How to Apply Ecological Dynamics to Strength and Conditioning with Javier Miller-Estrada

This is the Transforming Basketball Podcast, and I'm your host, Alex Sarama. This is the podcast where we help coaches and practitioners change the way we think about basketball performance. Our goal is to create the ultimate resource to help make sense of how contemporary skill acquisition ideas can be applied within the basketball world.

Throughout the podcast, we'll unpack how an ecological dynamics framework alters our perspective Of the game, if you're ready to join us in our quest to transform the basketball world, then this is the podcast for you. Welcome back to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. Really delighted to be joined today by Javi Miller Estrada.

Javi is the host of the Adaptable Athlete Podcast. I think it's a must listen if you haven't heard of it. Coach is going to include a link in the show notes, and Javi's also recently joined the team Emergence who. who, you know, have played a huge kind of impact on the way I think and helped me adopt an ecological approach.

And Javi is also the co-founder of Ignite Performance in Arizona. So thanks so much, man, for taking the time to join us today.

Of course, man. It's a pleasure to be here. When I had heard you're doing a podcast, first of all, you are perfect for it. So I'm really excited to see where this conversation goes, but to see what you're doing and where you take the podcast, man, because it's something the industry sorely needs.

Oh, much appreciated. I wanted to start with this, Javi, because I mean, one of the, the recent podcasts you did was talking about how coaches, you know, in any sport can adopt more of an ecological approach. Now, before we even get to that, from some type of practitioner over in the basketball world, whether they're a coach, athletic performance trainer, you know, what is an ecological approach and, and what does it even look like?

Yeah, well, I appreciate you listening to the episode and I think what I was trying to get across from this episode is that practitioners need some practicality. I know we talked about this off air, like the theory can be a bit challenging, specifically when we have come of age in our fields, respective fields of things need to look a traditional way.

Everything needs to look perfect. Things need to be practiced in isolation, perfected, and then deployed in some moment, right? If we think of like your sport, basketball, which I'm pretty familiar with. It's like practicing some move on air and then automatically the athlete is going to do it in the game when the constraints are different, when things get real, when things start to heat up a little bit.

And so contrast that with, you know, an ecological approach, a more modern approach to skill development and sport movement. We need to understand that that viewpoint is really embracing this duality, this ingratiating of the environment and the athlete, that they're not separate in any way, that they feed into each other.

And that an athlete perceives to act and acts to perceive, right? And so essentially taking that same example, perhaps we can set up a training environment where instead of an athlete doing a one-on-one move on air, right, they need to determine what move to actually do, when to deploy the move that you're actually practicing in the skill development session.

And so what the ecological approach aims to do is essentially marry those 2. And instead of separating them, right, embracing them and embracing an athlete's own individual constraints, you know, and embracing the constraints that are present within the environment and that are ever-changing.

So that's kind of a top-down viewpoint. There's obviously a lot of little nuggets and threads that we could pull on, but when I would describe the ecological approach and how it could be, you know, proposed in basketball, that's what I think of.

I love that. And I think, you know, such a good example of teaching moves. And I think one thing I'm really trying to share here at Transforming is how when we're using an ecological approach, it's not a case of doing it after. So it's not a case of teaching some type of move and then creating some type of more alive practice environment.

That's a term you guys use a lot at Emergence, where players are self-organizing, acting on affordances, et cetera. We want to start with that straight away and manipulate constraints where, like you said, players can come to a move that satisfies the constraints interacting upon them at that specific moment in time.

What would you say to that, Javi, in terms of why we want to start here as opposed to a linearistic progression of Building up to it.

Exactly. And so that linear progression is what most people are familiar with. It's like you do something that's very dead, right? The opposite of an alive movement problem, something that's dead. And then you eventually get into the full game. I've told this story a couple times now, but I'm currently doing jiu-jitsu.

I'm only 3, 4 months in, but most jiu-jitsu practices, if we compare how they're normally done, it's you do a move and the opponent doesn't move, right? They're not providing any resistance. It's very unrealistic. And then when you get to actually apply that move, you have no idea what the hell's going on because the situations that the constraints are so different between those 2 scenarios.

So we want to expose our athletes to live movement problems and do something what we would call scaling. So scaling the problem down, scaling the space, scaling the constraints down a little bit so it's a little bit more manageable. So we are constantly allowing our athletes to face live movement problems.

to adapt and to form new movement solutions rather than just only spending the last 10, 15 minutes of practice and doing 3-on-3 or 5-on-5. We can work on specific scenarios where we are hoping that our athletes select certain affordances or, or opportunities to act.

We can create certain scenarios that will improve specific parts of the game that we actually want them to improve upon.

So I wanted to touch on scaling 'cause I think that's something really important and that's actually one of the biggest differences just between what I see in North America and Europe. I think forms of life, a lot of coaches talk about, oh, European basketball, they're teaching the fundamentals, et cetera.

But really, I don't think it's not because of training, but it's because of things like we have lower hoops at younger ages, smaller basketballs, and a whole plethora of other factors such as playing with a shot clock, et cetera. But just on the scaling, in addition to maybe using different equipment, manipulating constraints, what could that look like maybe in a basketball setting if players are finding something too challenging?

maybe they're not perceiving an affordance that we might want to amplify. You know, what are some other examples of things that coaches could potentially do?

Yeah, so one thing a coach could do, and I think this is a little bit of a misconception with ecological dynamics, I think the thought from a lot of people that are getting into this approach is that you can never talk to your athlete.

Like, you have to just self-organization. I set up the game, I set up this, the activity, and then I walk away. So as a coach, you can guide the attention And the intentions of your athletes through questions. So you could say something, hey, what did you see on that play?

Or I want you to exploit space. Or if this person plays you this way, what does this mean? Like if someone is, if they're playing drop coverage on a pick and roll, what could this mean for you as the ball handler? And so that's one thing you can do.

Another thing that you can do is limit the number of people that are present in the activity. You can limit the space. That's an easy one. That's something that we do. When it comes to like how we set up activities is if something is becoming a little bit overwhelming, the velocity is too high, but we'll limit space so that way they don't get up to a higher speed and that their decisions are maybe, they're able to see maybe a little bit more clearly.

Things aren't coming at them so quickly.

Love that. Great, great example. And I think just in that example, going back to the drop coverage, I think this is where using an ecological approach, it actually requires a coach to have an even greater knowledge about the game to then develop the player's knowledge of within that environment.

For me, that means, you know, looking at, all right, if we're working on punishing a drop coverage on offense, what are the affordances that might appear within this? And then as opposed to specifically teaching them, how could we create an environment with constraints where they might happen?

And I think that's where using this approach well, you actually have to be so much more creative as a coach and really think about, all right, what are the affordances that might emerge And then how could that happen with constraints?

Exactly. And I think you actually have to be more present as well because like, I mean, we've been in a situation as athletes probably where your coach has a practice and it's just not working, right? It's just not working. Or you've been in it as a coach probably where you have this practice plan and you go into it and you want to do A, B, C, and D, and you realize that they can't get through A.

So why do we have to just keep going through B, C, and D? Like maybe A is where they need to be. And that's where, as a coach, you have to become attuned and aware and sensitive to these opportunities as well. So it doesn't— it cuts both ways, right, for an athlete and a coach.

Absolutely. I think that's a great point too on the practice plan, because something I've been saying to coaches is if it distracts you and it stops you placing your attention on what's emerging within these activities, it's actually being more of a hindrance than something that's actually supporting your athletes.

So You know, I think, would you agree that a practice plan can be useful, but we've gotta be very careful maybe with how we use it when we're using an ecological approach?

I 100% agree with you. And we've talked about this, I believe, when you were on my podcast. And, you know, Tyler over at Emergence, he talks about this idea of softly assembling practice. And it's having an idea of what you want. You have parts, but you can move 'em around.

You're like, you know, Stu Armstrong has used this. You're a DJ. You know, maybe you see in practice the volume, the amount of information is too high, right? You're working as a coach, right? People are going to hear this podcast. They're loving what you're doing.

You're going to go out. And if you tried to change everything with your athletes on day 1, it could be potentially overwhelming. So as that DJ, you might need to turn down the volume a little bit, turn down the information. And so that's where having a softly assembled practice can actually allow you to meet the needs of your athletes a little bit better.

than if you just have this rigid practice plan that you have to stick to.

Great point. So, Javi, I'd like to move a little bit. I think that's a really kind of great introduction into the ecological approach and what it is. I'd like to go kind of quite specifically into your field now and your area of expertise.

Just for the benefit of the listeners, could you just quickly touch on kind of what you're doing at Ignite and how you're using an ecological approach there?

Yeah, so we are a private training facility. We work with both individuals who want to come To Ignite. They are, you know, coming towards us from various backgrounds, different sports, whether it be sports such as volleyball, American football, basketball, lacrosse, all kinds of different sports, baseball.

We also work with quite a few teams. So we work with football, American football teams. We work with some baseball teams and lacrosse teams. So different, different teams that we work with as well. And so what we're doing is to try to apply an ecological approach Not just in our team setting, but within our facility.

We're trying to apply in areas, which I'm sure we're going to talk about, such as the warmup. We're even trying to apply some concepts, some aspects of ecological dynamics, such as this embracing of variability and ownership into our weight training sessions. And so we're trying to allow our kids to take the driver's seat.

That's one thing we like to say internally. And as a coach, right, you have to step away sometimes, allow your athletes to take, to drive the car. You become a passenger. So that's what we're trying to do, uh, with Ignite. And we work with athletes all the way from, you know, middle school up to professional levels.

Love that. So maybe let's start with the weight room, because I think this is a really interesting point. And, you know, whether it's the NBA, high school basketball, a lot of what I see in the basketball world is a repetition after repetition approach in the weight room where players are doing quite heavy sets, always the same.

And almost doing kind of movements in the weight room which have no resemblance to the affordance landscapes that they are going to be encountering within the game of basketball itself. I know this is quite a generalistic question, but what is your vision of, of what the weight room could look like for athletic performance coaches working in the basketball field?

I think if we can shift the mindset of the weight room towards being more of a problem solving, like, setting for athletes. Like, they can solve problems in the weight room, not just in your speed and agility sessions or your court sessions or anything like that.

You can actually utilize the weight room to provide them with opportunities to explore their action boundaries. So for example, if we do everything in the weight room, like repetition after repetition, everything looks the same. Your squat base looks the same. Well, I think it's probably a good idea to have those athletes explore various squat bases, to explore different stances because Basketball is as diverse a sport when it comes to movement and biomechanics as you will ever see.

The other thing that I think is worth mentioning, at least this is the way it is in America, but kids are playing basketball 11, 12 months out of the year. There's really no more offseason, at least at the high school level. They're playing club, they're playing open gym, some are playing with multiple club teams.

And so this idea of overtraining comes into play, right? And so as an injury prevention mechanism, variability and embracing repetition without repetition can have a dramatic effect on decreasing the potential for ACL injuries. And this has been studied now on multiple studies by Orangi and colleagues.

You may have seen the one that, that Rob Gray just talked about, and you can apply these just as a way to prevent injuries. And if you allow your athletes to participate in sport longer and develop and become more skillful, right? Even just as a weight room coach, then you've probably done them a service, right?

As opposed to having them do the same things over and over again and then lead to burnout or some sort of overuse injury.

That's great. I think especially at the professional level, just the implications of that are so severe where the millions and millions of dollars that are being spent at that level. And I think it's so easy because even me, when last year at college prep with, with our players in the weight room, it's literally as simple as, can you find a different way to do that?

Or can you make every rep within that set of 8 different? And obviously I think it's just doing lower weights as opposed to really heavy things. And I think just, it's so simple to, to do this, right?

Yeah, no, that's a great point. And you have to know your athletes. Like all these things that we're saying right now, if it's a, like we still lift heavy, but I probably wouldn't do a 3-rep, 2-rep set with like change your, change your base.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But so it's all, or depending on who you're with, right? Depending on your athletes. If it's a, the application for pro athletes is extremely high. Particularly at a level or like at a, at a high-level athlete when the physical capacities are a little bit similar, right?

In the NBA, everybody's a pretty good athlete. A lot of the kids we work with, their physical constraints, right? Their ability to produce force oftentimes are just lacking in basketball, right? You just see that the kids that are like Bambi on ice. So we do sometimes have to resort to traditional training in addition to some rep without rep and non-traditional strength training.

But at that level, man, I feel like it has such a potential to allow for athletes to stay healthier longer, to become adaptive movers, you know? And I think that's something that's really underutilized.

Totally. My vision of the future would be if, you know, both of us were working in the same program, theoretically, as opposed to these organizational silos existing, which are very prevalent even in high school programs to the highest levels of our sport. The idea is that every practitioner could have a shared work off the same shared theoretical framework, AKA an ecological approach.

And as opposed to working really separately, would be way more integrated and working closely together. So, you know, I guess the easiest example for the listeners is within the role of an athletic performance coach. Obviously, manipulating individual constraints, increasing action capabilities is really important.

But at the same time, that's really only beneficial if players can use that to act on new affordances or maybe act in a different way. What could we do maybe if we have 2 like-minded individuals having an organization? How could we start to better integrate the basketball coach with the athletic performance coach?

So one point I think that you made that is really important that I think the listeners need to really just understand is that if it was just about physical, it was capacities, action capabilities. If it was just about that, then the people that kill the NBA Combine would be the best players in the league every year, right?

You see this in American football. Famous story when Kevin Durant couldn't bench. I think they do exactly 185. He couldn't 185. And I remember some of these other athletes. I think that same year, maybe the year before, there was a guy named DJ Strawberry who has played for Maryland and he was the best athlete in the combine.

If you haven't heard of him, it's because he didn't have the best career, right? So he should be one of the best basketball players, right? He should have had a great career based on those numbers. Obviously there's more that goes into it. But the point being is that it doesn't matter the tools you have if you don't know how to wield those tools.

Within context. And so I think that is where the integration can start to happen. When we understand what our roles are, we can have conversations and understand almost like a Venn diagram that there is overlap and that's okay. I've experienced when, you know, as someone who people may say a strength conditioning coach is not what I call myself, but if we start to do activities that look like the sport, how does that make the sport coach feel?

Are you, are they going to feel threatened? Are they going to understand? Are we going to have a conversation here? This is what I'm trying to do. You can still handle tactics. You know more about the game of basketball or football than I will ever do.

You know, if we were to work in the same program, Alex, I wouldn't say, hey man, you are going to know more about basketball than I will ever know. But you also know that I have an understanding of it. So I will apply it in a way that's going to help your players become better.

And the same thing, if I worked with the physical therapist who is working on the athlete's range of motion and then understands that there's a gap between, again, those tools that those athletes now possess, that they quote unquote regained, and now applying them and learning how to move again with their new set of constraints.

That's where I can come in. So as long as we understand each other's place, I think that's how that would work. And at the end of the day, it sounds simple, but talking to each other.

That's it. I was going to say, how do we do that? And for me, it's just lots of small conversations. And it's— I think that's where it all starts, being around. And then of course, having viewing the game through the same lens. And I think that's where coaches often wonder, why is it that I need to spend time learning about an ecological approach?

It's difficult to learn about these terms— affordance, perception-action coupling— but it's so important. I think you'll very much agree on this, because once you spend time learning these terms, it gives you a different perspective to view the game. And then we can connect that perspective.

And imagine if we were at the same program and we could use the words affordance freely, and actually we could all understand what that is and And, you know, what we can do with that knowledge.

Yeah, no, the opportunities and the possibilities would be endless. And I just feel like it would serve so many athletes. Like, there will always be outliers. There will always be athletes who, no matter what they do, are going to be the best of the best, right?

But there's a lot of athletes who don't necessarily reach the career potential or the opportunities, don't actualize the opportunities that they could have. And if we agree that playing the game helps people get better, Why not create scenarios where we're approaching that and getting them more opportunities to get better at the thing that we all want, and that's to become a better athlete, in your case, become a better basketball player.

So I think the applications and the opportunities would be immense.

That's great. So I'd like to shift now to the warmup. You mentioned it before, Javi, and I think this is one where we've got a lot of youth coaches listening to the podcast, and I think they might not all have time in the weight room, but they all have time on the court.

And traditionally, a lot of time is wasted in warmup routines. And what I see a lot in the basketball world is dynamic stretching and just things like this, routines which take about 12 minutes. And that time could just be so much better spent doing alternative things.

And yourself and your colleagues at Emergence, you guys have an awesome course. I think it's Reconceptualizing the Warmup.

Yeah.

And now, yeah, when I watched that, it was about 2 years ago, and that just, it changed my whole perspective of the warmup. It was amazing how— because I saw, you know, when players can express dexterity in the warm-up and actually develop functional solutions moving in different ways, well, that obviously transfers to basketball.

So what could coaches do just to start incorporating some more variability in the warm-up and moving away from these routines?

Yeah, I mean, that, that's a great way to introduce it, and I think it's a little bit of a low-hanging fruit, right? We have You may have, if you're a youth coach, you maybe practice 2 to 3 times a week and your warmup takes 10 to 15 minutes.

Can you utilize that time to actually expose your athletes to some alive movement problems? Can you use that to help your athletes explore their degrees of freedom, right? Can you utilize that time to have your athletes perceive, act, and then adapt to various constraints, various movement problems?

And I think that's where, as a coach, if you think about what you're doing in the warmup, what is your intention behind it? Is your intention, okay, we're gonna prep the tissues. Okay. We're gonna go ahead and, and have them experience a wide range of degrees of freedom.

We're gonna go ahead and get them into, you know, a deep squat and, and, and whatever. Can you do that in a way that is more alive? Can you do that in a way that puts the athlete in the driver's seat? It could be as simple as when you're doing squats.

This is something that's easy, right? When you're doing squats, can you allow them to explore various squat positions? Because what they're about to do In basketball is not going to be your traditional squat with your feet 50/50 weight distribution, toes pointed ahead. It's, they're not going to be there very long at all, if at all in basketball.

So can you at least start there? Okay. You're doing something where they're just jogging up around the court or they're just shuffling on air. Can you put someone in front of them? Right? These are easy things that you can do that allow your athletes, one, to become more engaged and two, to become more skillful within that preparatory time.

And I think they're better prepared for what you're probably going to do in your practice design than if you just had them doing knee hugs and Frankensteins and regular lunges and things like that.

Absolutely. I've just got one question from within that, and I think just talking about degrees of freedom, would there be an example, maybe a way you could kind of explain the importance of the degrees of freedom and kind of the need to open up the system degrees of freedom and get players exploring, harnessing the abundance of degrees of freedom values, and maybe talk about what they even are?

Yeah. Well, you said it too, the system, right? It's a system. It's not just degrees of freedom from the motor system. So people think physical, like how many ways can I move my shoulder? Where can I take my shoulder? Where can I take my hips?

Can I get my knees in a certain position? So that, that's part of it, right? But it's also perceptual degrees of freedom. Cognitive degrees of freedom is like, am I able to see various opportunities for action? What am I seeing? Right? What am I thinking?

What is the athlete thinking if they're coming off of an injury? Do they freeze their degrees of freedom cognitively? Do they constrain themselves? And they're constantly working together. These aren't separate silos. So as a coach, it's important for you to expand your athlete's toolbox.

And to me, it starts at degrees of freedom. You could have them, again, it could be like a simple as like a getup. Can you get up from the ground in as many ways as possible? Are they going to explore different range of motions in their hip, in their knee, in their ankle?

So that could be something that you do. It could be as also As exposing them to various movement problems in the world. Instead of having them always face the same way, can you change their starting position? These are just ways that you can expand their toolbox, explore various degrees of freedom.

Could be something as simple as, you know, I'm a big fan of like different tag games, right? And they have to move their body in different ways and pick up on different affordances, opportunities to act. Is it as specific to basketball as it could be?

Not necessarily, but at least it's alive. And at least those athletes are exploring. At least they're in control of that portion of the warmup.

Absolutely. I think it's so easy. Like today, just in the practice I did, within our warmup, I said, okay, you guys have to get to the other sideline moving as many different ways as you can, and you have to try and not repeat the same movement twice.

We saw flips, handstands, leg kicks. It was amazing. And it's so simple. It's just you frame it as a challenge. I think at the beginning, players can find it a little bit weird because they're so used to tradition. But then as soon as they open up, they're like unlocked.

And some of the movements you see, it's amazing and it's so easy. And also I think you can integrate basketball to all these things. It could be as simple as dribbling within a tag game, or maybe you're doing some type of battle, you're wrestling and you're dribbling while you're doing it.

And it's so easy to integrate the basketball part into the warmup too.

That's a great point. And we think about like the best movers in basketball, they have an abundance of solutions. They're dexterous. I think I might've asked, I think you were on with Adam, or maybe it was a separate episode. I asked Adam, who's the best mover?

In his opinion, it was like Kyrie Irving and his ability. Yeah. His ability to finish around the rim in any circumstance. That is what we, when we talk about having these degrees of freedom, if that first solution isn't present, is he able to adapt and contort his body and find a new solution, which is to the problem, which is getting the ball to the basket and not getting the shot blocked.

So that is something that I think for basketball is so critical because it is such a dynamic sport.

So true. And that's, that's where as coaches, we got to think when we're teaching these moves, you know, right. to how you started the podcast, we are just imposing a very narrow range of degrees of freedom values on our players, and that's just not going to allow them exploring new functional solutions in a manner like a player like Kyrie.

So I want to finish on a little bit of rehab and looking at players coming back from injury. And I think the most common injury in basketball is the ankle sprain. Now, what we see in the traditional approach is Something happens in the practice, even a mild sprain, players will ice the injury and then they'll be out a few days and then they might keep icing it.

And sometimes what will happen is coaches will put some type of brace on and then really limit their movement and then try and get them back with maybe very traditional rehab drills, which are kind of the same every time, not featuring any kind of representativeness of what occurs in basketball.

How could an ecological approach also change not just everything we was talking about in today's episode, but also the rehab process itself?

Yeah, that, that's a great question. And I think it's such a complex issue and something that we really don't do a great job of in injury, as injury specialists, as, as whatever people want to call the field. But, you know, we traditionally, again, view things from just the motor systems.

Like, how does the ankle work? Or we take like a knee, someone tears— I tore my ACL. And, uh, this is years ago at playing basketball. I tore my ACL and okay, so you do a hop test, you do limb symmetry test, everything's great.

But then again, taking it to in context, playing basketball, your affordance landscape changes basically what opportunities you choose to act on.

Yeah.

And for me, using myself as an example, I would, it would be hard for me to do a hard cut on my left. That was the, the leg I tore. So now that, that affordance is pretty much shut down.

Right.

Options. Yeah. My world constricts. Right. And so as a coach, can you set up an environment that allows that athlete to potentially choose that affordance where I could cut on my left leg and maybe cross over from my left to my right in an aggressive way and feel comfortable with it?

Because it's not just what's going on at, at tissues and the joints, it's what's going on at the perceptual level. Do I perceive that as an opportunity or do I perceive this as a potential mechanism for injury? And so that's where integrating perception and action, integrating live movement problems in that rehab process from the training table to back on the court is so critical.

And it's not just, it's not the same as, okay, you're going to dribble around cones, right? The cone's not moving. The cone isn't guarding me. The cone doesn't make me nervous. Can I do this during a real life situation where there's anxiety, there's pressure, there's varying speeds, there's different defenders, and there's ways that I think we can bridge that gap, if you will, within that rehab process.

Absolutely.

And it's. You know, it's not a case obviously of us doing this from day one, but even from, I think, you know, very, almost immediately, you know, in the rehab process of something like an ACL, we can still add variability. It's so easy to do, right?

Absolutely. It could be as simple, again, like some of the stuff we use in the weight room. It's basically just understanding what that athlete could be experiencing. And that's what I love about the ecological approach is because you're considering everything, you're considering what is that athlete experiencing at this moment in time?

Can we get inside that athlete's movement system and understand the pressure, anxiety that they may be experiencing getting on that court for the first time? And they've only done dribbling drills around cones and they're now going against somebody. Maybe they're doing 2-on-2, 3-on-3, 1-on-1, whatever.

But can we try to bridge that gap a little bit better and understand what's potentially happening within their movement system?

Fantastic. So through Transforming Basketball, Javi, we've We're sharing a lot of content. I think we've linked to Emergence a lot already, so I'm hoping that coaches, practitioners will be aware of the work you're doing and the podcast too. But just in case they haven't heard about all the great stuff you guys are up to, could you just kind of share where coaches could find out some more information?

Yeah, absolutely. So we'll start with Emergence. So we provide educational materials to coaches who want to learn more about some of the stuff that I discussed today. We like to call it a modern or a contemporary approach to skill development, to skill acquisition.

One thing that I will say too, for people that are listening to this podcast, this doesn't just extend to sport. This is how we interact with the world. You know, we didn't get into that a lot, but this is how we interact and how we aim to move within the world.

And so we provide content through courses. Some are self-guided, some are more interactive, like the Movement Academy. Some are going to be more extensive, like you want to learn higher theory, then Underpinning might be a course for you. If you want to learn just a slice of it, then the warmup course could be a course for you.

One thing that we do have that we're super excited about is the Sport Movement Skill Conference, which is October 6th and 7th. I'm not sure if this will be out when, when registration is still open, but the recordings will be available for purchase and we'll do it again next year.

But that is where we take some of the brightest minds in the skill acquisition space, such as yourself, who are going to be presenting in TED Talk style presentations. And then later in the afternoon, which I'm super excited about, of course, Look, this is location dependent for a lot of people.

We're going to be doing applied practicals for several hours in Minneapolis. I'll be there along with the team members at Emergence and taking coaches through their practice design and basically lifting up the hood into how we do it ourselves and showing them how they can apply these ideas today.

So, so that's what we do at Emergence. We're excited for that. And then the podcast can be found at Emergence and also theadaptableathlete.com.

Fantastic. Javi, just thanks so much. I really enjoyed the discussion today and just Grateful for everything you're doing for the skill acquisition community and for practitioners in sports all over the world. So thank you so much.

I appreciate it. It was an honor to be on, and I'm gonna have to add your podcast now to my subscribe playlist because I know it's going to be fire, man. I know it's going to be great.

Much appreciated, man. Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Transforming Basketball Podcast. If you would like to learn more about the work we do, head to www.transformingbball.com to access our free resources and help spread these ideas throughout the basketball world. If you enjoyed this episode, then please subscribe and leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast platform.

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