4 Keys to Better Practices

Hi Coach,

Today, we’re diving into practice design.

I hope these newsletters serve you on your coaching journey!

We all want the things we do in practice to actually show up in competition.

But too often coaches implement drills or activities that lack representative learning design (RLD).

I know that I often cringe when I consider some of the drills, activities, or games I used with some of the early teams I coached. I wasted so much of our precious practice time on things that weren’t helping them get better and weren’t transferring to the game!

There’s a better way!

Rob Gray highlights four key areas of RLD in this book:

#1: Information & Information-Movement Coupling

We can consider “techniques” to be one possible movement solution for athletes, but skill is the athlete’s ability to adapt that technique based on the environment to produce a positive outcome.

Gray says, “Skill is a relationship between information and movement. We can’t train action in the absence of information that specifies how and when it can be used. We need to ‘Keep ‘em Coupled’!” (pg. 75).

Perception and action must be coupled!

The question we should ask ourselves when designing practice activities is…

Does this activity have the same information (or at a minimum some of the same information) that the athlete will have to interact with during competition?

For example, if we’re working on finishing around the rim in basketball, are there defenders trying to block or bother the shot in the activity like there will be in the game?

#2: Action Fidelity

Gray says, “As a simple rule, if I can’t tell what sport you are practicing for while watching you train, it’s likely not representative” (pg. 75).

That one is pretty straightforward — practice your sport!

#3: Affordances and Decisions

Affordance = opportunity for action

Decision = action taken

Gray makes an important distinction, “… we don’t need to present all possible action opportunities that could occur in the game — again we can just take a small slice. What we want to ensure is that there is some degree of unpredictability… even if there are only a few possible options.”

We should put our athletes in activities where they are exposed to the information and unpredictability of competition, thus forcing them to make decisions.

#4: Emotional Context

Practice should “[generate] some of the same emotions that are experience in competition” (Gray, p.78).

The only way I know how to reproduce this in practice is to make practice activities and games competitive.

Our athletes need reps in practice navigating the emotions of competition.

Learning how to win and lose are essential skills we should seek to develop in our athletes.

A few thoughts on how this could apply in your coaching or leadership context…

Thanks for reading, I hope this serves you on your journey.

To your growth,

Luke Gromer, RYG Athletics

P.S. Click on the poll below to give us some feedback on the newsletter. Feel free to leave a comment on the next page or hit reply to this email with thoughts.

P.P.S. If you’re interested in becoming one of our NIKE Sports Camp directors, hit the button in the poll at the bottom! You can see testimonials from over 100 athletes that attended our NIKE Sports Camps this summer.

NOTE: Director compensation varies by camp type, location, hours, costs, and other factors. Generally, compensation starts at $1,000 for an all-day camp and goes up based on registration numbers.