Dr. Reef: The Evil-Genius Behind Alvin Kamara’s Insane Workouts!

Dr. Sharif Tabbah’s workout creativity on full display in viral videos with New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara.

Dr. Sharif earned his Doctorate in Physical Therapy (DTP) in 2012 from New York University. Prior to that he became a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist sanctioned by the National Strength and Conditioning Association in 2010 and earned a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Business and Marketing at the University of Connecticut in 2006. His work spans from professional athletes in the NFL, NBA, MLB, Women’s Tennis Association, USA Olympic Teams as well as NCAA collegiate athletes. His strenuous workouts (particularly with Alvin Kamara) have gone viral recently, and showcases Dr. Reef’s amazing attention to detail, expanding knowledge in degree of difficulty as well as his passion for core, stability, and balance strength. His athletes reap the benefits of his wicked thought process while compiling these difficult movements.

During my recent conversation with Dr. Sharif, he opens up about the process and purpose of his workouts, discusses Alvin Kamara’s work ethic and talks about Athletix Rehab and Recovery!

Insane times right now, especially for someone in your profession where you are training athletes. What has it been like for you in terms of the differences in procedures with Covid?

Dr. Reef: It’s obviously been an increased challenge to get our goals done and accomplished. Adhering to all these new guidelines and making sure that everyone is being safe and making sure that our clients are protected as well as ourselves. We have always been pretty clean with keeping all of the equipment wiped down and hand sanitizer and all that. None of that is really new, but it’s just a matter of seeing everyone complying now it a little bit funny (laughing). You see someone use the mats and then clean them off, it’s like, “Why didn’t you do that before?” “Oh, you wash your hands now. Why weren’t you doing that before (laughing)?” We kind of just roll with the punches and find a way to make it work. It’s been alright overall.

Entering the facility, are you guys scanning foreheads and taking temps? What has been the protocol to get inside of Athletix Rehab and Recovery facility?

Dr. Reef: Yeah! In order to get into the facility, they are scanning foreheads. Once we get our patients back in the office, we have everybody sign and take packets, essentially answering Covid questions asking if they are high risk or recently exposed or anything like that. The one thing I have found is that everyone has been very considerate. If it’s even a possibility that they have been exposed it’s been, “You know what, let me just cancel.” We’ve waived any of our cancelation fee policies for people during this whole Covid process. I think everyone has been really socially responsible.

I took notice of you when a video of you performing a balance drill with New Orleans Saints running back, Alvin Kamara leaked on the internet. When that video leaked, did it change things for you?

Dr. Reef: The first one with him on the ball?

Yes!

Dr. Reef: Yeah, for sure! We joke and he always says, “Back to our regularly scheduled program.” We have been doing this for years. He and I have been working together for 3 or 4-years. And prior to him, I’ve been doing it with guys in the league for about 5-years. This is not new; it’s just getting a little bit more mainstream and a little more attention. It’s been fun to watch the impact it’s having across the industry. You see a lot more trainers, coaches and PT’s using a lot more of this unstable equipment. It’s been fun to feel like hopefully I had a lot of impact on that.

Alvin Kamara specifically, and the things you’re doing with him, is it about core stability, balance or a combination of the two?

Dr. Reef: It depends on the particular exercise. Each one will often have a slightly different goal, but overall, I focus is, like you said, core stability. That’s kind of a generic blanket term for it. Being able to create a stable environment in an unstable environment. Improve overall body awareness. Improve movement patterns. Being able to get on such an unstable surface and learning how to co-contract the muscles maintain optimal alignment and maintain balance is a challenge. Then we added exercise with a movement to it to be able to not let the knee drop in and put you at risk of injury. Be able to commit to a lunging process and be able to do it clean. Okay, now we add a ball and slam a ball. That’s shifting your center of mass, and then we say, “Okay, let’s catch tennis balls.” So, now we have to focus on not only catching the ball and maintaining the balance, but you have to also reach outside of your center of mass to get these balls and react accordingly, it’s going to further perturbate and challenge your balance and your core stability in order to be able to create that controlled environment. From there it’s like, okay, that’s too easy, let’s go ahead and assign colors and hands. And then that becomes easy, so we assign a mental task with it. You just constantly evolving the process.

You are dealing with some of the most elite athletes in the world. Does it become difficult for you to continue to challenge them?

Dr. Reef: Yeah! It absolutely is a challenge. I was doing an interview earlier and I kind of said the same thing in that, to me, that’s what I love the most about it in term of what drives me. I love being challenged by having to find a way to challenge the unchallengeable. Find a way to address the particular task at hand, a function I’m trying to improve or maybe it’s an injury I’m trying to rehabilitate. Maybe it’s something I’m trying to correct, a movement pattern or whatever it might be, I do it in a way that challenges them and keeps them engaged and try to make it not only specific to the sport but to the position. That for me is the fun challenge to rack my brain and come up with new ways. I always tease that, Kamara and a few of these other guys are always overcoming my challenges so fast that I’m like, “Damn… back to the drawing board.” But that’s what makes it fun for me too. I’m always being challenged.

As an interviewer, I can be in bed, almost asleep and I will get up and put a note in my phone for a headline for an interview, or jot down a talking point for an upcoming interview. Do you ever think of a workout and have to jot it down just so you won’t forget it?

Dr. Reef: Oh my God, of course. I’m the worse… during the NFL offseason is our peak time. It’s all I think about is this. To the point where my wife wants to kill me all the time. We’re at dinner talking about something and all I can think about is what I’m going to do tomorrow or how I’m going to challenge them, how they do such a good job with this exercise, how can I make that better. How can I tweak this or be more creative? It doesn’t stop. I absolutely will roll over in the middle of the night and write things down. That happens darn near every day. I joke, I’ll be in the shower and next thing you know I’m testing weird movements. It’s like, “This feels good, I can use this.” My wife is like, “What are you doing in there?” The creative juices never stop.

Another exercise Alvin was doing was, jumping to the ball in the floor that lit up on one leg. The important of that type of balance off of one leg is so imperative for a running back.

Dr. Reef: Absolutely! Last year, he had some injuries with that knee, so we were really working on some final stages of just getting back that explosiveness, responsiveness and confidence in that leg. So, having him read and react to where the lights are and keeping his head on a swivel and jump, and rotate to that position, sometimes it comes quick. You have to have a quick reaction, “Boom-boom!” That is very simulating of the demands and explosiveness that he needs on his legs. You can even get as specific as, someone is ankle tackling him with one leg and he’s literally hopping on the other one trying to pull away. That totally happens. The goal was really ultimately, restoring the explosiveness on the single leg to even out the right and left from a strength standpoint, but also a power and reactiveness and function standpoint. But then you can say, let’s get real specific, what if someone grabs his ankle and he’s hopping around on one leg. That can be enough reason right there, so that was a cool one.

It explains why he’s so tough to bring down by the first tackler. Alvin is an even-keel guy. He doesn’t seem to get too high or too low on or off the football field. Is that his approach to these exercises and the work you guys do as well?

Dr. Reef: Absolutely! I think you said it well. He’s very even-keel. He’s just driven and focused, and he’s been like that since I ever met him. That’s how we hit it off in the very beginning. I’m like, “This kid is going to be something special,” because when everyone was running around focused on eight-million other things or goofing off in the moment or whatever it might be, Alvin was just coming to work. And that was during draft prep, so you can imagine now as a professional how much that has built him and helped him be the professional that he is.

Are you expecting business to pickup since we are seeing an increase of college players bypass the rest of their collegiate careers to prepare for the professional ranks?

Dr. Reef: I hope so (laughing). It’s possible. I guess we’ll see. It’s interesting the way kids are handling it now. They are realizing the risk of playing… I’m not saying it’s a good decision or bad decision. I’m not going to get into that. I can understand where they are coming from, especially as a running back. I can go out and play my senior season, and then hurt myself or I finish my senior season and play in that Bowl Game. That’s the controversial decision that those guys have to make. I can understand either way. I can understand wanting to play for your team and finish it out, but I can also understand thinking about your future. Saying, “Hey, I can go out there and play for my team and blow out my ACL, now what? No one cares when I can’t get drafted.” It’s a tough call.

Before I let you go, what can we expect in the near future from the Athletix Rehab and Recovery.

Dr. Reef: We are down in Miami and Fort Lauderdale area. We’re really just looking to constantly innovate and develop news ways to do everything from the rehab, the recovery side to the prevention and performance side. It’s been an interesting year for sure. We’ve overcome a lot of these challenges. We’re inside of big facilities, and the question is, do we get our own facility, do we stay with what we are doing and continue to do it this way? It could be a lot of changes coming up. We’re not sure what’s best of yet. Our focus throughout all of this have been our patients and our clients. Making sure… especially with the NFL guys, making sure, through all of this chaos, we can stay focused, get them through, get them the preparation and care that they need no matter what it takes. If we have a facility or we don’t have a facility, I’ve had some of the guys coming to my house to get work done when things first shut down. We found a way to make it work and I’m excited to see what they can do this season. I just hope we continue to build on that in the future. We will see. Thank you. I really appreciate you thinking of me.

Be sure to check out www.athletixrehab.com

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