India’s Strength & Conditioning Coach Tommy Heffelfinger discusses the importance of keeping Indian basketball players healthy.
This article was first published in my column for Ekalavyas.com on September 8, 2014. Click here to read the original post.
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| Tommy Heffelfinger gets the Indian Women's squad psyched up for a strength and conditioning workout. Photo: Rajesh Chavan |
As the final
seconds ticked away in India’s Asian Games contest in Incheon (Korea) against the Philippines and an Indian loss was all
but ensured, Indian swingman Pratham Singh suffered a nasty fall, hurting both
his head and his back. As Pratham writhed in pain on court, a hush fell in the
arena, and his teammates momentarily ignored the result to focus on their
hurting teammate. Pratham was stretchered off court, and for the next few
hours, the Indian basketball team, coaches, as well as fans held their breath
and hoped for some good news from the medical team.
Over four and
half thousand kilometers away from Incheon, India’s Strength & Conditioning
Coach Tommy Heffelfinger followed the game in New Delhi with bated breath, too.
Since his appointment by the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) three months
ago, Heffelfinger has worked closely with Pratham Singh and several others of
India’s top players – both at the Senior and under-18 level in both genders –
to ensure that serious injuries are reduced as much as possible.
“When injuries
go down, the performances go up,” he stated, something that may sound obvious
but is always easier said than done. For an individual like Pratham – a top-six
rotation player for India’s Senior Men’s national basketball team – his fitness
is directly related to his team’s performance.
Later that day,
some good news trickled out of the Indian camp in Incheon back to Delhi:
Pratham went
through some tests on his back and leg, revealing no serious injuries. He was
rested for the next day against Iran, but for the big picture, Heffelfinger let
out a sigh of relief.
Hailing from Ann Arbor in Michigan, USA, sports took
Heffelfinger across the pond to England for a decade, where he worked with
national players from the British Basketball Team, football players of the
English Premier League club West Ham United, and rugby players, too. Choosing
to be nearer to his wife – who is from Nepal – Heffelfinger jumped at the
opportunity of joining the BFI’s Strength & Conditioning team, taking over
a position left vacant since the previous Coach – Zak Penwell – finished his
tenure. Familiar with India and South Asia in the past, Heffelfinger skipped
over the culture shock that most foreign coaches suffer in their initial stages
of their visit.
“I felt like I was pretty much ready for anything
when I got here,” he said when I met him in New Delhi in mid-September.
What his previous visits wouldn’t have prepared him
for would’ve been the basketball. As his predecessor Penwell discovered during
his two years in India, the exercise, diet, and fitness regimes of Indian
basketball players were uniquely specific and, in some ways, separate from the
athletes they would’ve trained before.
“In India, first of all the dietary restrictions are
a big deal,” Heffelfinger said, “And this is something to which we are
constantly adjusting on camp. Beyond that, when it comes to dealing with player
workouts, I’ve learnt how difficult it is for our national team players to
stick to their regimes outside of practice – all of these players have other
day jobs outside of basketball. It is difficult for them to find dedicated time
to follow up with their fitness schedules outside of camp.”
“The positive,” he added, “Is that kids in India
tend to have better base mobility and movement. They still do not have better
control of their body weight, and we have to work on making sure that they
reach certain standards before they start working with heavier weights.”
Heffelfinger’s responsibilities encompass the entire
plethora of Indian national teams, including the Seniors, the U18s, the U16s,
and the U14s for both boys and girls. Over the past three months, he has only
had a chance to work with the Seniors and the U18s, the latter of whom he took
part in a camp most recently and will be heading out again to the SAI Center in
Aurangabad to help the U18 girls’ prepare for the upcoming FIBA Asia U18
Championship for Women in Jordan in a few weeks.
When his responsibilities eventually trickle down to
the U16s and U14s, Heffelfinger will be handed the keys to coaching kids at the
most transformative of ages.
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| Tommy Heffelfinger takes the team through stretching exercises. Photo: Rajesh Chavan. |
“When kids get to a certain age, it is considered
their peak-height velocity, after which we can begin more focus on strength
training,” said Heffelfinger, “That is a maturation point, usually around 15-16
for most kids, where we can introduce heavy weights more. Before that age, most
of the training is usually technique based.”
But once the young players begin to focus on lifting
weights and sculpting their bodies for optimum basketball shape, Heffelfinger
warns that there is a strict need to be aware of the right parts of the body to
work on.
“It’s true, a lot of people don’t know which part of
the body they must work on, and the same is true for basketball,” he said, “For
example, in basketball, you need to have strong quads, and work on the
hamstrings. Focusing on the lifting weights for the right parts of the body
will improve performance and reduce risk of injury.”
“Players need to start addressing the balance of
their bodies. Posterior imbalance can be the cause of a lot of injuries.”
Heffelfinger’s work over the past three months has
already begun to show some early signs of improvement among the elite Indian
athletes. He worked with the Senior Men’s team at camp in Greater Noida prior
to the FIBA
Asia Cup in Wuhan (China) a few months ago, a tournament now
immortalized in Indian hoops history for showcasing some of India’s best-ever
performances, including a memorable
victory over Asian giants China. While the team’s Head
Coach Scott Flemming deserved much of the credit for tactically preparing India
– particularly on the defensive end – to punch above their weight, the work of
Indian physiotherapists and strength trainers such as Heffelfinger in the
background shouldn’t be ignored either; it was no doubt that the new Team India
looked fitter than ever before and can now respond to many more of Coach
Flemming’s gruelling demands.
In training camps, Heffelfinger has also noted
improvement on more specific aspects of fitness. For example, he mentioned that
the junior girls have improved their short-distance (20 meters) sprint times
drastically over the past few months. “The improvement was off the roof,” he
said, “I couldn’t even have hoped for them to improve their times so soon. They
are all adding strength to their lower body.”
While the early returns have been positive, there
are still several challenges that Heffelfinger hopes that India can overcome in
the near future. The first priority, he said, is to find a place to lay out all
the strength and conditioning related equipment and set up what he hopes will
eventually become the ‘BFI Player Development Center’.
“We have all the equipment with us already,” he
said, “But we still haven’t been able to use most of it, since we’re still
waiting to find a place to set it up.”
Another concern for Heffelfinger has been the diet,
and he has noted that the senior teams often return overweight or out of shape
form breaks in national camps. With many players also being vegetarian,
Heffelfinger has had to get creative with his dietary advice.
“First and foremost, they need to just stay away
from oily food,” he said, “Currently, they also seem to have a very limited
intake of food, which is shocking.”
Heffelfinger’s long-term goals for India start by
prioritizing athlete health. He wishes to reduce basketball injuries by
two-thirds and over-training injuries by one-half, too. He also has hopes to
collect medical data of Indian players to create reports of players’ injury
history. At this point, there is no such existing medical database in Indian
basketball.
Further on, he plans to spend time with other
strength coaches in India and train them to help create a pyramid system where
each coach can then pass on health and fitness tips to many more around the
country.
“I feel that there has been a distinct improvement
in the national teams over the past few months,” said Heffelfinger, “It was
extremely rewarding to see when the improvement leads to improved results.”
Some injuries – like Pratham Singh’s fall at Incheon
– are unavoidable. Some are caused by unforeseen circumstances, an
over-aggressive opponent, or simply bad luck. There is no perfect science to
staying fit and no athlete – no matter how well trained – is going to be
indestructible. But concentrated efforts from Heffelfinger and India’s health,
fitness, and physiotherapy teams can seriously turn the odds around to avoiding
injury.
And, as Heffelfinger states, the obvious fact is
also the most important one. Healthier teams are more successful teams. For Indian
basketball in the midst of a rapid push forward, any competitive edge for
further success should be embraced.
