How to Stay Injury-Free This Season 1. Stretch the front of your hips We spend so much time sitting in chairs everyday that the front of our hips get super tight and pull our pelvis out of its ideal alignment. Sitting can cause our glutes to get lazy and shut off which isn’t favourable for either athleticism or injury prevention. Holding a basic lunge position for a couple minutes after long periods of sitting, practices and games is a good place to start. 2. Ditch the basketball shoes outside the gym Wearing bulky basketball shoes all day inside and outside the gym can give our ankles so much support they no longer feel the need to be strong on their own. Spending more time in less restrictive footwear, or even barefoot, can give your feet and ankles a chance to get strong again. 3. Warm-up Taking 5-10 minutes to do some dynamic stretches, get our heart rate up and prepare your joints for the wide variety of positions basketball requires is a great way to reduce injuries. Try to avoid holding static stretches before practices and games as this may relax the muscles too much and increase the odds of injury. 4. Work on ankle dorsi flexion everyday There is research out there that says the further we can get the knee over the toes, the less incidence of knee injuries. The movement of pushing your knee past our toe is called ankle dorsiflexion and we need a good degree of this to run and jump effectively. We can work on this movement with the knee to wall drill. When performing this drill you should make sure you don’t have a collapsed arch in our foot. Aim to track the knee over the second or third toe. This is a great exercise to include in your warm-up. 5. Cool down Taking 5-10 minutes to do a cool down is great way to help our body begin to recover from a practice or game. As opposed to the warm-up, the cool down is a perfect time for holding static stretches and getting our heart rate down with some controlled breathing. Both of these goals can be achieved in the position below. Hanging out in this position for a couple minutes and doing some deep breathing is a good place to start a cool down. 6. Lift weights Strong muscles help protect your joints from injury. When it comes to basketball, strong glute and thigh muscles are particularly important to take stress off the knees and ankles. Pick one lower body exercise you like such as a back squat, front squat or trap bar deadlift and try to get one good session in every week. If you have games on the weekend, it may be a good idea to take a day or two off after your games before your weight training session. This will allow your legs to recover from your games as well give your body some time to recover from the weights before your next game. For younger athletes you can do these exercises with just your body weight or light dumbbells. 7. Get some sleep Sleep is the most important time when your body recovers from the physical stress of basketball and weight training. Ideally you get 7-9 hours of sleep every night. Naps are a great way to make up for a lack of sleep as well. Just be careful about napping after 3pm as this can make it more difficult to fall asleep again at night. This post was written by Right Way coach, Sean Stoqua, who currently plays for the University of Ottawa Gee Gees Men's Varsity Basketball Team and is currently completing his Master's in Physiotherapy Degree.
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3 Simple Tips for New Coaches
In youth sports, the coach often makes all the difference when it comes to how players and their families experience a sport, which ultimately has an impact on whether players return for another season. And believe it or not, a coach’s ability to influence players has little to do with what they know and more to do with where they place their priorities. This past summer I enrolled one of my sons in a local youth sports league. He’s 8 and didn't have a lot of experience playing this particular sport, but I figured this was guaranteed to improve his fitness and give him some exposure to another team sport. I encouraged him to give it a try. The fee was reasonable and I had had experience with the league many years ago when one of my other sons played. What could possibly go wrong? Well, sadly, my son’s experience as a player, and our family’s experience, left a great deal of room for improvement. From the stands, it seemed clear that it all stemmed from the coach. I am the first to acknowledge how difficult it is to coach. I have often said that being a coach is similar to being a CEO of a small business; you are not only responsible for physically coaching the team, but you become the treasurer, the equipment manager, the scheduler, the volunteer manager … and the pay really stinks. I commend, and appreciate anyone that is willing to step forward and volunteer. But taking on that responsibility means you are making a commitment to do more than just show up. My coaching career as a volunteer has spanned 10 years and I have the added blessing of getting to work with coaches and players in my day job with Right Way. Through our work with basketball associations, we are exposed to a variety of different philosophies, and have worked with parent volunteers with a great deal of sport knowledge and those with very little. At the end of the day, some of the best coaches we’ve seen, prioritize communication and the experience of being part of a team, over the x’s and o’s and wins and losses. They value the relationships they are developing. Now to be completely fair, many volunteer coaches seldomly receive proper training or support. They are expected to jump right in with little time to prepare let alone get connected to someone with experience. Well, for those willing volunteers, we have three pieces of advice. Get to know each player’s name What is a greater demonstration of your interest in a player, or family for that matter, than getting to know their names. It’s an absolute necessary first step in building a relationship, and speaks volumes to the kids on the team. Be a proactive communicator Miscommunication, or a lack of clarity can quickly build into frustration, or worse. Take time to let parents know how you intend to approach the season and share as much detail as you can. You’ll find that so many conflicts with parents can be avoided when there is an open channel to not only allow you to communicate but also for parents to ask questions. Understand what’s important to the association you are representing You aren’t expected to reinvent the wheel when you put your hand up to volunteer. Draw from resources already available through your association. Ask the executive to share with you the types of things they would like expressed, taught or represented in your coaching style so you can be an effective bridge. Coaches, in closing, ‘be interested!’ Take your responsibility seriously. You are ambassadors to the sport and you wield a great deal of influence in the lives of your athletes. Seek out the knowledge you require, but be sure to place emphasis in the right areas. And by all means, look for areas to make an impact on performance, but even more simply, begin by getting to know everyone’s name! This post was written by Right Way Director, Stuart Miles, who spends a great deal of time coming alongside coaches as they work to develop their athletes and shape their team's culture. Games Are Won in Practice The perception that practicing the basics has to be monotonous is simply not true. “Under pressure you don’t rise to the occasion; you sink to the level of your training. That’s why we train so hard” - anonymous (Navy Seal). In an age of instant gratification and one in which seeking out any and all personal exposure opportunities it has become hard to convince young players of the importance of patience and deliberate practice. Throughout our extensive work with players as young as 5 years old it is clear that the overwhelming majority of players would rather “just play” than patiently acquire (or for more advanced players, perfect) the necessary fundamentals. The AAU basketball culture that emphasizes maximizing game play and elevating the individual pursuits of players has further infringed on a coaches ability to get players to buy into a practice-first mentality. The Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) Model recommends a 4:1 practice to game ratio for athletes in the “Learn to Train” stage (8-12 years old). It is safe to say that players younger than 8 years old should almost exclusively be practicing. However, in our experience these ratios are simply not followed (oftentimes not necessarily due to the coaches negligence but other factors such as gym time, scheduling etc). We too often curtail to the cries of “more fun, more gameplay!”. The problem arises when players have not adequately learned the prerequisite skills and fundamentals which inevitably leads to bad habits, rule breaking and frustration. Relying too heavily on gameplay in the development stages may offer that instant gratification of players seemingly enjoying themselves, however, it will do them a grave disservice in the long run. It may be helpful to give an actual example to illustrate the importance of sufficient and intentional practice. We have had the privilege of working with many teams from several different associations in Ottawa and beyond, and one thing is consistent - if a team is struggling in games then there is a high probability that their practices are ineffective. More specifically, they are not adequately teaching the fundamentals required for the players to improve and grow (this will vary by age and level of play). We have witnessed practices where 11-12 year old players cannot consistently stop their body without travelling or almost falling over. If this basic fundamental movement skill is not acquired, then having success in a game situation with MANY more variables and situations will simply not be possible. These players must improve body control before progressing to more complex skills. From a team culture perspective there is also a standard that must be set in practice. If your team spends more time chatting, standing in long lines and taking water breaks than they do actively working on their game, seeing tangible improvement in games will be very difficult. Disciplines such as: arriving to practice on time, running to the huddle when the coach blows the whistle, making eye contact when a coach or teammate is talking and simply trying your hardest all the time will go a long way in helping your team build habits that will directly translate to on-court success. These should never be overlooked! Our suggestion for coaches and parents is to show your players/children the original Karate Kid movie. Essentially the main character, Daniel, wants to jump right into fighting before he’s learned the basics of Martial Arts. His trainer must teach him the nuances of Martial Arts among other things (patience, discipline etc.) before he is allowed to fight. The underlying theme of the movie parallels our approach to training young athletes - patience and practice! This idea of practicing and working on the fundamentals before progressing to a competition should be cultivated by more coaches and parents. Skill acquisition occurs at the earliest stages of development so it is crucially important that young players spend ample time working on the basics of the game BEFORE introducing more gameplay. There are many ways to engage young players and make learning the fundamentals “fun” without just allowing them to play 5on5 games. The movie even uses seemingly useless exercises (like the “wax on”,“wax off” of cars and painting fences to build discipline). It is the responsibility of the trainer in the movie or coach in a basketball context to be creative when teaching kids to keep them engaged and learning. The often elusive holy grail for a coach of young players is to have them learning and executing skills and fundamentals when they don’t even know they are doing it. This can be achieved through small-sided games, competitions, games with props, races etc. The perception that practicing the basics has to be monotonous is simply not true. Coaches just need to carefully plan their practices in order to maximize reps and fun at the same time - see our previous blog post for some insight on that topic. If you have questions about proper training for your team or child then please do not hesitate to contact us. We would be happy to point you in the right direction. |