Deliberate Practice Helps
Improve Sport Skills
by: John
Strong, Niagara County Community College
This November I was asked to
present at the New York State AHPERD conference in Verona, NY
about Plyometrics and Agility Drills. I provided a
similar presentation last March for the Western Zone
conference held at Canisius College and the dozen or so
participants seemed to really enjoy hearing the information
and participating in the activities. This month, I
decided that sharing the principles and practice from this
presentation might also interest pelinks4u readers.
More than two decades ago Anders Ericsson wrote in an
article titled The Role of Deliberate Practice in the
Acquisition of Expert Performance that, "The view that
merely engaging in a sufficient amount of practice, regardless
of the structure of that practice, leads to maximal
performance has a long and contested history." It is
my view that many coaches allow this concept to dominate their
practices and diminish their most earnest attempts at
improving the skill set of their players. The idea that
players should get better simply by "putting in the reps" has
driven one hard whistling coach after another to force
unrelated and disconnected drills on players since before I
started playing. The purpose of my presentation, and
Ericson's article, is to enlighten coaches about what drills
to consider keeping and dropping in the face of Deliberate
Practice principles. Ericsson persisted further in his
article:
In contrast to play, deliberate practice is
a highly structured activity, the explicit goal of which is
to improve performance. Specific tasks are invented to
overcome weaknesses, and performance is carefully monitored
to provide cues for ways to improve it further. We claim
that deliberate practice requires effort and is not
inherently enjoyable. Individuals are motivated to
practice because practice improves performance. In addition,
engaging in deliberate practice generates no immediate
monetary rewards and generates costs associated with access
to teachers and training environments. Thus, an
understanding of the long-term consequences of deliberate
practice is important.¹
In a nutshell, many people have bemoaned the drudgery of
tedious deliberate practice for some time. But in truth,
a little bit of creativity can overcome the tedium and produce
an environment that develops good habits and
performance. Additionally, enhanced performance based on
Deliberate Practice principles during practice can produce
greater amounts of buy-in from participants. I would like
to write next quarter about turning drills into games, but
this month, I would like to detail the specifics about my
presentation and the principles of Deliberate Practice.
To begin with, coaches must consider the movements within
their sport:
- What are the key positions?
- What are the dominant directions/movements that make-up
the majority of the related required skills?
- What are the increments of time that govern these
movements?
- What are the durations of the contests themselves?
- What are the physiological requirements to sustain
prolonged proficient performance?
For example, if I'm a basketball coach and considering
these questions my answers would include: 1) basic defensive
stance, offensive triple-threat position, posting-up and
rebound positions, as well as full sprint positions; 2)
athletes are expected to move laterally a great deal and at
high rates of speed, sprinting forward with proficiency is
also important as well as a great deal of directional change
at high rates of speed; 3) players aren't usually on offense
or defense for more than 30 seconds and therefore only need to
move in those positions for that duration, changes of action
(and direction) occur every two seconds, and the 6% - 20% of
the contest is spent in high-intensity activities (jogs, runs,
sprints, and shuffles),2/3/0/0; 4) contests last anywhere from
32 to 48 minutes depending on the level being coached; and 5)
based on these requirements physiological proficiency will be
evident in above average speed, agility, hand-eye
coordination, muscular endurance and power.
With this type of information in hand it becomes far easier
for coaches to designate which of their current drills is
helping their players move toward proficiency and which can be
left out of practice completely. For example, as a
basketball coach ladder drills where I tap side to side with
my toes facing forward can be left out of my practice
completely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzB1Guns0ss
Unfortunately many coaches have become accustomed to utilizing
drills that have been handed down from folks that weren't
privy to the principles of Deliberate Practice. These
principles in a nut shell dictate that if I want to be
proficient at kick-sliding in basketball then I have to do it
thousands of times the way it appears in a game situation
(similar to the Principle of Specificity). Coaches
interested in improving on these less effective drills, study
the behaviors of players who display the characteristics they
want their athletes to model and focus on, fine-tuning pieces
that are essential to proficient performance. Consider
these general questions:
- What are their hands doing?
- How are they maintaining balance?
- How are they creating motion?
- What commonly diminishes the efficiency of these
movements?
Again, if I were a basketball coach looking at defensive
slides I might answer these questions the following way: 1) I
want ball-side hands to deliberately be spread to the open
side to close the passing window and trail hands to stay low
in the cross-over lane; 2) I want balance to be maintained
with a low shoulders-forward posture with fast driving feet
that neither cross or are too far apart; 3) motion should be
generated by a drive-and-kick reciprocating motion in the
feet, ball-side foot turned out to lead the body; and 4) poor
defensive slide angles, standing up too tall and poor footwork
usually create unsatisfactory defensive slides.
The next step in providing your athletes with a Deliberate
Practice setting is to work these features into a drill where
the motions mirror a game-like setting so they can be
practiced at game speeds and under conditions that simulate
game situations. A youth basketball coach might try the
following: 1) place a defensive player in the optimal
defensive position in the deep back court of the full
basketball court; 2) instruct the player to perform the best
defensive slide possible to the midline of the back court
where it meets the foul line at which point the player is then
instructed to heel pivot, open to a proficient defensive slide
position going in the opposing direction and perform a
proficient defensive slide in a 45° angle back to the
sideline; 3) repeat.Once players have demonstrated proficient
body angles and movement at moderate speeds the same drill can
be executed using a stopwatch to force players to move at
their top speeds. A distinguishing characteristic of
Deliberate Practice is that instantaneous quantifiable results
are used to help athletes understand what they need to do to
improve. Once players can proficiently repeat the skill
at game speed you can add a live dribbler who is asked to
dribble to designated cones at the foul line, half court, and
so on. Defenders should remain a half step ahead of the
ball and continue sliding as much as possible. If a defender
gets behind or even with the ball they should be instructed to
break into a run to recover. Hip transition into and out
of a run should be explained and modeled just as the first
defensive slide was, so that players can see best practice and
common errors to avoid. Finally, players can square off
in full court ball pressure in a drill that forces high speed
transitions into and out of the defensive slide mimicking
those that would occur in a game. As players measurably
improve their performance they should demonstrate greater
efficiency at staying in an effective defensive orientation
with ball-handlers both during practice and games.
This is just one example of how to design practice drills
based on Deliberate Practice. If it sounds like
something you're already doing in your practices then good
news, you're on the right track according to Anders
Ericsson! To be consistent, inspect the rest of the
drills that you use in your practices and ask the questions I
mentioned earlier. If the motions you see in your drills
consist ONLY of game-like or game-related skills then you've
already been providing Deliberate Practice for your athletes
and I'll bet they are getting better every week.
I suggest you also consider tracking your athlete's
progress with regard to movement times and opponent
performances to assess their improvement. Do this both
for your athletes and yourself. Remember to praise your
athletes for their improvement with specific feedback, and
"great balance!" "You're driving that lead foot well to stay
ahead of the dribbler there!" "Great transitions!" and so
on. If you find that some of your drills are
hand-me-downs that might be omitted, take a closer look at
them and see if maybe you could just tweak them to follow
Deliberate Practice principles. Apply the questions
asked above and redesign the drill to put players in the best
positions possible. Finally, I'm certainly not saying
that you should throw the agility ladders out of your
practice. I'm simply suggesting that if you're asking your
athletes to do something in practice it should always be based
on game-time improvement.
I hope this article has provided some food for thought and
if you're interested in any follow up information please feel
free to drop me a line at jstrong@niagaracc.suny.edu.
References
1. Ericsson, K. Anders, Krampe, Ralf Th., Tesch-Romer,
Clemens. The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition
of Expert Performance. Psychological Review 1993. Vol.
100. No. 3.363-406
2. Ben Abdelkrim N, El Fazaa S, El Ati J. Time motion
analysis and physiological data of elite under-19-year-old
basketball players during competition. Br J Sports Med.
2007;41(2):69-75. PubMed doi:10.1136/bjsm.2006.032318
3. Ben Abdelkrim N, Castagna C, El Fazaa S, El Ati J.
The effect of player's standard and tactical strategy on
game demand in men's basketball. J Strength Cond Res.
2010a;24:2652-2662. PubMed
doi:10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181e2e0a3
4. Ben Abdelkrim N, Castagna C, Jabri I, Battikh T, El
Fazaa S, El Ati J. Activity profile and physiological
requirements of junior basketball players in relation to
aerobic-anaerobic fitness. J Strength Cond Res.
2010b;24:2330-2342. PubMed
doi:10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181e381c1
6. McInnes SE, Carlson JS, Jones CJ, Mckenna MJ. The
physiological load imposed on basketball players during
competition. J Sports Sci. 1995;13(5):387-397. PubMed
doi:10.1080/02640419508732254
Biography: John Strong is an Assistant Professor at
Niagara County Community College in Sanborn, NY (8 years). His
responsibilities include Physical Education Teacher Education,
coordinating the Personal Training Certificate Program, and
various posts in collegiate clubs and committees. John is a
member of AAHPERD at the national, state, and zone levels and
has presented at conferences for all three. He has coached at
the middle and high school levels and is currently involved in
youth sport both as a coach and trainer for Youth Sports New
York. John's related areas of interest include: Youth Sport,
Sport Philosophy, and Sport Psychology.
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