Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group, LLC Blog

In basketball we call it false hustle.

You run towards a shooter and instead of closing out under control with a high hand toward their strong hand you jump aimlessly by their fake shot attempt landing in the first row of fans effectively taking you out of that play, and also the two to three rebounding opportunities that followed because you didn’t have the discipline to sit down and approach the shooter under control.

Ya, it looked good as you showed off your 34 inch vertical, and the freshmen fans in the first row will be talking about how you landed in their popcorn for the rest of the net, and perhaps the school’s photographer will even take a picture of you because it makes for a good story, but the score at the end of the game will essentially show your lack of commitment to the little things.

In business, it’s called Core Values. It’s what you stand for and it’s also what you should never stray from. Yes, it may be tempting to add some new equipment to your weight room or sports medicine area after attending a trade show or because you saw major university “X” has it, but unless it falls within your core values it’s better left on the trade show floor instead of becoming an overpriced and oversized coat rack in your working area.  Of course the way in which you do things, will often change (due to new research and evidence) but that’s clearly different from your core values which should never change.

Sitting down and guarding, like great patient care should never change.

My father would always say take care of the little things and the big things will always take care of themselves. This is true in basketball, patient care and performance training – taking care of your core values and paying attention to the little things will often lead you to much much bigger things without much effort at all.


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 college professor and mentor of mine once told me that during an injury evaluation if you listen just long enough your patient will tell you exactly what is wrong with them; and, if you listen just a little bit longer they’ll also tell you exactly what makes them better. 

No need for special tests off the start, just listen and let them talk.

It’s become too easy to interrupt our patients during an injury history, because, well, we know exactly what’s wrong with them. No need to listen to their sob story – just order the MRI, X-ray or other diagnostic test and let’s keep moving.

“A well-known study of medical education found that medical students' interpersonal skills with patients declined as their medical education progressed (Helfer, 1970).  This was particularly true for the student’s ability to take a good social history.  It seems that as students learned more about the science of medicine they found it harder simply to talk with patients, and came to devalue this kind of activity.  What were easy exchanges during the first years became an awkward and unproductive series of closed-ended, usually yes-no, questions later on.  No doubt related to this narrowing of focus, Martin et al. (1976) found that as training progressed, physicians seemed increasingly to lose their grasp on the patient's total health picture and to focus more and more on biomedical issues. 

Although the improvement of physicians' skills in interviewing is valuable, skill does not go to the heart of the matter.  Medical school needs to do a better job of inculcating different attitudes in young doctors - in defining for them what is truly important about being a doctor and what are effective, and humane, doctor-patient roles.  Our society must figure out how to influence their attitudes so that they come to value certain aspects of patient care differently.  Then, of course, when these doctors become mentors themselves, they will provide a different kind of example to their students.  If physicians saw themselves more as patient educators, medical education would be different, and the profession would engage in a different kind of self-scrutiny.  More attention would be paid to the education of patients, which would translate into more sensitive involvement of doctors in the process of healing.” (p.18-19)

- Doctors Talking With Patients/Patients Talking With Doctors: Improving Communication In Medical Visits by Debra L. Roter and Judith A. Hall

The challenge then for us as health care providers is to put away the blackberry for a moment and get back to the lost art of patient talk.

Get back to real patient interaction and patient centered care – which places the patient as the center of focus and not our schedule or outside responsibilities.

Of course, ordering an x-ray just to be sure and sending the patient on their way is a lot easier then sitting down and talking with them.

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.

Martin, D.P., Glison, B.S., Bergner, M., Bobbitt, R.A., Pollard, W.E., Conn, J.R., & Cole, W.A. (1976).  The Sickness Impact Profile: Potential use of a health status instrument for physician training. Journal of Medical Education, 51, 942-947.
 
Helfer, R.E. (1970).  An objective comparison of the pediatric interviewing skills of freshman and senior medical students.  Pediatrics, 45, 623-627.

In athletic development or fundraising this question should be easy to answer.

Your salary is 100K and you fundraised 500k for your organization in the first quarter. Net profit of 400K for your organization right?

Nice job.

But what if you work in sports medicine or strength and conditioning?

I often hear professionals groan about needing to get paid more, (and just for the record I agree with you) but what did you do this past year to deserve more pay? What makes you believe this?

Was it a salary survey that clearly shows you at the low end of the pole within your athletic conference?  Maybe it was that nifty online salary conversion tool that shows how much you would make if you worked in Alabama rather than Boston?

How about looking at this instead - What interesting problem did you solve this year?  Show your boss that.

Did you save your department 10K in tape and bracing because you researched and found a better way to do business? Did you move your summer strength manuals to an online Iphone application making them accessible to athletes at home saving your department 4K in annual printing costs?  How about starting an injury prevention plan lowering your school’s athletic injury insurance premium?

Before you begin to start looking for a new place to work because you aren’t getting paid enough at your current job, ask yourself what interesting problem needs solving and show your current employer  that you are worth your salary first.

** thanks to Seth Godin who opened my eyes to solving interesting problems rather than working the “ordinary” job where waiting to be told what to do gets you paid ordinary amounts of money.

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.

BSMPG is proud to announce that Ray Eady, Basketball Strength and Conditioning Coach at the University of Wisconsin will join Brandon Ziegler and Brian McCormick at the BSMPG Basketball Specific Conference featuring Dr. Shirley Sahrmann as a keynote speaker next June 3rd and 4th, 2011.

Ray Eady is currently the strength and conditioning coach for the women’s basketball program at the University of Wisconsin. He has been the strength and conditioning coach for the Wisconsin basketball program since 2008.  Previously, he was the head strength and conditioning coach for men’s and women’s basketball at the University of Akron in Akron, Ohio (2004 - 2008) and Northeastern University in Boston, MA (2003 - 2004).

Originally from Springfield, Massachusetts, Eady holds a Masters degree in Exercise Physiology from the University of Akron and is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (NSCA – CSCS), a Performance Enhancement Specialist (NASM – PES), and a Club Coach with the United States Weightlifting Association.  He is also a member of the Black Coaches Association (BCA).

See articles written by Ray Eady:

Female Basketball Athletes Need To Get Strong

Push-up Progression

A friend of mine and I were discussing the roles and responsibilities of athletic trainers the other day when he brought up a story about his time in graduate school.  He recounted the days where a fellow staff member’s (a full-time Certified Athletic Trainer with a Master’s Degree no less) only job during the fall semester was to drive from practice to practice filling up water coolers and bottles.

No patient care. No injury evaluation. No Assessment. No Prevention Strategies.

Just Water.

I shared a very different story with him about water service.

I remember a few summers ago when I traveled with our Men’s Basketball Team to Canada to play the defending Canadian national champions (six National Championships in the last seven years) - University of Carleton.   It was our first day on campus and we were preparing to practice when I noticed our hosts didn’t put out any water on the sideline for our team (Carleton was practicing down court and finishing up their practice time).  I approached their athletic therapist asking if I could obtain a cooler of water and some cups for practice – a standard practice I would assume across both Canadian and American Colleges.
Just as the words dripped from my mouth I looked a bit closer at the Carleton area and saw about 20 various bottles ranging from gallon sized water containers to reused Gatorade bottles lining their bench.  Each and every player had brought their own water to practice.  From that moment forward my view on water changed forever.

That was the day I stopped catering.

I’m not saying water isn’t important.  On the contrary.  In fact, I think it’s so important that I encourage each and every student-athlete to carry a water bottle with them at all times.  You can’t expect to just hydrate during practice can you? And if you can carry a water bottle with you all day – because that’s how important it is, then you can also bring it to practice can’t you?

I was actually scolded by a fellow athletic trainer when I brought up the idea of athletes bringing their own water to practice.

“What if they forgot their bottle one day? What would they do then?”

My response was simple.

What extraordinary patient care are you not delivering because you are so busy delivering and catering water?

If the defending national champions in Canada can bring their own water to practice I think our student-athletes can fill up a bottle and bring some H2O to practice too.

It only takes one time that you forget and you’ll never leave that bottle at home again.

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.

BSMPG is proud to announce that Jonas Sahratian, Strength and Conditioning for University of North Carolina Men's Basketball will join Brandon Ziegler, Oregon State and Brian McCormick at the BSMPG Basketball Specific Conference featuring Dr. Shirley Sahrmann as a keynote speaker next June 3rd and 4th, 2011.

Among the top strength & conditioning coordinators in the college game, Jonas Sahratian enters his sixth season with the Tar Heel men's basketball program after serving in the same capacity at the University of Kansas for five seasons.

Sahratian coordinates strength and conditioning for men's basketball and also works with the diving team. He has been a part of three Final Fours and NCAA championships in 2005 and 2009.

He worked with Carolina head coach Roy Williams in Lawrence from January 1999 to April 2003. He also coordinated strength and conditioning for the volleyball, swimming and diving teams at Kansas.

A native of Detroit, Mich., Sahratian graduated from Western Michigan University in 1997 with a bachelor of science degree in exercise science. In 2000 he received his master's in exercise physiology from Kansas.

In addition to working with Kansas athletics, Sahratian interned for two years at the Chicago Bulls/Vermeil's Sports and Fitness in Deerfield, Ill. He worked in Chicago during the Bulls' NBA championship seasons in 1996-97 and 1997-98.

He is a certified strength and conditioning specialist through the National Strength and Conditioning Association and a certified club coach through USA Weightlifting. Sahratian (pronounced suh-RAY-shun) and his wife, Grechen, reside in Durham.

Speed Drills by Sahratian featured in Stack

Conditioning Drills by Sahratian featured in Stack

BSMPG is proud to announce that Brian McCormick, Founder of Youth Basketball Coaching Association and Performance Director, Train for Hoops will join Brandon Ziegler at the BSMPG Basketball Specific Conference featuring Dr. Shirley Sahrmann as a keynote speaker next June 3rd and 4th, 2011.

McCormick is a basketball coach, trainer and author. He coached the Visby Ladies in the Swedish Damligan (women's pro league) and UCD Marian in Ireland's Men's SuperLeague. He also has coached youth, AAU, and high school teams and assisted at the junior college and college levels in California. As a coach and clinician, he has traveled to Canada, China, Greece, Macedonia, Morocco, South Africa and Trinidad & Tobago to direct camps or speak at clinics.

McCormick is a certified strength coach through National Strength & Conditioning Association (CSCS), National Academy of Sports Medicine (PES) and USA Weightlifting (SPC).

As the Performance Director for Train for Hoops, McCormick wrote a year-round periodized general strength training and off-season skill development program for youth and high school players and maintains a blog that covers all areas of player development.

After publishing Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development in 2006, he founded the Youth Basketball Coaching Association to create a certification and coach education curriculum for volunteer youth basketball coaches.

McCormick also transformed another of his nine books, Developing Basketball Intelligence, into a developmental league, Playmakers Basketball Development League, which operates in more than six states in 2010.

McCormick lives in Irvine where he works as a personal train at the U.C. Irvine Recreation Center, trains local high school basketball players and writes the free weekly Hard2Guard Player Development Newsletters. To subscribe, email hard2guardinc@yahoo.com or follow Brian on twitter @brianmccormick.

Articles:

Play Multiple Sports to Build Athleticism

Mindful Learning

Q&A

Core Stability and Basketball Training

ACL Review: Teaching The Jump Stop

Seth Godin does it again...

Do You Need A Permit?

Where, precisely, do you go in order to get permission to make a dent in the universe?

The accepted state is to be a cog. The preferred career is to follow the well-worn path, to read the instructions, to do what we're told. It's safer that way. Less responsibility. More people to blame.

When someone comes along and says, "not me, I'm going down a different path," we flinch. We're not organized to encourage and celebrate the unproven striver. It's safer to tear them down (with their best interests at heart, of course). Better, we think, to let them down easy, to encourage them to take a safer path, to be realistic, to hear it from us rather than the marketplace.
Perhaps, years ago, this was good advice. Today, it's clearly not. In fact, it's disrespectful, ill-advised and short sighted. How dare we cheer when a bold changemaker stumbles? Our obligation today isn't to spare the feelings of our peers from future disappointment. It's to establish an expectation that of course they're going to do something that matters.

If you think there's a chance you can make a dent, GO.

Now.

Hurry.

You have my permission. Not that you needed it.

BSMPG is proud to announce that Brandon Ziegler of Oregon State will be part of the Basketball Specific Conference speaker set featuring Dr. Shirley Sahrmann as a keynote speaker next June 3rd and 4th, 2011.

Brendon Ziegler is in his fifth season at Oregon State where he serves as the strength and conditioning coach for the men’s basketball team. In his duties, Ziegler handles all strength and conditioning duties for the men’s basketball squad, including lifting and strength work, core training, speed and agility drills, flexibility drills as well as conditioning. He also coordinates all off-season conditioning programs. Prior to Oregon State, Ziegler served in similar positions with Hawai’i, Wisconsin and the Chicago Bulls of the NBA.

Ziegler is certified through NSCA-CSCS and USA Weightlifting. A native of Edgerton, Wisc., Ziegler was a four-year starter in football at Hamline University and is also a competitive weightlifter.

In the vast majority of well planned programs in both Strength and Conditioning and Sports Medicine, athletes and patients must “qualify” for a particular exercise prior to being introduced to it as a formal part of their training or rehabilitation program.  For example, it would be ill advised to simply ask an athlete to perform depth jumps without knowing they had a sufficient strength base first (1.25 x BW for females and 1.5 x BW for males seems to be standard).  Hang Cleans are rarely taught until an athlete or patient shows proficiency in a box jump, good front squat technique and a reasonable strength base.  Even in Sports Medicine, one must “qualify” to drop the crutches after injury in favor of full weigh-bearing so long as they are abel to demonstrate normal, pain-free gait.  Yet, when it comes to addressing “core” exercises many are often prescribed without thought or prior planning.  This is especially true when evaluating rotational exercises.

McGill has demonstrated time and again that people with troubled backs simply use their backs more during activities.

“But you need a strong back don’t you?”

Well yes, but there’s more to it than that.  In fact, the guys that have these troubled backs most often have much stronger backs but are less endurable than matched asymptomatic controls (McGill et al, 2003).  In addition, those that have back pain (and a stronger back mind you) tend to have more motion in their backs and less motion and load in their hips.  And we all know what poor hip mobility means don’t we – you got it, back pain.  (McGill SM et al. Previous history of LBP with work loss is related to lingering effects in biomechanical physiological, personal, psychosocial and motor control characteristics. Ergonomics 2003;46:731-46.)

"So what does all this hip, back and stability stuff have to do with rotational core and power training? I just want to throw some heavy medicine balls against the wall and wake up the neighbors!”

Not so fast, as I mentioned, mobile hips and a stable and strong mid-section are paramount and a MUST prior to any type of rotational medicine ball or rotational power training.  The Mobility-Stability/Joint by Joint Approach to Training made famous by Boyle and Cook is of course a must, yet very few actually test to see if their athletes have “stability” where stability should lie – the lumbar spine. This is especially important for post players who require a decisive and strong drop step to establish position in the post. Any leakage in energy or disconnect between their shoulders and lower body will surely afford them a less than desirable position on the low post.

To view this complete article and view associated videos click 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.