#nba workouts | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

luvdivy · 4 months

Text

a guide to becoming an elite athlete (Pt 1)

In this post, I talk about skill work and tactical training (IQ), which is one of the most important aspects of sports development. Some terminology I use may not apply to every sport, so please adjust to your sports!

1.) Skillwork and training:

This is the most basic and important part of being an athlete and improving at your sport! Without the skills and hard work to develop them, you won't become great in your sport.

You must train by yourself and with others if you really want to develop as a player. There's no cheating the hard work you put in, because it WILL pay off. Before you continue, if you're not fully committed and ready to push yourself past your limits in order to become an amazing player, there's no point in reading this post.

A guide to individual skill work:

Have a clear plan for your workout before you train. Pick a specific skill you want to develop, and pick 2-4 drills to work on it. Some examples of specific skills are floaters in basketball, left footed shots in soccer, backhand in tennis, etc.

Plan to workout for 45 minutes to an hour and half. If you're really pushing yourself in each and every workout you do with immense focus, you'll only need an hour and half to get the most out of a workout. It doesn't matter how long you train for, as long as you have maximum focus during the training.

Choose drills that will push you out of your comfort zone without being too challenging for you. This will increase progress by increasing the level of challenge to an optimal level. Too much challenge can cause a slower improvement in the skill.

Don't be afraid to make mistakes while training skills. It's a necessary part of the process. BUT make sure that you know your mistakes and fix it. If you need to practice a skill slowly and then ramp up the pace, then do it. The focus of individual training is improvement of skill, not blind action.

Track your progress! After every completed training sess, track your progress by putting in stats like 8/10 shots made, etc so that you can look back and see your improvement.

Avoid overexerting yourself with trainings. We hear elite athletes talk about them spending 4-5 hours outside or in the gym, but what we don't see are the breaks, the maximum level of focus, and specificity of their workouts. It's so easy to push yourself to extremes which has many countereffects. It's also easy to lose focus when your workouts are 4-5 hours long. It's really tempting, but try fitting in 2-3 individual hour-long workouts into your day (in the summers) so that you still get the same level of work without overextering yourself.

Have light and intense workouts. On a usual summer day, I start with an intense workout (long), then have a light, skill polishing workout, then end the day off with a short but intense burnout workout. I take breaks in between workouts and I make sure my focus remains high.

Finding drills + creativity:

To find drills, I like to use instagram and youtube to find what pro-level trainers and athletes are doing.

I like to study the workouts of pro athletes and how they execute specific skills so that when I go to repeat the same skill, I know how its done.

One thing you'll find with skill workouts is that most pro-level athletes are practicing a lot of fundamentals. So many people want to do these crazy-insane complicated workouts, but what they don't see is the mastery of fundamentals that these athletes have developed. Keep this in mind when you're training, ask yourself, how effective is this drill?

Creativity is what makes athletes unique, so don't be afraid to try things out. Try freestyle footwork, moves, fakes, shots, etc. Try develop your own unique style of play through getting creative

A big part of creativity is also exploring the way your body moves. Try to work in different body positions for example getting wide in stance in soccer while dribbling or getting really low while dribbling in basketball. Experiment and see what your body can do while maintaing control.

One thing I love is observing different athletes and their different creative elements of their game. I take different things from different players and work on it

Training with others:

This is CRUCIAL for developing skill wise and IQ wise as a player because you need experience playing with others. The greatest athletes played against other people constantly and analyzed why things happened the way they did.

First find people to play with that will push you to be better. This can be pickup basketball or soccer, tennis, etc or it can be teammates on your team. But make sure atleast 2-3 times a week you play against other people so you an develop IQ and utilize your skills

When training with others in scrimmages and other light matches, pick focuses and learn from mistakes. Pick something you want to focus on executing in the game such as passing, shooting, communication, etc so that you can really see how you stand with those skills. Learn from mistakes by assessing what went wrong, why it went wrong, and how to fix it.

When training with others, make sure you are really pushing yourself. Push yourself to take risks and see how they turn out. If you take risks and push yourself to mistakes while playing scrimmages and light matches, you'll be better equipped for actual games and matches.

If you do 1v1, 2v2, etc, make sure you do it with different criteria. 1v1 with a dribble limit, 2v2 with a passing limit, etc. Prepare for different situations using these smaller games to your advantage.

A note: Cone work and individual training has its benefits, but if you want to truly develop, you need to play against other people. Jamal Crawford never used cones and instead experimented with defenders (he's one of the best ball handlers in basketball). Push yourself to failure in both individual training and training with others.

Developing IQ in your sport:

Watch film. Watch your own game film of your games to analyze mistakes and see how you play from a third person view. When you analyze film, your brain actually adds that knowledge to its "database" and it increases your IQ. Some things to watch for in your game film are: passing, spacing, shots, moves, body language of yourself and teammates, running of plays, etc.

Watch pro athletes play from your sport and other sports. See how elite athletes move and flow with the game, and implement that in your own games. When you see what they see and analyze why that was the best decision, you understand different ways of working within different situations in your sport.

When watching pro athletes play, make sure you focus on specifics and not simply watching. It can be easy to get sidetracked by cool dunks and shots, but really focus on how teammates space in response to the people with the ball, how the game flows, and even minor details such as footwork and how the offense/defense reads and attacks the opposition

Watching film of other sports can help you in your own sport by introducing new ideas and ways of moving. I watch a lot of soccer even though I play basketball, and its helped me understand spacing and ball movement A LOT.

Watching film of pro-league games also improves your own skill by showing you how skills are performed with defenders. Use film to your advantage by developing IQ and skills. Also make sure to watch interviews of players and understand their IQ and skill processes when they train individually.

Once again, playing actual games and scrimmages WILL develop your game, don't sleep on it.

Ask lots of questions to coaches to better understand situations within the sport. Coaches love questions, and you'll add new "data" to your "database" (brain). Whenever you get the opportunity to ask coaches, athletes, and trainers questions and learn from them, take advanatage of it.

Final notes:

This is a lot, but I truly think it can be valuable! I'm only a teenager and still navigating sports, but I hope this can be of use to you.

Your focus should SOLELY be on your development and improvement, don't compare your journey to others. Sports can be hard, but know that working hard and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone will repay you 10x.

Take it day by day. You will not be a Messi or a Kobe in a week, but dedication goes a long way.

Enjoy training individually and small matches! Get excited about your improvement and never forget why you started.

I will have more parts to this new series on mental training, physical development, seeking opportunities, diet, and more. Lmk if yall want anything else specific for me to post on!

Lead with love, and happy 2024 <333

#self improvement #sports #basketball #soccer #football #track and field #athlete #gym #workout #life #nba #wnba #skills

1 note · View note