I am going to start a series on practice. As Allen Iverson said, “Practice? We’re talking about practice?” Yes, we are going to talk about practice. Practicing, specifically how to practice is one of the most misunderstood and often most widely misused aspects of sports. Most athletes, coaches, and parents believe that practice alone is sufficient enough to improve their athlete to the levels of performance that they desire. If that level of performance is not met it is then believed that the athlete was simply “not talented enough” or that they had some “limits” that prevented them from achieving the success they desired. This however, is nothing more then an excuse, a copout to relieve the athlete of any sense that they might not have reached their athletic potential. In Geoff Colvin’s book “Talent is Overrated: What REALLY Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else” he states, “This explanation has the additional advantage of helping most of us come to somewhat melancholy terms with our own performance. A god-given gift is a one-in-a-million thing. You have it or you don’t. If you don’t- and of course most of us don’t- then it follows that you should just forget now about ever coming close to greatness.”
What we are beginning to find is that great performers are actually made. That the “either you have it or you don’t” theory is losing much support and credibility. Again from Geoff Colvin, “Of course such findings do not prove that talent doesn’t exist. But they suggest an intriguing possibility: that if it does, it may be irrelevant.” Think about that for a second, talent, if it does exist might be irrelevant! This statement should provide a shot of excitement to anyone who desires to play at a high level. I know that it does for me. So what separates great athletes? If it’s not natural born talent what is it that enables them to perform at such amazing levels?
The answer to that question is what Colvin calls “deliberate practice”. Over the course of the next few articles we will discuss what deliberate practice is, how to implement it and what it really takes to achieve the level of performance that you desire. Generally however your level of performance is directly proportional to the amount of deliberate practice you engage in. “The accumulated amount of deliberate practice is closely related to the attained level of performance of many types of experts, such as musicians (Ericsson et al., 1993; Sloboda, et al., 1996), chessplayers (Charness, Krampe & Mayr, 1996) and athletes (Starkes et al., 1996).”(Eriksson, Expert Performance and Deliberate Practice, 2000 http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.exp.perf.html)
What I know from personal experience is there is a distinct difference in the way that great athletes practice from the way average athletes practice. This is not to say that average athletes don’t work hard or put in the requisite hours to be great, but rather the practice of great performers is much more specific. From my own career I know this to be true. Prior to the accumulation of the knowledge of swing mechanics I posses today I struggled tremendously in my high school, college, and early professional career. This was not from lack of effort. I was routinely the “hardest working” player on every team that I ever played on. I spent hours in the cage trying to improve as an athlete and hitter but to no avail. I believed, like most do, that hard work alone was going to get me to where I wanted to be. When this didn’t happen my teammates, coaches, and everyone around me basically told me that I had gotten the most out of the ability I was given, that “you can only do so much with what you have”.
Of course none of this sat well with me and I refused to believe that I couldn’t be the player I wanted to be. Then an amazing thing happened. I began to learn what it took to be successful. I began to learn about the mechanics of the swing and how if I could master them and if I simply repeat them more often I could become the player I dreamed of. I began to practice deliberately (though I didn’t know it at the time).
In baseball we can attribute most failure to some sort of mechanical breakdown. If you watch a major league game and you really know what you are looking for you will notice that the most successful players repeat proper mechanics more often then anyone else. This is true for pitchers, hitters, everyone on the field. Believe it or not it is really that easy. The players that are able to repeat proper mechanics the most often will have the most success. What happens too often however is that players are unable to repeat these mechanics due to one of three things:
The don’t know what the proper mechanics are
Their mindset is not allowing their body to perform proper mechanics
They haven’t practiced in a way that fosters repeatability
If an athlete learns the proper mechanics involved in a particular movement, practices in a way that allows the body to repeat these mechanics, and produces within them a mindset that allows the body to repeat these mechanics then that athlete will perform at at an expert level.
So what are the steps? How to the practice routines of great athletes differ from those of everyone else?
Be Specific
In order to begin to develop a deliberate practice routine you must make sure that every practice session has a specific, non-result based goal. Many times when average athletes practice they focus on an external result to determine their success for that session. For example: most hitters feel as though they had a good practice session if they hit the majority of the baseballs hard during their session. Unfortunately a hitter can hit the balls hard during a practice session but not improve their performance at all.
Instead, try having a specific goal for that session that you can control. For example: you know that when you get your stride foot down early it makes it easy for you to perform proper mechanics. However, you are currently struggling with getting that stride foot down. Maybe during your next practice session you work on getting your stride foot down earlier. That session should then be devoted to the accomplishment of this goal. You then determine your success of that practice session entirely on wether or not you accomplished this goal regardless if you hit the ball well or not. Developing a specific goal for your practice sessions will enable you to improve at a faster rate and help you begin to develop a deliberate practice routine.
