Making Practice the Comfort Threshold Elevator

A few years ago I wrote about the comfort threshold.  Back then I said:
As a coach I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to push players to improve.  Whether it be ball handling, shooting, passing, defense, rebounding, or footwork there is a natural tendency for a player to stay in his/her comfort level when playing basketball.  I call this comfort level the comfort threshold and it is the point where a trigger occurs in a player’s mind which warns the player that if you go beyond this point there is no guarantee of success and the odds of failure are greatly increased.

As a coach, it is very important for you to keep pushing your players past their comfort threshold.  The best place to do this is at practice.  As a coach you should quickly evaluate the skill of each of your players and then start using drills which push those players beyond their comfort limits.  Encourage them to play fast in practice, to try things they have not tried or have not perfected yet.  Every skill needs reps in order to perfect and to do a specific skill at a certain pace needs reps also.  Let your players know that practice is the safe ground where growth can occur.  The type of growth that only happens when you give the players a safe environment for innovation, creativity, and improvement.

Have you ever wondered why certain teams don't seem to improve as the season wears on.  The most likely answer lies with what is going on in practice.  If the coach pushes hard but to attainable limits then a team will grow.  There are two areas where a coach can make a mistake which affects player development.

  1.  Practices are too easy and thus the players just keep doing the same things over and over again at the same pace thus not getting any better.  Be assertive and make sure that you use drills that build in complexity to keep things interesting for your players

  2. Practices are too hard as the coach uses very difficult drills that discourage the players rather than give them confidence.


A good coach will find a balance somewhere in between.  You want to challenge your kids but not to the point where you discourage them.

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