Getting the Most out of Your Training

In general, if someone engages in any type of training, you would expect that they are doing so, and sacrificing time, enduring discomfort, etc. with the ultimate goal of personal improvement in that area. They may seek out the best instruction possible, and attend every session, yet many people never achieve their developmental goals because they fail to practice these key habits for learning and development. While quality instruction is essential, the effort and discipline you put into your training is as important as (possibly more important than) the quality of instruction that you are receiving. It doesn’t matter how good the instruction is that you are receiving if you do not practice these habits.

Be willing to push yourself to failure

Be willing to push yourself to failure in practice.  I explain strength training to our athletes all the time. Its simple, you put stress on a muscle group, which creates minor tears in the muscles. The body then heals those tears, but grows back stronger to prevent the tears from happening again. You then lift a heavier weight, which again creates minor tears, that again heal back stronger. This cycle of tearing and healing creates increased strength. But if you never push the muscles to the point of those tears, you will never increase your strength. The same can be said for developing skills. The only way to reach the next level, is to push your current limits. When you push yourself to your current limit, you will experience failure. You will lose the ball, travel, etc. This means you have to be comfortable failing because if your current limit is 5, the only way you can reach 6 is to repeatedly fail at level 6 until you master level 6.  And the same process is required for reaching level 7, level 8 …. Level 99.

No cheating. 

I constantly watch kids cheat when they struggle with a new challenge. I will use the example of our skipping while crossing thru the legs as an example.  This warmup ball handling drill involves the athlete skipping down the court while bouncing the ball thru their legs crossing over from right to left to right to left.  Kids struggle with it, so they dribble thru their legs once, then do a recovery dribble with that hand before trying to dribble thru the legs again.  By using this cheat dribble they will only prolong their inability to properly execute the dribble, and get better at doing it wrong.  The only way to learn to do it correctly is to resist the cheat, force themself to attempt the dribble the correct way, and accept that they will fail until they master it.

Finish every drill all the way through.

I see a lot of athletes fall behind their peers because they give away reps.  If you are able to get in 20 reps each time you go up and down the court, but you take off the last 10 feet of every trip, you are giving away almost 10% of your reps.  This adds up over the course of a workout, a practice, a week, a month, a season or a year.  In contrast, the athlete who squeezes out every quality rep they can from a workout, can amass thousands more reps than their peers over the course of a year, and those thousands of quality reps will show up in an increased skill gap.  

Quality Reps.

If you noticed, I used the term quality reps in the previous paragraph. There seems to be a correlation between athletes who do all their reps and the quality of their reps.  The kids who are disciplined enough to complete all their reps usually demonstrate the same discipline in the quality of their reps, whereas the athletes who give away reps, usually demonstrate a dropoff in the quality of their reps as they approach the end of the drill.

Regular work

You can not get good at something, let alone gain mastery, when you are not regularly working on it.  You can not drop in once every 2 weeks to the gym, take a class or get a lesson, and expect to improve.  Shooting is a great example of this.  Shooting classes and lessons are great for making the athlete aware of what they are doing wrong, and what they need to fix. But it takes thousands of quality reps to build muscle memory of the corrected mechanics.  If you do not combine those thousands of quality shooting reps with the lessons, you will not experience the improvement that you seek.

Have Checks in Place

Having some type of check in place during reps to make sure you are in fact making the changes you should be. There is often a significant gap between what an athlete feels like they are doing, and what they are actually doing.  This goes for Shooting a basketball, dribbling, swinging a bat.  Almost anything in sports.  That is why mirror work and video are so important.  If an athlete is not doing their reps under the direct supervision of a knowledgeable adult (Coach, Parent, etc.) who stops them every time their mechanics differ, they will do their reps incorrectly and further ingrain their incorrect mechanics, rather than fix them.So if you are working solo, try to do so in front of a mirror, or using video so you can monitor your reps and get the most out of your workout.

Make a schedule and stick to it.

If you can realistically work on your basketball 4 days a week, write them in the schedule and DO NOT skip any.  Its ok to plan designated days off, but it si never ok to take days off. Taking one day off, leads to two, which leads to three, and so on.  This does not create good habits. If you only work on basketball when you feel like it, you will fail because you should not work on basketball only when you feel like it, you do so because its on the schedule and you have a goal that you want to achieve. Planning days off helps you grind through the days that you dont feel like training because you know you have Sunday off.