Tuesday, November 28, 2017

What Buckets are you Filling?

I had the idea put in my head years ago that eventually the world of sports performance would no longer accept a one size fits all approach. The trend is already obvious to me that the best in the world at what I’m trying to do are the ones that are taking the time to figure out what exactly it is their athletes need at the individual level. I firmly believe that individualization and those who apply the concept the best will ultimately prevail as the next generation’s most sought after human performance professionals.

Individualization is a difficult concept to grasp for a number of reasons. Groupthink has drilled into our heads that all athletes must do certain things and perform certain movements or exercises because they’re an athlete and well… these are the things that athletes do.  I hear these assumptions verbalized every day.

Some of my favorites:

“Every athlete should squat, bench, or clean every day.”
“All baseball players need more flexibility.”
“Your knees hurt because your ankles don’t have enough mobility.”
“He/She is slow on defense, he/she needs more agility training.”

All of these statements have become cliché for a reason. The ideas/problems are common and a lot of times the solution is too. The notion I’m trying to put forth is that without a systematic assessment process, these are all blanket statements. They’re the equivalent of throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping some of it sticks. No exercise is a great exercise because you’ve seen it work for someone else and no movement is a great movement just because you like to coach it. Eric Cressey says it best: “Assess, don’t guess.”

The largest obstacle for taking an individualized approach to human performance will always be that it takes time and effort. I think we all know more than one coach or clinician that is just simply not willing to apply those two things, so hoping that everyone is going to jump on board with the approach would be asinine. We’re always going to have the coaches that would rather put eight of their favorite exercises on a whiteboard, and force everyone to do them. If they don’t work for Sally well that’s just too bad, because they work great for Johnny! Something must be wrong with Sally.

For those who can conceptualize the value in offering an individualized approach and are willing to put in the hard work necessary to offer our athletes the best we are capable of I’d like to organize the framework for you the best way I know how.

Developing your ability to create individualized performance programs should start with these three key ideas.

1.     Knowing what to look for. This may seem obvious, but collecting meaningless data is a huge mistake I’ve made in the past. Although I’m far from perfecting my assessment process, I can confidently say that I no longer collect any useless information. Everything we look at in our assessment process at Heilman’s Performance has a purpose and has an effect on the programs we design for our athletes. As young human performance professionals, we need to constantly ask ourselves “Does this matter?” If you can’t explain in a simple manner to your athlete why it is you are measuring something, then take it out of your assessments.

2.     Have a standardized measure for what you’re looking for. Everything that we think is important, should be measured, and in a standardized manner. If you are going to tell a group of people that assessing a lunge, single leg stance, and overhead squat are important, you better offer a systematic framework for scoring those things. Eyeballing something and offering your opinion as truth is professionally ineffective and irresponsible. It can be quite the slippery slope pretending to know something you don’t. If you tell me an athlete is fast, I have a standardized method to determine whether or not you are correct or incorrect in your assumption. This should be commonplace in everything we deem important to human performance.


3.     Have a systematic approach to manipulating the variables that matter. This is the piece of the puzzle everyone wants to have. When we first start out we all think “Just show me the exercises so I can start using them.” It’s the reason we YouTube the workouts of all our favorite athletes. We think that if we just do what Cam Newton is doing, we’ll be Cam Newton in no time. (It’s amazing how long it takes people to realize that they’re not Cam Newton) If I were to give any advice to aspiring human performance professionals it would be to focus on getting really good at steps one and two, and step three will present itself to you. Once you know what is important and how to measure it, then you can get to work on creating positive change.

Now that you have this 3-step mini system in mind, let’s talk about the things that matter. The best way I know how to establish that “Human Performance” is a multidisciplinary endeavor is to discuss those disciplines as “buckets.” Men who have pioneered this industry like Mike Boyle and Dan John talk often about assessing what you have in your “buckets” and then allocating your resources accordingly to ensure you’re filling and emptying the “buckets” that you need to be filing and emptying most.

In my opinion, these “buckets” look something like this:

1.     Movement Competence

I think of movement competence like this: “Does the athlete have the degrees of freedom necessary to perform the movements his/her sport(s) require him/her to perform?” and “Does the athlete have the requisite control over those degrees of freedom in order to perform the movements his/her sport(s) require him/her to perform?” If you determine that baseball players need a requisite amount of mobility in their thoracic spine then you need to check for and measure thoracic spine mobility. If you find that Athlete A has a stiff thoracic spine, then player A should get T-Spine mobility drills. Consequently, if Athlete B’s T-spine moves just fine and they have control of those degrees of freedom, they probably don’t need to do the same amount of T-Spine mobility drills as Athlete A. Had you not taken the time to look, you may have just assumed all baseball players need the same amount of T-Spine drills and done Athlete B a major disservice. In my opinion, the functional movement screen is the best method to determine an athlete’s ability to move well. We also measure ankle dorsiflexion in all of our athletes along with shoulder rotation and flexion measurements in our overhead athletes.

2.     Absolute Strength

Strength is defined as the maximum force you can apply against a load. Three simple time-tested measures of strength are the power lifts (squat, deadlift, bench). These are standardized measures, because they come with specific numbers attached to the tests. Pretty simple: Someone who can squat, deadlift, and bench 800 lbs. in total weight has more strength than someone who can perform the same three lifts at a total of 600 lbs.
I will say that I don’t like these measures for everyone. A vast majority of athletes don’t have the technical mastery required to explore their one rep maximum in these movements and throwing heavy barbells on your back and picking them up from the floor isn’t the best for everyone. I am a firm believer that the ability to absorb force is a direct reflection of how much force one can create, so at Heilman’s Performance (where we currently work with mostly youth athletes) we have had good success with the Y-Balance Test as a measure of lower extremity strength. It also gives us standard scores to compare bilaterally with a large pool of data suggesting that asymmetry may be a precursor to lower extremity injury. In my opinion, it’s a great alternative.

3.     Power/Speed

While strength is the maximal force you can apply against a load, power can be thought of as the maximal force you can apply against a load in a specific amount of time. Speed is just the maximum rate at which someone is able to move. Power and Speed generally progress together, but are technically different variables. To measure power at Heilman’s Performance we use the vertical jump test and a broad jump test. Both are very common in the industry and are unrivaled in my opinion when it comes to simplicity and time/cost effectiveness. As for speed, our facility’s size doesn’t allow us to collect a 40-yard dash or 60-yard dash (standard measures in the industry for speed) so we collect a top speed on our Woodway treadmills. This is our way of being resourceful when you lack resources. I’ve grown to like the measure, because it’s electronic so human error is next to impossible (outside of the coach reading the number on the screen wrong) and although my evidence is anecdotal, it’s very transferrable to real life. The kids who generally record the highest scores on our Woodway sprint test are the kids who run the fastest in sport.

4.     Work Capacity/Cardiovascular Endurance

You can think of this bucket, basically, as how much work an athlete is capable of performing over a specific period of time. The gold standard for measuring cardiovascular endurance is a V02 max test, but there are a number of other good ways you can get a good measure of what kind of shape an athlete might be in. What’s important to remember, is that this bucket is almost ALWAYS the most over trained variable by sport coaches. At Heilman’s Performance we hardly ever spend time training cardiovascular endurance because most of our kids either have to go to basketball practice and run 4,000 wind sprints the next day or have a weekend full of 90-minute soccer games. In my experience, this bucket almost always gets filled by someone else, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be observant.

5.     Sport Specific Skill

Sport specific skill is a difficult thing to quantify. Measurables like throwing velocity and bat speed in baseball, and in-game statistics like field goal percentage, assists or rebounds per game in basketball can give us an idea of where an athlete is in regards to their specific skill. New methods to have a more objective measure of sport skill are being developed every year and new statistical metrics in all sports are giving us a more microscopic look at a player’s true value. The point is, that a lot of times, an athlete doesn’t need more time in the weight room, they need to develop their skills. If you’re a basketball player it doesn’t matter how fast you can run or how high you can jump if you can’t dribble, pass, and shoot.

6.     Nutrition/Recovery

This is a bucket that, in my opinion, is the most overlooked and underutilized bucket in all of our youth, college, and likely professional athletes. Every day there are new methods to measuring an athlete’s dietary choices and recovery methods. At Heilman’s Performance our resources, again, are limited in the sense that we don’t have a registered dietician or recovery specialist on staff (yet), but that doesn’t stop us from being resourceful. Having athletes create food journals to bring in for you, filling out surveys, and just simply asking them what they’ve been eating and how much sleep they’ve been getting at night can go a long way. I try and put simple ideas and recipes on my SnapChat for our athletes to see and copy every now and then. If we can just get our young athletes to start eating more lean protein, natural fats, fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts and being satisfied drinking only water we would put a major dent in this problem. My message to our athletes is pretty straight forward: Eat real food, read books instead of your phone and video games before bed at night, and sleep as often as you possibly can.

7.     Psychological/Social Factors
This bucket is another one that is currently being heavily researched in a field that is constantly evolving. This can relate to how an athlete manages their stress and anxiety, what their network of support is like, how happy they are with their current social situations and a host of other factors. You may have an athlete who on paper, looks like they have everything they could possibly need to be successful. Unfortunately having above average performance measures and being highly skilled doesn’t always tell the whole story. If that athlete isn’t capable of quieting the noise in their head, creating positive self-talk, utilizing positive imagery and developing the ability to be “in the moment” they may never reach their full potential. Ask any NBA skill coach how notoriously bad free throw shooters shoot from the stripe in practice and you’ll understand the importance of brain training. You may not have access to a sport psychologist, but you can still help. With the Minot State University Baseball Team, for example, we practice meditation during our deload weeks. Getting the guys together to sit still, practice living in the moment and create positive self-imagery is something our guys have grown accustomed to and really seem to enjoy. I am by no measure a sport psychologist and therapist, but through my own practice have experienced the benefits of meditation. That, in turn, has allowed me to pass on the skill to my athletes and it seems to help.

As I alluded to through the preceding list, which buckets you’re able to effectively fill and empty will be impacted by the resources you have available to you. I hope I pointed out, however, how important it is to never allow our lack of resources to affect our resourcefulness. Make no mistake, these are two completely different things. If an athlete needs a therapist, and you’re a strength and conditioning coach, refer them to a therapist, but in the meantime, you aren’t out of your scope to recommend they do some research and start a morning meditation routine. This is just a simple example, but one is a resource while the other is an example of being resourceful.

My hope is that this writing gave you a better idea of how Human Performance can be viewed as multi-disciplinary endeavor. With an understanding of the specific disciplines hopefully I’ve convinced you of the importance of individualization when dealing with athletes of all ages and abilities. At Heilman’s Performance, we work with a large number of youth athletes, so we see a lot of similarities in which buckets are full and which ones are empty. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to be prepared for everyone. Having an established framework to gather the information that matters in a standardized fashion and the ability to manipulate the variables necessary will allow you to help anyone that walks through your door. More importantly, it will allow you to ensure that the athletes who have already walked through your door continue to achieve the results they most desire.

As always thank you for reading,


Caleb Heilman

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Letter to Athletes and Parents

It’s recently been brought to my attention that a number of my athletes won’t be joining us at Heilman’s Performance for our annual 10 Week Summer Program. These are athletes that have worked hard for me in the past, achieved notable progress, and as far as I know have enjoyed their time training at Heilman’s Performance. As more and more athletes in our public school systems informed me that they wouldn’t be attending the summer strength and conditioning program, conversation about why naturally developed. The reasons these athletes aren’t training at our facility this coming summer troubles me.

As a business, any time a client decides to discontinue use of our services, we want to try and understand why.  If we have overpriced the market or provided that athlete a disservice, we want to know so we can make a change and make things right. Through conversation, we came to find that these athletes weren’t unhappy with our services or the price. These athletes were making the decision to discontinue their training with us because they felt pressured to do so.

I’ve come to find that many of these athletes are hesitant to train with us because they feel the consequences of doing so may be affect their playing time during their competitive season. If this is not the message our coaches have intended to send then they have miscommunicated, because this is how a plethora of athletes feel. Whether purposeful or accidental, the number of times the term “playing time” has come up in my conversations leads me to believe that the threat has been in some way articulated to these kids. This leaves me both upset and disappointed with our public service officials.

I wanted to write something to the parents and young athletes of the surrounding community so they understand that they have a choice. Before I explain to you why it’s important you exercise your right to choose where you train for your offseason, I want to diffuse an allegation that will assuredly be thrown in my face.

If you think that I’m just another private business owner concerned about his bottom line, I want you to know that you are dead wrong. I’ve had opportunities in the past to make more money for myself and have turned them away because of the effect they may have had on my freedoms and happiness. This is not and never will be about money. One of the opportunities offered to me was a buy out offer from a private corporation’s human performance department in Minot. The offer came with a significant salary increase, eradication of my debt, a flashy title, and the opportunity to coordinate the performance training for the public school system. I could have sold out (literally), but I turned it away because I was happy where I was. So again, before you think I’m writing this for my own good, please know that not all of us are in private business to make money. Some people get into entrepreneurship for the freedoms, challenges, and excitement of building something they can be proud of.

Athletes, you have the right to choose where you conduct your off-season training. Here’s why:

1.    Consequences can’t be attached to something that can’t be made mandatory.

Athletes everywhere need to understand what they can and cannot be leveraged into doing. Every sport at every level has some type of governing body that is put into place to protect and serve the athletes’ best interests. At the professional level there are player’s associations and at the collegiate level there are restrictions on training and practice hours set forth by the NCAA along with student-athlete governing bodies assembled to ensure the athletes have a voice and are being treated fairly. For example, Minot State University has the SAAC (Student Athlete Advisory Committee). As a high school athlete in this community, your governing body is the North Dakota High School Activities Association. The NDHSAA puts forth restrictions on when exactly coaches can make practice and training “mandatory” for a sport that takes place during a specific season. As far as I know, Fall sports like football and volleyball technically can’t make anything mandatory for high school athletes until August 1st. If you are being told that you HAVE TO be somewhere before that date, you are being misinformed. From the time summer vacation starts to August 1st, you should be free to choose what you do with no consequences attached.

2.    Choosing where you train may be the only way to grow.

I’m in no position to tell you that training in one environment over another is what’s best for you. I’ve never set foot in the public school weight room or my competitor’s weight rooms while off-season training is being conducted so to tell you who offers the best environment for you would be, at best, speculation. You do need to understand though that you have the right to choose. I think there are 3 archetypes that should be encouraged to seek alternative training methods:

A.     If you’re an athlete who is on the bubble of being cut from the team, I don’t think a one size fits all program (doing exactly what the person you’re chasing is doing) is going to help you avoid cuts. Finding a way to earn a leg up on your competition is a necessity for you to ensure you get to continue playing the sport you love.

B.     If you’re an athlete who has the potential to receive an athletic scholarship to a university, seeking alternative methods to separate yourself from the pack shouldn’t be frowned upon, it should be applauded. Investing your money now to save money on tuition later is a fine plan. School loans come with an interest rate attached (albeit a low one) that you’ll probably pay well into your mid-life. Nobody should make you feel bad for trying to cut future losses.

C.     Most importantly, if it is your first year navigating a weight room, one-size fits all programs might be the worst thing for you. Exercise prescription and great coaching are the best ways to ensure young athletes learn to properly load the neuromuscular system without excessive stress to the connective tissues. Learning to move properly under load at an early age can be the difference between having and not having a long healthy athletic career.

3.    Choosing where you train keeps the marketplace competitive.

Have you ever played on a team in which an athlete has never had to compete for his/her spot? I have, and with nobody to push them, that athlete rarely improves and often times regresses. Anybody who understands anything about economics will tell you this: healthy competition in a marketplace breeds growth and a lack of healthy competition breeds complacency. If you are feeling pressured to train at a particular venue and you succumb to that pressure, the unintended consequence will be a watered down training environment. If the only reason you are training in a specific environment is because you feel you HAVE TO BE, it gives your strength and conditioning provider no reason to continue to improve. Your freedom of choice is the only reason people providing human performance services have to keep getting better.

Look, I know that by writing this I’ll be under a lot of scrutiny. Coaches will probably feel like I’m trying to undermine them and rally local athletes to become disrespectful and entitled. My relationship with local coaches is important to me so it’s important that athletes and coaches alike know that this is not my intention. My only intention is to inform athletes and parents that they should be given the right to choose how they pursue their athletic development without any consequence. I think it’s a good thing that coaches encourage our athletes to train in the facilities provided by our public school system. I also think it’s a good thing for those athletes to understand that they’re able to respectfully explain that they are choosing to train somewhere else during their offseason. When athletes start to feel that they can’t do that, we have done them a disservice.

I think disagreement and passionate discussion is the best way to continue to push forward. I opened Heilman’s Performance three years ago because I wanted to offer the community I grew up in something different that athletes could take advantage of. Something that, if I had access to growing up, I would have never left. Because I know there will be disagreement and what most of those disagreements will entail, I’d like to explain my stance before my house gets egged.

Teams HAVE to train together to win.

As both a high school and college athlete, when it came to competition time I rarely thought “Hey, was this guy lifting with me all summer?” The only thing that mattered to me is that the guy who was playing was the guy who earned that right. The best players played, whether they trained with me or not. Great athletes want to WIN, that’s it, if the guy next to them offers them and their team the best opportunity to WIN, they couldn’t care less where they lifted their weights. I dropped the rah-rah stuff a long time ago.

Colleges and professional organizations tell their athletes they have to train with them in the offseason.

I work as an assistant strength and conditioning coach for a university and have done internships with professional organizations and can tell you, you’re wrong again. The NCAA only allows us at the college level to make certain times of the year mandatory. We encourage athletes to stick around and train with the university, but attach no consequences to their decision. Likewise, the collective bargaining agreements in almost all professional leagues give their athletes freedom to pursue training and treatment from whoever they so choose during their off season. They’re sent on their way and given a specific date to report back to the organization with which they are affiliated. When they report back, the best players are the ones who play no matter where they trained.

Private human performance venues are grossly overpriced.

This is a matter of opinion and for the parents and athletes to decide. To tell people that they’re throwing their money away by training with a private venue when you’ve never set foot inside that venue is unfair. At Heilman’s Performance we put our athletes through a refined screening and assessment process that allows us to determine what exercise prescription best fits a particular athlete on an individual basis. If parents and athletes determine that this provides more value, despite its price tag, they should be allowed to make that decision devoid of consequences.

I understand that there are more pressing issues facing the world today than the issue this writing covers, so a number of people will roll their eyes at it. I want you, the reader, to understand that it may not be important to you, but it’s important to me and the young people I work with. Some of them and their parents are feeling pressured to make a decision they don’t want to make and I just want them to know that they have the freedom to choose.

The young people of our community work hard and deserve every opportunity they can afford to achieve their goals, taking those opportunities away from them is doing the public a disservice. I’m sure by writing this I’ll lose some friends, but as the saying goes:

“If you want to make everyone happy, don’t be a leader – go sell ice cream.”

As always thank you for reading,


Caleb Heilman