Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group, LLC Blog

On line resources define Evidence Based Medicine as the following:

ev•i•dence-based med•i•cine

noun

Definition:
 
treatment based on reliable evidence: the use of clinical methods and decision-making that have been thoroughly tested by properly controlled, peer-reviewed medical research.

Now that we got that out of the way we can move forward with your definition?

The same?

You sure?

No other phrase has infiltrated both sports medicine and strength and conditioning more in the past decade, and for good reason. It guides clinical practice and allows us to allocate resources, time, and personnel towards obtaining best practice.  The problem is not with evidence based medicine but with individuals providing “their own definition” in defense of the work they are conducting.

So the next time your co-worker starts ultra-sounding an entire thigh simply ask them what their definition of evidence based medicine is.  Hint: we are not allowed to each have our own definition.

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.

The initial part of investing is tough. 

Whether its withdrawing a thousand dollars from your checking account to be placed in a high interest bond you can’t touch for 4 years, or the time you spend filling out your salary withholdings for your 401K retirement plan.  Putting “money in the bank” is tough.

It’s a whole lot easier to buy that extra pair of shoes you don’t need, or dine out at the restaurant down the street (again) instead of making dinner at home.

The same can be said at work.

Whether it’s investing time in a project to unify the language and exercise descriptions between the sports med and the strength staff, working with student-athlete welfare to design, manage and implement a comprehensive sports nutrition strategy or designing and tracking an injury assessment and prevention protocol for all athletes.  Putting “money in the bank” is tough.

It’s a whole lot easier to just let the weight room do their thing then complain about it , tell your athletes not to eat fast food (then sneak a McDeal Meal to your desk without them seeing), and just take vitals as your normal incoming screening process (I mean, that’s all the NCAA asks you to do)

What makes investing so difficult is that the investor, rarely ever sees a tangible return on investment within any “reasonable” amount of time.  That’s what makes investing in mutual funds so successful though. If you invest in them, they almost always pay off long term.  The same can be said for your investments at work; your return on investment is rarely within site, even though you know it will pay off eventually. 

Will you ever see the lack of arteriosclerosis that your nutrition plan and cooking classes had on your athletes? What about the injury you may or may not have prevented from your screening and intervention strategies?

The answer is you probably won’t. Your athletes and patients are only yours for four years. And like any good mutual fund, these investments take time to mature.  But just because you can't see the end result next week doesn't mean you stop investing.

The only return you’ll see now is a smile and a thank you.  But just like mutual funds, the investments you make at work today will always pay off in the future just as long as you keep putting money in the bank.

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.

Whose toes were you going to step on?

If you translate “I didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes” from its ancient Latin roots you will find that it means, “I really didn’t want to perform job/task “x”, so this is my way out.”  When we use this “excuse” we are missing an opportunity to do the right thing. Yes, it takes a little extra effort and yes it may require you to work through your coffee break, and yes it will require you to become exceptionally unordinary at work.

But who wants to do ordinary work?

For arguments sake, let’s say you are sincere, (I’ll say it again for emphasis) and I mean really concerned that you’ll be stepping on someone’s toes.  Do it anyways.  Because when it comes to doing the right thing, it’s better to act now and apologize later. 

You’ll often find that there is never any apologizing and instead simply a thank you from the mouth of the toes you stepped on.

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.

Video's of this year's Hockey and Basketball presentations are now available for purchase by clicking here.

Both sport tracks are available for purchase and include 6 hours of Hockey specific information and over 7.5 hours of advanced Basketball training techniques that are sure to help you and your team this coming season.

Watch Matt Nichol's (former Strength and Conditioning Coach for the Toronto Maple Leafs) presentation entitled, "Energy System Training for Ice Hockey" from this conference by clicking here.

An alien visits your athletic training room during your fall pre-participation physicals where you are performing your standard evaluations consisting of height, weight, blood pressure and pulse.

"I see you measuring everyone's height?" The alien asks. "You must have a terrible shrinking problem that you want to keep track of and monitor closely?"

"Well no, we just measure their height, record it in their chart and it's never looked at again."

The alien scratches his tentacles inquisitively, "Well surely then you must be tracking closely their body weight and have a terrible case of weight gain here which you then correlate to health and performance parameters later on?"

"Um, not exactly, once in a while the football coach wants to know how much weight a kid gained, or we use it maybe once a year to track a sudden loss in weight for athletes with eating disorders, but other than that it's usually recorded and forgotten about."

The alien stands puzzled even further.  An awkward silence sets in until the alien proudly bursts out, "I see you taking blood pressure and pulse?" His pride obvious now, "surely this population you work with has a high rate of cardiovascular disease in which you must observe, monitor, treat and watch closely yes?"

"Well actually, the athletes we see are 18-22 years old and rarely suffer from cardiovascular disease although we do manage to find some outliers that escape their home physician and we are able to help them, but this number is very small."

"Tell me then, what evaluation is taking place on those tables across the room?" the alien asks, pointing at the row of treatment tables filled with athletes covered in ice bags.

"That's not an evaluation, that's treatment for injuries the athletes have sustained from running, jumping and throwing too much."

"Do those injuries happen often?" the alien asks.

"Yes, all the time! You should see the athletic training room in the afternoons," beamed the young athletic trainer. "Some days you can hardly get enough ice bags or e-stim machines available for everyone."

"And you say this happens all the time?"

"Yes, yes - every year! It basically takes up our entire day. Some days I have to stay a couple of hours late after work just to get enough ice and e-stim on everyone"

The alien obviously troubled asks, "So what evaluations do you do for those athletes prior to becoming injured? For the athletes with the ice bags on their backs, ankles and knees?"

"We don't do any evaluations for those things," the athletic trainer responds.

The alien reaches into his solar-pack, grabs his intra-planet communication device and radios back to base, "requesting immediate pick-up! No intelligent life here."

Now, I can poke fun and joke about this "processing of data" or should I say, lack thereof because I'm an athletic trainer and have caught myself doing this.  I'm not trying to minimize the importance of cardiovascular screening in the least. I do however think that we might be missing a golden opportunity to screen and address for other problems that take up the majority of our days along with the usual screening tools?

How many kids with high blood pressure do you refer and care for compared to the number of kids you evaluate and treat with anterior knee pain?  Did you wait until the kid's heart hurt to measure his blood pressure?  Then why wait until the kid's knee is swollen to evaluate his hip strength? ROM or ankle mobility?

Let's prove the alien wrong this fall.

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.

A special thanks to Matt Nichol who presented at the Second Annual Boston Hockey Summit and Basketball Symposium who challenged each attendee to look at the way we currently do business with a fresh set of eyes.

This is a guest post written by Devan McConnell on our most recent conference in May:

I recently attended the 2nd Annual Boston Hockey Summit and Basketball Symposium at Northeastern University. The information was incredible, and it was only outmatched by the impressive turnout of top notch professionals. And I’m not just talking about the speakers. Everywhere you looked there were NHL, NBA, and big time college coaches, plus lots of smart people from the private sector, progressive ATC’s, PT’s, sport coaches and even professors. Art Horne and Dan Boothby from Northeastern put on a truly impressive conference.

For most of two days, there were 2 speakers at a time all day long…one on the basketball side, and one on the hockey side. I can honestly say there was not a single presenter I would have skipped had I had the choice. That being said, I was obviously only able to see half of the presentations, and these are some of the main points I took away.

1. Matt Nichol “Not an anti-cardio guy, just a pro results guy!”
2. Over time training “train for a 90 second shift by riding a bike for 45 minutes….well then how should a tri-athlete train?”
3. Creating championship programs is all about getting your kids to compete- Amanda Kimbell
4. Team vs. Team competitions at colleges get kids to work hard without knowing it
5. There are 3 types of dysfunction…Physiological, Biomechanical, Neuromuscular. You have to know which one you are dealing with.- Bill Hartman
6. Pay attention to the foot, and pay attention to posture. If these are messed up, then good luck.
7. Recovery is still not understood well, but seems to be more or less common sense…Rest, get good Nutrition, reduce Inflammation, increase Comfort.- Bill Sands
8. The better the athlete and the higher the level of competition, the more important recovery and regeneration are…so if you’ve got good athletes, you better be taking care of this.
9. PLAN!!! If you don’t have a long term plan written out, it’s easy to overlook the amount of volume and intensity, and lack of recovery
10. Great quote- “Injury prevention is like the Weather Man” - Alan DeGennaro
11. If you have an influence over recruiting or drafting, stay away from previously injured athletes.
12. High/Low model of training based off of the work and knowledge of Charlie Francis…”Max effort is max effort. Lower body one day and upper body the next is still human body max effort.”
13. Along those same lines, “The body is an organism. It responds in whole”
14. Ideal yearly planning in the NHL means you have a short off-season due to the little problem of winning the Cup.
15. Post game lifts, with practice day core work is the model used by Sean Skahan with the Ducks.
16. In this Olympic year, the focus was on recovery vs. strength….seeing a pattern?
17. In season in the NHL is about getting done what you can…Olympic lifts after games because that’s the only time to get it done.
18. Keith D’Amieio has an interesting way of looking at sprint times….
    Height + Weight / Sprint time = Sprint index
19. Single leg Hop and stop test measures Single leg Power, Force absorption, and asymmetries all at the same time.
20. Mike Boyle’s “Death of Squatting” was not a knee jerk reaction…the guy has literally looked at over 1,000,000 squats in his career.
21. The argument that you should squat BECAUSE the low back is the weak link is completely missing the point….WE SQUAT TO TRAIN THE LEGS…DO SOMETHING ELSE FOR THE BACK.
22. Less spinal load, more leg work. Enough said.
23. Deadlifts may actually be a better exercise for people w/ Low Back Pain because the spinal forces are completely different from those in the squat.
24. The DL is ANTI FLEXION.
25. The RFE may not be a good in season lift for hockey players, in much the same way slideboard is not a great choice in season due to the stress already incurred on the ice.

These are just a fraction of what I took away from all the presenters this past weekend. The only thing I was disappointed with was that I was not able to hear everyone speak. Whether they were on the basketball or hockey side, there was so much great information being thrown around, you couldn’t help but get better!

Devan McConnell is the Sports Performance Coach for Women’s Basketball and Men’s and Women’s Volleyball at Stanford University. He can be reached at DevanM@Stanford.edu

One of the most important points in the development of any young professional is when they’ve found a teacher and mentor that challenges them to not only develop their skills but develop the thought process needed for long term development and independent problem solving.  Steve Myrland, aka the “Strength Zen Master” challenges the “gurus” in this must read post.


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.

As strength and conditioning coaches, it is imperative that we have a good understanding of what fatigue really is. A dictionary definition might be a decrease in energy, but most of us would say that fatigue is a decrease in force production. That might be acceptable to tell your athletes, but do you really understand what is going on? Let’s take a close look into what fatigue really is and it’s untapped potential.

There are two classes of fatigue: “peripheral” and “central”. The more commonly known and understood is peripheral fatigue. Peripheral fatigue is what is happening in the extremities, more specifically the muscles. This is usually due to action potential failure or impairment in the cross-bridge cycle. Studies have shown that there is an increase in lactic acid concentration and a decrease in pH, ATP, and creatine phosphate. Also, there is a decrease in muscle or liver glycogen stores during sub maximal exercise which is all believed to cause fatigue. These metabolic processes add up together to prevent the muscle from a forceful contraction. Essentially, you can look at peripheral fatigue as the muscle no longer capable of producing the force that it is being asked to produce. An example would be doing 1,000 bicep curls and getting the “BURN”.

Less commonly known is central fatigue. Central fatigue is a decrease in neural drive or a disruption in the efferent fibers. In more simple terms, central fatigue originates in the brain. There is limited research on this phenomenon, but studies show that during exercise there is a change in neurotransmitters, such as increase in serotonin, which can regulate muscle contraction among other things, and a decrease in dopamine and acetylcholine which play a role in voluntary movement, motivation, attention, working memory, and learning; and then opens ligand-gated sodium channels in skeletal muscle to produce muscle activation, respectively. Now, I know neurology wasn’t my favorite class either so to develop the big picture, let's just say when there is increase in neural drive, there is an increase in neurotransmitter activity which results in a decrease in brain capacity to recruit motor neurons. This is that feeling of your body just not doing what you ask it to do although your muscles aren’t on fire, that “I just don’t have it today” feeling.

The debate on central fatigue is that I mentioned it being a disruption in efferent fibers. Proponents of peripheral fatigue will argue that it is just the opposite, and that it is the afferent fibers that cause a change in the neurotransmitters. Meaning that muscles, by way of the mentioned metabolic processes, are sending sensory information to the brain that then activate the change in the neurotransmitters to stop exercise. But then studies have shown that fatigue doesn’t start in the motor cortex but even further up in cortical regions, as in the prefrontal and cingulate cortex. So what comes first, the chicken or the egg?
No studies have shown a physiological change with no change on perceived fatigue. Actually, just the opposite has been shown.   Perceived fatigue has been expressed with no physiological change. Chronic fatigue syndrome is just that; patients express fatigue at rest when there is no impairment of the metabolic processes that we discussed. . Consider the fact you can produce more force during an eccentric lift than a concentric lift, which would suggest different neural drives. Studies show that at most during maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) one can only recruit 70% of motor units and some suggest that 100% recruitment would tear tendons right off the bone. On the other side perhaps central fatigue takes place as a protective mechanism. By changing neurotransmitter activity your brain will not allow 100% MVC. So what are your muscles actually capable of and what can you do about it?

Whether you believe it is the chicken or the egg that comes first, you can’t argue that they both have a role in fatigue. Metabolic processes do take place and your brain does prevent 100% MVC. So how do decrease the protective threshold? For the sake of this article, we will save the idea of over training for another time and just focus on a single training session. In order to get more out of our athletes, we need to engage their brain. Increase dopamine and acetylcholine. Studies have shown that verbal encouragement during activity will increase the duration of the contraction. Others have shown that yelling during a lift actually can increase force production. Another study showed that when subjects were asked to give maximal effort during a cycling sprint their power output decreased over the reps except it increased on their last rep, indicating a “reserve tank”. Perhaps the brain protects less knowing that it is your last rep. Perhaps this developed during the pre-historic era when our ancestors had to hunt for their food, but maintain a reserve tank of energy in case they became the hunted. Either way, we need to tap into that reserve tank. One way to achieve this is by including open looped activities. Doing 10 reps or sprinting for 1 minute is a closed loop activity because you know when it will stop allowing you to pace yourself. So including an open loop activity is one way to do short maximal effort without pacing yourself, such as having your athlete sprint for an unknown time stopping when you decide to blow the whistle. Challenge yourself to develop ways for the conscious brain to control the unconscious brain. Don’t allow your athletes to pace themselves. Training is not about surviving, it is about DESTROYING.

If a mother is able to lift a car to save her child, find a way for your athlete to lift a bus, because they can.


Keke Lyles is a DPT student at Northeastern University and has worked directly with both the Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams.

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Check out Brian McCormick’s interview with Ray Eady, Strength and Conditioning Coach from University of Wisconsin.  His interview can also be found on Brian’s Newsletter, “Hard2Guard Player Development Newsletter” a must read for all those that follow the game of basketball.  Ray talks about training and evaluating the basketball athlete along with special considerations for the female athlete.
 
This week, I have an interview with Ray Eady, the strength and conditioning coach for the women’s basketball program at the University of Wisconsin. Previously, he was the head strength and conditioning coach for men’s and women’s basketball at the University of Akron and Northeastern University. Eady holds a Masters degree in Exercise Physiology form the University of Akron and is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (NSCA – CSCS) and a Performance Enhancement Specialist (NASM – PES).

BM: What assessments or evaluations do you use with your players in the pre-season?
Eady: During the pre-season, the athletic trainer and I will assess and evaluate the players in a couple of areas. First, we will do a functional movement screen. I like doing the movement screens because it allows me to asses an array of total body movement mechanics.  As you know, proper movement mechanics is needed to perform efficiently, effectively, and injury free on the basketball court.  The screens we typically use are:

1.    Overhead squat test
2.    Hurdle test
3.    Active hamstring test
4.    In-line lunge test

In addition to the screens, we will do the hop and stop test and the leap and stop test to assess a player’s ability to produce, absorb, and stop force on one leg.

We will also do some performance evaluations to measure leg power and strength.  To measure power, we will do a series of vertical jump test.  

1.    Static jump test to measure starting strength
2.    Countermovement jump test to measure speed-strength
3.    4-jump test to measure how efficient a player is using their power repeatedly

We perform these jumps on a just-jump mat while the athletes are holding a dowel on the back of their shoulders (as if they were going to do a back squat). The goal is to eliminate the action of the arms to really determine leg power. I like performing these tests because they can help you determine if certain players need more strength work or more speed/elastic work.

For conditioning, we will do the standard 300 yard shuttle test which is a great test to measure anaerobic capacity. This year, I will test the players in the 150 yard shuttle because the energy system demands are bit different (anaerobic power).

Lastly, we will do body composition assessments to determine body fat and lean muscle tissue.  I want our players to be at an optimal body weight for increased performance and to reduce the chances of injury.  

I must say the most overrated test when evaluating basketball players has to be the bench press test. So many coaches put a premium on the results. I am not saying basketball players don’t need upper body pushing strength but the relevance it has on basketball performance is minimal. When the bench press can prevent a female player from tearing her ACL then I will put more emphasis on the test.

Let’s make it clear, performance evaluations will never truly tell you if a player will have some success on the court. It merely predicts future performance.  All the strength and power in the world won't make you a successful athlete unless you're able to apply it in sport-specific contexts and integrate it with finer motor qualities.

I don’t try to re-invent the wheel when it comes to testing. I want to make my evaluations meaningful for my athletes and to make it applicable for what they will most likely be doing on the court.

BM: Do you have any good/different drills that you use with women’s players to teach proper landing and cutting techniques to prevent ACL injuries?
Eady: First, I don’t think we can ever prevent ACL injuries in female basketball players.  We all know that female players are two to eight times more likely to sustain an ACL tear when compared to males. Anatomical and physiological characteristic such as pelvis width (Q-angle), femoral notch, poor glute and hamstring recruitment, and joint and ligament laxity during the menstrual cycle puts the female player at risk. However, we can reduce the rate of occurrences by having female players participate in a well designed and progressive strength training program that focuses on improving maximal strength development. The stronger females can become, the less likely they will get injured.

Second, strength is the foundation for improving movement efficiency, central nervous system efficiency, nervous system efficiency, neuromuscular control, balance, coordination, stability, deceleration, and reaction.  All of these attributes are needed to reduce the rate of ACL injuries. With these non-contact injuries, poor lower body eccentric strength is usually at the root of the problem.  

Also, many jump programs tend to emphasize landing with correct technique but don’t address the ability to get into a safe landing position. If a player lacks the ankle, hip and T-spine mobility (and once again, strength) to get into a safe landing position with just her body weight, how are they ever going to do it when the forces are higher?  If you are going to address landing and cutting mechanics it is important that mobility and strength (most specifically isometric and eccentric strength) are addressed concurrently. The ability to decelerate, absorb and stop the forces a player creates on the court is the key.

With that being said, I am a fan of doing some yielding isometric (activation) work prior to our jump/landing drills. Yielding isometrics is great for re-enforcing how to control, absorb, and stop force production (which occurs when landing from a jump or changing directions). Studies have shown that a person can recruit 5% more motor-units/muscle fibers during a maximal isometric muscle action than during a maximal eccentric or maximal concentric action. This is great since we need our muscles to activate and fire eccentrically to decelerate force.  Of course, isometric work is not dynamic in nature but it’s also great for teaching, assessing and correcting body positioning. After our isometric work we will follow up with some dynamic work.  

For example, if we are doing double-leg jumps, we will do some partner resisted isometric squat holds to activate the musculature of the hips.  We will hold at three positions:

1.    Statically a few inches from the starting position
2.    Statically at mid range
3.    Statically at full contraction

Each position is held for approximately 10 seconds.  Following the isometric holds, we will perform maximum effort squat jumps with sticks (sticking the landing and holding for 5 seconds without any movement).  We do this set-up for the majority of our jump training/landing drills.  

Once again, the isometric work prior to our jumps just prepares our neuromuscular system for the dynamic action that is about to take place. It should be noted that the dynamic movement must mimic the isometric movement (i.e. squat holds for box jump downs, split squat holds for split squat jumps, single leg holds for single leg jumps, hops, leaps, etc.)

BM: Since girls/women tend to have poor hamstring strength compared to quad strength, what type of exercises (emphasis) do you do to correct imbalance or strengthen the weakness?
Eady: Of course, with most female basketball players, you will notice some lumbo-pelvis-hip postural distortion. This includes shortened and tight quads and hip flexors and lengthened and weak hamstrings and glutes. Therefore, our workouts always include some remedial and prehab work to correct these lower body imbalances. This will include soft tissue work, hip flexibility, glute activation, core stability and hip mobility.  

Some coaches are opposed to isolation work for specific musculatures but I think they have their role in training, especially when doing remedial work. With that being said, we will do a variety of isolation work for the posterior hip (glute max), lateral hip (glue medius), and the anterior hip (psoas).  

Within our strength training session, we will include more ground base posterior chain/hip extension exercises to re-enforce our remedial work.  On the days we squat, we will include more unilateral post-chain work. On the days we do single leg work (i.e. split squats, lunge variations), we will do more bilateral post-chain work.  My favorite exercise for posterior chain development and strength is actually the box squat.  There has been some debate about the squat especially for athletes that participate in movement based team sports.  However, I believe it’s a great exercise to strengthen the glutes and hamstrings and improve overall strength.  Of course, I would only prescribe this exercise if a player is capable and able to perform it proficiently.  Another favorite exercise is the one-leg squat to a bench or box. This is a great exercise to improve unilateral eccentric leg strength.

BM: Now that the season is over, how do you structure or periodize the players’ off-season? Do you use different training blocks emphasizing different things?
Eady: My goal for the off-season is to prepare our team for the upcoming competitive season by developing the physical qualities need to perform at a healthy and optimal level. Of course, this includes improving strength, power, sport-specific speed, quickness and conditioning. At the end of every competitive season, I will develop a yearly training plan based on a couple of factors (a few many include):

1.    The number of returning players.  Will we be a veteran or a rebuilding team?
2.    What type of playing style will we execute offensively and defensively?
3.    Are we a team that needs toughness?  More team unity?
4.    Are we skilled at all five positions? How many players do we have at each position?
5.    How will certain players be utilized offensively and defensively?
6.    Do some players need additional work (i.e. weight loss, weight gain, speed, etc.)?

Once these factors are identified, I can develop and implement a plan to meet our competitive needs.

I divide the training year into blocks (off-season I, off-season II, pre-season I, pre-season II, and in-season). Each block focusing on a specific physical quality.  For example, off-season I is typically dedicated to teaching and re-educating the players on how to perform certain “technical” lifts, as well as improving posture, balance, coordination, movement, core stability, and GPP (work capacity). These are the physical qualities that are needed to successfully complete summer workouts.

Our main goal for off-season II is to improve sub-maximal and maximal strength which is extremely important. Strength is one of the catalysts for enhancing athleticism.

We still train other qualities such as strength-speed, speed-strength, general conditioning, etc. but our number one priority is to get strong. This particular block is the best time to achieve this quality because of a couple of reasons:

1.    On-court activity is usually reduced during the summer. Players can give more energy and mind share to weight room activities.
2.    I don’t believe you can continue to improve strength at an optimal rate during the pre- or competitive seasons because players are now being exposed to stressors that can negatively impact strength gains.  (i.e. individual workouts with coaches, team practices, conditioning sessions, pick-up games, late night study sessions, early classes, etc.)

During pre-season I our goal is to prepare for the start of official practice.  The physical qualities that are highly emphasized are basketball specific movement/endurance, power, and strength. Our training tends to be more specialized to the demands of the sport.

The goal for pre-season II is to prepare for the beginning portion of our non-conference game schedule. At this point in time, on-court activity has increased dramatically.  Weight training frequency and volume will decrease but when we train the focus is to maintain strength gains achieved during the off-season and pre-season I. We tend to do more therapeutic work during these sessions to facilitate the recovery process as well.

Finally, the goal for the in-season is to keep the players healthy and competitive. Like most strength coaches, I understand the importance of in-season strength training but I also understand that practice takes priority. You can’t put too much physical and mental stress on your players that they are unable to perform efficiently on the court.  Eventually, you will have overtrained players and not so happy coaches.

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Uncle Sam did it again.

After another year of working countless hours, waking up early every weekend, and of course working on Christmas day… Uncle Sam showed no compassion.

I just returned from doing my taxes at the local HR Block where I get them done each year. It’s just a block away which I guess makes the pain of writing that check to the government a wee bit easier.

Reviewing my W-2 sheet made me think about one of Seth Godin's articles and exactly what I make.

I make kids better,

I make kids walk after surgery and I make parents feel good about the care their kid gets when they’re a thousand miles away,

I make push-ups feel easy,

I make shy kids walk with pride and I make bike sprints enjoyable,

I make spin, glide and roll move as they should,

I make slap shots harder, jump shots easier and high jumping higher.

So the next time your Wall Street brother-in-law rubs his thumb and fingers together and asks, “what do you make?”, just smile and say, “I make athletic dreams come true.”

Now get back to work.

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.

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Click here to register for the best Hockey and Basketball conference EVER, May 22/23, 2010!