Episode #25 - Basketball Roundtable w/ Josh Bonhotal, Ryan Horn, Cory Schlesinger

With the college basketball season right around the corner, we decided to do another roundtable discussion with 3 of the best and brightest basketball S&C coaches in the country. From the West Coast we brought on Cory Schlesinger of Stanford University. From the Midwest we had Josh Bonhotal from Purdue University. Finally, from the East Coast we have Ryan Horn of Wake Forest University. 
These guys are some of the brightest and forward thinking S&C coaches in the country and are constantly pushing the needle forward in our profession. Not only that, they are 3 of the most down to earth and giving coaches you'll ever meet, and in this episode they do not disappoint. They don't hold back anything as they describe what they're off-season and in-season training looks like, how they prescribe jumping & sprinting, how they use technology to help their programs, and much more. Seriously, this is one massive episode and these guys don't leave any stone uncovered. I can't thank them enough for being willing to share so much insight and depth into what their roles and how they're helping their basketball athletes. 
You won't be disappointed from this episode, so grab a notebook and be prepared to take a boat-load of notes. 


Favorite Quotes

• "We have to get guys resilient and robust enough to handle the length of the season"
• "4-5 months out, I really don't mind breaking the guys, knowing we don't have a game for a long time, with the goal of raising thresholds and their work capacity"
• "We jump all year round"
• "You need to look at the type of jumping the athletes are doing on the court because each type of jump produces a different stress and response - so we don't overload them with the same jumps they do on the court, rather we do things like weighted jumps, repetitive jumps, band assisted jumps, release jumps"
• "We almost always complex our primary lift or Olympic lift with some sort of jump"
• "I give my athletes a lot of creative freedom and ownership in their training - sometimes I'll just pull out a box and say get up their however you want, create or invent something new"
• "We've started doing a lot more extensive, low-level plyo's, like ankling or low-level hops. We do them barefoot and on soft mats with the goal to build capacity and stiffness of the lower leg"
• "Every Monday and Friday are our big sprint days, and all of our other days are structured to get us back prepared for our sprint days"
• "We mimic what we do in the weight room, with what we do during our sprint work - so during GPP, we're also working on technical/mechanics of acceleration/sprinting; as strength becomes more of the emphasis, we put a ton of emphasis on 0-10m; finally as we get to more power/speed in the weight room, we transition to 20-30m with our sprints"
• "We train at 100mph, so 80mph is easy - and when you look at basketball, it's really never a sport of top-speed - so if we can raise their top-speed, everything else below that is now easier - so the game slows down and they can repeat those sub-maximal efforts with more ease and efficiency"
• "Sprinting is a foundational activity for us"
• "When using technology, make sure the head coach is bought it and it doesn't become a distraction"
• "Technology has become very important for our return to play athletes. So we now have baseline metrics with force plate readings, GPS readings, and performance metrics and we have a goal or landmark to base where the athlete is during their return to play"
• "I've seen athletes chasing numbers on the tendo or GymAware, but their movement looks like crap - that's when you know the technology isn't doing what it's designed for"
• "We'll do a lot of accelerations during our in-season warm-ups. It's been a nice way to disguise training into our warm-ups and micro-dose our accelerations and sprints"
• "Your training system should account for the style of play your head coach wants"
• "Use technology, don't let technology use you"
• "It's amazing what these athletes can do with a ball in their hands, but then how much they struggle with basic movements"

Social Media

• Josh Bonhotal - Purdue Univerisity
  • Twitter - @JBonhotal
  • Instagram - @JBonhotal
• Ryan Horn - Wake Forest University
  • Twitter - @RyanHorn45
  • Instagram - @RyanHorn45
• Cory Schlesinger - Stanford University
  
  • Twitter - @Schlesstrength
    
  • Instagram - @Schlesstrength