Sport Specialization

And What to Do if You’re Already in Pain

Basketball players most debated as the best of all time seem to be:

Michael Jordan

Kobe Bryant

Lebron James

Wilt Chamberlain

NONE specialized in just basketball growing up, yet I thought by age 10 I HAD to specialize to have a chance!

Even Steve Nash - closer to my build - didn’t start playing basketball till age 12.

Yet I had chronic knee pain by age 12 from so much overuse!

I had to MANUALLY restore balance to my body, basically by working the opposites of what’s overdone in basketball…

In basketball, forward and high are overdone.

Backward and low are unbalanced.

That’s my knee system in a nutshell. It changed basketball for me, and now has thousands of success stories!

The main exercises I used:

1/4. Backward strengthening with a sled or resisted treadmill

2/4. Backward strengthening with the reverse step-up progression

3/4. Low strengthening with the ATG Split Squat progression

4/4. Low strengthening with the deep squat progression

Then, fill in the gaps for a well-rounded program!

For the knee, this includes the calf and tibialis muscles below it, and the hamstring muscles behind it.

My primary job is helping people restore the balance of their body BUT I also expose this false idea in sports development that you have to overdo things to be great.

And this isn’t just theoretical for me.

My original ATG gym grew largely from my ability to consistently turn unrecruited high school athletes into full-scholarship college players.

As a head high school basketball coach and the team’s trainer, I used the following unusual 3-point formula:

1. We were not on the basketball court back-to-back days! Day 1: basketball. Day 2: ATG. Repeat. That way the body was fresh for the desired activity, and the body developed in a more balanced manner. The chronic pains disappeared. Athleticism skyrocketed! And they got WAY MORE SKILLED than when they were playing daily, partly because the QUALITY went up, and partly because of #2… 2. Practice was a PERSONAL thing before or after team competition. The type of skills and the level of skills needed by players on my team varied GREATLY. So we practiced INDIVIDUALLY and then played as a team. The most skilled players didn’t have to dumb down to “the team’s” skill level, and the less skilled players got to slow down and GET THE FUNDAMENTALS in rather than continue to use bad habits. 3. If a player got in trouble at school, the punishment was THE SLED. The sled doesn’t beat up your joints. In fact: It helps them! But you get an incredible conditioning workout. And it makes you STRONGER in the process. So our “punishment” made us mentally and physically stronger instead of tearing us down even further. Some of the players became so self-driven, they started doing the sled on their own, with no need for punishment.

I think those 3 things would improve a lot of young lives and the coach’s life as well. They’d all benefit from a better team and more responsible players!

Yours in Solutions,

Ben

ATG

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