Nik Popovic on Mobility vs. Flexibility, Teaching Deceleration, and Understanding Weekly Practice Load Cycles {Adelaide 36ers}

Inside the Episode

“Is more better? That’s the question I always ask. Can they train for three hours every day at game pace? No, you’ve got to periodize that week. So my advice to coaches is ‘which days do you want to really get after it’? Are there two days? Are there three days? Don’t think you can get more than three. You’re going to have to vary the loads and intensities throughout the week. With that type of flow, you’re then able to allow for active recovery, allow for the body to regenerate, continue to get better from a skill point of view, from a team point of view, and at the same time, not have Friday come around and no one can practice.” – Nik Popovic

Had a blast approaching the podcast this week from a slightly different point of view with the Head of High Performance and Strength/Conditioning for Australia’s Adelaide 36ers, Nik Popovic! Coach Popovic is a highly regarded performance coach and has worked with players and teams at all levels on both the men and women’s side of the game. We dive into practical areas of:

• Team Unity and Strength/Conditioning: In the opening conversation we hear Coach Popovic’ thoughts on how a strength and conditioning program fits in with the overall philosophy of the Head Coach and further instill cultural values. 
• Weekly Practice Load Cycles: Coach Popovic describes optimal weekly practice cycles when it comes to the load that a player’s body can take without putting them at risk for injury/burnout. Some great practical thoughts on putting together a weekly schedule that optimizes player and team energy come game day.
• Flexibility vs. Mobility and Teaching Players to Land: During “Start, Sub, or Sit?!” we have fun discussing the difference in flexibility vs. mobility, recovery after practice, and the art of teaching players how to land and decelerate.

Chapters

0:00 Aligning Strength, Conditioning, Performance, Team Unity

5:36 Injury Prevention and Strength Conditioning

18:16 Managing Practice Planning and Load

29:42 Prioritizing Physiological Difference Makers

34:49 Importance of Landing and Athletic Performance

47:17 Follow Passion and Make Career Changes

51:03 Wrap Up

Transcript

Nik Popovic: 0:00

Is more better? That’s the question I always ask. Can they train for three hours every day at game pace? No, you’ve got to periodize that week. So my advice to coaches is ‘which days do you want to really get after it’? Are there two days? Are there three days? Don’t think you can get more than three. You’re going to have to vary the loads and intensities throughout the week. With that type of flow, you’re then able to allow for active recovery, allow for the body to regenerate, continue to get better from a skill point of view, from a team point of view, and at the same time, not have Friday come around and no one can practice.

Dan : 0:42

Hi, I’m Dan Krikorian and I’m Patrick Carney, and welcome to Slappin’ Glass. Exploring basketball is best ideas, strategies and coaches from around the world. Today we’re excited to welcome Head of High Performance and Strength and Conditioning for Australia’s Adelaide 36ers, Nick Popovic. Coach Popovic is here today to discuss aligning strength and conditioning with performance and team unity, weekly practice loads for players and we talk mobility versus flexibility and teaching deceleration during the always fun start, sub or sit. A fun announcement on the podcast this week, as we’ll be adding a ton of new and original material to Slappin’ Glass Plus this year in the way of practical skill development and ecological drill design with our friends at the ProLane. Here’s more from them about the project.

The Pro Lane: 1:38

Hi, I’m Jake Grossman and I’m Drew Dunlop from the ProLane. We are excited to announce our partnership with Slapping Glass to bring you our modern game truth series over the next year.

Patrick: 1:47

This series will dive into what really happens in games, from identifying skills and concepts and film study to actionable insights that can be applied to your own practices and sessions.

The Pro Lane: 1:56

Join us as we guide you from theory to practice and practice to game day results. For more information, sign up for the Sunday morning newsletter or visit SlappingGlasscom.

Dan : 2:10

And now please enjoy our conversation with Coach Nick Popovich. Coach Popovich, it’s great to have you on. Thank you for making the time for us today.

Nik Popovic: 2:23

Thank you very much and I appreciate you having me on and looking forward to getting to know each other and unpacking some things all things in basketball and S&C.

Dan : 2:32

Absolutely. We’ve got a wealth of experience with this stuff from different stops from all over the world, and we wanted to start with this, and it’s the idea of marrying your strength and conditioning program with performance and team unity. I know a bit of a mouthful there, but something that is close to you, and we wanted to talk to you about how coaches can think about putting those two things together in whatever situation that they’re in.

Nik Popovic: 2:58

I do believe that they’re all the same and they’re all part of a big family. Strength and conditioning, performance unity, to me is all pointing the finger at the same area Physical performance. You need to have a physical fitness, for you don’t see someone at the top of their game, whether it be whatever sport tennis, baseball, football you don’t see those athletes being physically unfit, if you will. So the strength and conditioning process, or the journey, has to take you, not only physically but mentally, to a level where you can perform at the highest level, whether that be amateur, sub, professional, whatever it may be. And then I’ve worked with a lot of coaches and one comes to mind that used to say, way back early in my career the more you give to something, the less you’re willing to sacrifice and to give up on. So what that points to, in my opinion, when you’re looking at the journey that you take as a strength and conditioning process, as an athlete working through that, and you’re trying to perform and outperform yourself and get to a level you’ve put so much time in, you’ve put so much dedication in the physical side, the tactical side, the nutritional side, your whole body and your being, that brings you closer together not only to yourself, but if you’re doing that in a group of people and you’re all sacrificing for a common goal. Hey, I know, as a former amateur athlete, I’m not giving up on this shit. I’ve just put so much work in. Neither is the guy next to me, neither is the other guy next to me, or girl, or whoever I’m working within that team. Now, all of a sudden, we have a common bond and we’re working towards a common goal, and that starts from, in my opinion, when you rise until when you go to bed. It’s a process daily, weekly, monthly. So when you talk about strength and conditioning, performance, unity, you’ve got to go through a process to be able to execute what you want at the highest possible level. To be successful, you’ve got to do it within a group. I mean you look at any examples on this planet of team succeeding. Usually they’re pretty close, they’re tight knit, they’ve got a good rapport, they’ve gone through a lot of shit together, they’ve probably gone at each other and they’re performing. So to me, that’s what that phrase sort of means. It’s how you come together as a group, how you go through the highs and lows to achieve something at the highest possible level.

Dan : 5:36

One of the areas we wanted to dive more into is for coaches thinking about injury prevention and how strength and conditioning can aid in hopefully preventing or minimizing certain injuries, say early in the season.

Nik Popovic: 5:50

Now that’s a great question, dan, with my gray hairs coming through. I’ve been around for a while and this phrase of injury prevention or prehab work has been around for a few years now. And you look at it and I think back to when I first started my career and I think about where we’re doing injury prevention exercises. Or did we have a section of our daily routine where we term that injury prevention and that’s not being disrespectful to the term or to the concept of it? To me, when you break it all down, strength underpins everything, but it has to be optimal for that athlete. Let’s say, for example, weightlifters have different rates of strength or different levels of strength than a table tennis player because their physiological requirements are different for their sport. So if we talk injury prevention and we have strength as an underpinning, fundamental base for all movements, you think about it and I’m just going to digress a little bit here. You think about it. When we go through crises in our lives, the common phrase you’ll hear is stay strong with it, you’ll be fine. Stay strong the same in sport. To prevent things happening to your body, you need to expose your body to those high levels of stress within that sport. So we’re talking basketball here today. Jumping, landing, sliding, pivoting, rotating All the forces and the stresses that the body experiences through those actions have to have had some exposure in your preparation period. Those athletes have to be exposed to those forces. So how are we going to prevent injury? Make them stronger, make them land better, make them absorb force as well as apply force better, and with that you have an injury prevention program. You have that Now, all these wonderful exercises that have come over the last decade or two decades of hey, if we do this exercise, this will help stabilize the hip or the knee or the ankle and we can get that connection between the mind and the body and the way the nervous system works. They’re fantastic. But what happens is when you’re competing, as we know, at sport, and you’ve got someone that’s six foot six and 220 pounds or 240 pounds, and you’re now physically competing for space and you’re landing within the same cylinder, now you have to be able to absorb your force as well as someone else that might be leaning on you, boxing you out, pushing you, whatever it may be. So in terms of injury prevention, we always screen the athlete, we started a base and we find out where the weak points are in the chain that chain that runs from ankle through to head and we find out how we can help that athlete develop stronger bases, absorb more force, be able to spring off and jump on landing, do all these wonderful movements, and all of a sudden we have a less injured athlete because they can absorb more. Does that make sense? Absolutely? I kind of get passionate about this stuff because I like the fact that we are focusing on areas so that athletes don’t get injured. But unfortunately injury is part of sport. Now we can do all the right things, we can make sure that we’ve gone through all the processes, and sometimes someone lands on a foot, the ankle rolls and we have an injury. So to me, obviously, you’re not going to have people landing on uneven surfaces so they absorb and get used to that movement pattern. You don’t want that. But I’m thinking of athlete I had a few years ago and he’s actually in the NBA now and he’s doing pretty well. He was as strong as an ox. He was unbelievably strong in all facets of his physique, in all parts of his body, and an innocuous jump wasn’t even that high. And Tori’s Achilles tendon. Sometimes things happen and our job as performance coaches, strength and addition coaches is to minimize that, to make sure that there’s no stone uncovered when you’re looking at developing someone’s abilities to do what needs to be done within their sport.

Patrick: 10:05

Nick, one of the many reasons we’re excited to have you on is to help coaches who maybe don’t have a strength and conditioning expert or just it’s a small staff of just coaching basketball dudes. When we look injury prevention or the weak links or a player physiology, what would you recommend to these coaches, or what do you think they should have a baseline understanding of in order to help build strength in their players and maybe assess these weak links?

Nik Popovic: 10:32

Love the question. I was in that position many years ago and here in Australia, when there wasn’t positions where you could apply for to work with a team, it wasn’t really seen that way that was needed. So when you look at environments that are limited with their resources, the first thing you need to do and I kind of touched on it before is just to understand the physiology. What are we asking the guys to do? We’re asking them to sprint, to run at different speeds, to jog, to walk, to slide, to jump, to land. What energy systems are we using? Is it like a marathon where we continuously run? Well, no, that’s not the game of basketball. The game is discontinuous, repeated efforts of different speeds and sprints and jumps. And then, once you understand the physiology at the base level and what you’re asking your athletes to do, physically, you don’t need a lot of equipment. You can use the body, you can understand how to have a workout session, an injury prevention session, a strength session with minimal equipment and then, working on that premise, you can make sure that your athletes are gradually and progressively overloaded over time. So, for example, let’s say the season starts in four weeks. Time is four weeks enough. Let’s have a look at where the players are If you don’t have the resources. Visually, do they look like they’re in shape or are they carrying a little bit extra weight? Or are they a little bit weak through the ankles or the knees? When they land, oh, are their knees going everywhere. So what I’m referring to is how do they move? Can they get up and down the court or do they look like they’re really struggling? And once you make those assessments, make sure that you understand how to gradually progress that. Take example most basketball athletes are work with knee issues, ankle back, the requirement of the sport. You’ve got to be in that triple threat position, in that ready position to catch, to shoot, to pass. You’re always bent at the, or flexed, I should say, at the ankles, knees and hip. How is your posture? What is your core meaning? Your abdominals, your back, your glutes, what are they like? Do you have the ability to recruit your glutes? And what I mean by that is when I was a kid, no one really sort of taught me how to recruit my glutes, just run and jump, get out there and go. So can you put them in a simple position, just a simple holding position, where they can squeeze their butt cheeks and they can fire those butt cheeks Because the glutes are the knees. Best friend, get those glutes working. Takes the pressure off the quads. Your quads are still going to work and now your knees aren’t loaded as much. So my advice to someone in that situation, patrick, is that do a simple assessment squat, lunge, slide, run, jump as five, see how they move, then from there. If you’re not confident enough to put together, let’s say, six to eight exercises that they could do, ask for help, because there are so many people that would be willing to work with any teams at any level to get some experience. That might be finishing university or might have finished already and might wanting to find a. How can I get into sport? How can I work with athletes of all levels where they’ll dedicate their time? That’s what I did my first two years. I dedicated my time to one club and was willing to do it for free so I could help the athletes but also get the experience working with those athletes.

Dan : 14:06

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Patrick: 15:16

I’d like to hit on one thing. You mentioned overload over time and I’d just like to follow up on the concept of overloading and what that looks like, what that means and, I guess, differentiate between an unhealthy overload and the necessary overload to build strength and stability.

Nik Popovic: 15:32

When I think about overload. Everything in life is a load and a mentor of mine said to me the key to life is adaptation. We’re always adapting to something. In sport we know that we need to expose these athletes to a certain load, but we can’t do it quickly because it’s been shown in research that a spike in load let’s say you practice one hour every day and all of a sudden Monday, tuesday, wednesday and Thursday you’re going to practice three hours that shows that that spike in load will lead to injury because there hasn’t been enough time for the adaptation process to take place. The body loves to adapt to something really quickly because it might be taking it through a gruelling session. And the body is pretty adaptive in that it says right, I’m going to get used to this shit real quick. So it doesn’t hurt as much. If you don’t change over the course of time your loading or how much you’re doing, whether it’s running, lifting weights, whatever it may be playing basketball at a certain level, then you stop to progress. That concept of gradual overload over time is needed so that you can get better, stronger, faster. There is a ceiling effect, otherwise we’d all be breaking records in every event. We just keep training and the longer you’ve trained for 30 years, 20 years, 15 years, whatever it may be the better you should be. There’s a ceiling effect but with athletes that I’ve worked with, see where they’re at, push them within their capacities. Give yourself enough time. If you rush the process, injury will occur. Doesn’t matter how many injury prevention exercises you have in your program. If you don’t have enough time, pick the big rocks. Make sure whatever is important to them you’re working on. I was recently at one of the colleges in the US USC and the first thing I said to the athletes there I was working with the women’s program was you are basketball athletes, you are student basketball athletes. We’re going to use different modalities to help you get better. At the end of the day, you need to put the ball in the hole. You need to run back, play defense, you need to do all these sorts of things on the court. We might use components from weightlifting. We might use components from track and field. We might use components from athletics jumping, but you’re a basketball athlete. When you overload, make sure as you progress your athlete you’re not wasting their time or your time, especially their time. Use something that’s specific to the sport, having cross training in there is great If you have time. If you have three months and all the rest of it, you might only have four weeks, you might only have three weeks. Get straight to the point.

Patrick: 18:13

On that concept of the overload and progressing your athletes. I love to add to that. I want to ask how you help coaches with practice planning in terms of in a preseason setting, in terms of looking at frequency of practice, duration and load within this framework again of building them towards performance in the season Is more better.

Nik Popovic: 18:31

That’s the question I always ask. Second question can everyone train really hard and really long every day? Don’t think so, unless you’re a genetic freak. What are you trying to achieve in the week One? Say it’s preseason, like you just mentioned, and we’re working on a seven day cycle and we’re saying we’re going to give them Sunday off. We’re going to go Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday. Can they train for three hours every day at game pace? No, unless you’re a genetic freak and you can do that, which many of us, unfortunately, are not, you’ve got to periodize that week. My advice to coaches is which days do you want game pace levels if we’re at that block of training, are you now at the point where everyone has a certain amount of fitness and can get up and down the court? Three on three, four on four, five on five? Whatever it is, however, you want to structure it. Are they at that level? Yes, they are. Which days do you want to really get after it? Are there two days? Are there three days? Don’t think you can get more than three. You’re going to have to vary the loads and intensities throughout the week. Perfect example, let’s say coach says I want Tuesday and Friday to be those days. Okay, monday is going to be more of a skilled session. We might get up and down for two or three possessions in a controlled environment where it’s working on skill and working on strategies and we control the pace. Tuesday we’re getting after it. Five on five, rotating teams. It’s full. On Wednesday might be a recovery session, might be a video session, might be just some guys working on form shooting. So now you’ve gone Monday here, you’ve gone up in intensity on Tuesday, or we’ve dropped the time on Tuesday. Monday’s a bit longer, tuesday’s a bit shorter, wednesday’s right down. Now you’re preparing the body for another climb. Because if you start at Monday here and you’re hard and long, hard and long and what’s going to happen is that the body will not adapt in time, something will break. So we start at a moderate, we pick it up, we drop it down and then we’ll repeat Thursday we might lift it a little bit, not too much. Friday we’ve lifted right up. Saturday we’ve come down. It’s just some skill shooting, whatever it may be. Sunday off. With that type of flow you’re then able to allow for active recovery, allow for the body to regenerate, continue to get better and from a skill point of view, from a team point of view, and at the same time, not have Friday come around and no one can practice, because that aggravates coaches and strengthensian coaches is as you’re putting the work in we get to the main days and we can’t go, and then all of a sudden mistakes happen, turnovers, injuries and all the rest, so undulating your week. And again, this is research-based shows the most efficient and effective outcomes are achieved when you have the ability to change the volume and intensity per day.

Patrick: 21:28

Leading into a day off? Coach, should the practice before be a gradual descent or can you go from okay, we’re going to push them hard on Friday, saturday off? Should there be a steep decline or should it always be more gradual it?

Nik Popovic: 21:40

depends on your group, it depends on your cohort of athletes. Typically, if I look at the template we’re using now here with the Adelaide 36ers, that is exactly what I’ve just explained Wednesdays a day off, but Tuesday is our big day. Monday is a moderate bit of load in there, bit of intensity, not as high. Tuesday is our big day. Wednesday is our day off. So we’ve gone up but we’re really high. Now we’ve dropped off because this particular week we’re playing on Sunday. So the goal this week is Tuesday and Thursdays are going to be our intense days. Monday is a moderate day, friday is a real drop off and then Saturday is a travel day. So, to answer your question, the two days where they have completely off physically is Wednesday and Saturday, and the two preceding days, wednesday is a really high day and Friday is a low, moderate day. We’re changing up, but that’s because the game’s at the end of the week. So it depends on your group of players and athletes and what level they’re at and it depends what you’re trying to achieve, where you are in that week. That’s important.

Dan : 22:46

Nick, and you kind of touched on it a little bit. But how do you think about when we’re talking about this practice and flow, when now, say, like mid-season, and you have a couple of games a week on a Wednesday or Saturday or something like that, and then not even just a couple games a week, but then you also have a roster situation where, say, seven to eight players are playing the bulk majority of the minutes. Then you have, say, another five to seven players who are playing not very many minutes at all and trying to balance a practice around major minute versus minor minute guys and Everything in between. And how you kind of think about that?

Nik Popovic: 23:25

love it. Okay, I’m gonna answer this in multiple directions. At the end of the day, what we see is coaches, is what we see, and we make decisions and judgments on what we see, but we need backup. So I’ve been using for about six years now, the catapult GPS system, but within basketball, technically it’s not GPS because you have a roof so you cannot get satellite feedback. So it’s what’s called an LPS system local positioning system not to get too technical because it sometimes can be mundane and boring. Stuff it gives me allows me to see a lot of information about jumps, intensities, movement patterns, changes of direction, acceleration, deceleration. So I use that information and I send that information. Once I process it and look at who’s doing what and make Decisions on it. I send that to the coaching staff every single day and say, hey, this guy’s done really well. Hey, we need to pull back on this guy or these two or three need more work, and that Supports what I see. The coach and we as coaches can make decisions on what we see, but we also need backup. You know the old saying about video don’t lie, or tape don’t lie, or stats don’t lie, but you can interpret that a certain way. So then within that we’re trying to get a really good practice on a particular day and Examiner guys haven’t practiced or they haven’t played the last game. They need more work to ensure that their physiology, their tendons, their musculature system is all on Part of where it should be going into a game. So now we have to individualize, and Early on in my career I learned that what this point guard playing 33 minutes versus this point guard, backup guard, is only playing six minutes. They’re totally two different beasts. They need different things. So then you bring into the training plan a coach. These six guys are your main six guys. Let’s manage them a certain way on the practice day. These two guys are coming back from injury. Let’s get them in and out of practice with substitutions. These four or five guys I haven’t played a lot got to get them extra works at the end of practice. Can we do some individual three on three, two on two, one on one, shooting, whatever it may be, to get that load to a certain level so that when their opportunity comes to play a game, if they haven’t done that and all that they’ve been doing is what the bare minimum the whole team has been doing they’re in trouble. They’re not going to be able to handle the level of intensity and pace. It’s a real important factor to a have a great relationship with a head coach and Make sure you can have those conversations and be have daily conversations, see what you see, have your Data there that can help you support that. Going back to your question, patrick, maybe you don’t have those resources available. That’s okay. I didn’t have those resources available. Half my career my best mentors showed me how to watch people and watch how they move and are they moving efficiently? And do you see any deviations? Are they putting their hands on their hips? Are they on their knees? Are they bending over a lot? Are they kind of dragging the chain, if you will, and then say, hey, coach, I’m seeing this, are you seeing this? Maybe we didn’t manage this person a little bit differently. So you’ve got to be open. You got to have those honest and open conversations. Where it might not be favorable, the coach might want to sort of go a different way, but at the end of the day you’re trying to maximize the potential you have from those athletes on the days you want, and then You’ll find why. I found that works really well, because then the coach would come up and say oh, what are the numbers like today, what’s their loads or what their intensity is like, and you get that feedback, that loop system, when you’re working together.

Dan : 27:11

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Nik Popovic: 29:42

I’m gonna start with that because if they don’t trust their body they’re gonna be hesitant. And if they’re hesitant they’re gonna be overcompensating. I hurt my left ankle, I’m gonna put more on my right and then all of a sudden they’re gonna injure something else because they’re not free. They’re not free within their mental capacity. Then I’m gonna sub the realistic Expectations in that the longer they’ve been out, the harder it’s gonna be for them to come back in. If they’re averaging 20 points and come back in an average 20 unless you’re A genetic freak and you can just do it and you recover like Wolverine and you know nothing hurts you. And then Refitting into the group, I’m gonna sit on because with the coaching staff and the way I’ve always worked with that, You’ve got to be able to have the right pieces in place that help bring you in and refit into that group. They’re gonna see the work that you’ve put in. I’m referring back to the guy that had the Achilles tear when he refit into the group. He’d already done it so many times in practice that everyone had become Comfortable with him playing on the court and he was good to go.

Patrick: 30:47

Nick, within this conversation of trust, when the athlete is going through their Rehab or the recovery I know this a little bit of put on your psychologist hat how do you help, motivate or just manage athletes when they deal with the inevitable setbacks, frustrations, where they get impatient with the process of recovering?

Nik Popovic: 31:06

never bullshit them, never say anything, but the truth, let it suck. Be an ear, be someone for them to vent or talk to, if you have that working relationship with them, and Be honest and open, not in a way where it’s like doom and gloom. This is gonna take x amount of months or years or whatever it may be, but let them be who they are and Say, as cliche as it is, one step at a time again, and I’m gonna refer back and I’ll talk about him Openly. His name is Isaac Humphries. He couldn’t get out of a chair. He’s just under seven feet tall, maybe six, eleven, seven feet somewhere there. He couldn’t get out of a chair. When I first saw him and that’s no disrespect to anyone that has worked with him previously it’s just where he was at that time when we met. And the first week we didn’t get off the floor, we just stayed on the floor. So embrace where you are. I guess that’s what I’m saying. Embrace where you are. This injury sucks. Try not to make promises that you can’t keep. But I know I’ve said sometimes I get to know people. It’s it’s all about the person. It’s really all about the person. I get to know people and then I sort of kind of go down the line of hey, I’m gonna do everything in my power, as long as it takes or as short as it takes, to help you get back to where you need to Be. You’ll put yourself out there a little bit, but you got to back yourself as well with your abilities to help this person. And with Isaac that’s what we did. We started really slow, embrace where we’re at, took our time and it took like four months Before he got to where he needs to be. So we’ve worked together for a year and a half and I think that’s the approach the honest, open approach about what the situation is and, instead of focusing on the negative, if every day we can be that half a percent better, we’re on the right path our time frames, in your opinion, more Detrimental or helpful when dealing with an athlete and also with a coaching staff? Yeah, that’s a really good question. As they all have been over Time, I’ve learned that they help with at least giving a guide and a plan. People need to know a Journey plan, how long it’s gonna take. I’ve always tried, and in conjunction with the medical staff, to add a little buffer zone in there, because if you’ve said, oh, this injury is gonna take eight weeks, and all of a sudden, oh, they’re ready to go in six weeks, well, everyone’s happy. But if you’ve said it’s gonna take six weeks and it takes eight, now everyone’s pissed off, you know. So you better go on the other way. I do believe that it can be a detriment, but again, it depends on the person. Some people like to know it’s set out in Concrete and stone, but you have to understand, like we all think, recovery from an injury is this linear half. You do X, and and it equals Y and all the way. So keeps going. You know recoveries like this yeah, good days, you have bad days. You move forward three steps, you take one step back, you go sideways too, and so you have to make sure that it’s clear that those guidelines are just guidelines. They’re not set in stone.

Patrick: 34:07

Moving on to our last start subset for you in our research, we watched a clinic you had given and you mentioned the physiological Requirements of basketball. And then there’s also some physiological difference makers and that go into performance of a player. So we’d like to ask you, on three of them, which one, if a coach had to prioritize, you would prioritize these physiological difference makers? Option one deceleration in the athlete, option to how the athlete lands. Or option three helping the player with their change of direction.

Nik Popovic: 34:39

Oh, very technical. They’re all starts, but if I really had to pinpoint it as best as I could Landing it’s got to be number one. Let me ask you guys a question in your athletic performances, in careers, did anyone ever teach you to land?

Dan : 34:55

No.

Nik Popovic: 34:57

No, change a direction. Maybe perhaps, hey, at this foot, do this, do that Deceleration? No, not really. You just stop before the line type of thing. Again, I go to technology and if you don’t have technology these days you can get apps and phones, you can film stuff and you can break it down. They’re pretty inexpensive. But we have a system called the 4-Stick System, which is by a company called Valve, where guys will jump off and land and you can get how high you jump and all the rest of it. What it gives you is because it’s two separate platforms. It gives you an asymmetry reading hey, this person is landing and 30% of the load is being carried on the left leg. The reason why I say landings as a start on that is most injuries not all, but most injuries occur in some type of landing, mechanical movement. That’s not always the case. Sometimes they happen when you try and stop all of a sudden and everything just gives. That’s why I would put deceleration as number two, as a sub, and then change the direction would be the sit Just expanding on that. When you land, if your knees fly forward, if your chest dips, if your butt goes up in the air, where’s the force being absorbed? Is it through the most powerful part of your body, your glutes, your hips, your lower back that’s where all the big muscles are, your quads as well or is it being absorbed through your lower back and your knees and your ankles? To a certain degree it’s going to be absorbed through those areas anyway. You’re trying to minimize how much deviation is happening through those areas. If I send athlete land and that athlete’s knees is traveling forward and their heels are coming up, it’s a shearing force, it’s like a grinding force going through their knees. What’s their hips doing? They’re not absorbing anything. Just recently we’ve worked on a block of work with landing with our team here, and I always use the phrase land like a ninja. You never hear a ninja land, do you? You know land and then it’s like where are they? So giving them that cue and then showing them how to absorb through the hips and making sure their knees don’t go left and right and it’s good, planting of the foot and heels are down. That’s really important. So that, for me, is my start. The deceleration is important too, because you’ve got to be able to stop and you really can’t put enough emphasis on we all want to be quick and move quick and that’s good, but you’ve got to be able to stop too. Imagine a Ferrari without brakes. It’d be crazy, right Like I’m going to drive this shit, I’m doing 100 and I can’t stop, so brakes are really important. That’s why that one’s sick. And when changing a direction? When you change direction, sometimes, most of the times, you’re getting a deceleration anyway before you accelerate again Not all the time, but most times. And with that, teaching athletes of foot position, hip position, rotational position through the torso and how you can. We’re not all born like you’re saying, but we’re not all going to be genetically gifted. But even you’re saying, work is butt off to get to where he reached in the end, but you can become quicker even though you’re not a genetic freak. You can become quicker through efficiency of movement. In that way I’m going to go with that.

Dan : 38:13

Nick, a bit of a side tangent here, but I think, as it relates to all of these difference makers but beyond just strength and conditioning, some of the things we’ve talked about, how you think about, as there’s more and more evidence for to the importance of flexibility and mobility with your athletes, and how much you work and think about that with them as well, you can notice by the nodding of my head that I’m a big advocate.

Nik Popovic: 38:35

One of my mentors said to me what do people say when they get older? What do they say when they’re getting out of bed? Geez, I feel old today. Why don’t they say, geez, I feel immobile, not as strong, not as flexible, not as powerful? Mobility is one element. Flexibility is one element in the whole gamut and the whole big picture of everything. You have to have a certain amount of mobility. You have to have a certain amount of flexibility. There are two different things Flexibility can you do the splits? Why do you need to do the splits? If you’re a basketball player, you don’t need to. You might need to do it if you’re a ballerina or if you’re a gymnast Sure, I get it. And flexibility, to a certain point, depending on the body of the athlete that you’re working with Long levers, longer muscle tissue, longer tendons differences in flexibility. Mobility is a different thing. Mobility is now can you move for a bigger range of motion? Let’s take the hips, for example. You can only get a quarter squat. Well, if you’re going to be upright and you can only get a quarter squat through the hips, how are you going to slide? If you’re sliding, you need to get down deep and wide. The best defenders you can see they’re not always, but I’m being general here but usually they’re in a lower stance and they can move. Their center of gravity is lower and they can move left and right and they can change position. So big, big advocate of those two. The way I structure my programs, the first 10 to 15 minutes of every program works on hip mobility, ankle mobility, not so much flexibility. We lead that for the end of practice. If someone feels tight in a certain area, we just go through some passive, active stretching if need be. But then the research on that area is two-fold. It’s either forward, against, but for performance, mobility is the big one where let’s work on the first 10, 15 minutes of those areas, before we lift weights or before we do this session, then even a basketball session. Who has ever taught us? As a kid I don’t remember anyone teaching me how to turn. Well, if you’re running backwards and I’ve got to turn and go the other direction, do I just robotically turn my feet? That’s slow, or do I use my hips and get a rotational? And so I set myself up typically in a favorable position to sprint. So the ball’s gone over my head. Now I’m back pedaling Shit. Now I’ve got to turn, I’ve got to rotate a hip, I’ve got to set myself up and sprint towards that direction of that ball or the position I need to be. So that mobility is something that we work on before practice, before a session you know, the guys might get loose shooting. Then they’re with me for 8 to 10 minutes and we’re working on these things in a dynamic fashion so that when they get onto the court they’re now accessing those areas.

Dan : 41:24

Nick, if I could ask a quick technical follow-up when you say you’re working with athletes for 8 to 10 minutes on their hips and I’m assuming this is more than just stretching and its movements and things like that could you just go a little bit deeper on what it is that you actually would do in those 8 to 10 minutes with the athletes?

Nik Popovic: 41:41

Yeah, so if, depending on what the session looks like, if they’re just general shooting and they’re just kind of getting up warm, we might do some walking or jogging drills where they’re getting that rotation through the hip. But if they’ve moved at a certain pace and they’re already generally warmed up and they’re sweating and they’re caught, temperatures up and all the rest of it, I will start with some sliding movements Get down deep, get down low, slide three. Now I want you to do it properly, but I don’t want you to do it exaggerating the movement, where you’re going from a slide and you’re rotating that outside hip to go into a spring, and then we’ll build that up for a few minutes. So it’s movement, because to me strength conditioning is all about movement. We’re trying to supplement what we do in the weights room. The best training is the practice itself, but we’re trying to supplement what we do in the weights room so that they’re better, stronger, faster and more efficient in those movements and then going back to that eight minutes. Once we’ve moved through that, now we’re ready to go at game pace. Let’s say, coach has got three-on-three Italian drill or Tennessee drill or whatever may be. Next after the warm-up you’ve got to move at speed. So if we sit down and stretch, that’s counterproductive. If we just go through some easy patterns, we haven’t reached the level you need for that. First drill and the last few minutes might be five lines on the baseline and at each line there’s a cone and at each cone there is a ball, and then at the free throw line, extended or maybe even further if you want to do it longer. But I like to keep it short. You’ve got another five cones where coaches are at with a ball. Now they’re to close out drill and they’ve got their hand where they need and then I blow the whistle, I call go. Now they’ve got to rotate that left hip, drive towards where the other coaches are standing and close that out and then do the same, but with the opposite hip going back to the start. Does that make sense? So they’re going from one position and the ball’s been swung, and now they’re going to another position as quickly as possible but also decelerating. As they stop to guard the ball. The ball goes above their head. They’ve got their hand up, the ball goes down. Okay, a pass is coming. Now we’ve got to rotate that. So I don’t mind sharing that with you guys, because I think there’s no real secrets in this world when it comes to S&C. Nothing’s going to be reinvented. It’s how you bring things to the forefront with the athletes that you’re working with and then round table it with other practitioners, but that’s something we use every probably twice, three times a week with our team now, and so we’re working on mobility, but that mobility is in action, in movement.

Patrick: 44:22

You mentioned with flexibility. There’s different thoughts on pros and cons in terms of after practice. I would just like to know what you think coaches should be doing post practice to aid in the recovery and get the athlete ready for the next session, whenever that may be.

Nik Popovic: 44:36

There’s a lot of research on flexibility, on ice baths, on massage, on foam rolling, got to work with the athlete and give them as many options as you can so they can select what they like. It’s no use throwing someone in an ice bath if they hate it because they’re not going to want to do it and then just begrudgingly going to do it. And there’s a lot of research coming out that it might not be university published research, but there is some that I know of that I’m trying to get my hands on in terms of what the ice baths do for the immune system and how that works, not only recovery from exercise, but I like to have filled stations. You know, hey, there’s an ice bath set up. Whoever wants the tables over there that the AT is going to work on some tissue work for whoever wants, I’ll have a stretch station over here for anyone who wants to stretch down, who finds it beneficial for them. It’s got to be courses for courses. It’s got to be specific to that person. Make sure you hydrate, make sure you eat well. People forget that hydration and fuel food nutrition aids in recovery as well. And then, if there’s anything specific that people like to do, whether it’s going to the beach and getting into the beach and sitting in the cold water or going for a swim or whatever it may be. As a group let’s do that every so often. But if you’re talking about working with a team, it’s really simple to say hey, here’s a stretch station, here’s a few foam rollers roll out if you want. Here’s our physiotherapist, our athletic trainer is going to work on anyone who wants any work there. If you do have resources, great. If you don’t have resources, well then you work with those three Norma Tech compression garments. Not only the garments but the sleeves themselves. They aid in recovery. You might not have that. Everyone says I can’t afford an ice bath. Yeah, you can. You go out and buy one of those bins and make sure it’s a brand new wheelie bin. It’s not used. You drill a little hole and you go to the local hardware. You put a little tap on it, you fill it up and get a $5 bag of ice. It works the trick. So you supply those areas and now you can see who gravitates to where and what they prefer, and then you go from there, nick you’re off the start sub or sit hot seat.

Dan : 46:47

Thanks for playing that game with us. I like it. I like it, nick. Before we finish the show with our final question, thanks again for making the time for coming on. We had a blast today. We appreciate all the insight.

Nik Popovic: 46:57

Now I really appreciate Saturday and I’m very grateful for the opportunity and love meeting you guys and love the fact that we could have done this really really am grateful.

Dan : 47:08

Nick, our final question that we ask all the guests is what’s the best investment that you’ve made in your career?

Nik Popovic: 47:15

Really easy one for me, really easy one. I was in a different career. I was in the computer industry and this is in the late 80s to the mid 90s and I hated it. And nothing against the computer industry just wasn’t for me. And the best investment I ever made in my career was leaving the computer industry and going back to university to study. And that was a process in itself because I didn’t get in straight away. I had to go through a process and once I finished that degree allowing myself to put everything aside at a tender age of 29, 30, when most people have kind of established their careers a little bit, and dedicate myself to the career and say to people I’ll come and do this things for free, I don’t need a red cent. Now there’s a certain argument for and against that. I get that For me personally and I’m not talking about anyone else. I worked for the first two years in my career for free and I subsidized it by working other jobs within the industry Collectively together, leaving one industry, dedicating four years at university to be the best I could, to learn everything I could, and then working for free Collectively. That action is the best investment, because changing careers at the age of 30 is not that easy when most people these days are established, and I’m glad I did because I found my passion. I don’t really feel like it’s work. I get to hang out in wait rooms all day and basketball courts and tell athletes what to do, what not to do and all the rest of it, so it’s fun for me and, looking back on it, had I not done that, I would have been miserable and it would have been something that I would have regretted. And I didn’t. I went for it. So my advice to anyone in a similar position is follow your passion, go for it.

Dan : 49:04

Alright, Pat, always fun to get a little bit outside of our coaching tactical realm and talk to folks that are obviously very much within the industry but just a little bit outside of the norm for us and always interesting conversations. Always gets our minds turning and so that was a fun one today.

Patrick: 49:27

Absolutely A refreshing conversation, like you said, just to kind of stimulate us, challenge us on other areas. Nick was great, dave, great answers, great insight I mentioned before we came on. I think we didn’t want to get so specific in terms of if you have large resources, if you have staffs with sports and conditioning coach, but looking at through the lens of like, yeah, limited resources, smaller staff and not getting too into the details of reps, exercises, a weekly schedule, but talking in broad strokes about important considerations to strength conditioning, injury prevention. So really happy with how the conversation turned out and what Nick shared with us.

Dan : 50:04

Yeah, dive in right in. You and I discussed a bunch before about what to really hone in on of all the things that he does, and you found the article about the team unity, performance and strength and conditioning, kind of all those things being melded together, and we thought that was an interesting place to start. So kick it back to you on first takeaways here from that bucket, since you kind of were the one that found that article and thought of the idea.

Patrick: 50:28

I think what stood out to me was the team unity aspect and it can and does play a role. Sports and conditioning so like this, thoughts on that and just the interconnect. Enough of it all. Like you said, sports and conditioning training on the court off feel like with everyone working and competing towards one goal it does play a role in building the unity. You’re all in it together. Like you said, if you’re going to put more time and effort and energy into something, you’re going to give a damn or you’re going to care, and that includes when you’re in the weight room or on the track, whatever it may be, you know, training your body to perform. So enjoyed his opening thoughts on just the role and interconnectivity of sports and conditioning. I liked when we moved into I think it was your follow up or getting into injury prevention and again, understanding the strength underpins everything and kind of analyzing weak links. And then the thoughts he shared with us again when we framed it through limited resources, just like what coaches need to think about or know to kind of assess player strength, movement and helping with injury prevention.

Dan : 51:32

Yeah, this is always on your mind. As a coach, what am I doing to hopefully prevent injuries if possible? And, as we know and as he mentioned, there are certain things that just obviously sports you can’t prevent. But what, as a coach, can you try to think about in your realm, to help as much as you can? And so I really enjoyed how the conversation went there. You know we talked about strength underpinning everything, and just basically getting strength in all the functional areas is ultimately most important. So, and also go back to your point about the unity, and have really cool in the beginning, because, though this is good, all this stuff is helpful. I’m sure you’ve heard or you know, there can be times, though, if you’re not on the same page, that sometimes these things can seem adversarial to like a head coach, where if a strength and condition coach or trainer is telling you, hey, this player needs time off or can’t go as hard, and you’re trying to do a practice plan and all of a sudden two of your starters can’t go, that can sort of create some issues. I’ve seen it for sure, and so that’s why I think the unity part of it is like, hey, we’re on the same page, we’re all trying to have high performance. We’re all trying to do things a certain way is super important, and so I think when him speaking in that right away was really good, because obviously helps make his job easier and ultimately the coach’s job Definitely. I always needed Dave’s rest when the heart practices. For sure I always needed that day off.

Patrick: 52:58

Go to the trainer, tell coach about today.

Dan : 53:01

Tell coach my hips because I don’t want to do today’s practice from there thinking about practice.

Patrick: 53:10

I enjoyed our conversation we had with kind of practice frequency, load, overload over time and I liked how he approached her. The question he posed for coaches or coach to think about. I was like what days in the week do you want to really work them, really load them, and then kind of working backwards from there of understanding like, okay, we need to make sure we ramp them up, we got to make sure we get them rest and we got to get them back up so we can hit these peaks of our week. I thought was a good way to frame your practice week and think about how you’re going to add flow and not just trying to overload them for three straight days and then just so they crash by the end of the week. I really like that framework and how he talked about that and adaptation.

Dan : 53:50

Yeah, and I think that’s where I don’t know growth or whatever you would call it for coaches in general, where just understanding when you can or cannot really really push. And I think that’s always the push and pull like how hard you go before a game, how hard after, you know, and then there’s various things that buy into that. You know, did you win? I forged, you lose, did they play hard? You know all those little nuances of coaching. But I think that was really a good follow up and good area that you went down with him Just how to think about in a general sense, how much you can really overload players going to start, sub or sit. So we’ll dive into this first one here, which was the return from injury, and you and I spent, like we always do, quite a bit of time thinking, correcting, erasing, scratching out all sorts of things, but we ended up kind of continuing on the injury thread but we wanted to focus on the return, just even our own careers returning from injury, being out, but obviously coaching and having players trying to plug back in and just that delicate dance of the mental side of it for them, and there’s a lot of factors and so we wanted to kind of pick his brain. That was the background on it and so I’ll throw it back to you on any first takeaways on that start subset.

Patrick: 55:01

I enjoyed his answer. It was kind of a all of them, yeah, answer. Spanish style yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, but I did appreciate how he framed it in terms of the whole process start to finish, as you don’t get them healthy and then three days later they’re back on the court. You get them healthy with the process to build the trust and you get them on the court. They’re building the trust they’re incorporating back in the team. I liked how he laid out the framework of a full recovery. I was interested in the performance expectations where you’re a certain caliber player I mean you still are, but from when you were injured like I said, 20 points to just tempering or making it realistic for the player that first came back. You’re going to be physically ready, but there’s still stuff that you cannot duplicate in a practice, that are going to be in a game. I think that’s what you were trying to hit on too when we were formulating this question. That it’s for sure, practice performance. But then in front of the lights are on and the expectations, the pressure that one athlete can kind of put upon themselves to immediately pick up where they left off.

Dan : 55:59

Yeah, and just to talk about your point, we did talk about the player feels ready in practice, but then when the lights are on, it’s always different.

Patrick: 56:07

Not to look like press.

Dan : 56:09

Yeah, blood pressure is a little bit higher, all those things that we know on game night. And oftentimes strength and conditioning coaches or trainers they hear a player’s thoughts and feelings sometimes before a coach does because, like he mentioned, I think that what it dovetailed into this conversation was about trust that he builds and I think that was really cool to kind of hear his thoughts. But, like so many times, a player will tell strength and conditioning coach things that they might not tell a coach just because they’re not in charge of their playing time or they’re just a safer source to go to, and so I think he takes that super seriously to build that trust and so he can really have a good gauge on where they are mentally with all this stuff.

Patrick: 56:50

Yeah, they’re an ear for the athlete too. When we have the conversation about just the struggles of rehabbing and the setbacks and the frustration that it breeds and getting into that conversation. And when he said, you know, you just got to help them embrace where they are, kind of paint the picture of that. This is the process, yep, not to bullshit them. It’s tough for any athlete when all they want to do is be on the court and now they’re not with coaching or, I think, any. When you’re in these positions we’re all part-time psychologists in some way or having to analyze players thoughts, feelings and channel them and funnel them into productive outcomes. Moving to our last start subset on the difference makers, I’ll let you kick it off here. Kind of your takeaways there.

Dan : 57:31

Yeah Well, kudos to you again. I mean, that was something that you saw a discussion or talk that he had given, and he had mentioned these things, and so we thought it’d be fun to start subset three of these difference makers that he had talked about, and I just really loved his start landing, and so true, I mean basketball, how many times are you landing from a jump or from a pivot or whatever it is? I mean, it’s a lot practices and games, and so just thinking about teaching players how to properly do it and then you kind of got into analyzing with different technology they have, which is awesome. Not everybody has those things, but just even thinking about that was really good. And then, honestly, I also really did, like it was interested in the deceleration part and just teaching players to stop and slow down. And I think, like from a skills standpoint, you and I have seen a lot more really good skills trainer teaching players how to decelerate in the lane and traffic, and you can probably visualize Luca Donczik in the lane, euro stepping at half speed and finding a guy opposite and just like the skill of slowing down and it slows down your mind for decision making and then also, as he talked about your body to be able to handle it and function, I thought it was good too.

Patrick: 58:41

I also enjoyed your follow up with the mobility and flexibility, the differences, distinctions between the two. Also the post practice kind of recovery. I really appreciated his thoughts on just give them the options whether they want to stretch one on a foam roll or if you can do ice baths. I like that approach to recovery after a practice.

Dan : 59:01

I liked your follow up too. First of all, the mobility thing was really interesting with the hips and all that, and he gave some really nice examples. He was nice to say like what do you actually do? Because I do think players struggle with that stuff. But I love hearing about the end of practice and I think to his point. If you tell players the best thing to do is ice bath, but they hate it and then they’re not doing it, it’s worse. There’s a bunch of things that have proven to help in the recovery and whatever you feel best, doing something is better than just telling them one way to do it only then they don’t maybe do it or don’t love it. But giving them options is great.

Patrick: 59:33

Making them do something begrudgingly, I don’t think is going to have the same effect rather than doing something they’re committed or they believe to which I think applies a lot of things beyond just your post practice recovery.

Dan : 59:46

Yeah, exactly, but that was good. I just think there is a lot of science about all those things being helpful, and so let’s find what’s best for you. Any, as we close here, any misses for you or anything kind of wish we went deeper on.

Patrick: 59:58

I was interested in the nutrition aspect of it. We’ve mentioned a little bit with the post practice and the role it plays with all these misses that tend to be time constraints. But if there was one thing I think I would have loved to hear is thoughts just on nutrition and again like a baseline knowledge coaches maybe should have an understanding of pre-practice, post-practice during the week, like just what you should be educating your players on eating.

Dan : 1:00:22

Yeah, it could have maybe flowed into that conversation about the days where you’re loading or the cycles of practice where, like, hey, daisy really needs to eat more carbs or protein or whatever it is, to kind of match where you’re at in your cycle of practices and games and all that. Yeah, what has definitely been interesting. It wasn’t a miss, but I probably could have heard more follow-up on his best investment in the sense of I just always think it’s interesting when someone career changes, like he mentioned that late. I don’t know being interesting to talk to him even deeper about that whole process and he spoke well about doing stuff for free and kind of getting his foot in the door. But we could have kept going on. That and just sort of that change in your life and career, I think is always interesting. So that would have been interesting to hear. But maybe get a chance to meet up or something. Person will ask him about that more, of course, for beers. Yeah, absolutely, pat. If there’s nothing else, we can start wrapping this up. Sounds good. Well, we thank Nick again for coming on. We’re some of the best of luck this season. Thanks everybody for listening. We’ll see you next time.