Personalized trainings vs. Just playing

[Norcal_Fan]

Over the last few days I've seen people professing to develop your game to new heights, or trained NBA players and how much better you'll get by attending our camps, yadda yadda yadda....It got me thinking. How better will a player get by attending these camps/clinics/professional training sessions versus going out to the playground and just playing. You go into any urban city and you'll see some great basketball being played but many times they don't have personal trainers. Back in the dark ages when many of us older players played, our personal trainer was watching games and going out to the back yard and trying to emulate Jordan or Bird's moves and we practiced it till we perfected it.

I would argue that kids are much more athletic and have a better basketball IQ than 20 years ago BUT lack fundamentals. These camps teach you how to dribble two balls at a time, dribble and toss a tennis ball, sit on a wall and dribble profusely through your legs but when will you ever do that in a game? Just curious to see what you think. In the end, I think kids can save themselves a lot of money by just going and working on your game by yourself...

 

[CW Golden Eagles]

Personally, I think kids play too many games and don't work on their skill set enough. I think you need a fundamental skill set and then spend time playing working to apply the skills you have been working on. There's a learning phase and an application phase. Not sure what you're applying if you haven't learned the fundamentals first other than engraining bad habits.

Having said that, there are a lot of people calling themselves trainers that I wouldn't recommend. Find a skill trainer that teaches fundamentals. Key word being "teaches." Just like anything else, there are some really good ones and a lot that you are wasting your money on. Do your research and watch some work outs before forking out hundreds to thousands of dollars that may be going down the drain instead of into your child's game.

 

[ClayK]

There has to be a balance, but I think girls especially don't just play the game enough. Sure, they're in tournaments and they go to practice, but they don't play pickup, they don't experiment, they don't have the ball enough.

Take a typical tournament: Five-on-five, with a clock, and everyone's playing to win because of the scoreboard. The best players handle the ball and take most of the shots, and a reserve could win up on court for just a few minutes of actual playing team, and only touch the ball if she gets a rebound or a steal -- and she gets rid of it as soon as possible.

Parents want to win or they'll take their daughter to another team, and so coaches focus on winning, which means presses and traps and plays, etc., which can overwhelm teams with limited practice time (all of them, basically) that don't focus on team stuff instead of individual development.

But a girl who goes to a park or an open gym and just plays basketball for two hours will get more run that in a bunch of tournaments (unless she's already a star) and will get the chance to handle the ball, shoot and get a feel for the game. Five open gym sessions with two hours of play in each one will, to my mind, advance a girl a lot further than five weekend tournaments with three games each, in which minutes are split among eight to 12 players.

Now of course working on skills is important, but you have to use them in games, and in tournaments and such, the players who utilize their skills are the good players, because winning is the goal, not skill or individual development.

 

[larry legend33]

Fall in love with the game and play on your own after developing good skills at these training lessons. If you have a brother play with him. Personally some of these drills are ridiculous. Do things that simulate game situations at game speed. But the skills and training kids get is incredible compared to 10-15 years ago. At the end of the day to me it's still simple. Can you play? Are you a gamer.

 

[ProlificPrepTV]

Good training from quality trainers is very important to a players development. But the area that kids fail at is IQ!!! Mixing short video sessions, breaking down game film will increase a players skill level on the court 10x as fast. IQ is a skill and helps further advance the skills they are learning on the court.

 

[ClayK]

I couldn't agree more about IQ, but you can only do so much work outside of games. The more you try to apply the lessons you learn in games, even pickup games, the better you'll understand situations, and the less you'll have to think about them later on.

Along that line, I think it's vital for coaches and trainers to still play pickup or in leagues so they remember how hard the game is, and that even they make mental mistakes on a regular basis.

You don't become a great chess player by working on knight forks or memorizing openings; you become a great chess player by playing chess. And you become a great basketball player by playing basketball.

I've interviewed many elite female players, and one of the most consistent themes is that they played all the time when they were young -- and not in organized leagues but at the Y or at parks. (They also played with guys much of the time as well.)

Tournaments and high school games are not enough for most players, especially those who are not ballhandlers or players who are handed the ball at a young age by their coaches. The more you play, the more you improve; and you can't tell how much you can improve if you don't play.

 

[RespectBBGame]

Trainer are great as long as they know what they are doing. One on one sections are the best if parents can afford it. But there are a lot of trainers that aren't real trainers. Just have to watch how they train and theireal knowledge of the game.

The biggest think in training is for the player to gain enough confidence to apply what they are taught or its just a waste of time. There are some kids that only will be good practice players to be honest. A good trainers will be honest with the parents to let them know where their child is and how far they are away from being good.

Playing is good but have to use the trainer to get better or the player will keep their bad techniques and stay the same.

If your true player you will always spend time in the lab as much as possible with the right trainer.I know of some trainers have issues with bad knees from wrong training techniques. But don't get me wrong the trainer train some of the best in Normal but some have knee surgeries down the line. Some trainers need to take a class in kinesiology. Most trainers know what they are doing.

One last think this for the coaches teach the girls how to play in a pickup game this will help their game tremendously. This will teach them space and how to move to the open spots on the court. Don't tell them to run plays let the game come to them.

 

[Eliteiqhoops]

The reason why my program is called ELITE IQ HOOPS is because everything is based on developing high basketball iq. As for my program we work on game situations and developing each players individual skill set from footwork, mechanics, rhythm, timing and balance. There are a lot of trainers that pop up who A cant properly break down what they are teaching players or even show what they want the player to do by showing as an example B dont have the proper knowledge of how player development works but instead watched a million youtube videos and came up with drills. Like I always say the blind can not lead the blind so if you cant practice what you preach as a player development coach then you shouldnt be teaching it. Over the years my program has helped mold a lot of players from youth to pro. A lot of what we do is about high reps and picking spots. Learning how to score and defend in certain situations but most importantly the environment I create during those workouts are game like. Every workout ends with some form of "game situation competition" such as One on One with 3 dribbles or 2 on 2 with different scenarios and so on.. Playing a lot of games does give you "game time" experience but in between the games players MUST enhance their game. During both the off season and in season development is needed. What is unique about what I do is I break down every players game down from the good to the bad and we try to make their weaknesses their strengths and their strengths even stronger. As well as focusing on strength and conditioning and so on. It not about having a million cones and having the most outrageous drills its about can you as coach enhance the players game a get results out of the player. I was pleased to have been mentored by some of the best player development coaches around (Phil Handy, DaShawn Freeman) as well as a few others.

Below is a Great podcast link of Phil Beckner player development coach of Damian Lillard from college to now. https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/hubershow/09/ In the podcast Phil explains how real skills development and player development works. In this day and age Every NBA team has a player development coach. As well as explaing why player development is just as important as playing games.

 

[Streak One]

Like everything in life, you need a balance. You need to work on fundamentals and skills in a training setting to make sure it is being perfected and you need to study the game to improve your IQ. Then you take it to games where it is being challenged to do those things at a high speed. You struggle and go back to the training sessions to improve your reactionary time and back to games and so on.

I think an underused tool for HS players in playing in open gyms against JUCO players. It forces you to make plays against bigger and stronger players who want to bang you around and those things you don't always see on the circuit.

 

[ClayK]

Again, I've found in talking to elite players that playing against guys is by far the best way to improve. And even non-elite players can find a home in a pickup somewhere. As long as you try hard, pass the ball and make an occasional shot, you're going to become a "regular" after a couple times.

And older guys are the best to play against, because there's less testosterone involved, less quickness but still the ability to punish every mental mistake.

 

[personalogic]

Over the last few days I've seen people professing to develop your game to new heights, or trained NBA players and how much better you'll get by attending our camps, yadda yadda yadda....It got me thinking. How better will a player get by attending these camps/clinics/professional training sessions versus going out to the playground and just playing. You go into any urban city and you'll see some great basketball being played but many times they don't have personal trainers. Back in the dark ages when many of us older players played, our personal trainer was watching games and going out to the back yard and trying to emulate Jordan or Bird's moves and we practiced it till we perfected it.

I would argue that kids are much more athletic and have a better basketball IQ than 20 years ago BUT lack fundamentals. These camps teach you how to dribble two balls at a time, dribble and toss a tennis ball, sit on a wall and dribble profusely through your legs but when will you ever do that in a game? Just curious to see what you think. In the end, I think kids can save themselves a lot of money by just going and working on your game by yourself...

In the modern era of youth sports, a competitive athlete can benefit from and pretty much requires a certain amount of individual training. But you can also waste a lot of time with trainers who focus on a pre-set package of drills, piles of apparatus, and hundreds of feverish repetitions with little feedback. Training is more than getting a good sweat going. You need to emerge with better skills and better game performance.

The ideal trainer will start by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of a trainee, both in an individual training session and by observing the player (film or live) operating in a team context. From that and also discussing things with the player, priorities will be set and a course of development established. A player is not going to learn 10 things at the same time. Two or three key objectives is plenty.

Mastery of each technique will follow the steps of (1) explaining what to do and why (2) slow and correct execution, increasing speed without sacrificing form (3) putting in the repetitions to build muscle memory, including "homework" outside the training session, and (4) encouraging incorporation of each technique into team play. The final step is usually the hardest because in competition most players resist the new and awkward in favor of what has always worked for them in the past.

It's a big advantage for a trainer to have a good line of communication with a player's team coach so that a player will be hearing consistent things and develop steadily on all fronts. Where this is not possible, the player just has to do a little more work herself to balance varying inputs.

 

[Defender4212]

ClayK can you recommend any good spots for open gym? I teach in San Leandro and one of my students asked about a place where young ladies can play.

 

[Eliteiqhoops]

http://espn.go.com/espnw/video/15110307/

 

[Norcal_Fan]

Do you think it's more important to have a trainer on the girls side or boys side? I would tend to agree that they may, as girls don't do as many pick-up games/open gym games. I don't know.

A poster above said it's a necessity. I don't think it's a necessity but rather a perk. There are thousands of kids on the play grounds that develop uncanny IQ w/o trainers all across the country. I think that a trainer can be helpful in building the necessary fundamentals of shooting, but everything else, kids can learn on their own by watching the game and being a student of the game.

I just can't see shelling out 30-100 bucks an hour for stuff my kid could do at home (my kids are all grown now). And even more so in a "CAMP" type of atmosphere where you have a 30-1 ratio. I took my kids to a triple threat camp one time and there was about 150 kids and about 5 counselors. How in the world can you get better in that type of environment AND how is it possible to give positive feedback to that large group of kids? Money maker and a lot of times, parents are sheep.

BTW nice clip of the Geno interview. Agree with him 100% how are dribbling with two balls or with tennis balls teaching fundamentals?? If you're in a circus, yes!

 

[larry legend33]

Good video. I think its even worse on the boys side. They get away with athleticism a lot of times verse skills. Most of the high end girls I watch are fundamentally superior to the boys.
You have to practice on your own. I think that is key. Go to the park with a ball and work on your game.

 

[bodyguard]

I think the value is in skill development, but there are a lot of people out there who profess to be "trainers" who don't focus on the right things or come with a lot of gimmicks. I do think with all the club ball kids play too many games at the expense of getting in the gym and working on their skills. All those games at a young age can lead to nagging overuse injuries. But they still need to play in order to get better as well, it must be the proper mix. The problem with the skill work is it's very important that that skill work be focused and done with the proper mechanics and fundamentals, and for that you often need someone who can monitor that... trainer or otherwise.

I can't speak for others but at Eastside we do a lot more skill work with our girls throughout the season than we do on running sets or complicated offenses or defenses. But the skill work isn't complicated either. Donovan is really good at teaching the skill stuff, but he doesn't use a lot of gimmicks. What he does do it make it very detail-oriented and very focused from a mental standpoint. Every drill is done exactly as it should be from a fundamental standpoint down to small details many don't notice, and they are done game speed with maximum effort and focus. In addition it's about reps... no magic formula... lots of reps done properly and players get better.

But in an effort to try to stand out among the myriads of "basketball trainers" many turn to a lot of gimmicks and college and NBA-level stuff (or what they think is NBA-level) when the kids need something simpler that will work at their level. Donovan has often commented to me he finds it funny how so many kids are being taught stuff like Euro step moves, etc when they can't yet make a left-handed layup consistently. It's like learning an instrument. The level of difficulty in the music progresses as the student does. You don't throw Fantasie Impromptu at a beginning piano student, you start them out with Minuet in G and let them get that down first, them move on. We find that there are plenty of simple drills that will expose any weaknesses that don't need props or three basketballs to do. Once those weaknesses are exposed it's about repetition with proper mechanics to work them out... but it doesn't happen overnight.

While we have done an occasional tennis-ball drill it's something Donovan may throw in just to break things up and after they've all become good dribblers with both hands. We do do a lot of two-ball stuff but we find that it's good for developing the weaker hand while still having to focus on the other, but we do more stuff with one ball in a variety of different situations. Same with shooting, we occasionally will mix in floaters and some more exoctic finishes, but for the most park it's about executing the proper footwork to get open, get space, get by and finish or shoot. People see Steph Curry's pre-game warmup or practice routine and want to copy it without realizing the years of work Steph had to put in with the simpler things to get to the point of needing the complicated stuff in order to continue to stretch his skills.

That being said Donovan always stresses the importance of putting in individual time. He always says if you count on the time you have in practice or with a trainer only to get better you won't improve nearly as much as if you take the time on your own to work on your ball handling, get shots up, etc. He came to the Chicago area from Jamaica when he was 13 and never picked up a basketball. He'd try to run with the ball without dribbling. But he took an interest in the game and taught himself by using Jerry West's book and would get to the gym early in the morning every day. By the time he was a junior in high school he was being recruited. He never had a trainer but did have some great high school coaches to teach him the team part of the game and the importance of doing everything the right way, attention to the smallest details and responsibility to the team.

So like most things in life, it's a balance.

 

[ClayK]

I pretty much agree with everything bodyguard and Donovan said and do. I think a lot of trainers -- and players -- get bored just doing the same simple fundamental things over and over again, but mastering left-handed layups, say, does not come easily. (Many WNBA players can't make off-hand layups consistently ...)

Basic offensive skills that every player should have, for me:

Ability to make layups from both sides with both hands from each side
One strong move right, and one strong move left
Fundamentally sound three-point shot that will be taken if the defender sags off too far
Ability to dribble between the legs starting with left and right hand
Ability to go behind the back starting with left and right hand

Once those are mastered -- and how many varsity girls have mastered all of those? -- then fun stuff like the Eurostep, the runner, the pump fake, etc., can be worked in. But you can't stop working on those fundamentals, as Steph Curry shows, and in team situations, you have to go over those again and again, even if the top players get tired of it (it's not like any 16-year-old is the perfect player anyway).

As for the question about open gyms, I don't really know of any ... when I used to run them at Bentley, we didn't get that many girls from other schools unfortunately, though Mt. Diablo and Emery showed up on occasion.

 

[Paytc]

As with the Win Anyway philosophy, I feel each and every circumstance has to be taken into account. I have a hard time buying into one way of doing anything. Each child is blessed differently. So each parent and child has to consider what is the best decision to make for themselves.

Most AAU and high school teams are big on winning and "team concept". Although the way many coaches coach, it contradicts whether they are aiming to win or not often times IMO. Too many times ego, fear, ignorance, or low self esteem gets in the way. But since the focus is usually not on helping the individual get better, then the individual has to take on the personal accountability to get better themselves.

Some high school coaches and some AAU programs are better than others. There are a few that understand they must spend some time giving individualized instruction and more personal encouragement. If that is the case you may require less individualized instruction.

But in my opinion playing the game helps you become a better team player. And working independently helps you become both a better team player and a better individual player. Because confidence is the switch that turns the light on and makes sense of everything. Especially for young players, girls in particular.

Many coaches don't understand how to develop players individually because they are more concerned with selling the team and everyone on their system. Many don't realize you must be flexible enough to know you don't coach boys and girls the same way. And you don't coach a 3rd grade team like you would a high school team. You consider the circumstances. And the skill level and strength and weaknesses of each player.

Unless you are with a coach who has your child's best interest in mind (which does happen but is a bit rare) you better consider what you can do to help your child's game develop yourself.

I would suggest not playing basketball or any team sport for that matter year round. Take summer and/or spring off to get a break from the grind and politics of it all. But that is if you feel your child (based on their circumstances) would be better off taking the break.

If so use that down time to get mentally, physically, and fundamentally sound.

A good personal trainer can get a young player to work on better footwork, building stamina, better overall fundamentals, and taking a critical look into their strengths and weaknesses. They can also help you gain the self confidence your coach may not have helped you build because either they didn't know or didn't care enough.

Money and priorities( or values) will many times determine the decisions players and parents will make. And some are more easily fooled enough to buy into making the one way,or wrong decision. At least that is how I sum it all up. (Smile).

 

[bodyguard]

As with the Win Anyway philosophy, I feel each and every circumstance has to be taken into account. I have a hard time buying into one way of doing anything. Each child is blessed differently. So each parent and child has to consider what is the best decision to make for themselves.

Most AAU and high school teams are big on winning and "team concept". Although the way many coaches coach, it contradicts whether they are aiming to win or not often times IMO. Too many times ego, fear, ignorance, or low self esteem gets in the way. But since the focus is usually not on helping the individual get better, then the individual has to take on the personal accountability to get better themselves.

Some high school coaches and some AAU programs are better than others. There are a few that understand they must spend some time giving individualized instruction and more personal encouragement. If that is the case you may require less individualized instruction.

But in my opinion playing the game helps you become a better team player. And working independently helps you become both a better team player and a better individual player. Because confidence is the switch that turns the light on and makes sense of everything. Especially for young players, girls in particular.

Many coaches don't understand how to develop players individually because they are more concerned with selling the team and everyone on their system. Many don't realize you must be flexible enough to know you don't coach boys and girls the same way. And you don't coach a 3rd grade team like you would a high school team. You consider the circumstances.

Unless you are with a coach who has your child's best interest in mind (which does happen but is a bit rare) you better consider what you can do to help your child's game develop yourself.

I would suggest not playing basketball or any team sport for that matter year round. Take summer and/or spring off to get a break from the grind and politics of it all. But that is if you feel your child (based on their circumstances) would be better off taking the break.

If so use that down time to get mentally, physically, and fundamentally sound.

A good personal trainer can get a young player to work on better footwork, building stamina, better overall fundamentals, and taking a critical look into their strengths and weaknesses. They can also help you gain the self confidence your coach may not have helped you build because either they didn't know or didn't care enough.

Money and priorities( or values) will many times determine the decisions players and parents will make. And some are more easily fooled enough to buy into making the one way,or wrong decision. At least that is how I sum it all up. (Smile).

Well said. All very true IMO.

 

[Paytc]

Well said. All very true IMO.

Thanks bodyguard ! That's really appreciated coming from you. But we have to give Norcal _ Fan Big props for creating such a good and important topic.

I agree with Norcal _ Fan's point on.... "I think kids can save themselves a lot of money by just going and working on your game by yourself..."

I want to personally thank Kobe Bryant for lifting the game world-wide, and on such a fabulous career. Wow his last game is this Wednesday !

I think Kobe Bryant provided a good example of a gym rat and most likely inspired young players like Steph Curry who also takes personal responsibility to put in the extra individual work to consistently get better.

We have to encourage young players coming up to learn how to look at competition as a personal challenge to get better, not to always only rely on the scoreboard to define how good they are. Taking that approach in my opinion makes competition a positive experience as opposed to letting competition get ugly and out of hand. Or turning it into the rat race the business world is running in, instead of just wanting to enjoy playing the game.

Coaches, clubs, teams, and personal trainers all have their own agendas and it's not always to the benefit of every player. Outside help is needed if the experience is properly balanced. Parents and players themselves have to do what's best for them based on their skill level, goals, and preferences. And realize.... what works for some players may or may not work for you. But their is no short cut to getting better. The reps and work has to be put in one way or the other.