Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group, LLC Blog

Patrick Ward writes a fantastic article on the SFMA Assessment and Anatomy Trains.  See Anatomy Trains author, Tom Myers at this year's BSMPG summer conference - June 3rd and 4th.

SFMA and Anatomy Trains: Concepts For Assessment and Treatment by Patrick Ward

There are a number of ways to become indispensible.

Some more successful than others. 

Sure doing exactly what the boss says will get you started, but to be truly indispensible, you must challenge your boss, your co-workers, and of course demand that they challenge you in return.

Below Seth Godin outlines how you may become a linchpin in your organization.

A linchpin hierarchy

1. Do exactly what the boss says.
2. Ask the boss hard questions.
3. Tell the boss what your best choice among the available options is. Insist.
4. Have co-workers and bosses ask you hard questions.
5. Invent a whole new way to do things, something that wasn't on the list.
6. Push and encourage and lead your co-workers to do ever better work.
7. Insist that they push and encourage you.

So many times we make good decisions off of bad intelligence.

I remember when a student-athlete approached me many years ago stating that his coach said he needed to lose weight in order to participate in an upcoming track meet.  His coach had measured his body fat and been nagging him for several weeks stating that he was too fat and that his weight was holding him back from achieving the success he was hoping for.

Subsequently, he cut his caloric intake down to a rabbits serving size (yes, it also included a lot of salad and carrots because that’s what the coach said would be most beneficial).  His training times, surprisingly (insert sarcasm here) became worse, and out of frustration sought help from our department.

It turned out that his body fat had first been measured using bioelectrical impedance, and then a week later with a skin fold caliper using only 3 sites. Yes, body fat is a good indicator of general physical preparation and a "lower" range tends to lend itself to improved performance to an extent. The problem however in this case is that the coach was taking a good measurement and inserting bad numbers.

I have no doubt that the young coach’s heart was in the right spot. I have no doubt that he really wanted to make a difference in that athlete's life and his athletic career. However, when we make what we would consider a good decision, we also need to make sure it’s been calculated from good intel.  Good decisions based off bad intel, can be just as dangerous as bad decisions made from good intel.

“What should I do? 

Should I not listen to my friends?

They’re my friends.”

Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.
Friends don’t let friends make bad decisions, take the easy way out, support bad habits or enable them to continue down a dangerous path.

Friends tell you when you’re wrong because they’re your friends.
Friends will tell you that you’re making a poor choice and help you find a better one.

Real friends, the ones you want to surround yourself with, are the ones that aren’t afraid to tell you that you’re wrong….

Because that’s what real friends do.

Sorry Lebron – time to find some new friends.

George Mumford, speaker at the 2011 BSMPG Basketball Specific Conference - June 3/4th in Boston, was recently featured in the LA times for his help with Laker big man,  Andrew Bynum and the Laker team hours before they took on the Boston Celtics in their recent east coast road trip.

Result: Lakers 92 Celtics 86

"Sensing the need for a team pick-me-up, the Lakers coach asked longtime friend and sports psychologist George Mumford to talk to the players several hours before they took on the Boston Celtics..."

Read more by clicking HERE.

George Mumford also featured on orangecounty.com

I once heard Mike Boyle say if you ever want to get fit, simply go to your nearest commercial gym and do the exact opposite of what everyone is doing.  I decided to put his theory to the test at our general student fitness facility this past week. 

Number 7-9

7. Commercial Gym Choice: Lifting Slow

Nearly 100% of all exercises you’ll see are performed slow and steady, (well, except for the guy on the seated calf raise machine that’s popping his heels up and down like a jack rabbit!)  That’s fine if your goal is to move slow, but most of us still want to kick butt on the weekend playing tennis, changing direction on the soccer pitch or simply running down their friends in a game of ultimate Frisbee.  Like the treadmill, it never hurts to crank it up a notch and vary the speed or tempo of your core lifts.

Opposite: enter heavy stuff moving fast. Now if you really want to scare people at your local commercial gym start performing an Olympic lifts or a variation thereof.

8. Commercial Gym Choice: Only Training in the Sagittal plane – besides the cable cross-over exercise I saw, every exercise was sagittal plane dominant, not to mention each and every piece of cardio equipment (treadmill, bike, elliptical and stair climber) was all set in the sagittal plane.

“Well how is anyone suppose to design a machine that can exercise in multiple planes? – it’s just not possible!”

That’s my point (well, not this point, but another point – go run around outside, play tag, racketball, sprint, whatever – just do it in multiple planes, multiple speeds and multiple directions.

Opposite: I think I covered that in the above – but for this day it was simply finishing off with a lunge series in all directions (Gary Gray made this famous with his lunge matrix)

9. Commercial Gym Choice: Only Bench for upper body strength.

I know that bench is king when it comes to developing upper body strength but it certainly doesn't have to be the only exercise.  There is nothing worse (besides bicep curls in the squat rack) then watching a group of guys standing around another group of guys waiting for them to finish their bench routine so they can start theirs. 

Opposite: Push-ups and push-up variations.  I'm a huge push-up fan so this was easy for me to incorporate into my workout (not to mention there wasn't an available bench in site anyways).  Push-ups only require gravity, and well, that can be found pretty much everywhere.  Put your hands in various positions - close together, far apart, one ahead of the other, feet up, on a buso-ball - just start pushing.
Read a great article on push-ups by Ray Eady, Strength and Conditioning Coach from University of Wisconsin by clicking HERE.

Art Horne is the Coordinator of Care and Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Men’s Basketball Team at Northeastern University, Boston MA.  He can be reached at a.horne@neu.edu.

I once heard Mike Boyle say if you ever want to get fit, simply go to your nearest commercial gym and do the exact opposite of what everyone is doing.  I decided to put his theory to the test at our general student fitness facility this past week. 

1. Commercial Gym Choice: Laying down and lumbar flexion

I think this exercise choice can be summed up best when I heard one kid ask another,”Are you sure this is suppose to hurt like this?”

Opposite Choice: anything not involving lumbar flexion including front bridges and McGill’s Big Three.

(ahhh, sweet back relief)

2. Commercial Gym Choice: Slow Paced Jog

What’s the definition of crazy? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  I’ve never understood why people continue to jog at a slow pace for hours on end and then act surprised when they haven’t lost any weight or end up injured.

Opposite Choice: it was a nasty Boston day with snow and sleet so elected to stay inside and join the herd of runners on the treadmills except choosing to ramp both speed and incline upwards while jumping on and off in 30:30 second sprint intervals. 

 
3. Commercial Gym Choice: Partial Body Weight Movement

During the aforementioned sprint rest intervals I couldn’t help but notice on the woman on the treadmill beside me. Her treadmill was set to the highest incline possible with both hands on the front rail holding on for dear life!  I’ve never seen anything like it before – it was as if she was in a hurricane and the rail at the front was her lifeline! Not to be outdone, the guy on the stair climber just down from her had the reverse-extended-elbow lock on each hand rail suspending his body weight overtop of the moving stairs below.  If you choose to utilize any type of “cardiovascular” equipment be sure to move your own body weight and not have the machine help you out.

(ok, so she's not hanging on for dear life, but why is she hanging on at all? Is it that hard to walk?)

Opposite: I was still sprinting without holding on so I figured this one was covered.

More tomorrow....

Art Horne is the Coordinator of Care and Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Men’s Basketball Team at Northeastern University, Boston MA.  He can be reached at a.horne@neu.edu.

.... you might just end up being fired with enthusiasm.

T.G.I.F - Thank Goodness I'm Fired-Up! 

Texting while working

Yes, you shouldn't text while driving, or talk on the cell phone, or argue with your dog or drive blindfolded. It's an idiot move, one that often leads to death (yours or someone else's).

I don't think you should text while working, either. Or use social networking software of any kind for that matter. And you probably shouldn't eat crunchy chips, either.

I don't think there's anything wrong with doing all that at work (in moderation). But not while you're working. Not if working is that the act that leads to the scarce output, the hard stuff, the creative uniqueness they actually pay you for.

You're competing against people in a state of flow, people who are truly committed, people who care deeply about the outcome. You can't merely wing it and expect to keep up with them. Setting aside all the safety valves and pleasant distractions is the first way to send yourself the message that you're playing for keeps. After all, if you sit for an hour and do exactly nothing, not one thing, you'll be ashamed of yourself. But if you waste that hour updating, pinging, being pinged and crunching, well, hey, at least you stayed in touch.

Raise the stakes.

Gray Cook reminds us in his most recent book, Movement, that things are not always what they appear.

• What we view as weakness may be muscle inhibition
• The weakness is a prime mover might be the result of a dysfunctional stabilizer
• Poor function in an agonist may actually be problems with the antagonist.
• What we view as tightness may be protective muscle tone, guarding and inadequate muscle coordination.
• What we see as bad technique might be the only option for the individual performing poorly selected exercises.
• What we see as a low general fitness may be the extra metabolic demand produced by inferior neuromuscular coordination and compensation behavior.

-pg.25. Movement by Gray Cook.

....or we could just ignore these points and sleep a whole lot better at night "knowing" that our patients somehow simply didn't respond to our "traditional" treatment protocol.

... or we could take a look a little bit further down the rabbit hole.

The decision is yours. 

Art Horne is the Coordinator of Care and Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Men’s Basketball Team at Northeastern University, Boston MA.  He can be reached at a.horne@neu.edu.