Staff Sports Performance Sports Medicine Performance Testing Sport Specific Tests Power Profile Identifying Talents Training Tips: "What are you training for?" Article of the Month "Jump Training"		What Are You Training For? by Ken Vick As a strength coach who has worked with athletes from the grade school to pro and Olympic levels in many sports, I often find it interesting when you see what some teams consider a strength & conditioning program. To some degree basketball coaches and players have accepted that a strength & conditoining program is needed. I would like to share some ideas with you about how we approach basketball performance enhancement at West Coast Sports Performance. I would also like to challenge some of the commonly accepted ideas about why and how to do things. When I am asked about training programs, the question "What’s the best ….?" is often asked. I usually answer, " What’s your goal and why?" It amazes me how often this question throws them. A look of confusion is what I receive. I believe the answer is the foundation of your program. When speaking with basketball coaches, players and strength coaches I pose the question, "What are you trying to accomplish with your strength & conditioning program?" Many answers are given. Get Stronger and/or Faster. Get bigger. Jump Higher. Get In Shape. Prevent Injuries. The #1 answer is GET STRONGER. These all may be important, but they aren’t the real goal for any team or athlete. All of these are secondary goals. When you meet your opponent at the start of the game, do you meet out at center court and discuss your lifting? "My team squats more than your team." "We sprint faster than you guys." "Our vertical jump average is 3" higher." Is that what you hear? NO. The primary goal is to play better. It is performance on the court that counts and that’s it. If you squat more, but aren’t playing better, does it matter? Jumping higher may not matter to the guy that’s 7’ and already plays above the rim. This is basketball. It’s a sport. It’s athletic. Even preventing injuries is a secondary goal. The reason you want to prevent injuries is to stay in the game and win. Unfortunately the strength training focus in the United States has traditionally been on stronger and bigger. The influence of bodybuilding and powerlifting has been enormous. Lift more, push more, bigger, stronger muscles. These are the call to action. Everyone is focused on force production. That’s even the name of the field, "Strength & Conditioning". Force production is important, but what game are they watching? You will see force production all over the court. Examples include jumping, sprinting, pushing and sliding. Is that all you see though? Watch the game. Each of those important elements has an opposite. Landing, stopping, standing your ground and cutting all are required. These are all examples of Force Reduction. Adding those elements makes it athletic. That’s basketball. I would also say that this is part of why many coaches have disavowed strength & conditioning. They have probably experienced programs that are focused only on force production. The coaches are focused on something else. They’re focused on the court. Force production is important and can help a basketball player, but it’s incomplete if you don’t also improve force reduction. The link in the athlete between these two action types is the NeuroMuscular Sytem (NMS) This is an idea that has been promoted by experts such as Gary Gray, PT, Mel Siff, Phd. And Vern Gambetta. They all express the importance of developing the NMS for an athlete. That’s the area that can produce dramatic improvements in athletes. Improvements in the game, where it matters. The NMS involves all of the senses that tell the brain where the body is at, where it’s going, how fast it’s moving, how hard it’s pushing and much more. It facilitates the coordination of the muscles and joints producing and reducing force. This is why we focus on athletes training movements, not muscles. The brain and NMS are not organized or programmed in terms of muscles. They work in movements. Training muscles individually, in isolation doesn’t help the athlete. Train the movements of basketball, with coordination and explosion, producing and reducing force. When we do decide to do this, we need to consider the role of speed of movement. Whether the player is producing the force or reducing it, it is going to be quickly and explosively, more often than not. Power, explosion, force and strength are words that are often interchanged, but they’re not the same Is there any coach who’s looking for a slower basketball player? In basketball when you produce or reduce force it’s generally done quickly. When more speed is required, then it’s power that is needed. Power is the combination of both force (strength) and speed. When you cut, first you reduce the force from going one way, and produce force to go another. Both of these are done quickly, powerfully. This is everywhere on the court. CUTTING. SPRINTING. STARTING / STOPPING. JUMPING / LANDING. All other things being equal, the faster athletes win. If this is the game you see being played, why would you use primarily slow movements with lots of strength, but no speed in training? We don’t. Let’s use squatting and jumping as examples. They are the same basic movement. A squat can be done by some athletes with several hundred pounds. That’s producing a lot of force. The problem is that it takes the athlete several seconds to develop this force. In a jump you have only hundreths of a second to produce the force. That’s power. Squatting will help some. It’s an important component we use, but it’s not the whole answer. Your training needs to have a strong emphasis on developing powerful movements. This is done through explosive weight training, ballistics, medicine balls, and plyometrics. The bottom line is that you have to stop and think about what you’re training for. If it’s for better performance on the court, then you better look to the court for what a basketball player needs. Focusing on the weight lifted and the size of muscles isn’t the answer. Your strength & conditioning, athletic development program can help if it’s focused in the right direction.