Author: Zac Cupples

He Sleeps He Scores: Playing Better Basketball by Conquering Sleep Deprivation

A 16 game losing streak. Worst record in the league. 8 rookies. We were in dire straights. Could we fix it in 2 hours?!? The NBA travel schedule is one of the hardest in pro sports. 82 games in a season plus playoffs. Several back-to-back games that require time zone changes, late nights, early mornings, and playing nightly at a high level. And a high level of sleep deprivation. Fortunately, many NBA teams, including the one I worked for, take whatever measures possible to ensure our guys get enough sleep. They modulate flight times, stay in the best hotels, and use their unlimited budgets to improve sleep quality. We call that soft where I come from. My domain—the NBA D-league. Home of the worst schedule in professional sports. I can’t even call it a nightmare because you don’t sleep enough to hit your REM cycle. Let’s take a look at this disastrous schedule.

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Master Sagittal Plane, Coaching Progressions, Detaching, & TFL Inhibition – Movement Debrief Episode 5

Did you miss Movement Debrief live yesterday? Though much more fun live, I have a video of what we discussed below. This debrief was quite fun, as we had an impromptu viewer q&a. Thank you Alan Luzietti for the awesome questions! If you follow along live on Facebook or Youtube, I will do my best to answer any questions you ask. Yesterday we discussed the following topics: Why you should emphasize sagittal plane activities longer than you think How to coach exercises to maximize client learning and compliance Why detaching from your client encounters makes you a better clinician Viewer Q&A – “centering from the chaos” & TFL Inhibition Lastly, if you want the acute:chronic workload calculator I spoke about, click here. Without further ado: Master Sagittal Plane Coaching Progressions Detaching Refocusing TFL Inhibition

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90/90 Hip Lift – A Movement Deep Dive

The Fundamental Rehab Technique It’s a classic that does so much more than the naked eye can see. This round of “Movement Deep Dive” focuses on the 90/90 hip lift, and some of my favorite variances off that move. I hope you have your pen and paper handy to take notes, because this video is a long one. If videos aren’t your thing, I’ve provided a modified transcript below. I would recommend both watching the video and reading the post to get the most out of the material. Learn on!

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Hamstrings and the ACL, Explaining Hip Range of Motion, & Meeting the Patient’s Needs – Movement Debrief Episode 4

If you missed me live, you can check out Episode 4 of Movement Debrief below. We hit a small technical difficulty early on, but it all ended up working out. We discuss the following concepts: Why I Emphasize Hamstrings before quadriceps after ACL reconstruction Why Hip Rotation isn’t always a reliable measure Interpreting the Ober’s Test Meeting the Patient’s Needs vs the Clinician’s Needs I apologize that the quality is not so great. I’ve moved to a rural part of Arizona, which as of right now does not allow for the best of streaming. If you friend me on facebook, however, you can watch the live stream, which has surprisingly much better quality. Click here for the post I mentioned discussing combining blood flow restriction training with E-stim. Hamstrings and the ACL Explaining Hip Range of Motion Meeting the Patient’s Needs    

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Continuing Education: The Complete Guide to Mastery

75 That’s my number. No, not that number.   75 is the number of continuing education classes, conferences, home studies, etc that I’ve completed since physical therapy school. Though the courses are many, it was probably too much in a short period of time. When quantity is pursued, quality suffers. Sadly, I didn’t figure out how to get the most out of each class until the latter end of my career. Two classes in particular stand out: Mobilisation of the Nervous System by the NOI Group, and ART lower extremity. Yes, the content was great, but these classes stood out for a different reason. You see, instead of just doing a little bit of prep work, I kicked it up a notch. I extensively reviewed supportive material, took impeccable notes, and hit all the other essentials needed to effectively learn. I was prepared, and because I was prepared I got so much more out of these classes than my typical fair.  The lessons learned in those courses stick with me to this day. For the stuff you really want to learn, I’ll encourage you to do the same. Here is the way to get the most out of your continuing education. By the time you are done reading this post, you’ll understand why I now recommend a more focused learning approach and fewer courses. Let’s see how to do it.  

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Teaching Movement, Expanding PT, Embracing Failure: Movement Debrief Episodes 2 & 3

Here are this week’s Movement Debriefs. I’m hoping to get on a regular schedule once I get settled into my new gig as a PT Mercenary, but hope you enjoy. Anchoring Old Movements to New, Prioritizing PT’s Professional Needs In Episode 2,  we discuss the following concepts:  Visit 2 & 3 of our patient with the lumbar fusion Using familiar concepts from old exercises in new exercises Strategies to enhance learning. Prioritizing Problems in the Profession. Embracing Failure and The Dunning-Kruger Effect In Episode 3,  we discuss the following concepts: My Failure The Dunning Kruger Effect – and how to hack it Embracing Failure Learning from Failure Anchoring Old Movements to New Movements Expanding PT Embracing Failure

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The Squatting Bar Reach: A Movement Deep Dive

Aka How I Mastered the Sagittal Plane In our first episode of “Movement Deep Dive,” we go over one of my favorite moves, the squatting bar reach. It’s an excellent technique and I hope this video explanation is helpful. If videos aren’t your thing, I’ve provided a modified transcript below. I would recommend reading and watching to get the most out of the material. Learn on!  

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Movement Debrief Episode 1: Meet the Patient at Their Story

A Live Movement Video Series Hey party people. I recently started doing some live feeds on the interwebz. You can check me out on Facebook and Youtube if you want to see me live. Otherwise, I thought I’d share with the very first episode of “Movement Debrief.” Here we dive into the following topics: The importance of reflection Using similar language to the patient. De-threatening that language Restoring sagittal plane control A case for manual therapy Enjoy!

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The Ultimate Guide to Treating Ankle Sprains

A Humdinger No Doubt Ankle sprains. Such a bugger to deal with. Ankle sprains are one of the most common injuries seen in basketball. The cutting, jumping, contact, fatigue, and poor footwear certainly don’t help matters. Damn near almost every game someone tweaks an ankle. Treating ankle sprains in-game provides quite a different perspective. Rarely in the clinic do we work with someone immediately post-injury. Instead, we deal with the cumulative effects of delayed treatment: acquired impairments, altered movement strategies, and reduced fitness. The pressure is lower and the pace is slower. You shed that mindset with the game on the line. You must do all in your power to get that player back on the court tonight, expediting the return process to the nth degree. I had a problem. Figuring out the most efficient way to treat an ankle sprain was needed to help our team succeed. I searched the literature, therapeutic outskirts, and tinkered in order to devise an effective protocol. The result? We had 12 ankle sprains this past season. After performing the protocol, eight were able to return and finish out the game. Out of the remaining four, three returned to full play in two days. The last guy? He was released two days after his last game. It’s a tough business. The best part was we had no re-sprains. An impressive feat considering the 80% recurrence rate¹.    Caveats aside, treating acute injuries with an aggressive mindset can be immensely effective. Here’s how.

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The 6-Step Method to Reading the Shit Out of Books

What Were We Talking About Again? If there is one thing I’ve struggled with over the years, it’s long-term retention. Though remembering course materials has had its challenges, the struggle is worse with books. Overconsumption was part of the problem. Trying to read faster, and across multiple unrelated books caused more detriment than use. Much as our attention spans can be overstimulated by abundant information on the internet, so to can we suffer this fate with reading? There are a lot of books after all. While narrowing my reading focus has helped quite a bit, improving my reading strategy was equally important. I remember one summer I made it my goal to learn how to shuffle cards. We played A LOT of cards on my family vacations, and I was tired of having to use the automatic shuffler or having someone else shuffle for me at the family card game. It was time to become a man, damnit! I shuffled anytime I had some free time during the day; which back when I was a kid led to multiple bouts of daily shuffling. By the end of the summer, I was unconscious with shuffling, and still am to this day. Frequent, quality repetitions at any task will likely lead to improvement. Learning material is no different, we must just foster an environment of multiple exposures to said material. Here’s my latest attempt at doing so.

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