{"id":1210,"date":"2017-01-04T09:16:54","date_gmt":"2017-01-04T15:16:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/?p=1210"},"modified":"2017-01-24T18:35:36","modified_gmt":"2017-01-25T00:35:36","slug":"how-often-should-you-change-drills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/how-often-should-you-change-drills","title":{"rendered":"How Often Should You Change Drills?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Do you use different drills to give players variety? \u00a0Do you use the same set of drills all season? \u00a0How often should you change your drills to keep things fresh?<\/p>\n<p>These are questions all coaches ask at some point.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Here&#8217;s how we make our practices efficient and how often we change drills&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For our 6th graders, we&#8217;re changing our drills NOW. \u00a0It&#8217;s time.<\/p>\n<p>We have been using most of the same drills since October. \u00a0It&#8217;s not exactly the same every day &#8212; we mix things up and keep players engaged using a variety of tactics.<\/p>\n<p>But we&#8217;ve been using the same &#8220;base drills&#8221; to work on shooting, finishing, ballhandling, and footwork for almost 3 months now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why You Should Consider Using the Same Drills Each Practice<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Using the same drills can allow you to practice very efficiently because&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Players know the drill so you don&#8217;t have to spend time explaining it. \u00a0You just call it out and they are working in a few seconds.<\/p>\n<p>And not only do players know technically how to run the drill, they know <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">how to run the drill VERY efficiently<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/download-2.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1220 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/download-2-300x245.png\" alt=\"download-2\" width=\"300\" height=\"245\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/download-2-300x245.png 300w, https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/download-2.png 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a> Early in the season we had to teach players &#8220;how to practice efficiently&#8221;. \u00a0As an example, we have a baseline spin-out drill to work on footwork and scoring. \u00a0We had to teach players how to alternate and how to time the spin-outs to MAXIMIZE their repetitions at the basket.<\/p>\n<p>We have some really good base drills that we use often. \u00a0Our practices have been very fast paced and efficient. \u00a0It has been great!<\/p>\n<p>I believe that if you have a really great drill, that is extremely effective, it&#8217;s ok to use it often &#8212; maybe as often as every practice. \u00a0But at the same time you want a balance to keep things fresh and you don&#8217;t want practices to be exactly the same every day.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Time for New Drills<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is an instinctive decision. \u00a0But now I feel it&#8217;s time to change a few of our drills. \u00a0Practices are still great. \u00a0But I sense that practices are starting to get a little stale for players. \u00a0So I&#8217;m going to be proactive and change a few of our drills.<\/p>\n<p>We will be working on the same things (shooting, ballhandling, footwork, etc). \u00a0But the drills will feel new and different for our players.<\/p>\n<p>Now we happen to be\u00a0making a fairly significant change. \u00a0So our first couple practices will slow down a little so we can explain things.<\/p>\n<p>But to avoid slowing down too much, you could introduce one new drill a week. One this week. \u00a0Then next week add one more. \u00a0And so on. \u00a0So the new drills will be introduced gradually.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How Often Do You Change?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After winter break (2-3 months into season) is when we change will be changing things up.<\/p>\n<p>How often do you change your drills to keep practices fresh?<\/p>\n<p>In years past, I changed drills almost daily to keep players engaged. \u00a0We still rotate our base drills and I think having variety is good. \u00a0But using new drills daily is way too much. \u00a0There&#8217;s a balance.<\/p>\n<p>If you have a great drill that is efficient, I think it&#8217;s good to keep using it for several months or even the entire season. \u00a0If it ain&#8217;t broke, don&#8217;t fix it!<\/p>\n<p>With all this in mind, here&#8217;s an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/drills\/characteristics-effective-drills.html\">awesome article to help you choose great drills for your practices<\/a>. \u00a0And gives you an idea of why I stick with certain drills that are really good.<\/p>\n<p>Let me know your thoughts on the subject. \u00a0And if you have questions, or want to see certain content, please comment below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you use different drills to give players variety? \u00a0Do you use the same set of drills all season? \u00a0How often should you change your drills to keep things fresh? These are questions all coaches ask at some point. Here&#8217;s how we make our practices efficient and how often we change drills&#8230; For our 6th [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1220,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1210","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-practice-strategy","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1210"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1241,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210\/revisions\/1241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}