How Phoenix Mercury strength coach Annalise Pickrel adjusted to working with WNBA stars like Taurasi, Griner

As players depart the morning shootaround before their 7 p.m. game, there’s a voice on the outskirts of the Phoenix Mercury’s practice facility gym asking one simple question.

“Did you jump yet?”

That voice is coming from Annalise Pickrel, the Mercury’s new strength and conditioning coach. In her first season working in the WNBA, this is her first time using Force Plates to help players better understand several different things with their body.

Standing flat-footed on the plate that looks similar to a weight scale, players bend and launch into the air to measure not only the height of their jump, but how they land.

In measuring the height on their jumps on a semi-regular basis, Pickrel then has a metric to assess how fatigued a player is. In addition to that, the plates monitor how a player lands and if they may be favoring one leg or the other in their landing.

Technology like this and this role is new for Pickrel, but according to the coaching staff, she’s taking it all head-on and thriving.

Working with college vs. pro players

Before entering this side of the coaching world, Pickrel was a standout basketball player at Michigan State from 2011-14 and helped win two Big Ten titles. Pickrel made the Los Angeles Sparks’ training camp roster in 2015 and played three seasons professionally in Australia and Russia before returning to Michigan State for her masters degree in 2018. In 2019, she joined the strength and conditioning staff at Michigan State.

When the opportunity arose to work at the professional level with the resources and prestige that the Mercury have, it make the move as a no brainer, especially given the chance to work with a superstar such as Diana Taurasi.

“When you coach the lower levels, you're able to push them physically a little bit harder than you are the pros,” Pickrel said. “I was really interested to see the difference between the mindset that it takes to be the GOAT of women's basketball (Taurasi) versus somebody that just makes it overseas or college. What I was excited for was to see the difference in mindset of what made these athletes different, and it's been very interesting.”

While it is a daunting task for someone in just their first role in the WNBA, it’s been a learning experience for Pickrel watching Taurasi’s approach.

“She approaches everything surrounding basketball like she does a championship game,” Pickrel said. “It's very apparent that she has conditioned her mind to the way you do one thing, is the way you do everything. Everything that she does has to be great, otherwise her performance is not going to be great.”

But each player is different, something that has been the biggest change from college, where a lot of training can be done in a group setting. At the WNBA level, more is done individually. For example, Pickrel said, many of Taurasi’s workouts are done with a private contractor while also doing individual workouts with Pickrel or the normal team exercises.

“Here, everybody is a professional and everyone's great for some reason,” Pickrel said. “You can't really physically train people out of their physical ailments.”

Working with Griner

Another example is the unique case of Brittney Griner. After being detained in Russia for nearly 10 months, Griner jumped back into workouts. Pickrel joined the staff shortly after Griner returned to the team, but the focus the entire time was for the star center to rebuild her muscle, stabilize her joints and to build her conditioning.

The team expressed concern to Griner before the season began on whether she could handle the everyday grind of the WNBA season from a conditioning standpoint. However, Griner assured the training staff that she knew her own body and that she would be ready to go. The result ended up being an All-Star caliber season in her return.

While at the college level Pickrel may have expressed more caution for a player out this long, Griner’s case exemplifies how Pickrel now has to place faith into players individually and adjust to each one.

“It's been crazy to watch her (Griner) handle this,” Pickrel said. “The strength, the perseverance that she's had the last year and to come out and make the All-Star Team… it's just been incredible to watch.”

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Between new technologies, new people and a new league, it’s been a fun, yet challenging experience for Pickrel. However, in talking with the staff and watching practice, it is evident the amount of respect Pickrel has already in the organization.

Mercury Head Coach Nikki Blue says it won’t be long before their strength and conditioning coach is regarded as the best in her field.

“Annalise came in right away and just made an immediate impact, made a splash,” Blue said “Our players have gotten better in the weight room, their readiness is at an all-time high right now. The way that she prepares each player and takes individual time for each one… we can definitely see a difference on that side.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix Mercury strength coach Annalise Pickrel work with WNBA stars Taurasi, Griner