Posts Tagged ‘basketball’

May 14th 2010 by admin

What Many Athletes & Coaches Are Missing: Purpose Driven Practices & Training

Throughout my sports & athletic development career I’ve consistently witnessed team practices, individual workouts with trainers, fitness classes, etc. conducted with no theme or objective. Often the athlete or student will leave the workout or practice unfulfilled & bored (just went through the motions), frustrated (experienced little to no improvement), and little reference to how anything they just experienced applies to their future performance or well-being. In other words, they dedicated the time to practice or workout, yet they lost valuable time and learning due to the unfocused nature of the experience.

Though I’ve wanted to write about this subject for a while it wasn’t till I read a NY Times Sports article by Bill Pennington, titled “At the Range, Drive Less and Practice More”,http://onpar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/at-the-range-drive-less-and-practice-more/?scp=5&sq=Bill%20Pennington&st=cse that inspired me to put my fingers to the keyboard. Mr. Pennington precisely describes in detail what a majority of us golfers experience during a unfulfilled session at the driving range. Rather than approaching these driving range experiences as a focused practice, to hone our game for the golf course, we rapidly lose ourselves in the act of pounding the ball off the tee, measuring the distance the ball travels rather than developing a feel for every club in our bag. End result, you’ve hit 100 balls and come away with your game in worse shape than when you arrived.

I relate this to a youth practice. You may or may not be prepared with a practice plan when you show up at the field or court, but regardless everything goes south when one or several distractions take place. As an example, let’s take a basketball practice where you arrive ready to work on your team’s fast break and defense. The warm-up begins with kids fooling around, talking, basketballs bouncing in every direction, errant shots flying throughout the gym. Your ready to tear what’s left of the hair on your head out, and practice has not even begun yet. After an unproductive warm-up, you immediately run a fast break drill, where kids don’t stay in position, outlet passes are sloppy and all over the court, kids are not hustling, they’re taking lay-ups off the wrong leg, etc. What often happens next is you either start yelling at the team to “get it right” then it gets worse, or you give up on the drill and move on often to a scrimmage. End result, nothing accomplished, and the opportunity to teach has slipped away.

Believe me, it’s happened to me and to most coaches, until they learn the art of “Purpose Driven Practices & Training”. Not unlike a golfer’s experience at a driving range, you may go prepared to work on your mid to short iron shots, but after you slice or hook a few, skull some others, you abandoned your plan and immediately pull out the driver and start essentially scrimmaging.

Next time you conduct a practice try this “Mindful Practice’ technique. By simply applying a theme to each practice (i.e. Tuesday football practice may become Pursuit Tuesdays) & designing all drills to be focused around that theme (getting to the football first through all individual and group drills), you have created an experience of awareness that no verbal explanation could ever match.

A simple themed or purpose based practice will keep your team focused and you prepared to teach and communicate more effectively. There’s a reason teaching golf professionals refer to driving ranges as practice ranges, it’s a reminder of why you’re there.

April 28th 2010 by admin

Building a House on Sand – Don’t Ignore Athletic Preparation

After working in football for over 14 years at the NFL and as a consultant to the Arena Football League I’ve seen many seasons go by in youth football where conditioning is misinterpreted as a stamina and strength test.  Laps around a field, wind sprints, push-ups, sit-ups, and leg raises make up the majority of what most consider a good session of conditioning. What most fail to realize is stamina and/or strength workouts for kids, that don’t apply to the execution of fundamental skills, is counter productive and simply a waste of time.

What I’ve witness with a majority of kids that play football is that most cannot get in or come out of a stance properly, don’t move their feet with the agility necessary to be effective blockers or tacklers, not to mention how to avoid being blocked or tackled. Youth basketball players struggle to get into a basic athletic position to effectively play defense, missing the skills necessary to move laterally, backpedal, and change direction. Are those athletic elements not the foundation of most sports? But a majority of all youth sport programs either spend very little time training kids to become somewhat proficient in these basic areas of athletic movement or they ignore it all together.  As a result the development of athletes, quality of play, and safety have declined significantly.

Millions of parents place their kids into Leagues, to play organized games every season of the year.  They spend millions of dollars on registration fees, equipment, uniforms, travel, etc. yet they spend little or no time invested in preparing their kids.  It’s similar to buying a Baby Grand Piano then immediately signing up your child to play a recital, without ever taking a lesson.  Yes they may be able to play “chopsticks” – but chopsticks version of sport won’t translate or work on a field of real athletic competition.

Last football season I was highly criticized by parents when I incorporated agility, balance & coordination training into a pre-season of football practices for 9 year olds.  The problem was that they were uncomfortable that were not conducting in their minds “traditional practices”, after witnessing other teams do  sit-ups, push-ups, laps around a field, and wind sprints.  I don’t ever recall a football player having to conduct those  on game day.  As a matter of fact, you rarely witness a football player running in a straight line unless it’s to get off the field.

You cannot build a house on sand without some type of foundation that supports the future structure.  The following drills are simple yet vital movement skills that directly relate to basketball. The drill involve cones, an agility ladder (substitute with chalk) hurdles (substitute with shoe boxes),  and basketballs.

The movement skills executed throughout this obstacle course involve agility (fast feet) keeping the body square, coordination of the lower body over hurdles, hand/eye coordination in conjunction with footwork, lateral movement, & lateral movement in conjunction with lower & upper body combined coordination.  Notice that the correct movement throughout the course is a smooth lifting of the knees with quick feet.  The incorrect movement is hopping or jumping over the hurdles.

The movement skills executed throughout this obstacle course involve agility (fast feet) keeping the body square, coordination of the lower body over hurdles, hand/eye coordination in conjunction with footwork, lateral movement, & lateral movement in conjunction with lower & upper body combined coordination.  Notice that the correct movement throughout the course is a smooth lifting of the knees with quick feet.  The incorrect movement is hopping or jumping over the hurdles.

March 26th 2010 by admin

The Most Overlooked Athletic Skill – BALANCE

BALANCE – THE KEY ELEMENT TO ATHLETIC SUCCESS

Balance is the most essential skill for an athlete to possess, and time needs to be spent on developing it. All sports rely heavily on balance. Think of a soccer player attempting to keep possession of a ball, a pitcher winding up and throwing to home plate, a basketball player taking a jump shot, a football lineman blocking a defender, or a tennis player playing serve and volley. In each case balance plays a key role in achieving the precise set of movements necessary for the skill to be performed correctly.

To develop balance, you need to develop “muscle memory”, an unconscious tensing and releasing of the right muscles in just the right increments that enables them to maintain their equilibrium in motion. It is through this process, for example, that people learn to ride a bike. When learning, the body sends signals to the brain to orient the body to where it should be positioned and maintained, allowing the body’s muscle memory to eventually take over and become what seems to be second nature.

A key element in athletics is the ability to maintain balance while in motion. Whether you are rapidly transferring body weight during a golf swing, swinging or hitting and getting out of the batter’s box (Seattle Mariners, Ichiro Suzuki), in baseball, snowboarding down a mountain (Olympic Half Pipe Gold Medalist, Shaun White), or maneuvering around an opponent in ice hockey (NHL Pittsburgh Penguins, SIDNEY CROSBY), soccer (former US Women’s National Soccer Team Player, Mia Hamm), or lacrosse (Mikey Powell Amazing Jumping Goal on YouTube), Balance allows the body to transfer weight while performing. Athletes need to be able to continue to execute while transitioning from a variety of body positions and movements. They often find themselves off balance before or after executing a play. To be in a position to finish a play, or to prepare for the next play, they must be able to adjust quickly to regain proper balance.

The following provides several drills that develop and improve overall balance for a variety of sports.

DRILL ONE – STEPPING STONES

Equipment: Five balance pods
Set-Up: Arrange the four balance pods in a diamond shape approximately 3 feet apart with one additional pod place three feet in front of the diamond. Think of all five-balance pods as stepping stones.
Description of Drill: Each athlete walks from one balance pod to the next until he has completely stepped and balanced himself on all five pods.

DRILL TWO – BALANCE BEAM


Equipment: Three to four half-foam rolls, two 12 inch hurdles
Set-Up: Arrange all three or four half foam rolls in a straight line touching at each end, place the two hurdles at the end of the first foam roll and the end of the second foam roll.
Description of Drill: Begin with each athlete walking on the half beams and stepping over each of the two hurdles without losing their balance.

DRILL THREE – OFF-BALANCE FOOTBALL CATCHES

Equipment: Three to four half-foam rolls, a football
Set-Up: Arrange all three or four half foam rolls in a straight line touching at each end.
Description of Drill: As each athlete walks the length of the rolls, toss a football where the athlete must reach out and catch the ball without losing balance. Throw balls to the right, left, over the head, below the waist, forcing the athletes to extend and catch while keeping their balance on the half foam rolls.

Please look for our continued series of articles and drills to develop overall and sport specific balance, developed by experts from action sports (snowboarding, surfing, skateboarding, etc.).

The attached video is one segment of several that I’ll post that demonstrates additional, creative methods to engage your team and athletes in the fun process of developing balance.