Robertson Training Systems Newsletter 4.30

In This Issue

- Robertson Training Systems Updates
- Testimonials
- Nutrition Tip
- Exclusive Interview:  Shawn Windle
- Upcoming Interviews
- New Articles and Blog Posts
- Schedule

Robertson Training Systems Updates

Last day for Inside-Out Sale!

In case you missed the e-mail Friday, the Inside-Out sale ends TODAY!  Here's the e-mail again, for those of you who are interested:

With the upcoming opening of the I-FAST facility, Bill and I are quickly running out of storage space. So what does that mean for you? A sweet deal on our Inside-Out product line!

Today through Monday, we're offering you 40% off our entire product line. Here's all you have to do to get the discount:

1 - Go to the website: Inside-Out
2 - Add the product(s) to your cart
3 - BEFORE purchasing, go to the right side and insert the discount code "IFAST"; make sure to apply it.
4 - Purchase the DVD's at the discounted rate. This coupon is good through 7/21.

As always, thank you for your support. I'll be out of town for 2 weeks starting Sunday, so if you shoot me an e-mail it may take a while to get back to you!
 

Testimonials:  Magnificent Mobility

"Mike

I love the Magnificent Mobility DVD. I have been weight training for over 25 yrs, and in that time neglected my stretching enough to where I am now paying for it in the form of nagging injuries in my hips and shoulders. The exercises in the DVD have shown me the proper way to warm up and stretch my body. I am already seeing a marked improvement
in my mobility, and my joints feel better each and every day.

Thanks for a great training tool!"

Regards,

Andy

Nutrition Tip

If you like this tip and want to learn more about JB and his products, check out his Precision Nutrition website.

Exclusive Interview:  Shawn Windle

MR:  Shawn, thanks for being with us here today.  Please take a moment and introduce yourself to our readers.

SW:  I am the Head Strength & Conditioning Coach and Assistant Athletic Trainer for the Indiana Pacers.

MR:  What positions did you hold before getting on with the Indiana Pacers?

SW:  I’m not sure I can remember all of the stops along the way but I will give it a shot!  First job was as an Athletic Trainer at a Physical Therapy Clinic in MA.  While working at the Physical Therapy clinic I volunteered at Holy Cross College as a Strength Coach under Jeff Oliver to gain experience and escape the Athletic Training world.  After one year in the clinic setting I accepted a job in minor league baseball (independent league) as an Athletic Trainer and Strength & Conditioning Coach in Mountaindale, NY.  Following the baseball season I found myself on the move again this time landing at the University of Connecticut beginning as a Graduate Assistant Strength Coach and leaving three years later as an Assistant Strength Coach directly responsible for Men’s Basketball.  As exciting as UCONN was Rutgers University in New Jersey made me an offer that I could not refuse so we packed up the boxes again.  After four years at Rutgers I received a call from the Pacers and here I am today three years later.

MR:  Since you’ve had jobs in multiple places, I’m interested in how training changes across the varying levels of sport.

For example, what are some of the major differences in training collegiate athletes versus pros?  Other than the obvious difference in talent, that is!

SW:  College kids generally need to be taught how to work and how to handle work.  I spent a considerable amount of time teaching freshmen and sophomores about work capacity through the use of bodyweight circuits, med ball circuits and strength circuits.  College kids have such a large window of adaptation and are relatively healthy which makes it much easier to work with them.  The college game schedule usually allows for plenty of recovery between contests which allows room for mistakes in training and nutrition.

Professional athletes are older and have accumulated a lot of mileage.  The pro guys do not need to spend a lot of time doing high volume training since they adapt fast to workouts and are always at a risk for overtraining.  These guys require a lot less work for a training effect than college kids.  Recovery strategies are always in the back of my head when designing their training sessions because of the volume of games.

MR:  As an avid basketball fan, I’m always thinking about training basketball players.  But how on Earth do you program for someone that plays 82+ games in a season?

SW:  You throw away everything you learned about periodization!  Rarely do I get into Sports Performance training or traditional strength & conditioning during the season.  My in-season programming is more or less a high level rehab program.  Either players are actively hurt or we have identified underlying impairments that require attention before they become hurt.  The goal of most sessions is to restore function and normal movement patterns.  I found it impossible to write programs for even one week at a time.  Things change so quickly! 

MR:  This may sound stupid, but basketball players run a lot.  What kind of overuse injuries do you have to deal with on a daily basis?  And how do you address these issues via training?

SW:  This is where we feel we earn our money and is something that we better be good at!

Our Sports Medicine team always talks about the lack of ankle dorsiflexion as being the biggest epidemic in the NBA.  Most people in society lack sufficient dorsiflexion just from normal daily activities combined with a lack of stretching.  So you can imagine the ankle of a basketball player that has been running and jumping for years without proper stretching.  Add into that any ankle sprains that have occurred over the player’s career further exacerbating the impairments.  To run and jump without compensation you must have at least 10 degrees of ankle dorsiflexion.  As a team we average about 5 degrees while some players struggle to reach neutral.  Keep in mind this is tested while the player is held into subtalar neutral.  This is important to not because if this is not accounted for when measuring ROM what you might be seeing is some sort of mid-foot compensation gives the appearance of a normal test.  Many people feel that stretching alone may be the key to “unlocking” the ankle but this is not always the case.  When ROM issues are left un-treated there is a strong possibility that the talus could slide forward in the mortise and there could also be problems with the subtalar joint not moving into eversion.  These problems require hands on joint mobilizations!!!  You will notice that these people will have tibial external rotation on an overhead squat assessment.  We take our ankles very seriously!

Obviously impairments in the ankle can pre-dispose the athlete to knee problems but more frequently it leads directly first to the hip.  Almost every basketball player that I have seen has tight/overactive IT bands, biceps femoris and lateral gastrocnemius.  Not to mention that most players have a psoas complex that has shortened due to the lack of appropriate stretching combined with the necessity for that muscle group to aid in lumbar stability in the absence of functional core strengthening.  When you sandwich a knee between a bad hip and ankle there is no doubt that the knee is next.

I spend a lot of time assessing the athlete to determine movement impairments and referring red flags to our Physical Therapists for closer inspection.  Our therapists help finalize the picture of what is happening and we decide what the appropriate course of action is.  They may tell me that there is a density contracture in the vastus lateralis which is having a major impact on the IT Band which tells me that no amount of stretching is going to make changes in the IT Band and VL until the tissue quality improves.

During the off-season I am very careful about how much running and jumping that they are performing so that my program does not contribute to the problem.  There is a very fine line between too much running and not enough but I would rather err on the side of not enough running heading into training camp.  I like to do a lot of slideboard work throughout the summer to build conditioning without overloading the running pattern.

MR:  Basketball guys aren’t typically known for their strength, but there are still some really strong guys in the league.  Do you have to train different guys on the same team differently? 

SW:  I could have four or more different programs on a workout board on any given day.  Program design is based first and foremost on physical impairments (as I mentioned earlier) so naturally that tends to make every program individualized.  When we get the “real workout” when we actually start lifting some weights consideration is given the physical attributes that the player does and does not have.  If I have a player that is exceptionally strong I will not spend a lot of time performing strength work.  The focus may instead be speed or any other of his deficiencies.  The other consideration is playing style.  One of our players plays a position that matches him against stronger guys every night which would make you want to perform more strength work.  I resist the trap because this player is more of a skill player and avoids contact whenever he can and even if he were stronger he would not utilize it in his style of play.  His athleticism and unwillingness to bang against people creates a problem for other teams with strong guys.  I am a believer in maximizing and enhancing your skill set rather than trying to become a jack of all trades and trying to change your approach based on others when it comes to the style of play for the individual.

MR:  Eric Cressey has talked at length about how he doesn’t really like to squat basketball guys, especially the really tall ones.  What are your thoughts on this?  And if you don’t squat, what kind of exercises do you use instead?

SW:  In general I am not much of a fan of the squat with many athletes especially basketball players.  Don’t get me wrong, I do love the squat but I have not worked with many people that can perform it for the intended benefit.  With light weights as part of circuits we will do a lot of squatting because I feel the overall motion is very important but when it comes to handling heavy loads I think the risk to reward ratio is pretty high.  Occasionally we will acquire players through trades, free agency or draft that really like to squat.  I will let these guys squat if they are proficient at the movement or I will give them an extensive corrective exercise menu before they can climb under the bar.

We do a lot of trap bar deadlifting from the mid-shin to just below the knee position for double leg strength.  For the most part though we are focusing on single leg strength and my favorite exercises are the reverse lunge off a short box, lunge walks, single leg squats, high box step ups and lunges.  The reverse lunge off the box is nearly impossible to do wrong and everyone will get much deeper than they ever would get while squatting or lunging.

MR:  Most of us will never have the opportunity to work with a professional sports team.  What are some challenges you’ve dealt with that the average coach may need think of or deal with?

SW:  With college athletes the strength coach is in a power position.  If an athlete comes to a workout late in college the coach can punish the athlete as they see fit.  Professional athletes more or less come and go as they please.  If one of my guys shows up late there is little to no consequence.  During the season we have a fine system in place to act as a deterrent for missing workouts.  Each player must get ten workouts in each month.  The summer months are frustrating because we are not allowed to fine players under the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and players are allowed to live anywhere they choose.     

As frustrating as this may sound I look at it as a challenge.  Every day brings something different working in the NBA which is exciting.  Having an open mind and evaluating the big picture really helps me keep my cool.

MR:  Ok, final question here:  What is one thing you’ve done wrong in the past as a coach that you’ve since fixed?

SW:  In the past I felt that every faulty movement that I saw in training could be corrected through proper cueing.  Sometimes athletes would not respond to my cues and make the necessary corrections which would lead me to think that the athlete was either a motor moron or a dog.  It took me a long while to realize that there could be a reason for their inability to execute the movement properly. 

I have the opportunity to visit my players around the country during the summer and I see a lot of styles of training and different philosophies (some good and some bad) but what I don’t see is an ability to evaluate movement and those that are able to see an impairment rarely does the coach know why it exists let alone come up with intervention strategies. 

Learning identification and intervention strategies for movement impairments will take your knowledge to another level and will almost entirely change everything that you do.

MR:  Shawn, thanks for taking the time to be with us here today.  How can my readers find out more about you?

SW:  Currently Robb Rogers, Brijesh Patel and I operate www.sbcoachescollege.com where we offer a variety of training DVD’s, newsletter and articles.  Robb, Brijesh and I are also putting together a new site www.myfittube.com that will truly be a unique site that is almost entirely video based offering coaching tips and theories from some of the best Strength Coaches in the United States.  Hopefully by the time you are all reading this we will be up and running.

If any of the readers would like to contact me with questions about how/why I do what I do please feel free to e-mail me swindle@pacers.com

If you find my phone number on a bathroom stall don’t bother to call.  I am phone-a-phobic and most likely would not answer.

Thank you for the opportunity to talk to your readers Mike!  Keep up the great work!

Upcoming Interviews

July 28th - Robb Rogers, Director of St. Vincent Sports Performance in Indianapolis, Indiana

August 4th - Pavel Tsatsouline, author of several books and kettlebell instructor (www.dragondoor.com)

August 11th - Buddy Morris, head strength and conditioning coach at the University of Pittsburgh (http://pittsburghpanthers.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/morris_buddy01.html)

August 18th - Mark Rippetoe, author of Starting Strength and Practical Periodization (http://www.wfac-gym.com/)

If you would like to submit a question for one of our upcoming interviewees:

1) Please send an e-mail to info@robertsontrainingsystems.com
2) In the subject heading, please list the person your question is directed towards (i.e. Mike Boyle)
3) In the body of the text, list one or two questions you'd like to have answered.

We can't promise that our interviewees can answer all questions, but we'll do our best to get a nice mix of questions. Thanks for your support!

Stay Strong

MR

www.RobertsonTrainingSystems.com

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