“The key is not the will to win. Everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.” - Bobby Knight

Anyone who’s ever trained with me knows I am a big proponent of extremely difficult drills and shooting challenges, what I jokingly call the “soul crushing junk punches of epic proportions.” I often have my most productive training sessions focusing on something still mostly out of my reach. Like intensity techniques in strength training though, these sort of drills need to be used when appropriate. Just like two many partials or eccentrics can actually start to lower your strength, too much of this training can damage your shooting.

So how should we apply this in our training? I do these sorts of overreach drills relatively often, although they still aren’t the majority of my training. But I also have a psyche continued by years of difficult training as well as a temperament suited to grinding away at currently unachievable goals. At the other end of the spectrum, a newer shooter without an athletic or military background, and with a psyche less suited to this style of training might not find value in it at all.

You need to figure out whether you’re suited to this style of practice, and if so how often you should incorporate it. A good baseline to monitor when using this sort of overreach in your training is how you perform in your combination drills. Combination drills place a strong emphasis on consistency, shooting in what competition shooters call “match mode.” When you start making more errors than normal in your combination drill practice, you need to back off on the frequency that you use this style of overreach in your isolation work.

When used appropriately, this sort of overreach training can help you break through to new levels of skill. When utilized incorrectly, it can hinder your progress, or even cause you to regress. Explore this in your training, learn to use it correctly, and watch your skill level increase.

#thewayisintraining #deliberatepractice #trainlikeanathlete #shortcutthelearningcurve