Play More Handball

Handball is the single-greatest and least-utilized training tool we have for coaching team sports. I’m going to use soccer as an example, but the concepts apply to all invasion sports.

Playing handball develops tactical skills that can be very hard to teach, in a way that translates directly to the sport. Off-the ball movement, supporting teammate, finding open space, closing open space, communicating, defending as a unit, stretching the field, and moving the defense are just a few of the many attributes this exercise develops.

The best part about handball is that coaches can teach these skills without being limited by the technical limitations of the players. All these tactical skills can be taught through a possession-type game, but if half the group struggles to receive or pass the ball, it’s going to be very hard to coach these skills because the play won’t develop. By taking these technical skills out of the equation, coaches can teach foundational tactical skills.

See for yourself in the video below:

So, how does this apply to you and your kid? First, I strongly encourage you to share this email with their soccer coach. When done consistently, this simple tool will take their team up another whole level. Next, encourage your kids to play it with their friends. When they get together, rather than sitting behind their screen, show them how to play and watch them have a blast. You’ll be amazed by how much they smile, giggle, and laugh because handball is really freaking fun. You can gamify it by having them play to an end-zone like Football or Ultimate Frisbee, or you can play with small goals that they have the throw the ball into. 

Playing handball also develops fundamental movement skills and foundational athletic skills that will lead to future sporting success. Catching, throwing, running, cutting, jumping, changing direction, and striking just to name a few.

If you want help designing impactful practices that maximize the experience for the players, email us and we’ll schedule a time to chat.

What is Youth Athletic Development?

Youth athletic development is the deliberate and systematic development of physical skills in children, specifically children K-8th.

Youth athletic development serves three main purposes:

1.       Provide children with positive movement experiences so they begin to develop a positive relationship with activity.

2.       Develop physical literacy, coordination, and fundamental movement skills in children so they can have future sporting success and live happy, healthy, and active lives.

3.       Develop their physical skills during critical windows of opportunity when children are highly adaptable and those skills can be maximized.

To develop these skills, children should be trained like children, not mini-adults. Children do not need repetitive training programs targeting specific body parts or muscle groups, they need games, friendly competition, and fun challenges that holistically develop their physical literacy, coordination, and fundamental movement skills.

Thankfully, our Little Athlete Academy is designed with these goals in mind. Our programs are fun, safe, and effective, allowing our athletes to play their way to physical literacy, coordination, and future athletic success.

You can see for yourself at the following link: https://www.instagram.com/p/CoOTQCYui_9/

Do We Have Practice Design All Wrong?

In a previous post, I wrote about the power of consistent effort and the impact it can have on achieving success in any endeavor. In this post, I’d like to further explore that topic as it relates to practice design and player development.

I’ve had the good fortune of observing and learning from many different coaches with many different philosophies and ways of planning and conducting practices. These experiences have helped to shape my perspective and philosophy on practice design, and have shown me that some ways to design practice are far more effective, and lead to far better outcomes, than others.

Traditionally, I find practice design falls into one of two categories: fully random or systematic. Fully random practice design follows no clear system of design, whereas a systematic practice design follows some sort of pre-set template. For example, in a fully random setting, no two practices will look alike and there will be little to no distinguishable patterns that emerge. In a systematic practice design, each day clearly follows a similar pattern, let’s call it a “template,” with small variances dedicated to specific situations. While coaches have certainly had success with both methods, in my experience, those with pre-conceived templates typically have far more success than those with a fully random design. Let’s dive a little deeper.

I’ve found that coaches who follow a systematic design have a clear vision for their style of play, what it should look like, and know what they need to consistently practice to achieve it. Relating this back to my previous post, it makes a lot of sense. A systematic design simply holds coaches accountable to consistently invest effort into the areas they want to improve. Beyond that, it streamlines and speeds up the practice design process, leaving more time and energy to focus on other areas that lead to success, such as recruiting, scouting, or player management.

Now that’s not to say that a systematic approach will always work, because it won’t. I’ve been around a couple of coaches who follow a systematic approach, but invest their time and energy into the wrong areas; they invest practice time to drills and exercises that don’t actually lead to or translate to success on the field. Beyond that, a systematic approach to practice design doesn’t account for HOW a coach may coach, HOW they treat their players, HOW well they prepare for the upcoming opponent, and many other important aspects that lead to success on game day. All this is to emphasize that while a systematic approach will help streamline the process, it doesn’t guarantee success.

Let’s take a look at a couple of templates from coaches who have had a ton of success at the collegiate level:

Template 1:
Dynamic Warmup
Technical Warmup
Transition Activity
Competition
Finishing

Templates 2:
Dynamic Warmup
Technical Exercise
Positional Work with Positional Coaches
Group/Team Activity
Competition

When we compare these two templates, a few similarities stand out:

1. Both coaches invest in a proper warmup at the start of practice. While this seems strikingly obvious, it’s not something to take for granted. I’ve been around a few coaches, who even at the highest level, don’t believe in the values of properly warming a team up. A proper warmup not only reduces the risk/occurrence of injuries and physically prepares the body to train at it’s highest level, it also mentally prepares the athletes for training and gives them the time they need to mentally transition into the session. Both coaches essentially spend 20 minutes physically, mentally, and technically warming their players up so that they are firing on all cylinders when they get into the meat of their practice. Also, having been around these coaches, I can tell you that the warmup truly sets the tone for practice. The dynamic warmup is taken seriously and the technical warmup is done at game speed.

2. Both coaches emphasize competition. Competition is prevalent and is clearly a priority for both coaches. This competitive mindset is imperative to the culture of their programs and is part of the reason for their overwhelming success.

There is also one major difference to analyze:

1. One coach chooses to invest in the transition phase of the game, the other into positional development. I think this comes down to their philosophies/beliefs as coaches, and it’s seen in their style of play. One program is dynamic in transition and puts their chances away (they invest in finishing at the end of each session), while the other program is extremely organized and positionally strong. The way each team plays really showcases what they invest in at practice. Both are equally effective, but a great example of different styles.

I think what this shows is that there are certain principles that should be included in your practice design, and certain principles that you should include based on your own beliefs and philosophies. It’s also important to note that these coaches don’t follow these templates to the letter each and every day, but they serve as strong guidelines as they design their practices.

For me, my template pulls aspects from both of these, while including categories that are entirely my own. It’s important for me to properly warm my players up, get their hands on one another (to get comfortable with physicality), to compete, and to be dynamic in transition. As such, my practice design reflects that. I also want to bury our chances, so we work on finishing at the end of each session. Lastly, I think it’s important to develop composure on the ball for when we can’t go forward right away, as well as to let the game teach, so my general template looks like this:

Dynamic Warmup with “Hands On” Partner Work
Technical Warmup with Competition
Transition Activity
Functional Work/Tactics/Rondos
Open Play/Large Sided Game
Finishing

Doing the same thing consistently also allows players to develop a rhythm and know what to expect. There are no surprises which really streamlines their development because they aren’t worrying about what’s coming at practice; they know what’s coming and can focus on getting better.

Lastly, practicing this way allows coaches to properly evaluate the effectiveness of their training. Because of the consistent approach, coaches can make small changes, and properly measure their impact. If what they are consistently doing is not leading to success on gameday, then they are able to properly pinpoint exactly what’s not working, whereas with a random approach, there are far too many variables to consider.

I’d like to leave the reader with one last thought. It’s very common in the athletics world to take a “there are many ways to skin a cat” approach to coaching. While I understand the intention behind this belief, I personally think it’s led to catastrophic outcomes for our field at large. When we unpack this catchy little phrase, we realize that the intention behind it is that nobody cares how we get there so long as we get results. However, with this mindset in place, best practices in our field will never form and coaches will always have a built-in excuse for their poor coaching. Other professions have extremely clear guidelines in place that not only keep their people safe, but also help to move the field forward. I strongly believe that eventually, systemized practice design will be the expectation. The benefits are too immense and it’s too common across the top performers in our field, however it won’t take hold until the field “professionalizes,” but that’s a topic for another day.

Thanks for reading,

-JL

My Thoughts on Style of Play

One of the many things that makes team sports so exciting is that teams can adopt a plethora of different identities and styles of play and still have success. Sticking to soccer, if we look at (in my opinion) the three best club teams in the world currently (Real Madrid, Man City, and Liverpool), we can very quickly see that they all have different styles of play and philosophies, as well as different personalities and ways of doing things from a coaching perspective, but are all equally successful in their own right.

Real Madrid is the perfect balance between system and players. Defensively, they are as stout as it comes, allowing players like Casemiro and Alaba to dominate and only giving up opportunities that trickle into their goalkeeper. When they win the ball, they play bravely in possession and allow their game-changing players like Karim Benzema, Luka Modric, and Vinicius Junior, among others, the creative freedom to attack with no consequences. They also tend to heavily adopt their system and style of play to the opponent they are facing, and are much more game-plan oriented than the other two (thank you Carlo Ancelotti). Man City on the other hand is a methodical system. Their possession will literally take your breath away, always making the safe play and relying on teamwork and moments of brilliance from Kevin De Bruyne to provide their goal scoring opportunities. As a side note, I personally believe that they have lost the balance between system and creative freedom, and have actually stifled players like Gabriel Jesus and Phil Foden, which is why I believe they haven’t won as much as they should; they don’t allow their best players the creative freedom to make plays that win them games and are actually a little too system-oriented. Hopefully this will change with the Haaland signing. Lastly, Liverpool is a complete and utter machine. Every decision is made with efficiency in mind. They look to move the ball into the final third and create a goal scoring opportunity as quickly as possible while gegenpressing relentlessly the second they lose it. Ironically, it is this high-pressure high-efficiency system that ended up being their downfall because their style of play is extremely physically and mentally demanding, and the players just ran out of gas by the end of the season.

While the many different styles of play lead to some extremely entertaining soccer for the viewer, what’s important to take away from a coaching perspective is simply that the best teams have a defined system and style of play. I do think there are styles that tend to have more success than others, however, it’s extremely important to have that style defined (and hopefully pick one that leads to results on the field). If coaches fail to define their style of play, then they will have no way in which to judge progress for their team, and no guidelines from which to run their practices. They will end up scattered, throwing practices together in the hopes of chasing results that don’t actually build towards anything, and ultimately letting their team down on gameday.

So how do coaches define their style of play? The first thing any coach should do is figure out what they personally believe in. Envision the “perfect” soccer team. What would they look like, how would they press, how would they attack, would they be big and physical, would they be master technicians, etc., and then decide on what’s realistic for your current group. Of course, the end goal should always be to achieve that perfect style, but what does a realistic end goal look like for this team. From there, you can then design your season objectives around reaching that style and use it to guide your practice planning.

For me, the perfect team is the hardest team to play against in the country. Of course, that isn’t realistic, so I’m constantly chasing the goal of making my team excruciatingly difficult to play against; a team that other teams hate to play because we take the fun out of the game. Tactically, this means we gegenpress relentlessly and look to go forward right away as soon as we win the ball, but if it’s not on, then we maintain possession and look to move the ball into the final third as quickly as possible. It means allowing our best players the creative freedom to make plays (and as a consequence, mistakes), that effect the outcome of the game. It means a team that only worries about what they can control, don’t argue with the refs, and takes advantage when the other team reacts negatively. Lastly, for me, being a team that’s hard to play against means having physically dominant players. My teams should be athletically dominant and not afraid of contact. They should win every ball and go in hard to everything.

While some of this may sound like an oversimplification, I believe that if we consistently practice the aspects we want to replicate in a way that transfers to the game, then over time we will begin to embody those characteristics. Maybe your style is different, but define it, figure out what’s realistic, and practice it consistently in a way that translates to the game, and in time, your team will begin to resemble your vision of the perfect team.

Please feel free to weigh in,

Until next time,

-Jer

More on Transferability: The How of Coaching

In a previous post, I explained the concept of transferability and why it’s important in sport. In today’s post, I want to continue that conversation, and explore how this applies to the how of coaching.

First, a little background. Historically, coaching has been set in one of two realms, Exercise Science/Kinesiology, or Physical Education. Due to the education models of these programs, and the type of people they attract, coaches who have an exercise science/kinesiology background are typically very analytically thinking, and often spend their time focusing on WHAT to coach. On the flip side, coaches who come from the physical education model are very adept at teaching their athletes, because that’s what they learned how to do in school. These coaches tend to be very good at HOW they coach. A coach can be good, frankly, very good, by being extremely proficient in one of these two areas, however, a great coach must excel in both. In that previous post, I focused on and challenged coaches to analyze what they are programming for their athletes, and how it translates to the field. In this post, I’d like to shift that focus, and analyze how coaches can teach in a way that also translates to the field.

As a quick reminder, transferability is how well skills transfer across different aspects of life. In sport, this means how well training transfers to the game. What a coach programs is extremely important to whether or not training will transfer to the game, but how that coach delivers the session is just as important as what they are doing. As coaches, we can’t play for our players. It blows me away when I see coaches trying to play from the sidelines, as if their constant yelling positively impacts their players. I’m a big fan of stealing from people who are smarter than me, and pretty much every coach I’ve ever been around who I want to steal from, takes a back seat on gameday and lets their players play. Instead, these coaches teach and coach in a way that develops effective decision makers, so that when gameday comes, the players are not reliant on the coach and can make those decisions for themselves.

The art to effective coaching is teaching in a way that allows for players to come to solutions on their own; to take ownership in the learning process and make decisions for themselves. As such, if coaches want their teaching to translate, they must be creative enough and disciplined enough to allow their players to discover the solutions on their own. Their job becomes creating problems that athletes will see in a game, and then allowing them to solve it on their own, so that the concept "clicks” for the athlete. How that happens may be different for each athlete, and part of that art is figuring that out, but I guarantee that coaches will not have much success on gameday if they are constantly telling their players exactly what they want and exactly what to do. Sure, in the short term, in that moment, the players will get it and practice may look better, but in the long term, they will not retain that information and it will not transfer to the game because they are relying on the coach to tell them exactly what to do.

So what should we do? We should teach in a way that transfers to the game. We should guide athletes rather than telling them what to do by creating problems that athletes will see in a game, and allowing them to solve it themselves so that they take ownership over their learning process. We should put constraints on games so that the only way for athletes to have success is to do what we want them to do, nudging them in that direction by what the game is demanding. And lastly, we should allow them to PLAY. Play at practice. Play in the games. Allow athletes the freedom to make mistakes so that they can discover the appropriate solutions for themselves, and support them while they do. All this means that practices may look ugly and chaotic. This is OK because it means we are creating an environment that replicates the ugly and chaotic game. If we create super neat and clean practices, where we tell athletes exactly what we want them to do, and don’t allow them to make mistakes, then we will have a team full of players who have no idea how to solve the problems for themselves when chaos breaks loose on gameday.

Transferability, or how training transfers to the game, should be a core component of coach’s philosophy, and a skill they should be masters of. When I spend time around smarter coaches, I see the power of it first-hand, to the point where I think it’s one of maybe three or four things that actually matter in coaching.

If you have any questions about transferability, or want to learn more, please contact me.

Until next time,

-Jer

Transferability: What it is, and Why it’s Important in Sport

In today’s post, I’d like to explain the concept of transferability and it’s importance in sport. Transferability generally describes how well skills in one area of life or work translate and impact another area of life or work. For example, communication or leadership are skills that generally transfer to all areas of life. In sport, transferability refers to how well your training translates and impacts your performance on the field. In other words, how well the drills and exercises you do off the field or at practice actually impact what happens on gameday. This is a great question for coaches to ponder when reflecting on their training programs, and is something that has dramatically influenced my philosophy and approach.

This concept of transferability encompasses all facets of your holistic development program, from the practice field, to the weight room, and everything in between. To answer the aforementioned question, the factor coaches should analyze is whether or not what they do at practice or in the weight room actually looks like what their athletes are doing on the field. If the answer is no, then coaches must ask themselves why they are doing it. With this approach, coaches will be able to improve upon their programming, and eliminate the exercises that don’t actually impact the outcome of the game.

On the flip side, there are also plenty of exercises (particularly in the weight room), that at first glance may not necessarily look like what the athlete does on the field, but still translates to and positively impacts performance. This is because these exercises still mimic the demands of the game. For example, loaded plymotrics and Olympic lifts are not exercises that you will ever see occur in the run of play, however, these exercises develop power, which is a fundamental pillar of success in pretty much any team sport. Coaches must be able to identify how their programming actually translates to gameday, and logically explain why they are including that exercise within their programming.

On the practice field, this concept gets a little more gray. Soccer is notorious for running players through low-intensity repetitive technical exercises, beginning at a very early age. The problem with this approach is that while the skills being executed may occur in the game, they do not occur at the speed or intensity that the game demands, and are occurring without any involvement in decision making, meaning that they don’t actually look like what is occurring on the field. Repetition is great to build confidence, and pretty much anything has a place if implemented soundly and with good reasoning/intentions, however, it often doesn’t lead to the skills translating to the game when the whistle blows and bullets start flying.

So what’s the solution? How do we train soccer players in a systematic and organized way where they develop skills that will actually translate to the game? In the weight room or in your physical preparation, it comes down to understanding the physical demands of the sport, and making sure your training program prepares athletes to meet those demands. On the field, it means going against the norm, and reducing the time spent on low-intensity repetitive exercises. These exercises work great as a technical warmup, or for players to use on their own to develop their technique and confidence, however, in order for them to actually translate to the game, they have to be practiced at game speed.

When you do incorporate a traditional technical warmup, try to use it as a teaching tool. Rather than having players pass in a diamond, I like to make the warmup a little more functional, and have them pass in sequences that they may see on the field in an attempt to stimulate thought or ideas for when we progress past the technical warmup.

Lastly, “gamifying” the technical warmup (for example, using passing sequence relay race), will lead to an immediate improvement in transferability. Doing this still allows for players to get many touches on the ball to prepare for practice while simultaneously increasing their speed of play and staying mentally checked in.

With all that being said, if I do choose to go with a more traditional technical warmup, I make sure to limit it to no more than 10 minutes, because I do not want to waste valuable practice time doing something that doesn’t actually translate to the game.

So, in conclusion, coaches should begin to reflect on their practice design and programming to ensure that what they are spending time doing actually translates to the game. This means mimicking both the movements and demands of the sport, and practicing at a speed and in situations that will lead to better results on gameday.

If you are interested in learning more about me, then you can do so by clicking HERE.