2018 Off Season Thread

Status
Not open for further replies.
#551      

ttelbonk

Champaign
participation-trophies.jpg



[emoji106]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
#552      
I wouldn't put too much stock in the pictures of the "yoked" players. A lot of the changes you see in those before and after pics are lighting tricks, and you can tell that they take them right after a workout, when the muscles are most pumped. Not saying that they aren't actually getting in better shape, but they aren't as "yoked" as those pics make it seem. They are specifically trying to make them look as big as possible. Probably as motivation and recruiting purposes.
 
#553      
One of the most startling transformations, pretty much the same time as college kids.

maxresdefault.jpg
 
#555      
I tend to think that talent is the most important ingredient. While a team like Loyola can get hot and lucky at the right time to make a deep tourney run, they will not be a program that regularly gets into the second weekend unless they can parlay their short-term success into a sustained upgrade in talent (as Gonzaga, Whichita St and Butler have done).

However, I think coaching plays a huge role in assembling talent. To me, talent at an individual level means having the potential to meaningfully improve your team. At the team level, talent means having the right collection of players for the team to be successful. Basketball IQ, motor, coachability, and mental toughness are all part of talent, in addition to physical abilities and shooting, dribbling, passing, etc. Five star and high four star players fit into any system because they have all or most of the physical and basketball tools. But unless you’re the type of program that pulls in multiple five and high four star players each year, you need to be able to find and land the incomplete players with the specific tools to shine in your system and compliment your other players. Step number one here is having an actual system. Step two is knowing what skills you need in players and how to construct a roster for your system to be successful. Step three is landing those players. Step four is getting them to execute your system. Beilein, Ryan and Painter have been exceptional at landing mid to low four stars or three stars that have the specific tools to thrive in their systems and that fit in their overall roster. Their best teams have had some higher rated recruits, but even when they don’t, they’ve still maintained a level of success to potentially recruit those guys in the future. In addition to matching players to their system, they’ve been good at evaluating players for the skills that are harder to identify in D1 athletes competing against high school kids (what I will call soft skills like IQ and mental toughness that to me are part of the talent equation).

Illinois on the other hand has underperformed the last 10 years with rosters full of mid and low four stars. We haven’t had complete rosters, some of our four stars were simply overrated and are other players generally have not had the particular tools needed to raise the team’s play. We’re at a point where it’s going to be hard to consistently bring in high four and five star players (think Okoro and Liddell level) each year without some on court success (Ayo notwithstanding). Doing so would be the fastest way out of this mess. But if we can’t, Underwood will need to properly identify the gettable players with the particular skills needed in his system to complement our stars (Trent and Ayo) and raise our on court performance to the point where we are getting into the dance. While identifying the right complimentary players is a matter of knowing your system and ability to properly evaluate, bringing them in is also an upgrade to talent when they are replacing similarly ranked players that did not have the particular skills to meaningfully improve the team. If we can have moderate sustained success, getting the Liddell’s and Okoros becomes easier.
 
#556      
Yup. The bulkiness and stiffness that naturally develops as a result of powerlifting is actively harmful to basketball ability.

This is just not true. Bulk and stiffness comes from lightweight voluminous workouts. Body building type workouts. Don’t believe me? Watch the 70s documentary about mr universe with Arnold and all those guys. They can barely lift their arm and rotate their torso to throw a football. The bulk you see from our guys is just the normal increase in muscle from skinny kids who lift for the first time. Or it is the change in body fat percentage making their muscles more visible.

Dense, explosive muscle is built through heavy strength training. This type of strength training also reduces injury (see fletch Twitter for multiple scholarly articles on this).

Weight training is also not the only part of the fletch regimen. He consistently works on their flexibility and trains the central nervous system to build connections and help neurons fire faster. He is a also a huge proponent of core stability.

The real culprit is we just haven’t had athletic dudes in general. Mav for example. His athleticism maxed out after fletch controlled him for 2 years. He got considerably more cut due to dropping body fat, but the point remains, we were all excited that a 7 foot dude could finally finish consistently with a dunk. Base level of athleticism matters a lot more.
 
#557      

Illini_1979

Oregon
Man, I remember seeing this same weight training issue brought up during the Eddie Johnson years (not on here...don't even know if this site existed back then).

Everyone was concerned that the weight training would affect the players' shooting. I guess it worked out OK for EJ.
 
#558      
This is just not true. Bulk and stiffness comes from lightweight voluminous workouts. Body building type workouts. Don’t believe me? Watch the 70s documentary about mr universe with Arnold and all those guys. They can barely lift their arm and rotate their torso to throw a football. The bulk you see from our guys is just the normal increase in muscle from skinny kids who lift for the first time. Or it is the change in body fat percentage making their muscles more visible.

Dense, explosive muscle is built through heavy strength training. This type of strength training also reduces injury (see fletch Twitter for multiple scholarly articles on this).

Weight training is also not the only part of the fletch regimen. He consistently works on their flexibility and trains the central nervous system to build connections and help neurons fire faster. He is a also a huge proponent of core stability.

The real culprit is we just haven’t had athletic dudes in general. Mav for example. His athleticism maxed out after fletch controlled him for 2 years. He got considerably more cut due to dropping body fat, but the point remains, we were all excited that a 7 foot dude could finally finish consistently with a dunk. Base level of athleticism matters a lot more.

Yeah, there's some ideas being tossed around here that our guys are "powerlifting" to pack on mass. Without sounding like too much of a bro, power lifting is a very specific type of training that is most definitely not the centerpiece of Fletch's training with our players. While squats, deadlifts, and bench are displayed over social media, there is a ton of conditioning & behind the scenes work that is very basketball focused. Fletch knows what he's doing.
 
#559      
Yeah, there's some ideas being tossed around here that our guys are "powerlifting" to pack on mass. Without sounding like too much of a bro, power lifting is a very specific type of training that is most definitely not the centerpiece of Fletch's training with our players. While squats, deadlifts, and bench are displayed over social media, there is a ton of conditioning & behind the scenes work that is very basketball focused. Fletch knows what he's doing.

Rereading my post I see I also forgot to talk about plyometrics. You’re post is spot on.

PS: please talk like a bro lol
 
#560      
Man, I remember seeing this same weight training issue brought up during the Eddie Johnson years (not on here...don't even know if this site existed back then).

Everyone was concerned that the weight training would affect the players' shooting. I guess it worked out OK for EJ.

Yeah, I remember Ed Macauley (pretty sure it was him - it's been a few years) opining on an Illini telecast that Efrem Winters had perhaps become too "muscle bound". Efrem had a good career, too, although I'm not sure he lived up to the expectations fans had for him.
 
#561      

illini80

Forgottonia
Man, I remember seeing this same weight training issue brought up during the Eddie Johnson years (not on here...don't even know if this site existed back then).

Everyone was concerned that the weight training would affect the players' shooting. I guess it worked out OK for EJ.
That would have been a few years before Al Gore invented the internet! ;)
 
#563      
The four players transferring or graduating gave the Illini about 15 points a game in the big ten and they won four games. Does anyone really think that would improve next year? Let's give our coaches the opportunity to develop their own players and support our Illini.



What would you all consider reasonable expectations as far as stats go for Ebo? GB? Kane? Jones ;) ?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#564      

Deleted member 654622

D
Guest
#3 for Purdue, Edwards? Looks pretty damn solid across the shoulders.

Edwards is solid. That dude looks like a brick !!!! house. Solid legs, shoulders and arms. That wasn't a good example if your saying bball players don't need to be Yolked
 
#565      

Deleted member 654622

D
Guest
This is just not true. Bulk and stiffness comes from lightweight voluminous workouts. Body building type workouts. Don’t believe me? Watch the 70s documentary about mr universe with Arnold and all those guys. They can barely lift their arm and rotate their torso to throw a football. The bulk you see from our guys is just the normal increase in muscle from skinny kids who lift for the first time. Or it is the change in body fat percentage making their muscles more visible.

Dense, explosive muscle is built through heavy strength training. This type of strength training also reduces injury (see fletch Twitter for multiple scholarly articles on this).

Weight training is also not the only part of the fletch regimen. He consistently works on their flexibility and trains the central nervous system to build connections and help neurons fire faster. He is a also a huge proponent of core stability.

The real culprit is we just haven’t had athletic dudes in general. Mav for example. His athleticism maxed out after fletch controlled him for 2 years. He got considerably more cut due to dropping body fat, but the point remains, we were all excited that a 7 foot dude could finally finish consistently with a dunk. Base level of athleticism matters a lot more.

I agree with most your point but that part is not true. Bulk comes from lifting HEAVY weights and stiffness comes from not stretching properly. It is the difference between fast twitch fibers and slow twitch. Fast twitch are bigger and used for explosiveness, like a power clean or jumping high. Slow twitch are for your endurance and "pump".
For a simpler example - Look at a power lifter. He didn't get that way by throwing around 15lb weights 50 times. And that documentary is called "Pumping Iron". It is a fantastic watch if you like fitness. Or just wanna watch Arnold smoking a joint
 
#566      
I left out Black in my estimate but I Wii be surprised if Griffin and Damonte won't more than make up for the other three . I also think the freshmen bigs and Ebo improving will more than make up for Leron departure

It depends on how people view the holes needing to be filled. We still need more help in the frontcourt in order for next years group to be seen as upgrade, but I'm not looking at the posts to make up for Leron's production. Our guards struggled to score consistently which made us depend entirely on Black and Frazier at times. I don't expect the same issue next year with our guards, but if they struggle as a whole between the 1-3 like this past year, then we're going to have a similar record. If we have average offensive production from our bigs but better defense, I think we'll be an improved unit. We're still one transfer big away from that though. We need a Sam McLaurin type IMO..
 
#567      
I agree with most your point but that part is not true. Bulk comes from lifting HEAVY weights and stiffness comes from not stretching properly. It is the difference between fast twitch fibers and slow twitch. Fast twitch are bigger and used for explosiveness, like a power clean or jumping high. Slow twitch are for your endurance and "pump".
For a simpler example - Look at a power lifter. He didn't get that way by throwing around 15lb weights 50 times. And that documentary is called "Pumping Iron". It is a fantastic watch if you like fitness. Or just wanna watch Arnold smoking a joint

Lifting heavy weights with an emphasis on explosion within the movement is what creates fast twitch muscle fibers. Some people call this powerlifting, but powerlifting is its own sport. Fletch seems to prefer heavy strength training, usually based around “power” lifts such as the squat or deadlift, and “explosive” lifts such as the clean. There is also quite a bit of research out there (again check fletch’s twitter as he randomly posts this stuff) that indicates heavy strength training increases flexibility and reduces injury.

You talk about pump. Powerlifters don’t work out for the pump. They work out for pure strength. Hence, they generally lift heavy weights for less than 6 reps per set, and probably not more than 5 sets (which still feels high). The auxiliary exercises are also for pure strength gains to help the main lifts.

Body builders do want the pump. The best pump is achieved through high volume, which as you say builds slow twitch fibers, which are not as useful for basketball. High volume is the best way to increase muscle mass (or bulk which I use interchangeably), which is why a lot of body building based workouts are high in repetition.

Id really encourage everybody to follow fletch and read some of the scholarly articles he posts or retweets on the subject.
 
#569      

Deleted member 654622

D
Guest
Lifting heavy weights with an emphasis on explosion within the movement is what creates fast twitch muscle fibers. Some people call this powerlifting, but powerlifting is its own sport. Fletch seems to prefer heavy strength training, usually based around “power” lifts such as the squat or deadlift, and “explosive” lifts such as the clean. There is also quite a bit of research out there (again check fletch’s twitter as he randomly posts this stuff) that indicates heavy strength training increases flexibility and reduces injury.

You talk about pump. Powerlifters don’t work out for the pump. They work out for pure strength. Hence, they generally lift heavy weights for less than 6 reps per set, and probably not more than 5 sets (which still feels high). The auxiliary exercises are also for pure strength gains to help the main lifts.

Body builders do want the pump. The best pump is achieved through high volume, which as you say builds slow twitch fibers, which are not as useful for basketball. High volume is the best way to increase muscle mass (or bulk which I use interchangeably), which is why a lot of body building based workouts are high in repetition.

Id really encourage everybody to follow fletch and read some of the scholarly articles he posts or retweets on the subject.

Bro, I am not arguing against what Fletch is doing. You obviously didn't actually read my post since you basically said the same thing. fast twitch fibers are what your body recruits for explosive movements, like powerlifting and Jumping high. If you want to be athletic, you powerlift with A LOT of stretching. And there is no "lift heavy weights with an emphasis on explosion". Next time your at the gym, try and set a new PR in the deadlift WITHOUT exploding. If you want better athletes on the court, then in the gym, you powerlift.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
#571      

mattcoldagelli

The Transfer Portal
Before I broached this topic, I said to myself "Self, you're probably going to bring a dump truck of weirdly uncomfortable weight room jargon down on your head, are you sure you want to do this?" and I stupidly ignored that voice.
 
#573      

Deleted member 654622

D
Guest
Before I broached this topic, I said to myself "Self, you're probably going to bring a dump truck of weirdly uncomfortable weight room jargon down on your head, are you sure you want to do this?" and I stupidly ignored that voice.

knock_on_hard_hat_anim_md_wm.gif


At least you knew it was coming....Brah
 
#574      
It depends on how people view the holes needing to be filled. We still need more help in the frontcourt in order for next years group to be seen as upgrade, but I'm not looking at the posts to make up for Leron's production. Our guards struggled to score consistently which made us depend entirely on Black and Frazier at times. I don't expect the same issue next year with our guards, but if they struggle as a whole between the 1-3 like this past year, then we're going to have a similar record. If we have average offensive production from our bigs but better defense, I think we'll be an improved unit. We're still one transfer big away from that though. We need a Sam McLaurin type IMO..

:thumb:
 
#575      
Before I broached this topic, I said to myself "Self, you're probably going to bring a dump truck of weirdly uncomfortable weight room jargon down on your head, are you sure you want to do this?" and I stupidly ignored that voice.

This stuff never fails to surface in off-season threads lol
 
Status
Not open for further replies.