Why Your Warm-Up Isn't Working (And How to Fix It) with Martina Navarro

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Hello and welcome to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. Today we have Martina Navarro. Martina is a senior lecturer in skill acquisition at the University of Portsmouth, and she's the UK director of the Athletic Skills Models. She's also from São Paulo, Brazil, and she's been living in Europe for, I'd say, probably the last 10 years, Martina?

Yeah, probably like between back and forth, I would say a little bit longer, but straight since, yeah, for 10 years now.

And it's nice, you know, obviously I'm Brazilian, so I just wanna say it's awesome. We're having our second Brazilian guest on the show. So welcome, Martina.

Thank you, George. It was funny that we found out that we are Brazilian just because I saw your phone number and the code from Brazil and I was like, oh, this is such a small world. So it's great to Thank you for inviting me.

Glad to have you on. So today we're gonna obviously be talking about the athletic skills models, but more importantly, I think overarching, I think what we wanna cover is like how coaches can improve their warmups by adding variability and the importance of that.

And we'll get into that. So the first question I have for you, Martina, how do you transform fundamental skills into functional movements so that players can express, you know, these super complex movements that you see in the games? That, you know, we don't really train in a normal practice environment.

Yeah. So the fundamental movements is one of the building blocks of ASM, but I think our fundamental movements is a bit different from what we know from the academic side of this particular like set of categories of movement. So I think from in academia, we know like 3 big blocks of categories of fundamental movements.

Like locomotion, object manipulation, and balance. But then what we did as ASM, we thought like practitioners need a little bit more structure to think about all the potential movements that sports have more in common than they differ. So then we put together this list of 10 movement categories that we call the Fundamental 10.

But the way that we see is not like a prescriptive approach. We use what we call a concentric approach to develop them.

Mm-hmm.

And the way that we could use as an example, if you think about the movement category, throwing, catching, hitting, and aiming with the upper body. So that's one of our broad categories. And we develop in terms of concentric approach, you think about hitting in tennis and hitting in badminton and hitting, so with different implements, but also, so that adds for us what we call a lot of variation.

But for us, it's also important the versatility. And to add that is other ways that you can express this different movement category. And then it's also hitting in boxing, for instance, it's also hitting in a volleyball smash. So of course you're not, it's not that now we tell all the athletes to go and do all these different sports, but it's about the movements that are in sports that are common across different sports that can be developed and expressed in so many different ways.

And then you Move, build sort of this movement vocabulary that can make you be more adaptive and creative. So if you know how to like smash the ball or hit the ball with your fist, and you were playing maybe like basketball, and you're not able to catch the ball, you can potentially like, you know, fist bump and pass the ball.

So those are like, it would be like a creative way, or at least coaches would see as creative. to solving the problem. So that's how we see.

Yeah. And I think it also, a lot of people talk about, you know, specializing early on and how that's detrimental to players' development. So if we play different sports, we open up our range of motion, our degrees of freedom. So you, can you just talk about that?

I know you, we were talking about the functional movement, but just more about when you play different sports, how that can lead to more creative solutions that you, as you alluded to there.

Yeah. So there is like a whole body of research around like sampling years and how it's important to develop this like broad repertoire. And one way of doing that is through like trying many different sports. So within ASM, we draw on those findings, but we go a bit beyond because for us, it's not about specific sports and now you're picking different sports and then as a coach, maybe youth coach, you say, okay, today you play basketball with me and tomorrow you go play tennis.

But it's about if the kids come to you and you're aware of that, how can you incorporate these like different actions that are seen in different sports that can transfer and be exploited in your own sport? How can you create an activity that like asks them to move, explore in these different ways?

So it's beyond just doing different sports. So we kind of expand that for, yeah, just coaches being able to introduce in their own practice, like, oh, but I'm not. A volleyball coach, like, okay, we're not talking about, you don't need to be a volleyball coach.

You don't need to send your children to play volleyball. You can introduce that maybe through the warmup. Okay. The only way that you can pass is like fist bumping the, or like just one touch and you don't hold the ball. So that's a volleyball way of passing, but you're doing it in a basketball environment.

So that's like ways that you can introduce that.

And so what I'm hearing you say there is you can play other sports basically for your warmups, which is one of the things I love to do for my warmups is I remember, I think one of our favorite games this past season was volleyball.

So it would, it would just be like 8-on-8 volleyball or 7-on-7, depending on how many players we had at practice. But it would just be so much fun because obviously none of the players were really that good at it. So it was a way for them to just have fun, explore different Like how to hit the ball in a different way.

Because in basketball, you don't really spike the ball down like that. So you really had to learn these kind of like solutions to be good at the game. So it was really interesting to see players explore and just kind of like winning and losing at something you may not be so good at.

It kind of takes you back to being a kid and just playing around and having fun. But my question is to you, like for coaches that feel overwhelmed, About introducing these movement skills for warmups or even at practice, whether it's a youth coach taking, introducing movement skills because, you know, their players are playing tennis later or before or whatever.

But how can coaches do this in like small practical ways so we don't kind of scare them away?

So we have this kind of the first step in ASM is working with our building block Fundamentals 10. And the first step that we say is like, make a basic movement analysis. So that basically means within your own sport, analyze all the specific skills that are within that sport and those that are not.

And then you use what we call the ASM continuum. So we have within your practice, you have this specific practice that these skills in the context of the specific sport. So let's say basketball. So it's all the skills that you use in basketball.

Then you can move through the continuum to the concepts of adaptive, donor, and muti. The adaptive is most coaches do. So if you're playing basketball and then you do a drill, that's an adaptive of basketball already. But then the donor and the muti is what helps guide them in terms of thinking about the concentric approach and thinking about movements that are not in basketball.

So let's say you did your basic movement analysis and you end up with a list of is-specific and non-specific. Within the is-specific, if you change the context, like as you said, they are doing volleyball. And so they are using throwing, catching, hitting, and aiming, which is part of basketball, as a warmup drill.

So it's outside of the context of basketball, does not look like basketball, looks like volleyball. So that's a donor sport for us. And the multi-sport will be those skills that you list that is Not in basketball. So let's say kicking, shooting, and aiming with the upper body.

So now you also want them to develop this coordination, foot-eye coordination. So then you move from your volleyball game and then maybe you play a foot volley or something like similar of the volleyball game with the feet. And then you're kind of already developing this part.

So you can use that structure to help you organize. So you can think about, that's why we call donor sport and moot sport.

Yeah.

'Cause coaches can think about different sports. Oh, okay. Badminton, it's a donor, can be a donor sport or tennis and any sort of variations. So then it becomes easy. And then you say, okay, now instead of using our hands, we use our feet.

Or if it's like, maybe there isn't a lot of like climbing and scrambling in, so then it's the multi-sport for basketball. So then you can like create a, maybe a parkour scenario where they do a lot of scrambling and So that gives coaches like a structure to say, okay, I want to maybe on the warmup, I want to focus on the skills that are not developing our specific and adaptive.

And I do a donor, use the donor emoji concept to create 2 games to warm up that are like developing this movement vocabulary. So then it helps like, yeah, be not overwhelmed.

And I guess you could, it's almost vice versa, cuz I heard you say like you could take your sport. And figure out what the specifying and not specifying movements are. But then if you take other sports and do the same thing, you know, you can look at, oh, okay, let's try this, but in a basketball context, for example.

Yeah. So the two can go either way, right? So you can look at ASM at the bottom of the whole like framework. So we have the 3 main building blocks. So the first one we talked, the Fundamental 10, then we have coordinative abilities and conditions of movement.

So the coordinative abilities is coordination. So it gives the quality. So the fundamental 10 gives you the versatility. The coordination gives you the quality of expressing those movements and the conditions of movement is the physical capacity. So it gives the intensity that you, and once you understand the whole model, then you can truly develop a holistic, like, training session where you can overload the different components, but underlining that.

Yeah.

There is something that we call transfer of learning. And that when you go deeper, then you start exactly what you say, what can I learn here from this sport that would be interesting in my context in basketball that I think would give an edge?

So examples are Ibrahimović, football player, very good in taekwondo, black belt in taekwondo. And you can see how that influenced the way that he kicks in football. So that's what we call transfer of learning. We're not saying all football players now need to do taekwondo, but if your aware has a coach, you can create different games that you can like taekwondo kick like the ball or something like maybe balloon.

So you can really give this, allow the players to explore these movements and looking to this like transfer and the different ways of transfer of all different, like we have 5 domains. Then I started going like the rabbit hole, but just to give an overview of the whole model and how can help guide coaches, like intentionally thinking about all the activities that they're designing.

As you were saying that, I started smiling because it's like, so when in basketball, what really helped me as a coach was naming all the actions. 'Cause then I can, you know, if it's a trigger, I can combine triggers and make it combo triggers or set plays.

If it's feedback, I can give quick feedback, you know, super intentional, like one word, and they mean what they say or they say what they mean. And so it's the same thing with the ASM model, you know, the 10 fundamental movement skills. If you can name them, you can better develop, like you said, the holistic approach.

I think as a practitioner, when you hear the broad categories like locomotor, like object manipulation and balancing, that's like So broad that like, how do you even start breaking them down? And then, so what we try to do is maybe make a bit more applicable.

So we look over like many, many sports and all the main— we say sports have more in common than they differ, actually. And then we start looking into like all these broad categories of movements that could be like broken down to facilitate designing practice.

So we end up with this Fundamento 10.

Yeah.

But within each fundamental 10, you have what we call appearances, that all these different ways you can express. And then you can make analysis of different sports and then just look, okay, in my sport, the appearance, let's say turning, tumbling, and twisting. That's one category.

In basketball, you have a lot of turning, maybe not a lot of twisting and like tumbling. So it's moving on the different axes. So then you can say, oh, maybe gymnastics has a lot of that. So maybe then you create a game.

Yeah.

Where you still playing basketball, but then they have to land, they have to pass when they're like tumbling in the mat, and then they have to pass. So then you're training those in a context. So that starts giving you so many options as a coach.

That's an awesome game right there. Like players have to make a pass as they're falling down. That's a fun constraint. Yeah. And can you just quickly explain the 10 fundamental movement skills and how maybe every athlete can Yeah.

So the fundamental 10 are, um, so you have moving and locomotion. So that is basically getting from A to B. So you can think as a coach, you can list all the ways that you can think about expressing. So it's not only like running, hopping, skipping, but like on wheels, on ice, in the water.

So you can start thinking combinations of that. So it can be, it can be, yeah, it would become infinite. Right. And then you have balance and falling. So all the different, like, Balancing forms, appearances. So in the air, supporting, so all the different ways.

And that goes for all the other 8. So then you have balance and falling, romping and fighting. So that's like pushing, pulling, dwelling, all the different formats of that. Then you have the turning, twisting, and tumbling. So moving all different axes, jumping and landing.

So we have 5 so far, throwing, catching, hitting, and aiming with your upper body. And then— Kicking, shooting, and aiming with your lower body. Then you have swinging, climbing, and scrambling, and then music in motion. Am I missing one?

I think one, but I put you on the spot there, like off the top of your head.

Oh, I did it. Balance and falling, roping and fighting, moving and locomotion, jumping and landing, rolling, tumbling, and turning, throwing, catching, hitting, and aiming, kicking, shooting, and aiming, climbing and scrambling. Swinging and music in motion. Yeah.

Okay. Uh, swinging. I think swinging might've been the one.

Yeah. Swinging is a separate one. So, and then music in motion, it's just being able to move on rhythm. We say the, for ASM, being able to be on rhythm and recognize rhythm, then you're able to break the rhythm. And a lot of sport, like basketball, you have a lot of like this rhythm happening and you're just trying to like find a moment that you can break the pattern.

And then there is an opportunity to score. So then if you're able to move on music or external factor, then you should be able to identify better and then identify when is the time to break.

Yeah.

I think one of the things I do with that in terms of rhythm is like, if we're doing dribbling drills, I just have the players instead of just, you know, dribble as fast as they can dribble in the rhythm. So they're making music with a basketball.

And then you can combine it maybe as 2 or 3 players or 4 players, and they're in the same rhythm. And then they basically just have to make music bouncing the basketball. So you spoke about falling and you had a, we mentioned, we talked about it earlier.

You had, you had an interesting conversation with Marianne Davis on her podcast, which I recommend for coaches to check that out. It's, it's a really cool look at some of what we're talking about here as well. But you spoke about the importance of falling.

And one of the things I took away from that conversation was that if players are able to fall. In a healthy way, so they can fall and not be scared of falling and obviously fall and not get hurt, they can be less scared to take more risks in the sport.

So for example, if I'm a basketball player and I'm going up for a contested layup and there's 2 players trying to come over and block my shot, but I know how to fall, then I can jump as high as I want and I can, you know, get as creative as I want in the air and try to hang in the air for as long as possible and then shoot the ball when can get a good look at the basket to make the shot.

And then I can fall down, get back up, get back into the play. So can you just talk about, I just thought it was super interesting, that kind of concept, but can you just talk about the importance of falling and just speak a little bit more about that?

Yeah. So falling, of course, from a more like injury prevention, I would say is very important because most of sports, contact sports, there will be times that you will fall by contact. So just learning how to fall, you can avoid injuries. But if you really learn how to fall appropriately, you can make different decisions within your environment.

So a good example of like players that are really good at falling is like handball. So if you look at handball, they on purpose throw themselves closer to the goal. And like some of them even like throw the ball when they're like almost like hitting the floor.

So they play around even with the timing and playing around when the goalkeeper is diving. So they make their different decisions. So if you're not afraid and you know how to control fall, you can actually use that in your advantage. So if there is a ball that someone passed and it's kind of like a bit far from you in basketball, But you can still throw your body and maybe even like, if you learn how to do this spike with the volleyball, so you can even like pass the ball almost immediately and you still like fall

and continue. I think I watched a video like on one of the social medias last week with a basketball player that was in a counterattack. And I think from behind the defender sort of like hit their ankle. So then of course, like, you know, when just like step forward and He used that to do a forward roll, pick it up, and continue like running and then score.

So not even that stopped the player. And you see that a lot of in football as well. So that shows how you can make different decisions if you know how to fall. Like an interesting example that we like to use is the Fosbury like flop.

Like before that, they used the high jump, they used to like land on cement. And as soon as there was like a match, then Fosbury like just thought like, let's change this. I can do a different technique. So having a safe space and knowing how to handle it can show how much invite different movement opportunities, like different actions.

So that's why we say that like balance and falling, like it's a common thread among like all sports and like super important.

I remember reading an article about that and it's like they just changed the constraints, right? With the Fosbury flop, they made it like more safe, or I guess they made it so you wouldn't hit the ground. So now you're landing higher above the ground in a soft surface.

So then it's new movement skills are gonna emerge just naturally. So I think it was only time until someone found it. And then obviously I think the Fosbury flop is awesome because it kind of really shows you that just because something's been done one way doesn't mean it's the ideal way to do it forever.

We can always learn from the athletes. And transfer of learning. So you spoke about this briefly. Can you summarize this for us, giving a real-world example?

Within ASM, we have 5 domains of transfer of learning. So one of them is transfer of movement. So then of course, the most like interesting, at least for me, that was in taekwondo when I was younger. Is the Ibrahimović example in football. So the way that he like kicks in football, you can clearly see that he transferred the movements that he learned in taekwondo to now adapt to the football context.

So that's one example and in the domain of transfer of learning in the movement domain. Then we also have the other 4 include physical conditioning and that we do a lot. So people love like strength and conditioning. So you go to the gym or you go to the weight room.

And then of course there is the acceptance, whatever the strength that you develop that will be transferable to the game. And then the other 3 domains include perceptual transfer, conceptual, and lastly competence. So these are more in like cognitive, perceptual cognitive realms. So of course pattern recognition.

Within the perceptual domain. And with the conceptual is like being able, I don't know, a tennis player being able to adapt to courts of different, uh, so you have the sabre and you have like the hard court or the grass. So the ball, like physics, like affect how the ball flies.

So then being able to adapt to that is also important. And the last one, the transfer of contents is around more like biopsychosocial aspects.

Yeah.

Sports, like a rehearsal of life, you know, and then winning and losing. So you gave a good example, like they learn how to win and losing something that, okay, it's not basketball, the volleyball game is like, it's kind of like less stress. They feel less because it's maybe they're not being evaluated or they don't feel they really need to perform.

So that gives this relaxation and also like learn how to do So that you can think about the different movements and sports that you think can exploit the transfer of learning within your own sport. And we don't have a recipe that's like for the craft of the coach to understand their own sport and then identifying different sports, what transfers they can exploit.

But there are examples, a lot of other examples, futsal to like football. So football players, right? Like And then they are able to like bring that to the regular football, for instance. So yeah, you can think about like many examples of top elite athletes that, I think Federer played a lot of badminton when he was younger.

And apparently, like, I don't know if that's true, but his coach was not happy when he was doing a smash and then the way that he flicked his wrist because of the badminton and was like, oh, this is not great. But actually, in fact, was like in his advantage.

of what he was able to do. Yeah, these are like examples, probably the audience who know more about like basketball players that they think, oh, I know this player like used to play this and I can see now it's clear to me how that benefit them.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And, and what I heard you say a lot of when you were speaking was with the transfer of learning was almost like a player's rate limiters as well. So you have those 5. Phases, I want to say.

Domains, we call domains.

Domains of transfer of learning. And you have, so for example, if a player quit, doesn't know how to move in a certain way, that's a rate limiter for, you know, a coach to identify. And then maybe we can help them with some movement solutions.

Like you see a lot of like young players can't make full court passes, so they can't make necessarily that kind of kick ahead pass from one side of the court to the other. So then that would be something that they develop obviously with age and as they get older and stronger, but also with strength.

So you see older players that maybe are weaker, so then you might need to, you know, get a little bit stronger to be able to have those skills in the context of the game. But yeah, super fascinating. Martina, I just, you know, want to thank you for your time.

It's been an awesome conversation. I really enjoyed it. Truthfully, very nice. I honestly, I could sit here and chat about this for hours. Super interesting. And I would've loved to go into more details on some of this, but that's all we have for today.

Before I let you go, I do wanna ask you another question here. So based on everything we discussed today, who do you think, uh, would be a great guest on our show?

Ooh, that's like putting me on the spot. I mean, of course I'm biased to all the guys in ASM, and I think if it's like practical, more, even more practical, definitely we could like think about René, which is the S&C coach of the Dutch women's football team.

And I know he was the S&C coach of a Dutch basketball team some time ago. So he would be someone good to invite. If it's from maybe more academic side, either the guys that I work in Portsmouth University, Matt Dix or Harry Ramsey, they're both like really good and both like quite interested in like decision-making and then like doing research in decision-making and understanding decision-making way far more than me.

So they would be like also great people to invite and also having experience in like practice as well. Not, not only being academics, but I know they work with a lot of clubs as well. So yeah, definitely.

And just quickly, cuz I know you touched on it as well, but you used to do taekwondo growing up. Do you think that helped you now, like that you're kind of doing a lot of research and theory? Does that help you kind of understand?

A little bit more?

I think I got drawn to ASM because it's literally like, it was like my, like, childhood. I played so many different sports when I was a child. Like, in Brazil, of course, you like grow up playing futsal and football anywhere. And then when I started taekwondo later, like, it was like so easy for me to pick up.

I couldn't understand why people were like struggling to kick because I was like playing football all the time, but also play basketball and play many other different Sports at school. So I was quite like really good casual mover. And I can see that myself, like my passion for sport and just being like able to nowadays, I like every day I do something different.

I go bouldering, I go running, I go swimming, I go surfing. So every day I do a different sport. And by accident, we move into a new flat and then there was like tennis court and I never played tennis, but I was like, okay, how hard that can be?

And I like, I can play tennis, you know, like I'm not like expert, but. I can have fun with it. So I feel like I don't have the limitations and I really develop all these movements. It's lacking the coordinative ability. So the quality is lacking, but I am versatile.

I just don't have the quality in developing them. So I think that also, like, we have to think about, like, moving forward, especially you, like how they're going to, like in the later life, how they, what's the relationship we want them to have with like sport and physical activity.

And if it's one for life, then we should give them the tools to engage in whatever activity they can. And then that's also part of the model.

Absolutely. Because I think, you know, sports, professional sports is such a small part of your life. You know, you think about early specialization. Yeah, sure. Maybe it's not the best thing for athlete, you know, in terms of their movement solutions and their coordination and all that.

But also, Like you said, their relationships with their life, with, with sports and for the rest of their life. I think it's a, is a, another fascinating, you know, discussion by itself. Once again, Martina, thank you. Last thing I want to ask you here is the transformative tip.

If you could leave coaches with one piece of advice that would really transform their practice environments and something that they can apply straight away, what would that be?

So I would say, think about movements that are not within your sport and maybe create a game as a warmup. That explore these movement solutions and make sure it's fun. Because I think like the fun part, as you mentioned in the beginning, like just make it fun because they also feel like more comfortable to exploring.

So maybe that's the tip. Just think about a different sport that has a different motor solution and then just create a game to warm up in this beginning. So then you are adding a bit of versatility and then just keep like Changing maybe every time until you get a little bit more comfortable introducing all these different movements.

Amazing.

Thank you. Brilliant.

Thank you.

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