Keith was a very engaging and approachable guy and I look forward to learning from him in the future.

The next presentation was the one I was looking forward to seeing the most, and the presenter didn’t disappoint.  It was by Charlie Winegroff, a Physical Therapist / Performance Coach / Savant, who presented on Lower Body Performance and Whole Body Vibration Training.  Charlie is not only the most brilliant person I’ve had the pleasure to talk with about training, but he’s one of the most humble and approachable people you’ll ever meet.  That being said, here were some of the take home messages from Charlie’s presentation:

• Numerous patella femoral disorders can be linked back to biomechanical dysfunction.
• Lateral subluxation of the patella is actually internal rotation of the femur.  If you have someone who tries to manipulate the position of the patella and doesn’t fix the hip, they are actually exacerbating the dysfunction.
• Many issues at the knee can be linked back to the foot, ankle, or hip.  When examining pain the knee, look for a decrease in hip external rotation, hip abduction, sagittal dorsiflexion, and an increase in pronation.
• Keep a vertical tibia when executing lower body lifts with individuals more prone to patella femoral disorders.  A vertical tibia reduces pressure on the posterior horn of the knee and provides more “daylight” behind the patella in terms of the bony-ligamentous interaction.
• An exercise like a box squat can be a great teaching and training tool with basketball athletes as long as it’s coached well and we DON’T LOAD THE HELL OUT OF IT, especially with taller athletes who have poor limb and segmental stability.
• Something of an aside I got from Charlie after his presentation was examining your athlete’s cervical function.  Three simple tests to look at cervical function:
  • Chin to chest
  • Chin to clavicle
  • Head to back

Make sure the feet are together and the jaw is closed but not clenched when performing the tests.  Most likely you will find restrictions which need to be treated through soft tissue therapy.  And don’t stretch it like I did!  It only aggravates the limitations.

Again, Charlie is a brilliant man, case closed.  When his DVD comes out, I think it will revolutionize the industry.

The last presenter of the day was Bill Hartman, a Physical Therapist / performance Coach from Indianapolis Fitness and Sports Training (I-FAST).  I’ve read Bill’s work in the past, but he was more of a legend than real to me, so it was great to finally see him in person.  Like with most of the presenters, it’s almost unfair to summarize him because of the quality of his presentation, but here were the most lasting things I took from Bill:

• Dysfunction comes in many packages, whether physiological (muscle / tissue length, symmetry), biomechanical (joint function), or neurological (motor control), so there has to be numerous, appropriate corrective interventions.
• The foot is a huge player in dysfunction.  Some of the common foot issues are over pronation / supination, loss of arch, and / or excessive abduction.  These can all lead to referred issues up the kinetic chain.  Doing things like reestablishing the arch of the foot can fix other dysfunctions elsewhere.  One cool point Bill made in regards to the feet was that if you see flexion in the lateral toes, look for a lateral hip issue.
• Active Oscillatory Stretching (AOS) and Eccentric Quasi-Isometrics (EQIs) are both effective for stimulating the addition of sarcomeres in series.  AOS involves a static hold at the end range of motion with oscillation applied for at least one minute, while EQIs involve prolonged holds at end range of motion under load to create fatigue resulting in eccentric lengthening.
• Improving breathing patterns can result in improved lumbo-pelvic stability by improving diaphragmatic control.  Practice breathing by expanding the abdominal wall and not the chest.

By far the biggest take home I got from Bill’s presentation is to buy Bill, Mike Robertson, and Eric Cressey’s product Assess & Correct because Bill definitely outlined the importance of having a multifaceted approach to assessing our athletes.

Day 2

The second day began with a presentation from the University of Virginia’s Mike Curtis, who spoke on the topic of Movement Training for Basketball.  I hadn’t heard of Mike before this presentation, and quite honestly I’m disappointed in myself for not finding out about him sooner.  Mike was a tremendous presenter and let the audience know a great deal about the intricacy that goes into his program design.  Some of the take-homes:

• Mike did a great job of relating his screening tool to a particular movement capability.  The overhead squat represented an ability to create and maintain an athletic base, the hurdle step represented acceleration mechanics, and the inline lunge represented deceleration mechanics.
• Utilization of tri-planar lunging for assessment allows us to see the segmental interactions when momentum has an impact on us, as in our sport.
• Teach deceleration mechanics and yielding strength before working on explosive plyometrics and agility.  Watch your athletes land and really study what is happening at the hip, knee, and ankle.  Enhance their ability to control themselves before exposing them to unpredictable environments and actions.
• Progressive stages of learning are crucial to ensure skill acquisition.  The stages of learning include: unconscious incomprehension, conscious incomprehension, conscious comprehension, unconscious comprehension.
• Fit your cueing to your athlete’s stage of training.  The lower their stage of learning, the more productive, positive feedback and cueing they need.
• Progress will happen differently for different athletes.  It’s important to hold our athletes accountable for quality at all stages in order to progress.
• Study the game of basketball.  Understand the movements necessary to be successful.  Progressively train these qualities to set your basketball athletes up for success once practice begins.  If we wait for the sport coaches to teach fundamental movements necessary to succeed on the court (chasing off a screen, getting turned and balanced for a jump shot, hard shows for bigs), then it’s already too late.

Mike really understands the game of basketball and does some great things to get his players ready for success on the court.

The final presentation I took in that day was from the Godfather himself, Mike Boyle, who definitely needs no introduction.  Coach Boyle presented on the Death of Squatting, which has received its fair share of attention (and criticism) since it came out in his DVD Functional Strength Coach 3.0.  Basically, like Mike says, he’s a coach who’s open to change.  And in his experience with watching and coaching the squat (which is probably more than your’s and mine’s combined), he was finding an unacceptable amount of back pain and a failure of the back before the legs fatigued when lifting maximally.  So in his search for an exercise that could give him the anabolic effect that he wanted, engage the lateral sub-system (adductors, glute medius, and QL), while decreasing spinal loads, he examined single leg squat variations.  Through years of practical research and experimentation with his athletes, Mike came to the conclusion that the rear foot elevated split squat (not Bulgarian lunge) was an exercise that allowed his to maintain the anabolic effect because of the loads, engaged the lateral sub-system, and all while decreasing spinal loads by 50-75%.  Like Coach Boyle said, we didn’t have to agree and believe every word that he said, we just needed to suspend our belief long enough to hear the logic of the argument, which I believe is overwhelmingly difficult to argue against.  Boyle is the best when it comes to entertaining an audience while articulating his message, and has been very influential in my development as a coach.

Again, it is pretty obvious through the write-up that this was the best of the best in the fitness industry.  I haven’t seen this many All-stars in the business in one place outside of a Perform Better summit.  If you have the opportunity to attend this event next year, do so.  I can’t wait to come back and hope to see you all there.

References

1. Sands, W.H., Wurtz, B.R., Stone, M.H., Brown, M.R., McNeal, J.R., & Jemni, M.  What is happening to Olympic gold medal performances?  USKSCA 3^rd Annual Conference, 2007; Inverclyde, Largs Scotland. Edinborough, Scotland: SportScotland; 2007.