Aside: How can the S&C coach help us? (Many of us have to be our own.)
What are the DOS and DON'Ts?
Where and how does fatigue show up?
"Be a quality control manager...the biggest stressor...is practice."
"Set the table for head coaches to be better."
"Create a robustness...to withstand the stresses put upon them."
He advocates that the strength coach creates a bigger vessel.
"Have a systematic approach...specific work equates to success." (Efficiency)
Chris Oliver, "We overtrain physically...and undertrain mentally."
"Have the adaptation that we think we are getting...less stress on the body...to get more impact in the game."
"The most specific way to prepare (to play) is to play."
"Nothing ever prepared me for the first four minutes (of the first game)."
He doesn't want to be repetitive. "Running at high velocity, sprinting and jumping makes the body stronger."
Chris Oliver, "Lose the fluff."
"What you need...is stimulation...engage the athlete from the neck up."
"That guy threw up so it must have been a hard day...it does nothing to get better." (How many of us have been on the dishing or receiving end of this mentality? Hand up.)
"The most skilled players...are 1) tougher and 2) more confident." (Oliver)
"Build off quality...start off in a small amount of space...challenge the skill through duration."
"What are we trying to do...high precision...at high speeds...to make the right decision."
(Oliver) "Slow learning 5 on 5 is better than fast learning 5 on 0...game speed is change of pace."
"Heart rate monitoring doesn't capture the efficiency of a player." Poorer players use physicality to overcome lack of basketball IQ.
"Offseason you need to maintain as much fitness as possible."
"Allow the system to recover (with other training like pool sessions)."
"If you have (limited) time, move the biggest rocks - the technical and tactic aspects of sport. Any jerk can take your kids outside and condition them."
"If I am going for max efforts jumps, they need rest and recovery."
"I would count sets and reps in the skill work...acceleration, deceleration change of direction, and vertical displacement...dribbling, change of direction, finishing."
"If I am trying to develop power...and I am tired at the end...I didn't develop power."
"Explosive work...I need to have them rest a lot longer...(e.g.) a 1-to-5 work to rest ratio." (We can interrupt high intensity with lower intensity, e.g. free throws)
"Keeping quality high is the number one thing."
Overtraining with fatigue isn't making the player better.
"If I decrease the volume of sessions, the only thing to keep the work the same is intensity."
"More work is not sustainable...a reduction in volume...you should see more intensity."
"We've got to stop training guys like they are Honda Civics."
"The central nervous system (CNS) is the number one determinant of readiness."
"Grip strength is a great determinant of the CNS." If grip tests are all dropping, the players are fatiguing...it may manifest as injury or poor performance. (Aside: Research has shown that grip strength can be related to and predictive of other health conditions (though not causative). Let me break down some of the health conditions grip strength can be positively related to: bone mineral density or osteoporosis, increased mortality from cardiovascular disease and from cancer in men, frailty and disability later in life.)
"The best athletes...are dancing...attempting new dunks...stimulating themselves...then you see them fully rest and recover."
"You can't blanket it that everyone should do the same thing." (Let cheetahs be cheetahs.)
"The best warmup is individual and specific." - Oliver
"Other sports (soccer and rugby) have done better than basketball at small-sided-games." Using constraints (e.g. smaller space) makes athletes operate at a higher intellectual level. This is more efficient.
"The environment that you put them in can only elicit a specific response." (Spurs versus run-and-gun team)
Who you are determines general prep, specific prep, and basketball. (Younger players need more basketball. This is tough in the current environment.)
Silos lead to poor performance. Integration is needed between coaching, strength and conditioning, and sports medicine. Physical training needs to be matched to the player.
He uses grip strength to help team ratchet the work down (if general fatigue).
Oliver argues that S&C coach should define techniques, e.g. closeout. Short answer is "what do your best athletes do?" "Put them in an environment to figure it out."
"Foster an environment...to help them do it better."
"Find the athlete that does (it) best and have others watch."
"Strength coach can give the coach information about athletes' limitations...e.g. we're not athletic enough to play man-to-man." (For those of us who will never have an S&C coach, we have to figure it out ourselves.)
"At the end of the day, the head coach (HC) is always right." The S&C coach has to help MATCH the training to the HC vision.
"You gotta play lower." (Maybe not) There's a reason why tall guys play tall. Against better competition, players have to figure out an athletic edge. "The best players have the ability to play low..." but they don't always play low. "Understand the athlete you are working with..."
"I'm trying to become a solution specialist." He found that taller athletes couldn't necessarily dive or fall well. He created an environment to help them interact with the ground. That's both injury mitigation and performance...if you can't fall and can't get up...then you don't get back on defense.
"Microdosing"...what if I cut volume (of warmups) down and got more short lifts in? His evaluations help adjust the coaching intensity (if guys were run down).
He was able to get resilience (physically) through microdosing.
(Oliver) "Block training can become mindless."
"Block practice works (in the lower levels)..."
"Add a stressor to challenge their skill set...add additional stimuli to push the motor learning."
"How can we be more efficient?" (That is the ultimate benefit of S&C input.)
Give me THREE takeaways.
- A modern or futurist coaches an individual's S&C to the player and the goal of play.
- Don't blindly think that more is better. Efficiency rocks!
- The cerebral player has more efficient physical resources. Build the BB IQ.
Lagniappe: Schlesinger innovates.
Lagniappe 2: Overload starts with occupying defenders?
Great deception in this concept https://t.co/2TqwJncnFZ— Josh Drinning (@Drinning) June 11, 2020
