What Was It Like to Work with the Raptors as a Strength & Conditioning Intern?
Hello Folks!
Just thought I would share my internship experience with any fellow individual’s’ who are looking to do a strength and conditioning internship in the future or are just ‘curious’ about how my experience was!
So, where do I begin???
Well, let’s start with the training staff. I was very fortunate enough to be able to work with some of the best performance coaches in the world, and I am super grateful for them to take me on. I can’t say enough about how intelligent a guy like Alex Mckechnie is. He is by far the smartest person I have ever met ‘orthopedically,’ and he has an ‘eye’ for identifying dysfunctional movement patterns within an individual. It was a fascinating experience to be able to work with and learn from a guy like this. Also, his “Core-X” system is an incredible tool that I highly recommend any strength and conditioning coach or rehabilitative professional look at adding into their toolbox! There are some cool things that you can do with the system that I’ve never seen anywhere else done.
Coming into this internship, one of my primary goal’s of doing this internship was to work with a different type of athlete (basketball) and expand my knowledge into different athletic domains of training. Moreover, working with basketball athletes was probably the most interesting thing. The reason being is because basketball athletes are much different than any other athlete I’ve worked with, mainly because of their ‘height’ and ‘athleticism.’ It’s crazy to see some of these 6 foot 8 athletes have such massive verticals, move in various directions quickly (lateral, rotational, etc.) and overall just DO crazy things like a 360 DUNK! Furthermore, it’s imperative as a coach to be very ‘cautious’ when loading these athletes up. These ‘ athletes are very tall, and that can make them more susceptible to injuries such as a disc bulge, especially if they are performing repetitive flexion based movements with poor spinal posture (e.g., More motion to take the spine through since they are larger, which puts more stress onto the discs). Additionally, these guys are playing and practicing almost every day of the season with little days off. Therefore, as a coach, it is usually best to reduce the workout volume and cut things down a bit to give the players a rest. (Note: These are just a few things I observed and learned while I was working with these players)
Moving on.. another important aspect of why I wanted and did this internship was because of the networking possibilities. Working with such as a recognized team like the Raptors will get you noticed anywhere in Canada and for the most of North America. Therefore, well I was with the team, not only was I able to develop a strong working relationship with each of the coaches, players, and training staff, I was able to meet and speak with other strength coaches from around the NBA and local performance coaches in Toronto. Ultimately, it’s great to network and makes as many connections as possible because you never know down the line where one of these potential connections could turn into something. Not only that but you also can somewhat pick the brain and learn from several other highly recognized performance coaches within North America. As of right now, I can’t say any of the connections have turned into anything, but it’s still early (as I had just finished my internship about a month ago) and will see where the future takes me 😉
Anyways, this is just a brief recap of my experience that I wanted to share with any folks looking to do some strength and conditioning internship. I think there are many benefits of doing an internship, such as being able to work with and train several professionals athletes, learn and work with professional coaches, making connections and ultimately just gain experience in the field. These are just a few benefits, and I recommend if you ever have the opportunity work with professional or semi-professional athletes, I would do it!
These are a just few words of advice. Hopefully, this helps any future individual’s out there looking to work in some sporting field 🙂
Cheers,
Remi
