Where did the time go?

Time. Where does it go? When I was a teenager, it seemed like time stood still.

I can remember knowing how many days, hours, and minutes until I turned 16 and could get my driver’s license. Had a chart in my room. It seemed like it would never get here.

Back then, when I would go to bed at night, it seemed like it would take forever to get to sleep. At the factory where I worked in the summer during college, an 8 hour shift felt like 8 days.

When I got to UT-Memphis for physical therapy school, things started speeding up a bit. Classes, labs, work, being a newlywed, clinics, student government…there didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day.

Then…whoosh…it was over and I moved to Maryville with my pregnant wife, starting a new job in a new city. I’m certain that those 9 months of pregnancy slowed things down for my wife, but not for me. She was in labor for like a year (not really).

And then, blink, I’m old with grandchildren and a new knee and life is hurtling breakneck speed toward something else. Where did the time go?

Many times, I’ve heard coaches tell their freshmen athletes that before they looked around twice, they would be seniors and looking at their final year.

I’ve heard George Quarles many times tell senior football players to savor each moment, enjoy every game, that before they would know it, their season would be over.

When it’s hot and you’re tired and practice is hard, it’s quite difficult to understand that but it is true. I’ve heard senior class after senior class bemoan that their final season was almost over. “Where did it go?”

Maybe it played out with success and wins, but did you enjoy the process? Did you enjoy the pageantry and the competition? Did you enjoy your teammates? Did you even enjoy the practices, where your real effort lies, and the wins, where your effort was rewarded?

So here’s the thing—you don’t have time to waste. Take a day off from training? Is your competitor? You think you have plenty of time but you don’t. In football, you’ve got 10 games. Make the playoffs and a few more.

Other sports? Usually double that or more but still a finite number. You have only “X” number of games or events to play the game that you love, to be the player you dreamed you could be.

Your family is going on a vacation this summer? Great! You don’t have to stop training (and you shouldn’t). You can find a gym to work out in. You can run. You can do body weight exercises if stuck in a hotel room.

We took a volleyball into the Canadian wilderness one time and put a strap up for a net and played volleyball on the shores of a remote lake. We took a basketball to a Caribbean island and somehow found a game or two. You find a way.

You’re tired and want to take a day off from your workouts? If you’re getting enough sleep then it’s OK to back off on your workout, but don’t abandon it. Rest is essential but don’t make excuses.

Then maybe one day you’ll be standing on the podium or hoisting that trophy, and then it will all be worthwhile. All the blood, sweat, and tears. The hot August workouts and the stadium steps until you think your legs will never move again.

But if you’re not the champion, you will still be the best you that you can be. And you will have learned incredibly valuable lessons about what it takes to get there that you will hopefully go on and apply to life.

But whatever you do, don’t you quit!

Time to get out on the water!

It occurred to me that I’ve never talked about what a great place this is for watersports. For the most part, I’m not talking about motorized watersports but I do believe it’s a great place for that too.  We even used to own a couple of personal watercraft that were both a nuisance and a joy.

No, I’m talking about human powered vehicles. Canoes. Kayaks. Paddleboards. Even sailboats. We have everything. Or if we don’t, it’s not far away.

Have you ever rafted the Ocoee? We’ve been going down there for years. I think my son was 10 the first time he did it (there are rules against that now). He was a strong swimmer and a big boy and I had no doubt he could do it safely.

Last summer, I took my two oldest granddaughters on an Ocoee rafting trip. I wasn’t sure how they would do, but they loved it. I couldn’t get either of them to ride the bow of the boat through Hell Hole but they were immediately ready to go again.

The good folks at Adventures Unlimited and our barefoot guide took great care of us and now the rest of the grandchildren are chomping at the bit to get down there. The Ocoee is truly a world class whitewater stream but there is lesser but still worthy whitewater to be found closer by.

The upper reaches of the Little River, as you enter the park, have numerous short runs for the expert paddler. I guess I don’t count the tubers—you sit, you float, you get out.

On the Ocoee, you will see whitewater kayakers toying with rapids. It’s fun to watch them flip and cavort on waves that the rest of us hold our breath on as we safely glide by on rafts. You will also occasionally see a whitewater canoe.

Even closer to us, you can often find whitewater enthusiasts on the Tellico River. Shorter and choppier, folks tell me it can be a blast there.

A bit over an hour away is the Nantahala Outdoor Center, the center of whitewater in the southeast. They have it all. If you haven’t seen the now closed Olympic Whitewater Center on the upper Ocoee, you will find it interesting. It’s hard to imagine the throngs of crowds there in 1996 but it was quite a spectacle.

There are two main types of kayaks, whitewater and flatwater. Our nearby lakes are perfect for flatwater kayaking. A local group that calls themselves the Pungo Paddlers head to area lakes on a regular basis. I prefer my old Grumman canoe but my wife and I will join them from time to time. They don’t seem to mind.

Paddleboards look like surfboards but you stand up on them and paddle with a long handled paddle. A couple of my friends are into whitewater paddleboarding. It looks hard (and I suspect it is). They travel all over to find the best water, sharing many of those rapids with the kayaks. 

Again, our lakes around here are perfect for paddleboarding. My own paddleboarding is confined to the week our family spends at the beach each year. It is heavenly to get up well before everyone else, carry my paddleboard down to the ocean, and get in a couple of miles.

The ocean is quieter, the water is clearer, and the peace surmounts all the troubles in my world. I glide along almost silently which means that you get a great view of rays and turtles in the water below.

I’ve always thought I would enjoy sailing and when I see the occasional sailboat crossing the lake just about the Fort Loudoun Dam, I’m envious. My own sailing is confined to an infrequent bout with a Hobie Cat.

Whatever floats your boat, it’s about time to get out there. And if you don’t really care for all the motors on the lakes, keep looking—I bet you can find a bit of solitude just out your back door.

Parents as the Support System

I can be pretty critical of parents of athletes. I’ve seen the worst. I’ve seen kids quit sports they love because of their parents. These days, I’m witness to a whole new set of parents—tennis parents. That’s another story.

But I know that there are far more good parents than bad. I don’t talk about them enough. Parents that run a taxi service to get their kids to whatever practice or game they might have, then sit quietly, patiently.

Taking them places. Buying the equipment that they need. Cheering them on when they do well. Consoling them when they fail. Good parents are a support system to their kids.

You need to be there for everything--their concerts, their games, their recitals. What you don’t need to do is to coach them from the sidelines. Chances are, they’ve got a coach. 

That’s something that really bugs me. At times, it seems as though there are two kinds of parents: Those that coach from the sidelines and those that officiate from the sidelines.

I’ve talked about this before—officials make mistakes, all of them will admit that, but none go in with a bias against one team or another. They aren’t trying to help one team win or one team to lose. They may even be terrible at it, they may be inconsistent, but they aren’t favoring one team or another.

You’ve got to believe me on that one. I’ve seen more games and events in my career than just about anybody. The late great Galen Johnson and I used to compare notes about who might have seen more games.

Good parents are helping their kids with their homework, making sure they eat healthy food (plenty of vegetables and fruits), and get enough sleep. Support system.

Good parents pick their kids up when they fall and help them understand that winning a championship can never be the best thing they ever do. Support System.

That’s something that I’ve heard now departed coaches George Quarles and Gary Rankin say many, many times. With tons of championships between them, they’ve been there and done that. Got the t-shirt. But they never failed to tell their young charges to take those lessons, take what got them there, and turn them into a life.

It’s OK for your kids to celebrate winning a game. It feels great. It’s OK for you to celebrate with them.  But celebrate the effort too. Celebrate improvement. Even celebrate the participation.

I’ve got one grandchild who one day will figure out all this sports stuff. I think he’ll be good one day. But what’s most important right now is that he gets out there and moves. He participates. He pays attention. He’s part of a team. He celebrates the success of a teammate.

He probably won’t be a professional athlete (very, very few reach that point) but he will most definitely be a successful adult. A good man. That’s what he’s learning right now. That his team wins a game is important—it gives structure and meaning to the games. But right now, at this point in his life, all those other things are far more important.

Parents everywhere need to understand that. Somebody tells you that your 12 year old child is going to be a superstar one day? Hogwash! My volleyball playing daughter never touched a volleyball until she was 15 and she was good. Her sport sort of found her.

Remember too that we never stop being a support system to our children. My kids are 41 and 43 and I like to think that we’re still their support system. Not just a taxi service for my kids but there for whatever they might need.

Right now, my son Nick is running for Chancellor. The hard part is the job covers 5 counties, so his campaign goes from Grainger to Jefferson to Cocke and Sevier Counties. Plus Blount County. It’s daunting.

I’ve put a lot of things on hold to help him with his campaign. I’m not biking much, not hiking, not farming. I work and then help him. Because I’m his support system.

Because that’s what good parents do. And that’s what I aspire to be.

Small Holes Sink Big Ships

“Small holes sink big ships.” I couldn’t find who to attribute that quote to but a friend who works out in our gym was the one that told me about it. He said it might make a good topic for a column.

What are your “small holes?” What is it that’s keeping you from your best health, your best self?

Time? OK…there are 168 hours in a week. Let’s say you spend 45 of those either working or traveling to work. And another 56 hours a week sleeping. That leaves 67 hours.

Let’s generously say that you spend 3 hours a day eating or snacking, that’s 21. It takes me 15 minutes to shave and shower but let’s say you take an hour a day. That still leaves 39 hours a week.

You belong to a club? Maybe an hour a week. Attend church? Another 3 hours for most. What else? Mowing the yard? 2 hours. Cleaning the house? 3 hours, maybe. We’re down to 30 hours a week.

30 hours of time that you can call your own. Hobbies, gardening, visiting, running errands, parenting. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s just say that you spend 20 hours a week on all that. Now we’re down to 10 hours a week.

10 hours every week that you can spend taking care of yourself. Exercising. Getting outside. Going for a walk.

But don’t take my word for it: Do your own math. If your health is a priority, you’ll find the time.

Opportunity? Well, for the getting outside part, that’s really easy around here. Our Greenbelt system is amazing and somehow keeps growing. It is a wonderful oasis in the middle of where we live. Haven’t been to the new Craig Jarvis Park yet? Oh, my. It is amazing and thank you Dr. Jarvis.

Have you looked to the east lately? One of the things that I brag about to visitors is that a huge part of our county lies within the boundaries of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  It’s right there! Everything you could possibly want.

There’s a gym on every corner so that’s not an excuse either. But you don’t need a gym to work out. A couple of kettle bells, a space in your garage or basement, maybe a jumping rope, a box to use for step-ups.

Eating better? That one does take some effort but not much. It all depends on what you put in your grocery cart. Put in the effort at the grocery store, a little more food prep, a little less fast food.

If you’re playing a sport or on a team, what are the Small Holes there? If an offensive lineman on a football team takes the wrong steps, the play could be over. If the running back hits the wrong hole, even by a little bit, it just won’t work. You’ve got to do the little things right. Small holes.

Little things might be preparation. If you expect to hit the majority of your free throws, you’ve got to put in the effort. I’ve never met anyone that was “naturally” good at shooting free throws. Maybe more than anything on a basketball court, the charity stripe requires effort.

It might be adequate sleep. Or eating right. Whatever it is that keeps you from being your best. Those are small holes that will sink big ships.

And here’s the thing about those small holes. Once the ship starts leaking a little bit, it doesn’t stop. Those small holes keep getting bigger. The excuses multiply. Your health or your performance starts to sink.

What are your small holes?

Sport Specific Exercises

My wife can be my biggest supporter and my best critic. So, every Sunday morning when she sits down to read the newspaper, I anxiously await her opinion of this column.

It’s usually “good column, Joesie.” After I wrote that piece a couple of weeks ago about sport-specific exercises for performance and injury prevention, she immediately said “good column, but now you need to tell people what to do.”

OK. Good point. Go back to that column and you will see that I told throwing athletes that they need to focus more on the deceleration of their arm and to work on trunk rotation strength. I told basketball and soccer athletes to work on ankle stability.  I told baseball pitchers to focus on their hips.

But how? What does that mean?

Let’s look at the deceleration of the arm during the throwing motion. Remember that the throwing motion is utilized in a variety of sports. Hitting in volleyball. Serving in tennis.

If you watch someone warming up to throw, hit, or serve, they might fasten an elastic band behind them and pull forward on it. I’ve seen that happen a thousand times.

Either that or they just throw (or spike or serve). But if you want to prevent injuries, you’ve got to work on those muscles on the back of the shoulder that slow your arm down after release.

To do that, you should take that same elastic band and fasten in front of you and pull backwards against it. Work on the muscles that pull your shoulder blades toward each other.

As for making those ankles more stable—run in sand, hop from one foot to another, hop up and down on one leg. There are all kinds of reaction devices which use lights to send you in one direction or the other. Old-fashioned shuttle runs help with this.

Pull an old couch cushion or pillow out (with permission) and walk on it. Then hop on and off of it. Now do it with one foot.

Take a yoga class or look at a video to learn good ways to stretch out your hips. Take that elastic band and fasten it around your ankle while seated, anchoring it under your other foot. Pull you lower leg to the outside. Do it slow and steady and then quick and fast.

Probably my favorite piece of gym equipment is the leg press machine. You can work everything from your ankles to your knees to your hips to your core.  I’m not a big fan of a full squat with heavy weight but squat jumps can develop explosive power.

I’m not a big fan of the bench press either—I understand that it can be important for some sports but it often leads to shoulder problems if you don’t pay equal attention to developing the back side of the shoulder.

And let me throw in my bias against dropping weights. Put simply…don’t! It really seems like the “thing to do” right now. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, visit a gym that allows it. You’ll find people repeatedly picking up a weight and immediately dropping it. Time after time after time.

What these folks don’t realize is that they are missing out on what may be the most important part of the lift, the eccentric unloading that comes from setting the weights down. You will develop better body control and more functional strength if you lower the weight to the floor instead of dropping it.

And if you need more ideas or better advice, consult a personal trainer, strength coach, Athletic Trainer, or Physical Therapist. 

 

The Best Teammate

I’ve decided that nobody looks out the window on airplanes anymore.

I’ve been on an airplane a couple of times in the last month but I just realized that everyone keeps their windows shut. All the time.

On one of those flights, I was seated by the window, instead of the aisle, which is my usual place, a concession to my bum right knee now healthy because it has been replaced by a new one. I’ve always liked the window seat ause it allowed me to look at the landscape from above. I’ve seen tiny islands in the ocean, the Grand Canyon, New York skyscrapers…all from 20,000 feet.

I watch that little map tracker thing on the back of the seat in front of me, keeping up with where I am in relation to the ground below. That lets me try and figure out what I’m seeing below. I am fascinated by travel and intrigued by adventure, still a kid who wonders where those people inside that amazing flying machine are going.

I’ve been fortunate to get out and see a lot of the world. I’d like to think it has made me more tolerant, more accepting of a world that can be quite different from my rural roots.

I went bike riding on the Greenbelt with one of my grandsons last weekend, on a beautiful Sunny afternoon. We had done this before, but it was usually my idea.  This time it was his idea, and he knew where he wanted to go.

First, all the way to the bubbling spring at the Ft. Craig monument. But he’s there just to see the map that shows the location of Fort Black, which was out near Chilhowee View School and was founded by Joseph N. Black. Maybe a relative, maybe not. He likes that maybe it is.

Then back to the upper end where the trail makes a loop, above Pearson Springs Park. There we can find the tree and plaque placed there to honor my dad, Carl H. Black.

He wanted to know more about my dad. Was he big and strong? Was he smart? What was he like?

This is my little Social Chair, more like me than any of the others. When he walks into a room, he wants to get to know everybody there. On this day, he spoke to every single person we encountered. 

Because that’s who he is. He played basketball this year and got the “Best Teammate” award. How could we want more than that?

The world is a big, beautiful place. People are generally wonderful if you look for that in them, if you give them the space to be wonderful.

I want my grandchildren to know the world yet not become worldly. I want them to fly in an airplane and wonder about the people down there.

I never want them to stop looking for the good in people, to stop being kind to everyone they meet. If it’s in them, I never want them to stop walking into a room and wanting to know everyone’s story.

And I want them to always be the Best Teammate.

 

Best Exercise by Sport

I was in a discussion on sports performance and training programs this week when the conversation turned to the best exercises for different sports. 

In other words, if you play softball, what are the most important exercises for you to do? Or baseball, or football, or pretty much anything out there. It was a pretty high level discussion so there were a lot of really great ideas thrown about. 

I took notes but the discussion was fast and furious so I didn’t get everything but I did get the basics. For the most part, you can divide the discussion into two parts—performance and prevention. The two go hand in hand.

From a performance perspective, prevention of injuries can be huge. If you’re injured, you can’t perform, you can’t practice, you can’t work on those things that translate to performance.

Let’s start with baseball/softball. You might think that they’re about the same thing but there are some important differences.

With any sport that involves throwing, those muscles that rotate the trunk, mostly what we think about when we consider our core muscles, are the single most important thing to consider from a performance standpoint.

And throwing is not just baseball and softball. Think about the volleyball serve or spike—those are both basically a throwing motion. Quarterbacks, discus throwers, shot putters, the tennis serve…all those involve a throwing motion and require strong trunk rotators to be effective.

For baseball pitchers, the hips are key.  The lead leg needs to have really good hip external rotation motion and really good trail leg hip internal rotation strength. In a huge study done by a friend of mine, these two factors were the best predictors of pitching success, not the shoulder nor the trunk.

In preventing injuries in the throwing athlete, the single most important exercises are those strengthen the “decelerators” of the arm. Think about the back of the shoulder and the muscles that pull back on your shoulder blade. Those are often neglected and that’s when you see me with an injury.

Swimmer’s Shoulder is a very real entity and is related to that same thing. So much of what swimmers do develops the front of the shoulder and ignores the back of the shoulder. It is absolutely necessary for swimmers to work on muscular balance at the shoulders.

Basketball and soccer players change direction a lot so their injuries tend to be more at the lower leg and ankle. Dynamic strengthening of those muscles that stabilize the ankle are essential.  Think planting your foot and suddenly changing direction—that’s where the importance of strong ankles comes into play. Same thing for running backs and receivers on a football team.

Working on sudden changes of direction in the gym can get you ready for practice and games. Hopping from one side to the other, plyometrics off of a box, jumping onto an unstable surface, all those will help develop the strength necessary for performance and prevention.

It just makes sense that if you’re a soccer player that heads the ball that you need strong neck muscles. Don’t forget that the foundation that those neck muscles depend are on the rest of the spine (core strength).

Training for performance is not all bench press and hamstring stretching. It’s more about focusing on what you need for your body to do in space—controlling motion and reacting to outside forces.