An athlete asked a simple question a few weeks ago: “Where should my focus be during practice?”
That little question opened up my entire philosophy of coaching.
Similar questions:
“Why am I doing this drill?”
“What’s the purpose of that exercise?”
This is a great one.
I’ve realized that my worst training sessions happen when I’m not thinking about the real goal during my exercises. Instead of focusing on executing and performing in my sport, I’m focused on making the drill as pretty as possible. The specificity of specificity is not in the task that you choose, it’s in the purpose that you understand.
I think we create great practices by always remembering what skill we’re trying to execute and pointing all of our energy and intention at being as perfect as possible in the competitive skill.
Everything in sport and training is coordination.
I don’t want to be the most coordinated at the kettlebell swing, unless I compete in the kettlebell swing.
I do compete in sprinting. When I do the kettlebell swing, I need to imagine how the hip extension serves a great landing coming off of hurdle number nine. That way, when I go over hurdle number nine, my body understands, ‘we did those swings to be a better hurdler.’ When I skip for height, I need my body to understand, ‘we did those skips to be a better hurdler.’
If you’re at practice, you should not think ‘we did that throwing drill because it looked cool in a skills video;’ rather, ‘we did that drill to play better in this particular situation.’ So during the drill, imagine the situation; imagine your teammates’ positions; imagine the ideal throw and the backup move. Do the drill with that movie playing in your mind, so you do the drill the ‘right’ way.
I believe there are two approaches to highly-effective motor learning.
Focus on Self-limiting Exercises That Teach Skills
Pick the drill or the exercise so effectively that it’s self-limiting. Self-limiting means your only options while performing an exercise are to do it exactly right or to not be able to do it at all. It’s binary.
You learn from the ‘zero’ or ‘one’ status of your execution.
You do that long enough to pattern a certain type of coordination.
Try to throw the disc with a backhand into a trash can at 40 yards. Try a drop goal from midfield. Step down from a box with only one leg. That’s self-limiting.
Self-limiting exercise pairs with reps in the competitive exercise at the week level. If you’re a 1500 runner, you’re trying to build relaxation, elasticity, and aerobic capacity.
The self-limiting exercise is your 5km long run. You only breathe through your nose. And you run on a technical trail.
The variety of the trail and the limitation imposed by not being able to breathe through your mouth (therefore not being able to pant) forces you to select your pace so that you can execute the skill, which is running relaxed.
You transfer that skill by practicing the competitive exercise at least once a week: racing the 1500 (or a race-like effort at 1km, 2km, or similar). This approach is brilliant for correcting bad motor patterns, such as when you tense up during your forehand or you collapse on landing.
Use Specific Exercises To Challenge Skill Mastery
Practice your sport then pick drills to address weaknesses that are skill-specific to your needs at that moment.
This is the Bulgarian approach to weightlifting. Your job is to go for that day’s max in the snatch, clean, jerk, and squat variation on the schedule. Your coach’s job is to spot your technical deficiency that day, then assign an accessory lift to address it.
When using accessory lifts as a means of correcting a motor skill, it’s important to be specific. I’m not referring to the *exercise* being specific.
A weightlifting example of exercise specificity: when I had issues in training camp with balance over my ankle during 95-100% 1RM snatches, the supervising coach had me do snatch pulls or halting snatch deadlifts at 95-105%.
Exercise specificity is important, but that’s not the specificity I’m referring to.
Most Sport-Specific Exercises Aren’t “Specific” Enough
The specificity of specificity, if you’ll accept that redundant descriptor, is skill specificity. It’s perceiving the full competitive movement in every drill and every accessory exercise that you do.
Louis Simmons of Westside Barbell (powerlifting) has talked about this:
“We don’t do the good morning so that we can be the best lifter in the good morning. We do the good morning to strengthen the hinge position. That’s a part of our back squat.”
Bob Takano talked about this:
“When you’re doing a high hang snatch, you’re not doing a ‘high hang snatch.’ You’re seeing yourself pass through the high hang position during a snatch.”
That’s how you reinforce the primary motor pattern in context.
When thinking about motor learning, I love self-limiting exercise and use it in a rehab context as often as possible so that a person will stop trying to think their way through moving better and instead will just move better. But skill specificity extends beyond building capacity or training movement generally.
Specificity of the Kettlebell Swing, part 2
If you’re a rugby forward, I’m not looking for you to do the kettlebell swing because it makes you more explosive in a general sense. I’m looking for you to perceive the kettlebell swing as the load and the pop that you apply when you tackle. See yourself making an incredible tackle with every swing that you do.
If I don’t give you that intention each time you do a kettlebell swing, then there’s the risk that you start trying to be great at the kettlebell swing. Being great at the kettlebell swing is stupid for a rugby forward. Becoming great at tackling through training the kettlebell swing is excellent.
See, the kettlebell swing is a great training exercise. But it serves a different need for me as a hurdler compared to my old rugby teammates. That’s okay; the difference is all in our heads!
Don’t Be A Practice Hero – Get Better Instead
If you’re drilling something, it’s not to be amazing at the drill (unless you’re *trying* to be a practice hero); it’s so that you can correct a deficiency and make your competitive skill as perfect as possible.
Bring intention to every one of your drills and to every one of your accessory lifts. Bring intention to every single moment you’re at practice and while working on your technical skill. You’ll find this exhausting. You’ll also find that you get better quickly.
That is Ericsson’s concept of deliberate practice.
Exercise (drill) and intention (skill) specificity are how you get the most out of every moment at practice.
So that — clarity about the goal and imagining each drill as part of the goal — the specificity of specificity — is what you should focus on during practice.