🥇 The Athlete Development Journal

Simple solutions for complex athletic problems.

For the full story, listen to this episode on your way to practice. ⬇️

You can also listen on ​Spotify​ or ​Apple Podcasts​.

If you just want the quick-hitters, you can read the summaries below. ⬇️

What’s going on at GT?

From our athletes:

• Maddie Watkins has improved dramatically, with PRs across the board. Her 1/10 Fly dropped from 1.95 sec to 1.78 sec. Her standing vert went from 13.4″ in June to 16.9″. Her broad jump went from 65.5″ (5’5.5″) to 73″ (6’1″). She also showed up twice a week all through cross-country season.
• Andrew Detruf hit a standing vert up from 15.7″ to 20.9″. His broad jump went from 62.5″ (5’2.5″) to 69.5″ (5’9.5″), a 7″ gain. His X/10 Fly dropped from 1.52 sec to 1.40 sec, and his 10/10 Shuttle R went from 4.83 sec to 4.29 sec.
• Kaidence Miller went from a 55″ broad jump to 60″, a 5″ gain. Her X/10 Fly dropped from 1.52 sec to 1.45 sec.
• Alayna Cramer hit a 13.8″ standing vert. Her two-foot approach vert went from 85″ (7’1″) to 95″ (7’11”), almost a full foot.
• Blake Cummings set a 60-yard dash PR at his most recent showcase. His 1/10 Fly went from 1.82 sec to 1.69 sec, and his X/10 Fly from 1.43 sec to 1.34 sec. He has added about 5 lbs of muscle. His 10/10 Shuttle R went from 4.67 sec to 4.29 sec.
• Hunter Hudson hit a big seated vert PR, going from 16″ to 20.5″. She is running long distances and feeling healthy!
• Jimbo Barry hit 115 lbs SB Squat for a clean six piece nugget.
• Drew Slike, or should I say Air Slike, the dunk man himself, hit a PR 11 inch vertical jump.
• Mike Cluss hit a big time max watts PR, going from 504 watts to 661 watts!

In our business:

• I’m really excited to ramp up our staff continuing education. I’ve got a really bright, really experienced roster of coaches, so I get to start diving into material we haven’t gotten to before. I’m planning some off-site staff learnings, as well as some in-house con ed days. We’re going to dive deep into biomechanics, sprint analysis, and gymnastics coaching as some of our earliest areas of focus.

Physical deep dive: You should sprint before you jog after you tear your ACL

When it comes to ACL rehab, I’m a firm believer that you should sprint before you jog.

Before you go and write me off as some heretic or lunatic, hear me out.

Most other clinics initiate “conditioning” with a “return to running program” right after strength.

Here’s the problem: If you had a patellar tendon (BTB) or quad graft, long distance running is almost certainly going to flare up your knee.

If you came to see me, well actually if you tore your ACL at all, you probably care a lot more about being explosive, stopping, starting, and changing direction than you do about running in a straight line for miles on end.

With a flared up knee, we then can’t attack the high rate of force development that you need to progress. So, we’re stuck in knee pain purgatory.

Chasing after conditioning at the sacrifice of strength, speed, and power is nonsensical for athletes who rely on strength, speed, and power.

“It doesn’t matter how many times in a row you can’t dunk a basketball.” – Charlie Francis

You might be thinking “why does jogging make your knee angry, but sprinting doesn’t? That seems backwards?”

Great question. The poison is in the dose.

Over the course of a mile jog, you’re going to have roughly 1,500 foot contacts. Over the course of a sprint workout, you’re going to have like 50 foot contacts.

• 1,500 x 5 = 7,500x BW cumulative force
• 50 x 5 = 250x BW cumulative force

The cumulative force is 30x higher in a jogging workout than a sprinting workout.

What’s going on in my life?

• Grace finished up teeball and enjoyed it. She tried really hard, stayed focused, and was very coachable all season. My favorite part about it was her hustle. She chases so hard after every single ball. Is abandoning your spot ideal for the sport of baseball? No. But, it showed she was engaged and trying, so I would not coach her out of that for a few more years. She’s crushing her gymnastics and doing really good in pre-school.
• Evie is such a superstar listener at soccer. She’s almost done with the season and she’s become more independent with it each and every week. She’s also now able to do a forward roll on a flat surface all by herself at gymnastics. I’m really proud of her as well.
• Rachel has been feeling MUCH better the last couple weeks of the pregnancy. Which has been a blessing for us all. Fingers crossed the worst of it is behind us and she can have a smooth pregnancy the rest of the way.
• I’m training to play in a Turkey Bowl with 4 objectives:
  1. No major injuries on game day.
  2. Have 4/10 or less pain on game day.
  3. Be back to 0/10 pain within 5 days of game day.
  4. Have fun playing a game I used to love.

Mental deep dive: How to make decisions in a complex medical system

Decision making is hard. Decision making is even harder when you add layers of complexity. Decision making is insanely hard when you add smart authority figures telling you conflicting things.

Welcome to our medical system: all the complexity and none of the consensus.

• Does PRP work? Ask 5 different sports med doctors and get 5 different answers.
• Is dry needling voodoo or real science? Really depends on which physical therapist you ask.
• Should you get surgery? One world-renowned orthopedic surgeon says yes, the other says no.

Making decisions isn’t easy. But, it can be easier if you have a good decision making process. And I’ve got a good one for you.

You take the intervention in question (PRP, dry needling, kinesiotape, red light therapy, etc.) and filter it through 2 frameworks: the proven to nonsense continuum and a cost vs benefit analysis.

With the Proven to Nonsense Continuum, you analyze the literature and bucket the intervention into one of 5 categories:

1. Proven
2. Promising
3. Fuzzy
4. Noise
5. Nonsense

Then, with the costs vs benefit analysis you weigh out all of the possible negatives against all of the possible positives. Costs to consider can include, but are not limited to: financial, time, and health.

Let’s wrap it up with a couple of important things…

1. This newsletter and podcast are completely free. I spend many hours each week researching, writing, illustrating, recording, editing, and uploading. The best way you can support them and allow them to continue is to share them with people you know. You can just send them to ​gtperformance.co/newsletter​ and they can subscribe there!
2. Everything in these newsletters and podcasts, on social media, and on our website is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as medical advice for you or your athlete. Consult directly with a healthcare professional.

Thanks so much for your help in spreading the word about athlete development!

Go be great out there,

Zach

Dr. Zach Guiser, PT, DPT, CSCS