When I first started coaching my daughter in 3rd grade, I was pretty confident. I'd been a varsity high school coach for 12 years. I was comfortable running a practice and teaching the game.

I remember coming in with my practice plan. Every practice was planned out to the minute.

However, throughout the first part of the season, I wasn't even close to being on schedule.

A few minutes here or there is one thing. But I'm talking about getting through half the plan.

After a month, I was concerned. We only had two 60-minute practices a week. Practice time was precious.

I looked back on our practices to try and see what was the problem. One issue jumped off the page!

Too many new drills!

I'd set aside 12 minutes for a drill. In my mind, that would be 2 minutes of teaching the drill and 10 minutes of the girls doing it. In reality, it was the other way around!

At that point, I made a decision. We were going to learn a couple drills and use those for the basis of our practices.

These were our platform drills. Platform drills are drills that you use frequently in practice. They can be easily adjusted with constraints to shift the focus.

That simple tweak changed our season and accelerated the girls' development. Put it to use for you too.

How Platform Drills Allow You to Play More & Explain Less

The great thing about using platform drills is that you only need to teach the structure of the drills one time.

Maybe 3v3 closeouts are platform drills for you. The first time you do it, you'll teach it to your players.

After that, you'll just have to say 3v3 closeouts and they'll know how to set up. From there, you can add constraints to emphasize whatever you want to focus on.

For instance, you might say 3v3 closeouts with no dribble. Or you might say 3v3 closeouts and the ball has to be penetrated to the paint before a shot.

You can choose the constraints based around your team's needs. Then, teach accordingly as players perform the drill.

Because players already know how to perform the drill, they can focus on the skills and concepts you are trying to develop. Their focus is not divided.

I would suggest you pick 3-5 platform drills that you use regularly.

Using platform drills will save you hours of time over the course of the season. The less time you spend explaining means the more time your players spend doing!

And that's the path to improvement!

What do you think? Let us know by leaving your comments, suggestions, and questions...

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