Individual Skill Development

Differentiating workouts, isolated skills, and deliberate practice.

College and professional teams often schedule individual workouts or individual skill development, similar to many private trainers, but these sessions tend to describe unopposed practice sessions rather than true individual player development. I arrived for my first morning individual session with my professional team two seasons ago, and none of the six players wore their ankle braces or other protective equipment they wore during practices; they anticipated a light shooting workout to get some reps. This mindset is common with players and coaches and reflects the more equals improvement ethos.

The first problem with the concept of individual skill training is there are no individual skills: Every skill is an interaction with teammates and opponents. One can practice without these interactions, but our perceptions of these workouts and skill development change when we consider skills to include the interactions. What exactly are we practicing in these individual, unopposed sessions? How can we maximize the time? How do we improve?

There are four basic types of individual workouts.

First, a coach uses the same basic template for a group of players, but works with the players one by one. For instance, when I was a private coach, I had a fairly typical template starting with basic dribbling drills, followed by open-court moves into different finishes, form shooting, then stationary shooting, shooting with movement toward the basket, and finally shooting with movement away from the basket. Rinse and repeat. My instructions may have varied slightly from player to player, but the content was largely the same, whether working with a college player or a 10-year-old. The same is true for many trainers, college coaches, and pro skill development guys. These are workouts more than individual skill development; we believe work causes improvement.

Second, the coach uses the same workout for a group of players working out together, but each repetition is isolated and focused on individual skills. The same template above works as a small group workout with four to six players each doing the same thing, just in a line one after the other. Likely I would reduce the form shooting with more players, and incorporate a partner shooting warmup instead, but the basic small group workout was the same as a solitary workout, and every player practiced the same drills, moves, and shots. It was an individual workout with more people. Trainers prefer these workouts because the financial margins are better; I charged $50/hour for an individual workout, but $30 per player for a small group workout, so four to six players is a much better deal for the trainer who advertises individual training because the drills are unopposed and focused on individual (technical) skills. Players receive fewer repetitions, but the instructions and feedback may not change much from a one on one workout to a small group workout, as feedback is typically overgeneralized anyway (“harder”, “faster”, “higher”, “follow through”, “lower”, “bend your knees”; close your eyes and repeat as necessary).

Third, the coach works with a small group of players, but players play offense and defense to create advantage or opposed situations, but every player works on the same skills. This workout is more like a practice, but with fewer players and an emphasis on a specific skill or skills. For example with a group of four or six, I might play two-vs-two, dividing posts and guards, to practice the initial screening action in a pick-and-roll. Similarly, I might work on using off-ball screens with a drill such as Two-vs-Two Utes.

The advantage is the opposed practice and the inclusion of some interactions present in a game. Smaller numbers allow for more personal and individual feedback than may not occur in a team practice, especially when the team practice lacks assistant coaches. The small group workout allows for more realistic, competitive, contested, and decision-making shooting, dribbling, finishing, and passing drills.

Fourth, the coach works with players individually and devises an original plan for each player in each session based on the individual’s needs. This practice most closely meets the definition of deliberate practice, and this type of practice is associated with overcoming plateaus once players automate their skills. An individual session may be great for some things (shooting technique), but not others (decision-making in the pick-and-roll). With the specific, individual plan, the coach or trainer can meet the player’s needs, not run the player through a general set of drills. Often, specific activities are devised solely for the player or even in the moment to solve a specific problem with a specific player. I originally used medicine-ball shooting drills and movement shooting drills to solve a specific problem with a single player; these are not general exercises I prescribed to every player in every workout.

None of these examples is necessarily wrong. The appropriateness depends primarily on the players’ needs. A one-on-one workout is suboptimal for a player who needs to improve his or her processing in pick-and-rolls because all the isolated dribbling drills in the world cannot emulate the split-second pattern recognition and processing to find and execute the appropriate action based on the positioning of the nine other players. As a college coach, when a player asked to work on decision-making in her individual workout, we watched film and discussed situations and mistakes, as dribbling around a chair (screener) and practicing a hook pass to the corner was not the answer to improve her decision-making. The one-on-one workout was appropriate for the player who wanted to change her shooting technique, as the drills were designed specifically for her at her current level and the feedback was immediate and focused solely on her in a way that is difficult to replicate in a team practice. Therefore the objective determines the appropriate environment.

The first and second examples are based on the idea of repetitions and improvement through doing more. Also, at some ages, some activities are universal, and their generality is not a flaw. Practicing layups, weak-hand dribbling, and shooting footwork likely benefits any 10-year-old regardless of the individualization or specificity. These players are young and inexperienced and need more practice on the basics, although some form of opposition, even guided, is best, at least for a majority of the repetitions with a majority of non-beginner players. These general workouts help these young players primarily because players get more time on task: An extra hour per week of practice is a big advantage when a team may only practice two to three hours per week. More time in the gym benefits the young and inexperienced players, but as players improve, develop, and gain more experience, these workouts are maintenance — exercise — more than skill development.

Too often, general small group workouts are described as individual skill development, and the description primarily suggests the players work on isolated and unopposed skills. Many coaches view fundamentals and unopposed practice as synonyms, and consider any opposed practice as scrimmaging, not skill development. In reality, there are no individual skills; every skill interacts with teammates, defenders, and the environment. Not every repetition must incorporate every interaction, but every repetition without the interactions sacrifices representation. The question coaches and trainers must answer any time they move away from the game is whether the cost of representativeness is worth the benefit of whatever their goal may be (overload, repetitions, confidence, etc.). Often, the benefit is worth the cost, and there is a reason to work individually with a player on something specific, but we need to make this decision actively, rather than passively revert to a template workout.