VIDEO: Prowler training

Monday mornings at Myerscough College Basketball Academy..

Nick McCarthy Interview

Inside MCBA (Myerscough College Basketball Academy) is a feature which will see the coaching staff at the academy contribute regular educational blog posts to the site. We will conduct introductory interviews with each member of the coaching staff which will be published in the coming weeks.

We spoke to the Academy's Sports Therapist Nick McCarthy about his background in the sport, his experience working in professional basketball and about his role here at Myerscough..

Nick working at the Jordan Brand Classic

When did you first begin playing basketball?

I first began playing during high school, probably around 12 years old. I was looking for an excuse to stop playing rugby and was told I had to play some sort of sport. A good friend of mine was already a good player and invited me to come down and train with him, I enjoyed it so much that I began to play basketball at every single opportunity I could. I continued to play through school and when I moved to the North West I began playing for Bolton U16/U18 national league whilst playing for Bolton men's team. I eventually played in the men's National league.



How and when did you decide to pursue a career in sports therapy?

I've always loved sports so it was always going to be in the sports industry I looked to create a career. Sadly my dream of professional basketball wasn't looking like it would be an option so I needed to find a way to stay involved in the sport I love. Initially I studied a sports science degree and found that the classes on anatomy and physiology and sports injury were ones I truly enjoyed and wanted to pursue. After researching sports therapy and working out exactly what the role included I decided that it was the right choice for me and a career path that I would really enjoy!

Can you tell us about your base of experience - where have you worked?

Initially I started out working voluntarily for the Midnight Madness summer basketball tour where I make great contacts with players and coaches up and down the country. Following that I got the job as head therapist of a non-league semi pro football team in Crosby, Liverpool where I developed a great understanding of another sport. In 2009 I was introduced to Coach Tony Garbelotto who hired me to work for the Mersey Tigers basketball team (BBL) where we enjoyed a fantastic few season and won the Trophy, League and Playoffs. I have enjoyed numerous other roles in basketball as well; including working for the 2010 GB u23's program in the summer, where we travelled to play Germany in a series of games. I have been Head therapist for the European Jordan Brand Classic, I have also worked briefly with the England u18 program and the North-West regional U17's. More recently I have worked with the England men's select team. Currently I'm in my second season as therapist for the Manchester Giants BBL team, and obviously here at the Myerscough Basketball Academy..

During your time working in professional basketball is there an individual who stands out as a model pro/role model?

The first name that springs to mind is Nate Reinking (former-GB International). He was a pleasure to work with. He was fully committed to excellence. He took no days off when it came to looking after his body and was very in tune with what his body was able to do at certain points so maximised his efficiency. He was a calm presence on the team and a real role model in the locker room to younger guys. Drew Sullivan stands out also as a good role model/professional. He's an excellent player but leads by example. He demanded excellence from everyone on the team and made the guys around him better.


What advice would you give to young players who aspire to work within pro basketball?

My best advise would be to network with as many people as possible. The basketball community reaches all round the world and knowing people can give you avenues to 100's of places. Secondly be known for your hard work, for going the extra mile and not skipping steps along the way! Hard work plus a talent is an unstoppable combination.


How did you end up at Myerscough?

I have worked with Coach Neal Hopkins for years in the BBL and we both have an appreciation for developing basketball in this country. When the the academy was formulated by Coach Hopkins it was a no-brainer that I would apply for the job at the college.


What does your role as sports therapist at the Academy encompass?

My role is to keep the guys healthy and on the court. I also have a role in the strength and conditioning; to ensure that as much as possible is done to screen the players and see if we can identify any warning signs that could lead to injury and reduce the chances of them occurring. When a player gets injured it's my responsibility to rehabilitate them and return them to full functional fitness again with minimal risk of reinjury and then ensure that their strength and conditioning allows them to develop further. I work closely with Coach Hopkins and the other coaches to ensure they are aware of issues and guard against anything that could be a detrimental factor to the athlete.

How do you feel the first term went?

The first term has been fantastic, and the guys on the program have been a credit to the college. It's been great to see the guys develop into smart basketball players and become great athletes at the same time. The sky is the limit for a lot of these guys.

Click on the image to read Nick's injury
prevention blog contribution

A DAY IN THE LIFE: Myerscough College Basketball Academy

Tuesday

Morning

Myerscough College Gym

Academy players wake up at around 7 am on Tuesday mornings. Half of the squad has an hours session starting at 7.30 in the gym with strength and conditioning coach Alex Hodgson and sports therapist Nick McCarthy. Players work on strengthening specific muscle groups, injury prevention exercises and core stability amongst other things. The other half of squad have around an hour and a half to practice shooting or ball handling individually in the sports hall and eat breakfast before their strength and conditioning session begins at 8.30. Following the conclusion of strength and conditioning and individual practice players have a 2 hour lesson with programme leader Neal Hopkins on Assessing Risk in Sport.

Afternoon

After the lesson finishes at 12pm players have an hour to get their lunch and rest before team practice begins at 1. The focus of team practice varies day to day however this Tuesday transitional defense and defensive rotations were the main focus. Although the majority of the squad train on a Tuesday afternoon, 2 players travel to St Peters High School in Manchester (with whom the academy has a partnership) to coach a training session for school children.

Evening

On Tuesday evenings academy players split into different groups and take part in various different activities. Around 6 academy players travel to East Manchester to train with the Manchester Giants professional team. Other players compete for one of the Academy's two partner teams in the Manchester Area Basketball League. For those players not involved in pro training or a fixture there is time to rest, complete classwork, or practice individually in the sports hall. Players eat dinner any time between 4 and 6.30, depending upon their personal schedule. By 11pm most players are in their rooms and are beginning to go to sleep, ready for another day of hard work on Wednesday!

Click here to view sample timetables

For further information about the academy email:nhopkins@myerscough.ac.uk

Inside MCBA: Alex Hodgson Interview

Inside MCBA (Myerscough College Basketball Academy) is a new feature which will see the coaching staff at the academy contribute regular educational blog posts to the site. We will conduct introductory interviews with each member of the coaching staff which will be published in the coming weeks.

Alex Hodgson is the lead Strength and Conditioning coach at the academy. He played professionally in his native Australia and in Europe and brings a wealth of basketball expertise to the programme. We spoke to Alex about his playing career and his role here at Myerscough..

When did you first begin playing basketball? 

I started playing when I was 9 years old in my home town in Australia. I was quite tall as a kid so it seemed a logical way to go with sport! I really enjoyed the sport so I continued to play there onward.

How did you end up playing professionally? 

I just kept playing! I played locally for my town when I was growing up and played representatively. I continued to make better teams and kept progressing until some opportunities arose which allowed me to get paid to do what I enjoyed!

Tell us about the different places you have played (and which was your favourite?)

I have played in lots of different places. My favourite place to play is at home with my friends and people I grew up with in Australia. If  c had the chance to play in Barcelona which was definitely my favourite place I have played away from home. I have also played here in the UK which was a great experience

What advice you would give to young players who aspire to play professionally?

Be obsessed with the game! If you want to be a professional you have to be dedicated and do your best. Not many people end up playing professionally just through cruising along and waiting for it to happen.

How did you end up working at MCBA?

I had played for Neal (academy head coach) for a couple of years. He knew my background and recognised that my basketball knowledge matched well with what he was trying to do here. I had finished my strength and conditioning degree locally at UCLan (University of Central Lancashire) and the opportunity came up and I thought it was a really good match.

What does your role as lead Strength and Conditioning coach encompass?

My main role is to develop the athletic side of the academy players. They're all at a developmental age so we are really looking to strengthen guys up and improve various performance aspects such as speed, agility and fitness.

How do you feel the first term at the academy has been?

It's been a learning curve but I think we've improved every week. I'm really impressed with the way the athletes have progressed so far. We're only a few months in and I think everyone has seen a marked increase in performance and strength. They are all seeing the benefits of all the training we do which is great! We're really looking forward to the future

Watch out for Alex's first blog post, due to be published in the coming weeks.

Inside MCBA: Nick McCarthy blog

 Inside MCBA (Myerscough College Basketball Academy) is a new feature which will see the coaching staff at the academy contribute regular educational blog posts to the site. Our first blog comes from academy Sports Therapist Nick McCarthy. Nick has a wealth of experience working as a sports theapist in the professional game, he currently works for the Manchester Giants and has previously worked for Mersey Tigers. Nick has also worked with Jordan Brand, British Basketball, Midnight Madness and the NBA.

 Prehabilitation

In this blog I will be talking about a few ways young athletes can help avoid or reduce the risk of injury. Obviously there are situations we cannot control where in a contact sport like basketball (yes I said contact sport!) injuries can occur, but as Coach Neal Hopkins always says we can only control the controllable.

Firstly it’s important to just touch on what I mean by injury in this context. Injury can occur to many structures in the body, the main structures that you hear about in basketball are the ligaments, due the high nature of ankle injuries seen usually on the lateral side affecting the anterior tailo-fibular ligament (ATFL), the calcaneo-fibular ligament (CFL) and the posterior tailo-fibular ligament (PTFL)  (or in light of the most recent high profile injuries the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL)). Other structures seen can involve the muscular system; classic examples in explosive sports are the various grades of tear to the hamstring or attachment area to the bone in the tendon.  And it would be criminal not to involve skeletal injuries, I’m sure we have all seen the Kevin Ware injury on various social networking sites. Finally a system that people may not be classically aware of is the muscle fascia.

So on to the ways to reduce our injury risk……

Hydration

This is a simple concept. Keep the body hydrated and avoid pointless and avoidable muscular injuries. But why can dehydration cause injury? A dehydrated muscle fascia can leave the body feeling aches, stiff, and in some cases exhausted. Micro tears in this structure can cause inflammation just like it would with any injury and can cause fluids in the area to dry up. Knock on effects can be the contribution to muscle weakness due to constrictions on the muscle that it envelops and I’m sure you can put 2 and 2 together and realise how that can now tie into muscular injuries if a muscle cannot fully contract it will have a detraining effect and essentially weakness the muscle long term. Keeping yourself hydrated is a very easy step and is easy to monitor. Looking at the colour of you urine can be a good indicator of dehydration the darker the colour the more dehydrated we are in simple terms.

Muscle Function

Functional training is of key importance. Being able to move the body explosively without putting our joints into risky positions is key. At Myerscough basketball Academy, myself and Head of Strength and Conditioning Alex Hodgson focus on the smaller stability muscles in all exercises to ensure correct firing and activation of muscle. A main focus for us is on the Glutes. Control of Rotation at the hip (see figure 1 where the players knee is in the vulnerable position resulting in a rupture of the ACL) ensures that the knee can stabilise in a safe position, this also has a knock on effect all over the body in posture.

Figure 1. Screen grab from Derrick Rose’s ACL rupture. Notice the internal rotation of the left leg combined with valgus knee position and flexion.

If our body is able to stabilise in correct positions then all muscles can work efficiently to prevent excessive forces on structure that may be unable to cope. This is true of all joints in the body when playing, training, or in the gym. Safe and effective training with purpose in the gym is of absolute importance so when your Therapist or S&C coach give you the prompts to correct your form it is very important to do so to ensure that when you are on court and using these functional movement patterns your brain will have learnt a correct pattern and allow you to carry them out in the safest way to reduce risk.

Proprioception

Proprioception is the brains knowledge of where the limb is in space. This can be a common problem with the typical ankle sprain, especially when it comes to reinjury. When injury occurs it’s very easy to think about what structures have ‘strained’ or ‘torn’ what is sometimes forgotten about by players is the neurological effects. Proprioceptive training during the rehabilitation phase is a classic protocol (figure 2 shows a classic used proprioception exercise). In this instance let’s look at avoidance of that injury. As a player I’m sure most of you have used the euro step as a move to get to the basket. This is a great example of a complex movement that will involve knowledge of where to step and place your leg and foot….proprioception. So when training trying to add balance exercises that challenge you and reach out of your base of support can help both stabilise the joint and allow the brain to discover how to stabilise in vulnerable positions. With an increase proprioception you can now tell your feet where to land and how to land in a safe area.

Figure 2. Reaching the toes out along the white lines can challenge balance, and hip stability whilst training where to place the leg.

So there are a few examples of how you can start to avoid avoidable injury. No one wants to sit in the stands when you could be on court.

 Nick McCarthy BSc (Hons) MSOST