The injury occurred during a typical basketball maneuver – an innocuous leg drive off the floor to get around an opponent. It was not akin to the nature of the University of Louisville’s Kevin Ware’s horrific injury, suffered in the NCAA Tournament, where extreme force was placed upon the right leg upon landing from an all-out leap in the attempt to block a shot against Duke.

So, what can we take from this unfortunate injury to a star player during a seemingly normal play? Not to point to a specific culprit for the reason Kobe became injured, but let’s look at some facts. Kobe entered the NBA at the age of eighteen. He went directly from high school to the pros. No big deal because it has happened a number of times. However, he has now played sixteen NBA seasons since 1996. He is 34 years old and has logged this:

• 1,239 regular season games totaling 45,390 minutes (756.5 hours) played at an average of 36.6 minutes/game.
• 220 playoff games totaling 17,281 minutes (288 hours) played at an average of 39.3 minutes/game.
• 14 all-star games totaling 488 minutes (8.1 hours) played at an average of 27.7 minutes/game.

The NBA pre-season starts in October and conjoins with the regular season in November, which runs through mid-April. Add playoff games that run through May and this results in eight months of muscle, tendon, and ligament stress that must be dealt with each year. Multiple years of running up and down the court, jumping, landing, planting, turning – often times awkwardly – can take a toll on the musculo-skeletal structures. In this way the body is similar to a rope or other connective device that experiences physical wear, tear, and erosion. Your car tires and car engine components are other examples of long-term use resulting in eventual breakdown.

Add to this the numerous hours Kobe spent in team practice sessions and working individually on skill work. These sessions further compounded the volume of the stress load his body has had to deal with.

I find it remarkable that more injuries don’t occur among veteran NBA athletes due to the career volume of joint stress they accumulate. Much of their ability to tolerate this can be attributed to safety-oriented strength and conditioning coaches and vigilant head basketball coaches who understand the wear-and-tear factors for these long-time elite players. These coaches know the human body can only take so much before all hell breaks loose, physically speaking.

But we are talking about Kobe Bryant, a new Laker head coach, and the team’s 2013 playoff journey. Expectations of this organization are high, and the team has hung its hat on Kobe – now an older and more physically-stressed player – throughout this season. Certain teammates have failed to live up to their potential over the course of the season (many due to injury) so they have leaned on him significantly.

But here is the dilemma: we know the Lakers need Kobe to win NBA titles. But to do this, the 36-year old, sixteen-year veteran will accumulate even more muscle, tendon, and ligament pounding, soft tissue micro-tears, and other repetitive force-producing events. The reality of this give-and-take situation is the structural integrity of his musculoskeletal system will be compromised. And not surprisingly, as it occurred in this case, the structure of his Achilles tendon was breached during a normal basketball maneuver.

Was this injury preventable? Possibly. Are risks taken for the purpose of winning in a championship? Absolutely, yes. Do you use the talents of a key player knowing he or she is at risk of exacerbating a past injury? Maybe. As the old saying goes, “shit happens,” and whatever the rationale, it happened to Kobe Bryant on April 12.

So, what can we glean and learn from Kobe’s injury? Inevitably, you will age and decline physically. You can slow the physical decline with smart training and proper recovery. Work hard, but rest hard to recover from and adapt to sport practice and training exercise stresses.

Do you feel something coming on? Did you tweak your knee? Are you experiencing a funky soreness in you low back? If so, it’s better to be cautious and back off. Tend to it. Let it heal before you make it worse. A little downtime now is better than a lot of injury off time due to your heroic effort to fight through it.

We know playing and practicing basketball – or any repetitive jumping, hopping, landing, planting, cutting, and turning sport – stresses the musculo-skeletal system. Therefore, don’t be a moron and engage in a separate high-impact plyometric program that will only create additional stress for your body. If you’re going to employ jump-type drills, confine them to sport-strategy training and exact sport skill drills that you need to incorporate anyway to improve.

Lastly, whether you’re a budding young athlete or a seasoned veteran, strengthen the engine of your body – the muscles – by using safe repetition speeds in the weight room. Slow it down, recruit more muscle, and create an overload on the higher threshold, higher force-producing muscle fibers. By minimizing momentum, it will reduce the shearing force on the muscles and lessen the overall stress placed on the joints. Get a grip on the fact that you don’t have to move fast in the weight room to enhance power. Your “fast” movements will be done when you practice and play your sport (with a risk, of course).

As for Mr. Kobe Bryant – a lock for the Hall of Fame when he retires – I hope he can recover from this injury and return to the court next year.

Photo 1 by Keith Allison from Kinston, USA (RO9A3241) [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Photo 2 by Keith Allison from Baltimore, USAderivative work: Calebrw (Kobe_Bryant_Washington_Full.jpg) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The post Kobe Bryant’s Achilles Injury: Why It Happened and What We Can Learn appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

People are often paradoxical – brilliant and yet disturbed, talented and perfect in some ways, deeply flawed in others. Many we look up to as our heroes end up becoming villains, or sometimes the reverse is true. In reality, there are no one hundred percent heroes or villains, but simply human beings who are somewhere on the continuum of life – struggling in trying to find their way.

One such story of hero to villain, and then back again to hero, is that of former basketball star, Chris Herren. I recently saw the ESPN 30/30 documentary, Unguarded, on Herren, and was deeply moved by his story. No fancy narration or hyped up music, just Herren talking his way through his traumatic ordeal.

We celebrate the lives of our heroes and rightfully so. There are countless examples of heroes in day-to-day life as well as those who are seemingly larger than life. The artists and athletes we admire are people who create and inspire, expressing truth in the moment. This truth helps us all find deeper meaning and in many ways their expression makes us feel like they are expressing for us.

While these examples of ‘heroism’ are part of our daily existence, so are the flaws our heroes express. Those in the public eye also are put on a pedestal from which they sometimes fall. We’ve learned the best golfer in the world can also be a lousy husband. A leader for a cause can do so with passion, while at the same time neglecting his or her own family. Sometimes our heroes on the court are drug addicts off the court, like Chris Herren.

Herren was an incredibly gifted basketball player. He was the best player ever to come out of his town, Fall River, Massachusetts. Herren went from playing for his high school, Durfee High, to becoming one of the best players in college basketball. Ultimately he wound up playing for the team he idolized growing up, the famed and storied Boston Celtics.

There was just one problem, Herren wasn’t necessarily happy or fulfilled in doing so. In fact, in order to perform at the highest level, Herren had to do so while high on drugs. The pressure of living up to such great expectations was far too much. So Herren coped the only way he knew how – by using drugs.

We’ve seen this story many times. Lawrence Taylor was perhaps the most dominant defensive player in the history of the NFL, and he played while high. But an addict, athlete or not, can only fool him- or herself for so long before the gig is up and the car drives right off that cliff. That fall is often severe and dramatic, and it doesn’t stop until the proverbial bottom is hit. One just hopes and prays that bottom represents a new beginning, versus the end. We all know plenty of examples of it turning out both ways.

In his fall from grace, Chris Herren threw away a career that was the envy of every aspiring basketball player in the country. In doing so Chris Herren became the villain. “How dare he throw away such talent?” one might ask. And here’s the rub: It was his to throw away and by facing his demons perhaps he discovered an even greater talent.

Being angry with those who are our heroes actually mirrors our own problems. Our reaction of anger and disappointment is a reflection of disappointment in ourselves. After hitting bottom and becoming the villain, Herren wound up choosing to lean right into the pain and he faced his demons. In doing so, there is perhaps a demonstration of a greater sense of heroism than he ever had playing basketball.

It is indeed a thing of beauty to watch a Michael Jordan or a Kobe Bryant move effortlessly and gracefully on a basketball court, but I wouldn’t necessarily call that heroic. To face the depths of one’s soul, to find one’s peace of mind, and then to help and inspire others – that is courage. That is heroism. I am deeply inspired by Herren’s story and his willingness to face the day. Addiction is a battle fought one day at a time and not necessarily a war won outright.

Herren has been sober since 2008 and fights on, but does so with a caution. Four years ago he was passed out behind a convenience store, high on crystal meth and heroin. This from a former Boston Celtic and at one point one of the top basketball prospects in the nation. He knows the bottom is only one street corner away.

Athletes can often be seen as heroes, especially in our culture. The story of propelling one’s self to greatness through talent is something compelling to many of us. Being willing to put it all on the line for ones passion is seen as heroic. Many of our pubic figures in life, from community leaders, to artists and athletes, become our heroes, and some of them end up becoming villains. This is what happens when we anoint someone to save us, motivate us, and entertain us. They must maintain perfection or they end up disappointing us. Imagine the pressure of failing to live up to what your parents wanted you to be. Many of us can relate to that. Now imagine adding the expectations of your whole town, your state, your college, your city, and your nation. For some, such a pressure is a curse more so than a blessing.

Chris Herren lost the fame and fortune that basketball would have brought him. He was once the beloved hero of his community for being the shining star and local boy made good. He fell from grace. In getting back up off the canvas, however, he became a much greater example of what it means to be human. He is a husband, father, and recovering drug addict. Most importantly, he takes each day to face his past and help other in the process as a mentor and a coach. That is a hero.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Hero To Villain And Back Again: The Chris Herren Story appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The study lasted for 10 weeks during basketball season, and was performed on 25 adolescent male athletes, aged 14-15 years old. Each player was tested before and after the 10-week training program on: squat jump, countermovement jump, Abalakov test (a test that is a variation of the vertical jump test, used for measuring leg power), drop jump (from a 40 centimeter platform), and seated medicine ball throw.¹

Each player was then randomly assigned to an experimental group or control group. The control group continued regular basketball practice without any intervention. The experimental group included resistance training. This group worked out twice a week, and the regimen included the following exercises: decline press, leg press, lat pull down, leg extension, pullover, and leg curl. The first two weeks the subjects performed 2 sets of 10-12 reps on each exercise, and the remaining weeks they upped the workload to 3 sets of 10-12 reps on each exercise.²

The results of the study showed that the experimental group demonstrated significant increases in every variable score. The control group players actually saw a significant decrease in performance in the squat jump, countermovement jump, and Abalakov test, but saw a significant increase in the medicine ball test scores.³

The take home from this study is that a 10-week in-season resistance training program with moderate volume and intensity loads actually can increase explosive strength in the vertical jump and medicine ball throw in adolescent male basketball players. It could be extremely beneficial to coaches to have a short resistance training program, such as the one used in this study, that can increase explosiveness in young male athletes without causing injury. This in turn will result in improved basketball performance. This program was determined to be safe for the adolescent athlete and did not induce any extra overload on the adolescents’ skeletal muscle development.⁴

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Science Looks At Safely Increasing Explosiveness in Teen Basketball Players appeared first on Breaking Muscle.