Staring as skill development

The celebrity trainer's secret weapon

Note: Originally published in Hard2Guard Player Development Newsletter, Volume 5 (5.8).

A friend called and said an article had upset a workout guru who now is bashing me to other people as a result. I want to be clear — I believe training and trainers are better for skill development than camps or clinics. One-time events, whether a camp or clinic, have four roles: (1) They are fun (which is the reason most are marketed toward recreational players); (2) they provide new and different competition (exposure camps) against which players can measure themselves; (3) they provide an opportunity for players to pick up one or two new things to take away and practice deliberately on their own; and (4) they may motivate players to practice more.

Camps and clinics typically fall short because they attempt to be all things to all players. A one-day clinic or even a week-long general camp does not provide sufficient deliberate practice to master a new skill. Instead, players are served better by a skills trainer who can provide feedback, monitor progress, and create appropriate progressions and challenges on a weekly basis. The camp might teach the greatest things, but players must practice beyond the camp to master these skills, and without feedback or correction, they may not remember the skill precisely or remember the right progressions.

A skills trainer’s weekly or bi-weekly session offers the same four things, though not to all players or in all sessions. Trainers have more individual flexibility. Most importantly, they provide a long-term improvement environment, whereas camps are a short-term plan or quick fix.

That being said, many trainers overestimate their own importance. In fact, in many cases, their greatest impact on players is their marketing ability — the players learn by watching and playing against other good players. People often talk about the famed summer runs at UCLA’s Men’s Gym. There is a guy in charge of putting players on teams and keeping the riff-raff off the court, but he doesn’t market himself as a name trainer. He does not tell everyone he trains the players in attendance. However, for some trainers, their role differs little from the guy who unlocks the Men’s Gym and picks teams.

In many of these training environments, players learn by watching as much as they do from the drills or instruction of the trainer. The time between drills, games or repetitions gives them an opportunity to watch other players, often more skilled or more talented, and learn from their practice habits and techniques.

In “Stare to Win,” Daniel Coyle wrote:

If you were to visit a dozen talent hotbeds tomorrow, you would be struck by how much time they spend staring.

I’m not talking about merely looking. I’m talking about active staring — the kind of raw, unblinking, intensely absorbed gazes you see in hungry cats or newborn babies.

Why does staring work? An article in Discover titled “The Brain: Why Athletes Are Geniuses” by Carl Zimmer offers one explanation:

Predicting the outcome of a task seems to involve the same brain areas that the athlete develops in practice…Salvatore Aglioti of Sapienza University assembled a group of people, some of whom were professional basketball players, and scanned their brains as they watched movies of other players taking free throws. Some of the movies stopped before the ball left the player’s hands; others stopped just after the ball’s release. The subjects then had to predict whether it went through the hoop or not. The pros in the group showed a lot of activity in those regions of the brain that control hand and arm muscles, but in the non-athletes those regions were relatively quiet. It seems that the basketball players were mentally reenacting the free throws in their minds, using their expertise to guess how the players in the movies would perform.

As players watch their workout partners, their brains continue to work and to learn. The learning does not occur only through their actions, but by watching the actions of others, especially those who are more skilled.

Coyle offered three reasons for the importance of this staring:

First, mimicry. Staring is the fastest, most efficient way to imprint a skill on our brains — far more efficient than trying to learn through the keyhole of words.

Second, high-quality feedback. Active staring gives us a way to measure our performance against those who are better than us.

Third, igniting motivation. Staring is the royal road to passion, because it’s the main way we link our identities with other people.

I see this in college basketball. There are players who people believe never should have received a scholarship at a certain school, but excel anyway, or players who people believe should have gone to a much bigger school, but they fit in at a lower level. I have seen this so often I believe the difference between levels is much less than many people think.

I watched a West Coast NAIA team a few years ago. The team had a freshman point guard who I felt could play Division 1 – I thought she would have been a middle of the pack point guard in the Big West Conference, at minimum. Theoretically, a player who should start at an NCAA  Division 1 program should dominate NAIA, right? She didn’t dominate. She did not even start as a freshman. Eventually, she was an all-league player.

Around the same time, a friend asked me to recommend a player to this NAIA program. The player instead walked on at a Pac-10 program. She eventually earned minutes and played reasonably well: She became a rotation player in the Pac-10.

What happened? Were the evaluators that far off? Is the coaching that much better? Subjectively as graduating seniors, the NAIA player was better: She was quicker, had a better handle, and was naturally a better shooter. The Pac10 player may have had better practice habits and was slightly taller (fwiw, both are of Asian descent, which leads many to overlook their talent).

I suggest the coaches did not misevaluate, nor did one receive significantly better coaching than the other (as fate would have it, their two coaches are now on the same staff). Instead, the Pac10 player was surrounded by better players. She practiced against better players. She played against better players. She watched tape of better players. She watched better players from the bench every game. The environment conspired to enhance her talent level. She was forced to stretch her perceptions of what she could do on the court, especially if she wanted to play.

I think the same thing would have happened if you flip-flopped the players. I do not think the Pac10 player would have moved to NAIA and dropped 30 points per game. She would have fit in well with her college team out of high school and been a very good player at that level. Similarly, the NAIA player would not have been overwhelmed in the Pac10 and likely would have earned rotation minutes.

The difference was the mimicry, motivation, and feedback. Seeing better players, copying better players, and rising to the challenge enhanced the player’s skills so she could play in the Pac10, whereas the similarly talented player was a pretty good player at a competitive level at least 4-5 levels removed from the Pac10.

Trainers who mix talented players with younger or less talented players have the same effect. Their training may or may not be good, but the environment gives the players an opportunity to learn through mimicry, feedback, and motivation.

Lesser players can copy the moves of better players and imprint those moves on their memory, much as players of an older generation learned by watching better players at the park or in pickup games. Staring provides immediate feedback as players compare their skills to others. Finally, watching great players in close proximity motivates players to believe they can reach the same level, especially if they copy the work ethic displayed by the elite player.

When the offspring of professional athletes excel, we naturally point to their superior genes (which is accurate, as they tend to be taller than average, if nothing else, which creates an advantage in almost every sport), but ignore benefits of staring, children such as Steph and Seth Curry hanging out in NBA locker rooms and watching professional players practice and play, mimicking their moves and their habits, constantly seeing how they measure up, and knowing that they have the potential to reach that level, just like their parent.

Ligament Dominance & Non-Contact ACL Injury Mechanisms

A study found rebounding was the cause of the majority of injuries to female basketball players (Powell & Barber-Foss, 2000) and another found that non-contact ACL injuries usually involve a deceleration before a change of direction or landing with the knee between 20-degrees and full extension (Boden et al., 2000).

Three reasons for rebounding’s role in such injuries are: (1) Lack of balance caused from jumping and landing in a crowd; (2) head and eyes directed toward the basket leading to a more erect posture at landing; (3) the desire to jump again quickly – a skill benefitted by more leg-stiffness and a more erect landing.

Ford and colleagues (2003) suggested there are three potential mechanisms underlying ACL injuries: Anatomical, hormonal and biomechanical. Anatomical and hormonal issues are outside the control of a coach or trainer, but training can affect biomechanical issues. There are three biomechanical or neuromuscular issues thought to play a role in the ACL injury mechanism: (1) Ligament dominance; (2) quadriceps dominance; and (3) leg dominance (Ford et. al, 2003).

Quadriceps dominance is mentioned frequently; essentially, females tend to show a preference for quadriceps recruitment rather than hamstrings to provide dynamic knee stability during jumping and landing (Ford et. al, 2003).

Leg dominance simply means an athlete’s tendency to favor one leg over the other. This can lead to injuries of either leg, either because the non-dominant leg is not strong enough or because the dominant leg tries to do too much. Also, other studies have shown a correlation between ankle injuries and ACL injuries, and I notice athletes favoring old ankle injuries over a year after they returned to action, believing their injury was healed. The correlation between ankle injuries and ACL injuries could be due to the leg dominance mechanism, as previous but not fully-rehabilitated ankle injuries could affect the strength and muscle recruitment patterns of the injured limb leading to weakness in the injured limb and altered recruitment patterns on the non-injured limb.

Ligament dominance refers to the inability of the lower-body limb musculature to absorb the forces during a sports maneuver resulting in excessive loading of the knee ligaments (Ford et. al, 2003). Again, an ankle injury may affect this mechanism, as a previous ankle injury could reduce the range of motion around the ankle joint and limit the flexion and force absorption at the base, sending the force higher up the kinetic chain to the knee or hip.

The study conducted by Ford et. al (2003) found greater valgus angles during the stance phase of a depth jump for females compared to males and the female’s dominant leg compared to the non-dominant leg (dominant leg was defined as the leg one would use to kick a ball; however, according to a theory of your quick leg/stability leg, the leg used to kick a ball would be one’s quick leg).

Ford et. al (2003) wrote:

“This likely reflects changes in contraction patterns of the adductors and abductors of the knee, primarily the knee flexors, the hamstrings and the gastrocnemius… Decreased neuromuscular control of the knee joint reduces knee-joint stiffness and increases risk to the ligament.”

Neuromuscular training programs — typically light to moderate plyometrics — have been shown to be effective in the reduction of ACL injuries in ACL-prone populations. Knee injuries declined by 62% in the female sports population when using a neuromuscular training program (Hewett et al., 1999).

Plyometrics are considered esoteric, yet light and moderate plyometrics activities are basic fundamental movement skills such as running, jumping, skipping, hopping, etc. Young athletes should be taught proper fundamental movement skills before we invest in training programs to teach players how to land safely with a rebound. Young athletes who develop these skills at a young age will use them more as they mature, and increased experience will refine their technique and increase the musculature as they develop. Addressing these issues in high school or college is a necessity now, but should not be. We should invest time and resources into young (4-7 year olds) potential athletes to provide the foundation for this development as they mature.

References

Boden, B.P., Dean, G.S., Feagin, J.A., & Garrett, W.E. (2000). Mechanisms of anterior cruciate ligament injury. Orthopedics, 23(6), 573-78.

Ford, K.R., Myer, G.D., & Hewett, T.E. (2003). Valgus knee motion during landing in high school female and male basketball players. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 35(10), 1745-50.

Hewett, T.E., Lindenfeld, T.N., Riccobene, J.V., & Noyes, F.R. (1999). The effect of neuromuscular training on the incidence of knee injury in female athletes. The American Journal of Sports Medicine, 27(6), 699-706.

Powell, J.W. & Barber-Foss, K.D. (2000). Sex-related injury patterns among selected high school sports. The American Journal of Sports Medicine, 28(3), 385-91.