Making Your Practice Meaningful and Productive

If you have played a particular sport as a hobby, regularly or at a competitive level for more than three years, chances are you know the sport inside out. You know all the fundamental skills that are required to play the sport.

The big questions:
If you are a serious athlete, I believe you practice every day to improve your skills. My big question is why are you not doing better? For example, in basketball, why are you not shooting more than 80% from the field even though you practice every day?

Why are you not getting better in practice?
Somehow, what you are doing in practice is not working although you know the skill that you are practicing. First of all, team practice is special designed to develop team cohesiveness - learning plays, and getting along with your teammates. The second and most important reason why athletes don't get better with regular practice is because the rigor of controlled practice can only be used to maintain a perfected skill.

Individual Practice
If you have not perfected your skills prior to team practice, you will not be able to maintain them with regular practice, thus you will not get any better. You must work alone or with your coach for the sole purpose of understanding your skills. Once you understand your skills, then you can use team practice to maintain them.

Practicing for Understanding
What do I mean by practicing to understand your skills? For every skill that you execute in the game or practice, there are more than half-a-dozen technical variations. For example, when you shoot a jump shot in basketball 10 times, you use the idea technique approximately 4 to 5 times. Your individual practice should be geared (purpose) toward understanding the skill, and using the idea technique consistently. Thus if you go through the motion in practice because you already know a skill, you are missing out on a very important aspect of your game-- understanding your skill. If you are not prepared, a real game will quickly expose your deficiency. Be serious and look to get better in practice by understanding your skills. Approaching practice from this perspective will change how you view practice for ever. From here onwards, you will use practice to either understand or maintain your perfected skills. Remember, when understand a skill, you move your practice to the psychological level - developing confidence because confidence comes with positive results.

Finding a skill's "Perfect-fit."
When you understand skill, you know exactly what technique to use to get the best results. Since there are multiple techniques, how do you evoke the right technique under pressure? When executing a skill, there is something that athletes do subconsciously that allows them to use the right technique that gives them the best results. When you practice to understand your skill, you will be able to discover this thing also called a "perfect-fit." When you do this thing, it is like a call number that will automatically evoke the idea technique that gives you the best results. Thus, when you understand your skill, you know that skills "perfect-fit."

Conventional Coaching Wisdom
Conventional approach to practice calls on athletes to learn a skill using perfect technique as described in an instructional manual, video or DVD. Athletes are different in many ways, thus asking them to use one-size fits all technique is unrealistic. This is the main reason why some athletes fail because they try so hard to use something that does not fit them. An athlete should use the textbook techniques as a guide for working to find what works best for him or her. If you try to do everything exactly the same as everybody else, you will be infected with "one-size-fit-all syndrome." Many athletes' careers have been dashed with this fetal sports disease. Be your own coach, and find what works best for you; your "perfect-fit."

If you would like to learn more about Making Your Practice Meaningful and Productive, please visit Success Secret through Practice. You can also book Coach Odhiambo to come to your site and speak to your coaches or athletes by emailing him at othiz@yahoo.com. For all other inquires, visit Triple T Basketball Homepage or call (480) 834-7840. Coach Odhiambo will be more than happy to answer all your question regarding Success Secret through Practice.