What is one of the best basketball training aids out there?

Ask For More, Get It by John Mietus

What is one of the best basketball training aids out there?  When a sportswriter asked the great boxer Muhammad Ali how many push-ups he did for training, Ali responded, “I don’t know. I only start to count them when they start to hurt.” Point being, until the athlete begins to push himself past his previous barriers, no progress is being made. The body will only stretch itself when new demands are placed on it. The beauty of athletic greatness is that it is both attainable and fleeting, because yesterday’s limit cannot be today’s goal. Former NFL MVP J.J. Watt once stated that greatness is, “not owned, it’s rented. And rent is due every single day.”

The brain works much the same way as the muscles do—it will grow and develop when stretched slightly beyond its previous limits. New neural patterns will form and deepen, and with stronger connection comes more “talent” for an activity. The job of the master teacher is to put players in a position to make these neural connections on an increasingly difficult level. While the science of motor learning suggests that repetition is the key to neuromuscular memory, this is only part of the equation. Repetition of the same difficulty will only breed more success at that level. Greatness requires the constant striving for better and does not allow an athlete (or coach) to rest. As anybody who has ever won a championship of some kind can tell you, the good feeling lasts for a few hours, maybe a day or even a week, and then you move on and keep working to be better. The achievements of the past do not help us today or in the future. So in order to keep getting better, we as coaches must constantly change variables as players achieve competence at certain levels. Once the level has been achieved, we can and must move on to a new challenge. Without a new challenge, no progress is made. Without progress, we have limited our team’s capacity to demonstrate its greatest potential.

The exciting part of this is that we are only limited by our own willingness to put in the effort. Coaches control the learning environment and can build a growth process that enables players (and therefore: teams) to maximize their potential. With enough time and perseverance, teams that consistently improve their ability level will wind up having a lot of success on the scoreboard as well. The process is not “easy,” but it is simple. Either grow your team or live with the results of whatever walked through the door on Day 1 of practice. Results follow process.

(Note: Sometimes what walks through the door on Day 1 is spectacularly talented, i.e. Kentucky Basketball. In most situations, coaches must build their own talent in order to succeed in the long term.)

Mastery of a skill, any skill, is a slow, challenging process where even hard work over long periods of time may not manifest itself instantly. The plateau of development occurs in all pursuits, including basketball, where we feel like no progress is being made. The true master coach continues to plug along on that path, working as hard as possible to develop talented players rather than looking to take shortcuts. Eventually, the plateau will shift and gains will be made. And then, waiting for us again is a new plateau.

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best basketball training aids article: Ask For More, Get It by John Mietus