Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group, LLC Blog

You have said that dscipline is not a dirty word. Some coaches are wary of disciplinary action fearing it may have an adverse effect. What is your approach? How can a coach use discipline to his or her advantage?

RILEY: Whenever somebody goes outside the covenants and does something that can break the spirit of the team it cannot be allowed.  As a coach, I liked to take some of my most experienced players and converse with them about what they think should be done.  It isn’t just a my way or the highway thing.  Even though at times someone can do something so egregious that yes, he’s out of here.   And I think we understand what those things are.  When that happens, there is no team consultation.

(Interview questions and answers taken directly from the February 2007 edition of Scholastic Coach & Athletic Director)

Your award-winning motivational video, Teamwork, applies winning philsophies to business and life in general. What is your definition of teamwork as it applies to sports?

RILEY: Teamwork is the essence of life.  And teamwork is an interactive relationship, whereby all of us are either hired or brought together for whatever reason to get a result.  It is the essence of life in family.  It is the essence of life in sports.  And it is the essence of life in business.  In order to be successful as a group of people the dynamics of being a team are all the same, with the exception that you are jumping off a different platform – probably from a different industry.  But really, the principles are the saem.  People have to come together for the common good.
The only way you are ever going to do that is through trust.  It’s even more than belief.  Belief just isn’t enough.  You simply have to get to a point where you trust one another – in their motives, in their approaches, in their games, in their idiosyncrasies, and their personalities, and what they bring to the table – not be judgmental as a coach, or a teacher, or a parent.  No student, no player, no child will ever let you coach, parent, or teach them unless they trust that you are absolutely sincere, competent, and reliable. They are smart enough to see that.  If your intentions as a coach or a teacher or a parent are nothing less than sincere, because you want to get something out of it yourself instead of what’s in the best interest of the person, then they won’t let you.  They will sort of punch the clock with you.

You have to be competent because they want to learn.  Most kids and most players simply want to learn and get better.  And so you have to know what you’re doing.  It’s the same thing when it comes to reliability.  If they know you’re going to be there, then the trust and the fact that teamwork can cross over from sports into real life will be there, too.

(Interview questions and answers taken directly from the February 2007 edition of Scholastic Coach & Athletic Director)
 

“Almost all the master coaches I met followed Wooden’s rule. They wanted to know about each student so they could customize their communications to fit the larger patterns in a student’s life.”

Famed football coach and quarterback specialist, Tom Martinez, has a vivid metaphor for this process.

“The way I look at it, everybody’s life is a bowl of whipped cream and shit, and my job is to even things out,” he said. “If a kid’s got a lot of shit in his life, I’m going to stir in some whipped cream.  If a kid’s life is pure whipped cream, then I’m going to stir in some shit.”

(Excerpt from, The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle)

Looking at some of Tom's successes it's clear his recipe might just be working. 

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.

There's an employee outside of my department that I've known for some years.  For pretty much the entire time I have known them they have been telling people they were planning on leaving for greener pastures soon enough.  This has been going on for about five years now, but for some reason they have been unable to find a situation that better suits their needs.  In the interim, let's just say that they have not been the model of ownership.  Sure, they do their job, but along the way they also complain about their responsibilities, their poor compensation, and the state of their department in general to anyone willing to listen.  They also fail to understand why it is that they are still stuck in a less than ideal circumstance and are unable to find another job.  Hmmm, baffling.

You may recognize it, but the title of this post is taken from a quote by entrepreneur Shawn Carter who you may know better as Jay-Z.  Over the years Carter has continually reinvented himself and excelled in every avenue that he's explored.  He has gone from being a successful artist to owning a record label, his own major clothing line, a chain of upscale sports bars, and an ever increasing number of other ventures.  Carter continually excels because he has the drive to succeed, but also because he understands that his name is a brand.  In today's age many artists, athletes and other celebrities continually make poor decisions that ultimately paint their names in a negative light and simultaneously limit their future potential.  While many of these people do not fully understand that their name is their brand, Carter grasps the notion that while he is marketing all of his businesses, more importantly he is marketing himself. 

What does this have to do with you?  Let's forget about the effect your actions have on your workplace for a minute and focus on the effect they have on you.  Every decision you make, every meeting you attend, and every conversation you have impacts the way that supervisors, employees, and co-workers perceive you.  When you complain about your surroundings, belittle your fellow employees or put forth a mediocre effort you are definitely influencing your image, but is that really the image you want to put forth?  Your brand is what ultimately makes the difference between advancing in your profession and continuing to work in a position that is less than your ideal circumstance.  You are your own business and you should be marketing yourself accordingly.  Shawn Carter knows it.  Why don't you?

Shaun Bossio is the Assistant Business Manager and ProShop Manager at Boston University FitRec.
He can be reached at sbossio@bu.edu

Do you like ice cream?

Do enjoy beer?

How many of you enjoy drinking beer and eating ice cream together?

Just because two things are both good, doesn’t mean that they are compatible or complimentary to one another and should go together.

The challenge with rehabbing an actively participating athlete is that the rehab in the sports medicine room may be good, and the strength exercises in the weight room may be good, and even some of the individual skill work on the court or field may be good as well.  However, whether it be total volume, or time frame within the week, all the the "good" parts, might just not be all that good together. 

The totality of all good things (or stressors) should be juxtaposed so that not one takes away from the one before, or the one after, but instead fit together to improve the athlete’s end performance profile.  The main obstacle which prevents all those professionals who are caring for that athlete from being on the same page is that each one usually presents an argument for why the athlete should do x,y and z from a posture which protects their own interest and not necessarily the interest of the athlete. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for arguing, as long as the arguing and debating is on behalf of the athlete and their best interest. 

So when you’re done arguing why your athlete just has to do 30 weighted jump squats, or that extra set of straight leg raises check with the guys and gals down the hall and make sure that the time spent doing those exercises are actually in the best interest of the athlete and not what’s best for you.  Because if you’re not willing to put all the pieces together for your athlete then you might just be serving beer sundaes this coming season.

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.

Whether you're in favor of it or not, the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution allows you the right to bear arms. That is unless you're visiting the Magic Kingdom. Apparently, Mickey Mouse doesn't think it's a good idea to bring hand guns into theme parks - pistols and peppermint patties just don't mix. 

So if Walt Disney can say no to this absolute silliness (believe it or not people are actually fighting Walt on this one) we can also say no to some of the silliness that goes on in our weight rooms as well.

I know, the Second amendment allows you to bear arms.  And I know a Strength and Conditioning degree allows you to program Bench Press every Monday, and allows you to put a bar on someone's back and load it up because you have to get those numbers. But just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Thanks for the lesson in common sense Walt.

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.

Question: A strength coach, an athletic trainer and a physician are in a car driving through the Arizona desert.  They get a flat tire.  Whose fault is it?

Answer: It doesn’t matter. They are all going nowhere together.
You can argue that the flat tire can be blamed on the strength coach for not ensuring the tires were made to withstand the rigors of the desert, or the athletic trainer for not checking the air pressure prior to the trip, or even the physician for giving the nod to drive over the speed limit even though the engine was never tested to perform at that speed.  The fact remains that each professional is stuck together going nowhere.  

Sound familiar?

When we work with our athletes who are unable to play for whatever reason we often end up blaming the flat tire on someone else when in fact we are all now stuck in the same car going nowhere. Prior to your next road trip, let’s make sure we all meet in the garage together and develop a plan for our athletes before taking “the car” out for a zip around town.

Remember, if you’re looking to go nowhere, any road will take you there.

Art Horne 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.

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.

It is very rare that one can get sound training in any of the sport sciences without having to take at least one research methods class.  Perhaps it is human nature or some sort of cultural creation, but too often such a class is seen as a requirement to pass rather than a true asset to someone that will work in the “real world” of sports.  Unwittingly, this limits the sport-scientist/coach from truly reaching excellence.  It leads to a poor consumer of science and one that is poor in execution of focused player development plans.  With this in mind, there are 5 basic research ideas that I have found important to quality sport science practice:

1.  Research is not about proving yourself right.  

Too often young researchers decided that study findings that contradict a study’s hypothesis are a bad thing.  This is absolutely wrong.  If the study was well designed and well thought out, these findings are valuable.  Open mindedness and healthy skepticism is required when looking at all data.  There are risks to viewing one’s self as “right” too quickly (i.e. imagine implementing a training plan that seems to make sense, but in reality only leads to injured athletes).  Similarly, there are risks to dismissing findings that are not in support of a hypothesis without sufficient thought (i.e. the nuances to the solutions to many of life’s complex questions can lie in the contradictions).

Understanding these concepts extends beyond naïve graduate students, but to the public as a whole.  It was surprising to stumble upon the following quote from Bill James, the Red Sox’s famed sabermatrician, “Random data proves nothing and that it cannot be used as proof of nothingness.  Why?  Because whenever you do a study, if your study completely fails you will get random data.  Therefore, when you get random data, all you may conclude is that your study failed.”  He is getting at something with this quote, but the willingness to suggest a failed study because of unclear data is shortsighted.

Research is about keeping an open mind and gaining information through well regulated examination.

2.  Manipulate only one variable at a time if you want precise understanding of the impacts of coaching interventions.  

Coaching approaches and philosophies can change quickly.  There is nothing wrong with this, however if performances dramatically decrease or increase it will be tough to determine what the cause of these costs or benefits were.  Single-subject research design tells that during research only add a single new variable at a time and then watch things for a while.  If the outcome being examined changes in any significant manner, you can say it was most likely due to the variable that you recently added.  Differently if you add two or more variables at a time you are left confused as to what actually led to change in behavior.

This concept can be clearly seen in the coaching of Michael Boyle.  While he might have a bit of a “shock and awe” style to his writing and presentations, his coaching is quite disciplined.  It is always impressive to hear him in his talks about refining the strength and conditioning programs of athletes and how he religiously adheres to the “manipulate one variable at a time” principle.  A sports medicine colleague commented to me the other day, “Heck, if Mike added bananas into an athlete’s diet, he wouldn’t mess with anything else for a few weeks until he determined if the banana eating had any significant impact.”  The question for those working in athletics is, “Can you stay this disciplined when refining your player development programs?”

3.  Establish your “baseline” before you change the game plan. 

This concept is closely related to #2.  Human beings (at least Westerners) tend to be an impatient population.  When something does not appear to be going right we push for changing something… anything.  Back to considering single subject research, prior to initiating any interventions have a substantial baseline period.  Highs and lows of behavior may just be artifact early on rather than the “truth.”  Giving actions and performances a fair test of time truly allows someone to see “what is what.”
A good example of this is the baseball player calculating his batting average after the first two games of the season.  It is likely that the average is quite high or quite low at this time – and likely a false measure of the player’s goodness.  After 20 games or so, it would appear that things begin to come into focus.  The batter that begins to make swing changes and panics after the second game certainly lacks 20/20 vision for his current status as a batter.  It takes a bit of time to establish a baseline, but it’s worth it because it creates a true foundation off of which one can be coached and learn.

4.  Appreciate the normal curve.  

“Outliers” has become a hot term with the publication of Malcolm Gladwell’s most recent book.  This being said, focusing on them can sometimes get us into a bit of trouble.  Perhaps one of the biggest lessons I learned early on in my career was from Bob Dallis, currently the Dartmouth College women’s tennis coach.  After I concluded a workshop that went o.k. but seemed to miss a few of the players, Bob pulled me aside and said, “Think about the normal curve when considering how and if you reached a team.”  What he meant by this was that there are likely to be outliers.  A small section of every group will love what you say regardless of what you say.  Conversely there is likely to be a small section of the group that will not appreciate your efforts regardless of how good they are.  The job of a good educator is to make sure to get the middle to attend, learn, and embrace the ideas being shared.  Trying too hard to sway the negative outliers leads to a failure to attend sufficiently to others.  Also, basking in the glow of the positive outliers only build the teacher’s ego and does little for the students.  In a lot of ways, you can measure the quality of your work by the growth of the “normal” athletes in front of you.

5.  Embrace evidence-based practice.  

“Evidence-based” is a hot term these days… yet it is an old idea.  If one considers it closely, it simply means being an effective and ethical practitioner of your craft.  Part of such quality practice is having the stomach and patience to read primary research and quality reviews of up to date study in the sport sciences.  Appreciating recent publications in referred journals can help one refine his craft.  The common criticism of this concept is that such sources are too slow to publish about the current trends in sport science, knowledge moves too fast for them to keep up.  This is a cop out and at times can lead to reckless practice (not to mention a waste of an athlete’s valuable training time).

It is true that sometimes coaches and practitioners “in the trenches” are ahead of the scientists.  This does not mean one should abandon evidence-based practice.  In actuality, the wise practitioner realizes that this is an opportunity to create evidence by being thoughtful, focused, and organized in coaching practices.  Evidence-based is about both learning from quality practice that has preceded and objectively creating evidence off of which to make educated coaching decisions when relevant studies do not seem to exist.  This being said, I have found that too few people give a fair crack at the first step of quality practice:  taking a good look at the literature and understanding the nuances of everything read leads to great practices on and around the playing field.  If you want to be able to build great athletes lay a solid foundation by using scientific evidence.

Did you pay attention in your research methods class?  In many regards it was about making good professional decisions and making athletes great…

Dr. Adam Naylor, AASP-CC. is the Director of the Boston University Athletic Enhancement Center (www.bu.edu/aec).  He has serves as a mental conditioning and player development resource for players at all stages of their sports career.  More reflections on player development and sport psychology can be found at http://prosportpsychsym.wordpress.com and Dr. Naylor can be reached at ahnaylor@bu.edu and followed on Twitter @ahnaylor.

When did hard work go out of style?
When did squatting, pull-ups, and heavy sled pushes become bad for you?
Athletes now more than ever are always looking for a secret answer from above. Something to swoop down and give them the advantage that they need to become bigger, faster and stronger (as long as it doesn’t require actual work mind you).  Even in the athletic training room you’ll find it. Athletes would rather wear organic blueberry filled “pain patches” on their patellar tendons rather than complete an uncomfortable eccentric single leg squat program for their knee pain.
“I saw such and such pro-athlete use these/do this, it will help me too.”
Deus ex machina!

Even some strength coaches and athletic trainers have gotten into the mix. You’ll always know if your colleagues have gone to a course taught by a “guru” over the weekend.  Suddenly on Monday morning, every athlete needs this or can be treated with that.
Deus ex machina!

Literally translated, Deus ex machina means “God from the machine” and is used to describe the sudden and miraculous appearance of an unexpected way out of a very difficult situation.  In Roman and Greek plays, a “god” was lowered onto the stage via mechanical device to resolve a complicated situation in the plot. A divine intervention if you will.  A God sent from above to rescue you from your very poor predicament! Too good to be true, right?  But in modern Hollywood films and movies, this is frowned upon because it undermines the story’s internal logic… unless you are directing a silly comedy like Dumb and Dumber or Tommy Boy which requires a lack of logic and the more dues ex machina, the funnier it gets.

So this summer, as you prepare your off-season training programs, don’t let a guru who yells the loudest, or your athletes who just logged off youtube undermine your logic.  Let’s all agree to leave deus ex machina to those that that need it most, and get back to programming rehab and strength programs based off of sound evidence.  If a place as crazy as Hollywood understands this simply concept, we should too.

 

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.