Think Tank Sports & Balance

Welcome to the Mike Hartman Show. Mike is a performance coach and former Stanley cup champion with the New York Rangers. Topics on this show are focused around stories, mindset and champions. Mike will also go into details about helping you with your pain points and struggles and finding motivational solutions on how to have the mindset of a champion. Now, here's your host, Mike Hartman.

Welcome to another episode. Today we are still on the topic Think Tank. And I've been loving this think tank, just having people come out of the woodworks from, from anywhere. Like I said, anybody's welcome to come join us. All you need to do is go to Hartman Academy, click on the contact us and let's talk and let's think about this stuff. And that's why it's called Think Tank today. I'm really excited because we have Govanda Patterson and what a great story. He's worked with many great people, teams and I'm going to let him share what he does, how he does it, and it's really fascinating. I love this. Great to have you here today.

Oh, thank you, Mike. I appreciate you having me on. Basically what I teach is better balanced fundamentals for sports, for contact sports, it's, it's basically using space, leverage, angles and momentum to gain an advantage over, over your opponent. So if you can get your opponent off balance, it really doesn't matter how big, fast or strong that they are, you're going to win the battle. And that's what it's all about. So I try to give players an advantage in every single aspect of the game and just looking for what angle to attack their opponent, how to gain leverage on them, how to use their momentum against them, how to use space correctly. You know, a lot of times guys try to create space when they should be taking it away, you know, and, and just the basic fundamentals that everybody teaches kind of go against what is naturally good balance for the body to, to move, you know, the way for the body to naturally move. Like I took a lot of martial arts philosophies of balance and I incorporated them into sports to keep players better balanced, to make the techniques more efficient and make it so players don't get injured. I mean, if you're balanced and you're not wasting your energy, it's a lot less likely that you're going to be injured.

That's so true. Everything you talk about is like balance and it's getting the advantage in sports. Like in hockey, I tell people there's a lot of people could shoot, a lot of people could skate, you Know, people can play physical, but to put everything together is tough. But to add like a really good balance component to it, it's phenomenal what you do. And especially tell us some, some of the groups that you've worked with over the years.

I worked with the New York Knicks summer league team and I worked with the LA Lakers for about a week. But I was, I've been really close with quite a few teams with the warriors and the Kings and the Toronto Raptors and getting hired. I just haven't had that, that, that the correct opportunity to be able to teach what I teach. I mean, some of my stuff is a little bit more difficult to learn at first because people are used to playing one way. So it's kind of like learning a new dance. You know, if you're used to doing break dancing, it's a lot harder to go into ballet. Satan. You know, it's, it's, it's like a whole new way how to play. So it just takes a little while to learn it. But once you get it down, it just gives you such an advantage. It's ridiculous how good this stuff works because the way that everybody plays, actually they force themselves off balance. So if you know how to take advantage of that, you can just keep putting them off balance just constantly. And it really just makes the game. It's like a cheat code. Like you just know how to constantly get the advantage over your opponent and all of his strengths just don't even matter anymore.

That's great. That is, you know, so it's so funny that you do this because I caught wind of it, we started talking in LinkedIn. I've opened up the think tank and I've done a little research. I research everybody before they come on the show. And it's really cool what you have. And I used to have people come into the gym. I owned a gym years ago and they were big, six foot five, six, six. And they would say, well, let me try to. Let's wrestle. I gotta wanna wrestle. Let's play a little pushing technique. And they couldn't move me. Then I'd go on one leg and they couldn't move me. But it was all the way I planted my feet and the technique around it. So tell us a little bit. Because I'm a visual person, I'm sure a lot of people are. What's the easiest way to explain this? So our young athletes, professional athletes, any athlete, no matter what sport it is, can have better balance.

Well, let me simplify it for you. Okay, so whatever direction your Feet are, is going to be your strongest position. So if I shift my weight in between my feet, if they're forward or back, doesn't matter, that's going to be my strongest direction to move, and exactly opposite or perpendicular to that is going to be my weakest. So, you know, if your people at home can just like go up to a wall, for instance, go like a couple inches away from the wall and just it be square to the wall and push, it's going to push you off balance really easy, you know. But if you turn sideways to the wall and try to push, you're still balanced. You know, it's like, you know, if I'm going to box somebody, I'm not going to box square to them. I'm going to put my strongest position at them. So now I'm strong forward and back where I want to be strong to them, and I can still parry side to side, but I want my strongest position and my longest position, you know, towards the direction that I want to go.

And that's so important. And I. We don't make any scientific claims here. We are just, again, we're thinking off the cuff. You know, we're just. It's not scripted. I just. I know your background. I've heard some, some really good things about, about what you do, and I think it's important that, that we share this. But if you think about it, a lot of female athletes, the number one injury they have is their medial collateral ligament goes and something goes. Because they're off balance or going sideways.

Exactly.

Is, is this something that people could do to practice to, to get stronger? Because I'm so used to, you know, I'm not a football player, but most of it, it's. You're lining up. If you're a lineman and you're lining directly across with someone, you're standing straight up. How do you, how do you change that?

Well, we talked about this a little bit yesterday. It's like you always want to put your strength at your opponent, not your weakest point. So like for rebounding, for instance, if I'm blocking somebody out, I'm putting my weakest possible position against my opponent, and I have no strength to be able to push back at him because I'm pushing through my weakest point and then it throws me off balance once I want to go get the ball. So it just keeps you constantly off balance. But instead if you just turn your strongest position towards your opponent, he's not going to be able to push you any direction. You can hold your ground, he's got to go around you, you're going to be able to get better position against him. So it just gives you a huge advantage in every sport just to know how to keep your strongest position against your opponent's weakest. If you're the only one that understands that, you really win the battle before it even begins.

So I get up every morning and I've stopped. I haven't lifted weights in about 10 years. I do. There's something called proprioception, which is time and space, like balancing but doing different things. So every morning I do a yoga, a yoga, stretch, Pilates and then I keep my strength up by doing body weight work and some band work. And what can I do in the morning or any of our listeners could do to practice this type of balance technique?

I'd say do a lot of one leg balancing and lunging, like shifting your weight from one leg to the other. It'll really help, really help get your balance. You know, practice bouncing on one foot, get that your, your stabilization muscles stronger and it'll really help your balance. And also just like anything you do in sports, practice getting a lot lower base, not bending over from the top, but dropping your center of gravity lower. It'll help give you an advantage in a lot of.

Almost like a wrestler. Like not, but not like, like exactly. So you're low with your knees bent, your head is up, your back is straight, or like a shortstop in baseball. Because balance is very important for any position, no matter what position you play in baseball, they've always taught us to get into as a kid, get baseball ready with your knees bent. It. Does it benefit us to turn our body a little bit like an unorthodox type of position?

You see, that's one of the things that I haven't really experimented with, but I've thought about a lot too. And I think the same thing applies to baseball. Like instead of being square to the battery, like, why not put your strongest position towards the batter? Now your, your first move is going to be towards the ball in whatever direction it's, it's, it's in, but it's going to be your strongest position in that direction. Instead of starting out, pushing through your weakest position in a direction, unless it's going directly to your side, you're not going to be that strong going in any direction. You're going to be a little bit off balance instead of your strongest position.

Well, I'm not a baseball player, loved baseball as a kid, but if you think about it, you're turned to the side already, and I'm not an expert at this. And one of my closest friends is Leland Maddox. He was the director player personnel for the Cincinnati Reds. And he'll be on our show pretty soon talking about different movements in sports and how he looks at athletes. But I can only imagine if in baseball, maybe a little shift within your feet and that's going to help your balance.

Exactly. And you're just going to get to the ball a smidge quicker and you're going to be more balanced when you get there.

Can you tell me what. Just tell me really quick here. What do you work with the NBA players on? Like, what is. How do you practice with them and do this? This is so foreign to me. So what. What is it that you would do? Can you give us a drill that we could use or even give to some of our basketball coaches, the AAU basketball coaches?

It's kind of hard to explain over, you know, just talking about it without showing you, but I guess boxing out would probably be one of the easier ones to do. So instead of. Instead of turning your back to your opponent, all you're going to do is, if you can, you're going to step in between their legs and take away as much space in between them as you and them as possible, your whole body. You're going to control their hip with your back of your wrist. And. Whenever the ball goes up, you're gonna. Your first movement is gonna be either towards the ball if it's in front of you, or it's gonna be through your opponent's weakest point. So since my leg is in between their leg, I'm gonna be able to shift my weight through them through exactly their weakest point, knocking them off balance in either direction. And I can go get the ball and they'll be off balance and I'll be perfectly balanced. Well, now if you can't. Oh, sorry.

No, I was just going to say what we. What we have to do, I think, is like. You have to do a YouTube video of this.

Yeah, I have one. I mean, I have one on my. Just go to my Instagram. That's the only thing that I actually give away. Like, I've been trying to keep my stuff relatively secret just because.

With us. Really quick. Share it with us so we can get it out to our people. Oh, where can they go on Instagram.

To find Govinda Patterson.

Govinda. Patterson. Govinda. It was great having you here with us today. I learned a lot. I know this is more visual for everybody, and we'll get to that, but I'll just share for our people. If anybody wants to go to Hartman Academy and click on the Contact Us, book a strategy call, do whatever you can. I like to post something with Govinda because we need to get the video out. Govinda, great having you here today.

Hey, thank you Mike. I really appreciate it. It's been fun.

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