Testing Athleticism

February marks another rite of passage for aspiring athletes. Every year, sports performance “gurus” prepare their athletes for the National Football League’s combine. Professional football prospects and team representatives descend upon Indianapolis, Indiana. There the athletes are put through a battery of physical drills and psychological tests attempting to identify elite players, determine their draft status, and predict eventual success on the field. Yet, according to a study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (Kuzmits and Adams, 2008), there is no consistent statistical relationship between combine tests and professional football performance. This is consistent with studies in other sports, such as handball (Lidor et al, 2005), rugby (Gabbett et al, 2007), and ice hockey (Vescovi et al, 2006). These studies noted that only the players’ skills, not their physiological characteristics were predictors of their playing ability. In other words, the only true measurement of an athlete’s performance on the field… is his performance on the field.

This is not to say that testing of athleticism does not have its’ place. Vern Gambetta defines athleticism as the ability to execute athletic movements at optimum speed with precision, style, and grace in the context of the sport or activity. These characteristics are all related to movement efficiency. Therefore, athleticism, by its’ very nature, aids and fine-tunes the performance of sports skills.

Analyzing athletic properties can provide a profile of an individual’s strengths and weaknesses. This is particularly true if the results are compared to the player’s performance. For example, let’s say that a right-handed pitcher is tested in the “5-10-5 Agility”. His score is rated as average when compared to other players of his performance level. However, further investigation notes that this pitcher is 0.1 seconds slower when moving to his left compared to the right. In terms of performance, the pitcher’s coach routinely works with him on locating his fastball to the far corner of the plate. One explanation of the pitcher’s poor performance on this task may be a lack of hip mobility when rotating his pelvis and trunk to the left. Decreased hip rotation can disrupt the sequential timing of events needed to place the throwing arm in the correct position to execute the throw. This ultimately results in poor efficiency of the movement and limited precision of the outcome (i.e. the inability to hit the outside corner of the plate).

Although athleticism may not predict future success in sports, it can be a useful tool in the enhancement of the skills needed for successful sports performance.

Burn The Ships!

This week I wanted to give you guys a story I came across, one that I hope impacts you as much as it has impacted me.

There was a great warrior that had to make a decision to ensure his success on the battlefield. He was about to send his armies against a powerful foe, whose men outnumbered his own. He loaded his soldiers into boats, sailed to the enemy’s country, unloaded soldiers and equipment, then gave the order to burn the ships that had carried them. Addressing his men before the first battle, he said “You see the boats going up in smoke. That means that we cannot leave these shores alive unless we win! We now have no choice---we win or we perish!” They won. Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to burn his ships and cut all sources of retreat. Only by so doing can one be sure of maintaining that state of mind known as "a burning desire to win", essential to success.

As a coach or a player, have you left yourself no way to retreat? Have you made the decision to make whatever your doing a success. Whatever you want, go get it. Cortez used this strategy when he came to the new world.

Brian Niswender, MA, CSCS
Co-Founder, BaseballStrengthCoaching.com
Owner, Warrior Sports Training

The New and Improved baseballstrengthcoaching.com

Recently, I was training a young pitcher. We were performing some agility drills and during a rest break, I was explaining to him the reasons for the drill and how they apply to his performance on the mound. We continued with our workout and during our strength training session, the pitcher said to me "I wish our coach knew some of this stuff."

That got me thinking. I have always emphasized educating the particular athletes that I was directly involved with training regarding total player development strategies and fine-tuning skill training for performance enhancement. But, I was missing a whole other population of coaches, athletes, and sports performance professionals that are also involved with teaching and training athletes. Baseballstrengthcoaching.com is now going through some construction. No longer is my focus purely on providing on-line training programs for baseball athletes. The "New and Improved" baseballstrengthcoaching.com is dedicated to further advancing sports performance enhancement and the functional training concept within the baseball community. This includes, but is not limited to coaches, athletes, sports medicine and strength professionals, scouts, and parents.

The goals of baseballstrengthcoaching.com will be to facilitate the improvement of athletic performance in the game of baseball, promote the sports medicine and performance enhancement professions, and provide up-to-date education programs to both the professional and general sports communities.

When fully up and running, baseballstrengthcoaching.com will provide the following services: a free online journal / newsletter / blog, professional resources and networking, on-line continuing education programs / courses, sports-specific seminars / presentations / courses, sports performance camps / coaching / training programs, and consulting programs.

The journal contributors and partners will be industry professionals with expertise and experience in all facets of the game of baseball. They will be responsible for producing articles and on-line opinion editorials in the areas of Sports Medicine, Athletic Training, Strength and Conditioning, Physical Therapy, Sports Nutrition, Sports Psychology, Sports Vision, and Coaching.

Baseballstrengthcoaching.com's inaugural edition is scheduled to launch in February 2010! It will feature articles about shoulder injury prevention, throwing programs, in-season performance training, and college recruiting.

Be sure to bookmark baseballstrengthcoaching.com!

David Yeager, ATC, CSCS
C0-Founder
baseballstrengthcoaching.com