One challenge for players at all levels is finding the right drills for their skill level.

Some drills are way too challenging for a beginner while they might be perfect for a seasoned vet.

If you don't get challenged enough, you can get bored. If the task is too difficult, you can lose confidence and get discouraged.

Obviously, you want to challenge yourself appropriately, so you can constantly improve.

The more time you spend on the best drills, the more you will improve!

Over time, maximizing your improvement for every minute of a workout or a practice can create the difference between mediocre players and great players!

You want to hit that "sweet spot" of development.

The concept of the sweet spot is discussed in The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle and the 21st Century Basketball Practice by Brian McCormick. Here's an excerpt from McCormick.

So How Do You Challenge Yourself Appropriately!?!

It's all about planning and progressions.

You need to plan your workouts or practices, so you have multiple variations of each drill that you plan to use.

That way, if something is too easy, you can quickly progress and maximize your improvement.

For competitive drills with defenders, here are a few universal ways to adjust the difficulty level...

• Shrink or expand size of court in use
• Move starting spot of initial defender
• Add or reduce defenders
• Use a shot clock
• Use training aids such as arm extenders for defenders

These are just a few ideas. With some creativity, you could come up with other effective ideas.

Here are four progressions for a full court 1v1 ball handling drill.

1 - 1v1 full court using entire width of floor
2 - 1v1 full court using entire width of floor with a 6-second time limit to score
3 - 1v1 full court using half of the width of the floor
4 - 1v1 full court using half of the width of the floor with a 6-second time limit to score

For progressions 5 through 8, you can do the same thing except add a second defender.

5 - 1v2 full court using entire width of floor
6 - 1v2 full court using entire width of floor with a 8-second time limit to score
7 - 1v2 full court using half of the width of the floor
8 - 1v2 full court using half of the width of the floor with a 8-second time limit to score

4 Shooting Drill Progressions to Better Challenge Yourself

Here's another example. This shows how you might progress through a shooting drill. This is from Nate Sanderson's Game-Based Training System for 2-4 Player Drills

1v1 Shooting Drill With Disadvantage - Fill Up & Read

1v1 Live Shooting Drill - Fill Up & Attack

1v2 Shooting Drill with Disadvantage - Fill Up & Attack

1v2 Live Shooting Drill - Fill Up & Attack

I hope this helps you create better drills, practices, and workouts.

Let us know if you have any questions or comments! We really enjoy hearing your thoughts and feedback and the conversations that they create.

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