Explore the Sports Science Principles Helping the Youthful Orlando Magic to Rediscover their Mojo

Leaders Performance Podcast

Harjiv Singh, a performance and development scientist at the Orlando Magic, is another example of a practitioner who suffered their own debilitating injuries.

Hot on the heels of Andrea Hudy, who recounted her own story of ACL troubles in episode one, Harjiv told the tale of a pickup basketball game that ended with him tearing his ACL and meniscus while also suffering an avulsion fracture.

The 16 months of rehab stoked an interest in sports science that not only led him to the NBA but, since January, roles at the Grand Rapids Rise women’s volleyball team, as Director of Performance Science, and the University of Michigan, where Harjiv teaches out of the Human Performance and Sports Science Center.

John Portch and Joe Lemire could not have wished for a more engaging guest on this finale to this People Behing the Tech podcast series, where Harjiv delved into the sports science principles that define his work.

He also shared his thoughts on training drill design [15:39] and the transferability in competition – a relatively new area of enquiry. “It could be as simple as, in basketball, you’re putting a defender in front of you,” he says. “But it can also be as complex as the angle and the approach of that defender, the people in the vicinity of the athlete, where the athlete is starting from, their position on the court. And that’s merely the introductory part of this.”

Then there’s his thoughts on the “neglected” cognitive component to ACL injuries [6:41]; the need to know your audience when visualizing data [27:38]; and his ability to ask applied questions in the lab at Michigan.

Check out episode two:

Five Years on from the USWNT Introducing Menstrual Cycle Tracking, Sports Science for Female Athletes Remains Under-Developed. So What Can Athletes and Practitioners Do about it?

Joe Lemire LinkedIn | X

John Portch LinkedIn | X

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