Sports “Performance” to Sport “Preparedness”
I have been blessed with opportunities, both as an athlete and clinician/coach, to work with a variety of strength coaches/performance coaches and collegiate and professional athletes. The areas most overlooked and underappreciated are easily injury prevention and promoting career longevity. Why is this? Preventing injuries and helping an athlete maintain their body is not as sexy as improving a vertical jump or a 40 yard dash. Telling people you helped an athlete achieve a 4.4 in the 40 yard dash or jump in the high 30’s sounds better than, I helped them stay healthy this past season. It can also be difficult to quantify the lack of occurrence or decreased risk. But injuries have exponential costs to all parties involved: athletes (and their families), coaches, managers, owners.
In a 17 year study of the NBA and sustained injuries, lateral ankle sprains were the most frequent injury, followed by patellofemoral inflammation, lumbar strains, and hamstring strains. Patellofemoral inflammation caused the most games lost, followed by lateral ankle sprains, knee sprains, and lumbar strains. Consistent with current research and philosophies, many of these injuries can be attributed to muscle imbalances, faulty biomechanics, and poor proprioceptive abilities. Thus, many of these seem to be “preventative” injuries. Don’t get me wrong, if a player comes down on an opponent’s foot, an inversion sprain would be tough to prevent. However, ankles buckling with a plant or cut, should not be happening. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445097/
This season, the average salary for an NBA player is $7.7million. They play 82 games in the regular season. With some quick math, the average player costs a franchise roughly $93,900 per game. If a player was out for one week with an ankle sprain (let’s say 3 games), the franchise essentially lost $281,707.
Although these numbers seem large, they only scratch the surface of the exponential costs an injury can have. The franchise may be “out” money for the games the player does not play, but if this player is a high profile athlete, they may also experience a decrease in ticket sales for the games the player is out. The team could also be in a tight race for playoffs or in the playoffs, where elimination costs the franchise millions in potential revenue.
For the individual athlete, injuries can alter the course of careers, or potentially end them. In 2008, Derrick Rose was selected number 1 overall in the NBA draft. After 3 seasons, at age 22, he was the youngest player to be named NBA MVP following the ‘10/’11 season. During the ‘11/’12 season he led the Bulls to the number 1 seed entering the playoffs. During the first postseason game he sustained a non-contact tear of his left ACL. He missed the entire season following (‘12/’13) as well. Sadly, he has undergone multiple other knee procedures since this incident. Additionally, he has yet to achieve the same level of performance or competition and has bounced around 4 different teams since leaving the Bulls in 2017.
Unfortunately, most professional athletes don’t walk away from the game because they are ready to retire. Typically, the game walks away from them. Many athletes sustain injuries while playing, a number of these injuries result in an impairment in performance. As a S&C coach, PT, ATC, etc. it is our responsibility to collaborate and prevent these seemingly preventable injuries. Additionally, it is our responsibility to provide expert guidance on maintaining the health of athletes to promote career longevity.
I am not saying the training staff is to blame every time a player gets injured. Unfortunately, injuries happen in sports, but we need to do the best we can to mitigate these risks. I am encouraging professionals involved with elite/professional athletes to consider the goals of their training and program design. If you help an athlete like Derrick Rose jump 41 or 42 inches instead of 40 inches are you really going to up his game that much? Or, may time and effort be better spent training eccentric control of the glutes and hamstrings with proper biomechanics during jumping and cutting tasks. A car needs brakes more than it needs a 900 horsepower engine, athletes are the same.
Tom Brady is a perfect example of training for injury prevention and career longevity. I am not claiming to be an expert on his training protocol, but I know he is not hitting bench press and heavy back squats multiple times a week. This guy came to the NFL posting a pedestrian 40 yard dash time of 5.28 seconds, and didn’t even hit 225 on the bench press. Arguably, one of the, if not THE greatest quarterback of all time, is still at the top of the NFL at 42 years of age, where the average age is 26 years. His training regimen focus is sport preparedness and neuromusculoskeletal health maintenance; he is not trying to get bigger, faster, stronger, or more powerful.
When you are working with professional/elite athletes, the emphasis SHOULD NOT be on bigger, faster, stronger. These athletes are likely elite in part because they are already some of the biggest, fastest, and strongest. Making them a little bigger and a little faster does NOT equate to increased sport performance. The better they maintain their bodies, the more they can play, the better they can hone their specific skill set. Help them be prepared for the demands of the sport, help them stay healthy, help maintain their bodies. Too many careers are compromised as a result of injury. Not to mention, GMs, presidents, and owners will love you if you keep their investments in the game and off the IR. If you are a strength coach/PT/ATC who works with professional athletes and you have not adopted this mindset, your late to the game and you will be left behind.