Skill Training Verse Conditioning

Having been involved in the training of athletes for over 10 years I have witnessed some pretty amazing displays of incompetence. There seems to be be an overwhelming misconception by many coaches and trainers out there about training speed and agility skills and conditioning athletes. Now I am not posting this today to insult anyone, with all the misinformation out there it is extremely hard for even the best intentioned trainer or coach to not only decipher the best information and techniques to train speed and agility but to then apply them. This post today is intended to not only make an important point but to educate many of the coaches and trainers out there involved with the training, success and well being of our athletes about the most important aspect of training.

There are many ways to improve speed and agility. I am not saying that one way is necessarily better than another or that I have all the answers but certain mistakes for sure can lead to improper skill development, poor performance and injury!

The first mistake is speed sessions that consist of beating the ever loving crap out of your athletes until they are exhausted or puke. Now I'm not going to lie to you when I am in the stage of conditioning my athletes before the season and I work them hard enough to puke I do get an overwhelming devilish degree of joy inside but conditioning and skill training are two entirely separate entities! You must first teach your athletes to master the individual skills and then train these drills in proper fashion that relates to their specific sport.

The second biggest mistake is trying to train every aspect of speed and agility in every workout session. Doing drill upon drill upon drill just to do them is not going to improve your athletes! Especial when proper technique of each drill or skill, plyometrics and proper rest are not taken into consideration. Training athletes like this is the same as having a list of 10 projects to do but instead of completing them one at a time in order of importance you do a little bit of each every day. The problem with this approach is that instead of completing the projects you get 10 projects that are half ass ed and incomplete. This leads to piss poor results.

The last two paragraphs bring me to the most important point of this post. To further make this point I would like to make mention of one of my favorite quotes of all time "The devil is in the Details!" When training athletes or accomplishing anything else in life you must pay attention to the Details. The Details is what separates the champions and successful people from the rest of the pack. When learning a new skill it is vital that you are properly instructed on the little details that make that drill or skill effective. Then once the drill is mastered you can progress to harder drills and finally their specific application in sport and conditioning. To end this post I will leave you with another one of my favorite quotes from my client Tom Battle. "Always remember the 6 "P's" Proper Preparation leads to the Prevention of Piss Poor Performance!" CHEAHHHHHH