Week 4: May 9, 2021

What's up coaches and trainers, thank you for another great week. We're getting closer to the summer, which for most of us is the busiest time of the year, but also the most fulfilling. We get to test new methods, apply more of what we learn, and most importantly, see more results with the players we work with.

One thing I want to remind everyone of before we get into the content is the community on the platform! This is a great place for us to bounce ideas off of each other as trainers, and over 75% of our members haven't joined the Facebook group yet! Go check out the "Community" page to jump in.

Let's get to it.

Featured Vid: Sidestep Audio Cue Drill

Using audio cues is a great tool to have in the toolbox as a skill developer. For drills like this, the main things we are targeting are deception and adaptability. In regards to deception, I want the athlete to get as close as the actual shot as possible with their shot fake. What better way to do this than actually having them get into it, and reacting if I say "go?" Plus, any player in this drill will only improve in their ability to adapt and not pre-determine their next move.

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Featured Blog Post: What are Perceptual & Visual Cues?

Since we're on the audio cue wave with the featured video, this blog will arm you with more tools to utilize, especially in 1-on-1/private sessions. Understanding these and the difference between the two is very valuable, and opens up a world of opportunity for you in a variety of settings.

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What We Learned This Week:

Tyler:
One thing I really focused on this week was being as present as possible. We only have the current moment we are in, being present not only helps our general happiness but our sessions as well. It’s easy to go through the motions at times during sessions, to be thinking about the next session or the next thing we have to do. Try to be more present, focus on who is in front of you and giving as much as you can in that exact moment. Easier said than done, but this is a skill that can be worked on.

Coleman:
There were a new personal improvements I dove into and started up this week, like the effects of journaling, reflection, and more, but I'll go with more of a training IQ concept I dove into this week that may seem a bit weird and trivial, but pretty interesting: "inattentional blindness." In other words, why we don't see some things on the court that may seem obvious, such as a wide open teammate. We've all seen it before. A player is WIDE open, and the ball handler misses them. How? Well, according to most studies, we miss this about 30-50% of the time. Crazy. The main variables here are (1) how difficult the task at hand is--in other words, if we're a great ball handler and it's automatic for us to keep our dribble alive, we're more likely to see the open teammate because we're able to divert our attention to the floor and not the dribbling task at hand. And number two, if we're expecting something to happen. When a coach tells a player to look for something on the court, they're significantly more likely to miss a teammate streaking open because they're caught up in a pre-determined pattern that they're looking for. So, want to work on court vision with your players? Start by making them the best ball handlers possible. In the process, don't tell them to expect anything on the court. They'll see more!

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Added this week:
New resources (videos, articles, podcasts)
New individual and group drills
The ins & outs of starting your business
​and more!