Injuries.....

In my two "complete" seasons coaching at Emerson I have had four serious injuries: 3 ACLs (two of them on the same players) and a foot fracture. People began to say that I was working the girls too hard, they were simply playing TOO MUCH! I just could not get myself to believe it. They are high school girls, we would practice 6 days a week and they would practically never run. I am not a coach to throw kids on the line unless I am really mad.

May 2010 I went to a Nike Championship Basketball Clinic (which I recommend for every coach, once a year to attend) in Verona NY. One of the several speakers that weekend was ALAN STEIN. In my own words, Alan Stein is a strength and conditioning trainer with basketball tailored work outs to prevent injury and get athletes to perform better. He started his exercises with no shoes, working the bottom of the feet. He showed coaches several stretches with out having the players sitting down. Before he even picked up a weight, we were shown how to improve quickness and reaction with tennis balls working hand eye coordination all at the same time. I WAS SOLD!

Alan informed us on the common injuries for basketball players: feet, hamis, quads, lower back, and ACL. This information lit up brain cells in my head, in other words it hit close to home. My first year coaching my best player had a stress fracture in her foot and one of my starters had torn her ACL in a preseason game. My second year I had another ACL injury and a lower back injury. For the hour of his lecture my eyes were glued to his demonstrations and my pen never left the note pad. Since the lecture I have tried several of his work outs on myself and this fall I have designed a program for my squad. I have purchased one of his DVD's and download a PDF in season strength training program. I follow ALAN on twitter and facebook. YOUTUBE has a lot of his exercises and his website www.strongerteam.com has been a great reference.