Perform the Skill with concentrated breakdown body movements within the skill

This is the first, and unfortunately for most players, the last step in their skills training program. Coaches come up with a drill; players copy it, try it, and learn it without any live defense game application.

Perform the skill very well

Skills must be mastered first by the body, so the brain will react. This comes from regular practice combined with quality feedback from Coach Baskett and may incorporate the use of video and other performance enhancing equipment, performance analysis and technologies – including the best one of all… Coach Baskett’s eyes!

Perform the Skill very well and at a high speed

The ability to teach the body to have technical perfection at a high level, it must be practiced at the same high level. Slow speed might look great for the text books, but unless the skill can withstand competition level speed, then it is not competition ready.

Perform the skill very well at a high speed and under fatigue

The last 3:00 minutes of a game does the speed and intensity increase or decrease? Many games come down to the quality of skills execution during the last 5% of time and being able to perform fundamental skills when tired, dehydrated, glycogen depleted and suffering from neuromuscular fatigue is a winning edge that separates players and all-stars

Perform the Skill very well, at speed, under fatigue and under pressure.

How many times do you see athletes miss simple targets or drop balls or make errors at critical moments – “danger-zones” in all competitions? There is no doubt that emotional stress and mental pressure impact on the ability of athletes to perform skills with quality and accuracy – (read more about the emerging field of physiology). But this is a coaching issue. Incorporate the element of pressure in skills practices in training and ensure that training is more challenging and more demanding than the competition environment you are preparing for.

Perform the skill very well, at speed, under fatigue and under pressure consistently.

Being able to perform the skill under competition conditions once could be luck, but being able to do it consistently under competition conditions is the sign of a real champion. Consistency in skills execution in competition comes from consistency of training standards. Adopting a” no-compromise” approach to the quality of skills execution at training is sure way to develop a consistent quality of skills execution in competition conditions. Unfortunately many athletes have two brains: The training brain and the competition brain. They need to be using the latter full time.

Perform the Skill very well, at speed, under fatigue and under pressure consistently in competition conditions.

This is what it is all about. The real factor in what makes a champion athlete is their capacity to perform consistency in competition conditions.