Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group, LLC Blog

Tony Testa, Director of Sports Medicine at Seton Hall and former athletic trainer at Northeastern University performed his most important duty required of an athletic trainer – He Saved a Life

Great Job Tony!   Kudos to you and your staff for a job well done.

Brief article below summarizes the event.

AT’s Save Basketball Player’s Life in New Jersey

“A basketball player for Seton Hall was participating in a routine workout when he complained of dizziness. His coaches followed him out of the gym to find him incoherent and barely conscious. The coaches called the athletic training room for help, and Jessica Viana, Med, ATC, and Tony Testa, Med, ATC, CSCS, found the player unconscious and without a pulse. They worked together to perform CPR and to shock the player with the AED. Emergency services arrived and took the player to the hospital, where he remained for three weeks.” – NATA News

Take a look around where you’re sitting and find five things that have blue in them.

Go ahead and do it.

With a “blue” mindset, you’ll find that blue jumps out at you: a blue book on the table, a blue pillow on the couch, blue in the painting on the wall, and so on. Similarly, whenever you learn a new word, you hear it six times in the next two days.  In like fashion, you’ve probably noticed that after you buy a new car, you promptly see that make of car everywhere.  That’s because people find what they are looking for. If you’re looking for conspiracies, you’ll find them. If you’re looking for examples of people’s good works, you’ll find that too. 

It’s all a matter of setting your mental channel.

- Roger von Oech

Are you doing a good job?

One way to approach your work:

"I come in on time, even a little early. I do what the boss asks, a bit faster than she expects. I stay on time and on budget, and I'm hardworking and loyal."

The other way: "What aren't they asking me to do that I can do, learn from, make an impact, and possibly fail (yet survive)? What's not on my agenda that I can fight to put there? Who can I frighten, what can I learn, how can I go faster, what sort of legacy am I creating?"

You might very well be doing a good job. But that doesn't mean you're a linchpin, the one we'll miss. For that, you have to stop thinking about the job and start thinking about your platform, your point of view and your mission.

It's entirely possible you work somewhere that gives you no option but to merely do a job. If that's actually true, I wonder why someone with your potential would stay...

In the post-industrial revolution, the very nature of a job is outmoded. Doing a good job is no guarantee of security, advancement or delight.

They say the selection committee rewards those that challenge themselves early in the year.

The ones that seek out difficult opponents; the ones that never back down.

It’s true that the little guys may not win them all, but the effort and determination demonstrated is surely worth considering against someone of a “higher” stature but never challenges themselves.

So, while you’re enjoying the beginning of March madness and hovered around co-worker’s computers watching buzzer beaters and last second shots consider this:

Have you sought out difficult projects this past year? Have you volunteered to take on the massive assignment that everyone else refuses to do? Or are you happy with your numerous completions and office victories on sub-par tasks?

Would the selection committee choose you?

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.

They say there are things you just have to experience yourself. Mistakes you have to make on your own.

I remember when I was younger and my father imploring me not to make the same mistakes he made.  But I was smarter than him - no way I would make that mistake.

Boy, was I wrong. 

When it comes to patient care - even medicine isn't perfect.

Looking back from the time I was in undergrad to present time many things have changed - fascia and movement patterns have become prominent influences in both injury evaluation and rehabilitation.  I don't remember learning about either in my undergrad classes.  I guess it just wasn't important.

Boy, was I wrong.

See three pioneers in Movement and Fascia work this June 3/4 in Boston.

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.

ooh la la
ooh la la, la la, yeah

I wish that I knew what I know now
when I was younger
I wish that I knew what I know now
when I was stronger

To listen to ooh la la by the The Faces click below and enjoy. Kinda makes you want to be young again.

As an athletic trainer I provide regular and constructive feedback to my patients.  Statements such as “Relax your traps and pinch your scapulas together,” or “Maintain this position,” or “Nope, you need to contract this muscle first,” routinely roll off my tongue.  All these corrections and advice are focused on getting my patients better.  Without supervision, oversight, and criticism of a patient’s treatment or rehabilitation plan I am doing them a disservice.

Observing a strength and conditioning session performed by a colleague the other day, I was quite impressed with the enthusiasm, motivation, and feedback he provided.  Echoing through the weight room are words of wisdom like “Don’t let your knees go over your toes,” or “Head up, chest out,” or my all time favorite “Do it right and we will get bigger, faster, stronger today.”  Immediately reflecting back on that day, I took away how much attention, education, and constructive criticism went into that one session.  All of these qualities demonstrated during the training were essential for the improvement of the athlete.

We owe it to our athletes to be critical of their performance.  We need to educate them all the time on items such as proper technique and appropriate activation of muscle. Without these pieces of feedback their recovery will be delayed or performance progression inhibited.  Going to extreme measures to provide appropriate feedback to our athletes are what quality athletic trainers and strength coaches do.  So I ask myself, why do we walk down a one way street?

When is the last time you critiqued your co-worker?  Can you recall correcting their treatment plan with validated research?  Have you changed a peer’s practice pattern by suggesting a more appropriate exercise?

As athletic trainers and strength and conditioning coaches are we doing a disservice to our profession by not providing timely and appropriate feedback of each other.  Why are we so afraid to be critical of one another, yet in the next breathe assess our athletes all for their benefit? 

Challenge yourself to not be defensive when a colleague points out something you are doing wrong, or shows you a better way (I mean we can’t be right all the time).  Embrace that opportunity as a way to get better.  Take some ownership in educating the person next to you; demand them to be critical of you.  If feedback is so important to those we service every day, it must be important for our improvement as well.

So ask yourself, can we make it a two-way street?

Scot Spak EdM, ATC, CSCS
Athletic Trainer
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

I remember walking into Gross Anatomy lab and seeing the cadaver stripped down to only bones and muscles - everything else was taken out and discarded. It just wasn't that important.

This initial introduction to the human body just never quite sat well with me-

It was too clean, too simple, too rudimentary.

""A" attaches to "B" and causes "Y" to happen. Don't worry about "D"", the professor would tell you, "that's for next class and it doesn't influence what we are talking about today or change "Y" anyway."

Is it any wonder why most of us still associate the human anatomy as a simple construct of levers, hinges and force vectors with little to no interplay between independent parts.  I've made plenty of mistakes in my career, but the one that kept me from truly understanding human movement and appreciating dysfunctional patterns was the role and influence of fascia.  It took a colleague many years ago to demonstrate how a simple pull on her sweater caused a change in tension far from where it was originally pulled. 

A simple, yet powerful example of how fascia influences our every move.

Interested in more information on fascia?

1. See author of Anatomy Trains, Tom Myers speak at the 2011 BSMPG summer seminar.

2. See information below for the 2012 meeting in Vancouver, Canada.  Read Leon Chaitlow's post below or read proceedings from the 2007 and 2009 Fascia Research Congress Meetings.

3. Read Leon Chaitow's post on fascia research by clicking HERE.

Click HERE for the 2007 Fascia Research Congress Proceedings Book Overview

Click HERE for the 2009 Fascia Research Congress Proceedings Book Overview

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.