Creativity - The KEY To Becoming A Better Ball Handler and Scorer

Foreign podcast. Thank you guys for tuning in. If you're on Apple Podcasts, I really appreciate if you scroll down to the bottom of the page right now and give a five star review. And if you're on YouTube, make sure you like and subscribe if you're new as well. Really would appreciate that, guys. And again, thank you for all the questions that I've gotten this week. You know, there's, there's been a lot of stuff that I've gotten on similar topics that I'm going to build into actually full episodes. So if you ask me a question I didn't answer this week, be prepared because it might be a full episode coming on that topic later. But today I want to talk about the importance of creativity in your workouts. And I want to break down exactly what that means and exactly how you can take that and apply it to your own game. Because I think it's very, very important. And I think it's an element that a lot of players are, are leaving out of their training. And if you do, you're just leaving a lot of results on the table. And so obviously, you know, you guys all understand the importance of training. You know, I assume that all of you guys listening are probably putting in work consistently on your game and you know, between skill workouts in the weight room or, you know, bodyweight stuff, whatever it may be, you know, more than likely, you know the importance of doing that and doing those things. And you know, one of the biggest reasons that I started my channel and then of course this podcast is so that I could give kind of my own experiences. And you know, what I've seen as well in terms of training that has helped both me and players that I've been around and been able to work with. And a big part of that has also been making sure that I can, I can be in a constant mindset of learning and becoming better myself so that I can really, you know, be more well rounded. I'm not, you know, pigeonholed into something that is just my own experience because my, my experience might not be. It's, it's obviously not the only experience. There might be better ones out there. And so, you know, challenging set ways of thinking is a big key for me. And the issue with a lot of training you'll see sometimes is that, you know, you'll see that a lot of times the only reason people are doing it is because that's just what's always been done. You know, when they were growing up, it was like, we do this drill and we do this drill and this drill and this drill and this drill because, you know, my dad did it, his dad did it, his dad. Like, everyone's done it for all history, right? So we just accept that, and we just do those drills. Or it might even be drills. Like, for example, if you. You know what coaches will say. A lot of times when you're running, right, it's like, okay, guys, like, stand up. Put your hands behind your head after you guys run sprints, like, don't. Don't. Like, don't bend over, right? Don't put your hands on your knees. But there's a lot of evidence that actually that putting your hands on your knees actually helps you to recover quicker. So, like, that's been kind of a myth that has just been perpetuated because that's what everyone's done when they were. When they were growing up playing. That's what their coach says, and now their coaches are going to say the same thing. And so, you know, I know a lot of Hoopers fall into that same mindset sometimes, and, you know, a big switch in my own mindset, and really what should be in yours as well is you got to ask yourself, you know, why am I doing this? Or, why do I do what I do? Why is this important? Because a lot of times I think there's a lot of things that, you know, players focus on that really isn't as important, and a lot of things they miss out on because they just. They. They don't know about it, and they haven't. It hasn't been something that's been taught typically, you know, in terms of, like, mainstream training, if that's what you want to call it. You know, am I doing this drill because everybody's always done it, or is there a legit purpose behind it? Is it legit gonna give me a result that I want? I think that's important for players to recognize and differentiate between. You know, a couple of examples can be stationary ball handling. You know, if you go on YouTube, you look up stationary ball handling drills, you're gonna find a lot of the, you know, staple drills that players have done forever, right? The pounds, the taps, the around the leg, the betweens, all this stuff, which is good. Like, it's all good stuff and stuff that I do from time to time in my workouts as well. But the issue is that, you know, there's a myth going like that. That's all you need, right? Like. Like, the myth is like, oh, I, you know, I did my £100 today, so Like, I'm good, but it's like, that's an aspect. But it's not really the most important aspect of being able to handle the ball because it's just in terms of actually being able to do that in games, there's more important aspects we can focus on. Right. But a lot of players don't because they just. That that's the popular thing to do is, you know, your typical stationary ball handling, which, again, is fine, but it can't be the only thing that you do. And a lot of players don't understand that. I know. I know I didn't at an. At an early age. And, you know, that. That's. To me, it's why I get a lot of dms from players, you know, talking about, like, oh, man, you know, I'm working on my ball handling, but, like, I'm just. I don't. I don't feel like I'm getting any better or, you know, they're just frustrated. I got a DM the other day talking about that, literally asking that same question. And, you know, I was in the same boat for the longest time, especially with ball handling. And, you know, I feel like I've improved my ball handling a lot recently. And. But it took me challenging that old way of thinking and trying to learn more. That actually helped me to do that because a lot of times, again, the. Just the typical. The what's. What's been done over and over and over again is just. It's kind of lost its meaning. Right. And I think that is a big thing for players. Recognizing that I had to recognize as well. And, you know, there's multiple facets of improving your ball handling, but for now, I'll go into those another point. But for now, I just want to go into creativity and why I think creativity is such a massive part of improving your ball handling. And this is what I tell my guys all the time when I get DMs of ball handling, when I get. When we're in our workouts, our live workouts, I'm always telling guys about the importance of creativity. And creativity is. It's huge. But it's not just ball handling, and we're going to get into more of it. It's in every aspect of your game. And, you know, one of the fundamental truths in basketball is that no two plays are ever the same. And, you know, you've. I had a podcast similar to this where we talked about block training versus random training, where essentially, you know, with block training, you're doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. You know, think you're going to do your pound crossovers over and over and then your pound betweens over and over, your pound behinds over. And that's your ball handling workout. That's, that's block training, right? Because it, there's no sort of, there's no outside factors you have to respond to. There is no creativity. You're just doing it right? So it's not really game like. And again, I always say when I, when I talk about this, block training can be a good thing, right? There's nothing wrong with doing pound crossovers and then pound between and pound behind. There's nothing wrong with that at all. The issue is when that's the only thing you do. And so the, the what, essentially what that means for you is that if Your training is 100% structured and set out for you, then you're gonna lack the ability to react in games. Because like what I just said, in games, no two plays will be the same. So you need the ability to, you know, kind of react on the fly and maybe go to something that you didn't work on a million times. And one of the best ways to train this is by adding more creativity to your workouts and to your drills. And I'll explain exactly what that means. So, you know, if you go on my channel, I just posted at this point, it'll be Sunday when you see this a little bit last Wednesday, so few days ago, I posted a workout, it was a live workout on my channel. And I think it's called like improve your ball control or something like this, get the ball in the string or something. And I believe it was a 29 minute video, probably about a 25 minute workout where essentially we were working out of a V dribble, a wide V dribble, into different creative combos. And so in that workout, we added a ton of creativity to our ball handling drills and, and a lot of freedom to do what you want and freedom to mess up and freedom to try new things. And if you haven't seen that workout or done it, I highly recommend you do that. So go back to my channel, find that video, get the ball in a string, improve your ball control, something titled like that, Check it out, it'll really, really help you. And that's what I've been saying to guys recently who've been asking about handling. Like I'm telling them to check that out, but that's essentially what I mean, you know, you know, in those drills we might Start off with something structured where, like, so in that workout, we start off with wide V dribbles, right? Then we're going to go wide V dribble crossover. Okay, we're going to do those, maybe 20 reps of those. We're going to go wide V drill between the legs, maybe 20 reps of those. Then we're going to go wide V drill behind the back, maybe 20 reps of those. Right. And then after that, I went, okay, now we're going to go wide V dribble into some creative double crossover combo. So you might go wide V dribble, double crossover, wide V dribble, cross between, wide V dribble between, between, like whatever you want to do. It will make a. We might go 15 reps per hand, right? And then we're going to switch it. Then we might go triple, where we're going to do the same thing, creative triple crossover. So now all of a sudden you're going from thinking, okay, I'm doing this, I'm doing V dribble crossover. Like, I'm, I'm going to repeat that to. All of a sudden you have to be able to think on the fly and react on the fly and challenge yourself. And, you know, the reason that that's so important, I'll get into it in a second. But it's just a whole different type of training as opposed to what a lot of players are used to doing. You know, like I said, though, block training or where we start off going V dribble into a between the legs, for example. Right. Like, that's, that's, that's. That's going to help you as well. Okay. Because we're working on going fast. We're going to actually get in between the legs, move consistently. And, you know, again, once we have that down, then we're going to add some creativity to it, our ability to freestyle it. Okay. So they both play a part, but we're adding in that creativity element so that when you're in games, you can react with creativity and, you know, kind of to add on to that, at the end of the workout, we went into some freestyle dribbling where essentially we had our feet planted and we were going into whatever kind of crossover moves we wanted out of that, just trying to go as fast as we could. Then we raised up and went to like a really, a true freestyle where we're changing speeds, changing moves, being able to shift our weight to the side or whatever we want to be able to do where we really are just like, having fun and that's also what I love about adding creativity into your drills. It is a lot more fun when you're able to kind of, you know, push yourself and try new things. And, you know, I think that's, that's really where you're going to find a lot of enjoyment with your training as well. So, you know, the other thing I love in terms of ball handling and you know, we do this in the perimeter score system, is adding in freestyle dribbling essentially. So, you know, one of the drills I love is lane delaying touches, which actually I posted in the jab workout, where essentially we're starting at the, at the elbow and we're doing, you know, kind of creative freestyle dribbling to the other elbow, right? Then we get to that elbow, we go back and we're just working on our ability to go into different moves and shift our weight to the side, be able to pull like float or cross over to the side, getting ourselves from one elbow to the other to the other, being creative the entire time. And again, that, that's not, there's no playing down moves right there. We're just having fun with it. And then the other one I love is called Kill the Grass, where essentially you're going to start and maybe the half circle between the top of the key and the free throw line, or you go even in the, the mid court circle. And we're trying to, we're basically freestyle dribbling through that entire area, trying to pound the ball or dribble the ball in every area to kill all the grass inside of that area, right? And we're being creative with our moves where, shit, we're going from side to side, got to make sure we get around the entire area, but we're being creative with that dribbling the entire time. And those are a few ways that I recommend you guys add creativity into your ball handling drills. Even if it's like you go through your normal ball handling workout and you end it just with some, some, you know, creative freestyle dribbling, right, where you're just in place or you have a certain area, maybe you set up some cones and you have to just creatively dribble around there. Use different moves between the legs, behind the back, you know, snatch behind the back, in and out, turn, dribbles, floats, all these different things you can do that literally are just going to help you improve that ability to, to kind of go to, to, to any move quickly and suddenly. And I think that that's very, very important. And you know, you can also translate that to other aspects of your game as well. So, for example, if we're gonna do, you know, let's say we're gonna work on our punch drag, for example. So punch drag, one of my favorite moves. You guys don't know what a punch drag is. If you go to my Instagram, I posted a video on it, you know, about a couple weeks ago, where I was playing one on one, and I was going to do a punch right the whole time. And what we can do when we're working on that is we can go. We can work on that punch drag. But let me go into counters off that so I can think to myself, okay, my first read, right, is a punch drag. I'm going to go punch into a shot. Okay, that's my first read. That's what I want to get. But let's say I don't get that. What would my next reaction probably be? Well, maybe he cuts me off to the left side. Maybe I'm going to work just going left. So I'm going to work on my left, going left to that punch drag. Maybe he cuts me off right. Well, maybe that means that I then go between the legs to the right side and finish at the rim. Okay, maybe, though, if I do that, the next time, he's able to somewhat recover and stop me from getting to the rim. So that maybe next time I go punch drag to the left, between the legs, to the right, one drill, pull up, right? So there's another one right there. Then maybe the next one is, you know, I might go punch, dribble. And then, you know, we might go. We might go punch, drag, and then we'll go, you know, between the. Or we would go punch, drag, and then we will go, continue to attack. So maybe I punch. He's playing on my right side, and he's giving me a lane still. So I just continue to the left side and go finish, right? And then maybe the last one is I go punch right into a step back. Okay, so there's five reads right there. We have, obviously the first look we're looking to get. But then I just thought to myself, okay, what could the defender do to stop me here, right? Like, what other reads could I have to make? And now all of a sudden, we're going to add a counter. We're going to build a counter to every single way the defender can react to us. So now when we get into a game and I go into that move, and no matter how my defender plays me, I have the ability to be able to go to any of those things. Okay. So that might be my, that might be my series for the day. Literally. That might be like when I'm working with guys who are a little bit more advanced, that's usually how our workouts are going to go. We're going to work on, you know, we might work on some, on, on some, you know, kind of all around things, but for the most part, like, we're going to work on a couple moves and we're just going to build some counters out of that. We're going to spend a lot of time doing that. You know, for example, like, I might have my workout start off with. I might go in, do a little bit of form shooting, a little bit of ball handling, probably a little bit of shooting as well. And you know, just, just to get us going a little bit. And then, and then right from there we might go into that punch series. So we're starting at the top of the key, or maybe we start in the wing. I'm going to start the ball, my right hand and go between the legs to my left. Then we're going to drive to the left. Punch, drag shot. Okay. We're going to make however many reps we want out of that. Then we're going to go to our counter. So maybe our second counter will be that punch and then continue to attack to the left. Okay. We're going to make however many of those we want. Then our next counter could be that punch between the legs. Finish at the rim. Okay. So now all of a sudden we have, we have three different moves or three different variations of that move. Then our next one might be, we're going to go punch between the legs, pull up. Okay. And then that last one, the fifth one, could be punched. Step back. So now we've worked on five different variations of the same move. And that might be our workout for the day. We might spend enough time doing that that that's what we're going to work on that day. Because, you know, we want to find a way to get better at doing that, right? We're going to get better at that skill. You know, this is how I structure again, a lot of my workouts, especially with my, with my more advanced players, my older players, because a lot of times, you know, we're trying to find the best ways for them to be able to use those in games. And you know, an issue that, that, you know, a lot of players have is, you know, that might all their workouts are just very all around right where they're going to get There they're going to do their ball handling, their stationary ball handling, then a little bit of moving ball handling, then they're going to do form shooting, then they're going to do some mid range shooting, then they're going to do three point shooting, then they're going to do some finishing, then some more finishing and then they're done. Which, listen, from time to time I'll do those workouts with players from time to time, but for the most part we want to buckle down and we want to, we want to focus on something for the workout. Okay. Maybe that's an area. Maybe it's just going to be shooting. Okay. It might be all around shooting. Maybe it's just ball handling that day. Okay. Or more likely, especially with my older players, my more advanced guys, it's going to be some sort of move or some sort of action. So that could be the punch dribble like I just gave you guys. We might work out of five variations of that. Okay. But also it could be the float dribble. Right. So I'm floating to the side and we have to make a play out of that. Maybe we're going to go float attack to the left. Okay. Maybe we'll go float crossover attack to the right. Maybe we'll go float crossover to the right. Pull up, float three point shot, float, sidestep three. So that's five right there. Just off the top of my head, that could be what we go to. And actually posted a drill that was kind of similar to that. If you look at my channel, I posted a couple weeks ago a drill where I was with some of my older guys and we're working on being able to go to that flow and then make a read out of that. So again, that there's really a ton of moves you can do that out of. You know, float, dribble, inverted drag, even a between the legs dribble. Something basic, a jab step, a shot fake. There's a lot of options that you can do to work on, on those moves. And I think that's something players should really focus on. And at some point I'm going to put together a video of like a few moves or actions that you guys can do this with. Right? So if you're thinking yourself, like, I don't know, like, you know, what, what are all the moves that I could build? Right. Well, I'm going to give you guys, I'll give you guys a list of that, of those things you can do that will help you in games. Because here's the thing that a lot of players don't quite understand is that it is important to work on your just your ball handling, your shooting, your finishing. Those skills are very important. Okay. I'm not gonna sit here and say that they aren't, but what I will say is that there's other, like, more, there's more detailed parts of those things too that you need to have. For example, the float dribble, right? Can you play out of a float drill? Because in the context of a basketball game, that's very, very important. So a lot of players don't work on those things. They say to themselves, okay, well I worked on my, I did some stationary ball handling today and I did some spot up shooting. So like I got my work in, I'm going to be good in games. But then also when they get into games, they don't know how to move with the basketball in their hands. Okay. So I think it's important to be able to have some things you can go to so that you can, you can actually translate that stuff to games. Right? You know, literally there's unlimited amount of things we can do. When I talk about being creative with these series, we might work on using a ball screen. And there is so many options out of a ball screen, but we might even just work on snaking a ball screen. So we're going to come off of a ball screen and we're going to snake it back under the screen. And maybe the first time we're going to shoot a jump shot. Right, right off the snake. Maybe the next time we're going to go into a jump shot, give a little bit of an eye, fake up of the rim and then take one more dribble forward for a pull up. Maybe the next time we're going to snake it, then we're going to go in and out and then we're going to go finish at the rim. Maybe the next time we're going to snake it, go in and out between the legs and finish at the rim, right? So there, there are a, an unlimited amount, there's unlimited amount of options we can make off of these different sort of actions. And, and when you do this, you're going to find yourself, you're going to get very, very good at doing these things because you're working on a whole bunch of different options out of those things. Because again, another mistake players will make is that they'll, they'll work on, you know, something, but they'll only work on one option. So for example, if they're going to work on that punch Dragon, right. The only option they're going to work on is punch right into the shot, which is important, right? I think if you can hit that shot at a high level, it's really hard to stop. So you're going to get it a lot of times. But also can you go punch and then between the legs to the right and then pull up right there? That's another great option to have. Can you go punch into a step back or into a sidestep? So that's something to think about as well. And again, that'll be something that I'll will build on at some point too. And you know, the ability to really focus on a certain move or fundamental or, you know, and drill in that move in the counters is really going to help you to be confident doing those things in games. Okay. And then once you do those things. So once you have those workouts that are a little bit more structured in terms of you're a little bit more, I shouldn't say structured, they're a little bit more focused. Okay. Once you do that, all of a sudden, you then take those and you work on them in your pickup games. You work on them in your one on one, which like you guys know, I always say you should be doing right, you should be playing one on one, you should be playing pickup as often as you can, because that's where you actually work on translating those skills into games. Once you get confident doing that, you're gonna be able to be confident doing it in games. And it all starts with you being a little, again, a little more focused in your workouts. Okay? So, you know, the, the, it's, it's important to think about that as well because like I said, not every workout will be like that. There might be some workouts where we are going to be a little bit more all around. We might be, you know, shooting, ball handling, finishing, maybe that, that'll be a workout. And maybe depending on what level you're at, you know, if you're a little bit newer to the game, that might be the, the majority of your workouts, that's fine. But as you continue to progress and get better, you need to start becoming more detailed in your workouts. Okay? That's the trajectory that we take in the perimeter score system. We start off pretty wide in our focus the first couple weeks and then as we continue to move forward, our workouts become more so structured around some sort of move or action. So it might be the jab, might be the shot fake, it might be the inverted drag, it might be, you might be working out of a drop or a turn dribble, right? There's a lot of things we can go to that we're going to drill in and get really good at because they're important game actions to have. And again, that's the difference I see with a lot of my players now where they're saying, like, coach, I'm seeing really, really great results with this. And a lot of it is because these guys are starting to work on and really drill in those, those actions that are going to help them to actually score more in games and feel more confident in games. You know, a lot of players have never worked on the turn dribble before. They don't even know what the turn dribble is, right? So when we actually take it, break it down and then work on it, you're going to feel comfortable going to it. You know, working on our three cone drill and all of a sudden we can make any sort of read or reaction we need to out of these moves. You're going to feel a lot more confident doing it. And that's what I've seen so far with those guys. So again, the power of having detailed, focused workouts is very, very important. And you know, again, something you guys need to remember is that basketball is not a perfect game, right? There is. There is. There will never be a perfect game played, okay? There will there always be a turnover, There will always be a missed shot, there will always be a bad pass. There will always be someone getting beat on defense. Like, there would never be a perfect game in basketball, okay? But you have to understand that your first option won't always be there, okay? In a perfect game, your first option would always be there. You could always score on your first option, but it's not how it works, okay? So are you able to go to something else? Are you able to react? That's what you need to build in your training. That's why creativity and being detailed in your workouts is so important. And again, kind of going back to ball handling, for example, you might come down the court and maybe every day you work on going to a double crossover, okay? But maybe your defender starts to catch on to that and he jumps it, okay? So are you able to go into, you know, are you able to go into a crossover between the legs now? Right? Maybe all you work on is a crossover, right? Or all you work on is a between the legs move, okay? Maybe he cuts you off. Are you able to go quick between behind now? That's what? That's what that creativity adds to your game. Your ability to add the snap of a finger change your move. Right. I was going into it between the legs, but my guy jumped it to the left side. I got to go back to the right side. Right? That's what you gain from just being creative, doing those freestyle dribbles, adding creativity to those V dribble series. And again, check out my last workout. If you don't know what I'm talking about, make sure you check that out. That's very, very important because that's what you need to build in your training. If you want to see better results in games, you need to do that. And again, you were going to build that in training. You're going to translate that to pick up games into one on one and then you're going to translate it to games. That's the progression you're going to go through and you're going to see results when you start to do that. So that's very, very important. I think it's something huge players, a lot of players are missing. And all times when players will add this to their games, they'll see, you know, their, their overall ability and their confidence especially just skyrocket. You know, that's the biggest thing when players will ask about confidence. Confidence really comes from feeling prepared, right? Really, you know, when you feel like, oh yeah, like I'm prepared to do this, you're going to be much more confident. Okay. There's other things go into it as well, but that's really. If I was going to give you a short answer, that that's something huge right there. So, you know, something that I would say is make sure you put yourself in a position to be there, right? So being creative, you know, if you want to be great at a move, you work on it, you know, build a workout around it, right? You want to be great at your jab step? Go check out my jab workout. That's literally exactly what I'm talking about right here, where I'm just, we're literally just taking a move and we're just building options out of it. And that's our workout for the day, right? You, you, if you repeat that, you know, a few times, you're going to get really, really confident, really, really comfortable using that move. Okay. And it all, again, it all stems from your ability to be creative. You know, what counters might I need, how can the defense play me here and how can I react to it? It's as simple as that. So want to answer you Know, a couple questions I got this week. And, you know, the, the. Actually this first question is a really, really good question and something that, you know, I want to get to. And, and I think it's a very, very important, I think especially as we're gonna be starting getting back into basketball. You know, we always had this huge layoff, but obviously moving forward, we're gonna be picking things up, depending on where you live, of course. And so he asked coach, I'm struggling to find more motivation to work. I've been burning myself out during the quarantine, so I need some help on finding new motivation. And this is a big thing because, coach, for everybody during the quarantine, like, everyone was getting burnt out because it was like, man, I can't leave my house. Like, I gotta do this stationary ball handling every day. Like, a lot of people didn't have a hoop to work with. So it was like you really were struggling for, like, how you're gonna do things, which I completely understand. And literally for me, like, I was lucky enough to have access to a court, like a gym, but I didn't have access to, like a weight room, which for me is like, that was tough because I, you know, I think body weight exercises have value and you can get stronger doing it. And I was. I did a 300 push ups a day challenge for over 20 days during quarantine. So probably back in April, I was doing that where I was just wake up, 100 push ups, midday, 100 push ups, and then at night, 100 push ups. And I definitely got stronger doing that. And it was great. It was great. But it's tough because I much prefer to go to the gym and lift weights. Much prefer to do that. I enjoy doing that. So it was tough to not be able to do that. And there's just days where you go three months without a gym and it's like, man, I. I can't do another push up. Like, I'm just not. Because I can't do it physically. It's just because I'm tired of doing them. So I completely understand that. You know, I think there's a couple ways to combat this. And obviously, basketball wise, there was. It was the same thing. It was, you know, we're trying to figure out how exactly can we, like, like, how can I stay engaged with this when it's like, I can't go to the gym and play with my friends? I. I can't play aau. You know, a lot of people had their seasons cut short. It's just, it's very frustrating. And so, you know, there's a couple ways that we can approach this. You know, I think the first thing is, you know, potentially just take a break for a little bit. You know, give yourself, you know, maybe it's a day off. Maybe all you need is a day off. And then you feel fine again. Maybe you need a couple days off. Maybe you need a week off, right? Maybe you need to get your mind off of basketball for, for, you know, a week or so. And then, you know, a lot of times what that's going to do is, you know, you're gonna, you're going to, you know, so saying absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? You take something away for a little bit, all of a sudden you're kind of your, your love for it and your enjoyment of it comes back because you've been without it. You start to miss it. I think that's, that's an important part because with the thing with, with, with training in basketball in specifically is like, it should be fun. Like you should enjoy it, right? I'm not saying you're going to enjoy every drill or every workout. Like, there's gonna be times where you don't want to do it. There's me times where you, you really don't feel like going to the gym or going outside or, you know, getting in your work. Like, you're just not gonna feel like it. But at the end of the day, you do it because, you know, you want to be great and you love it, right? But if it just becomes something that, where you never want to do it, like, you just hate it, it becomes a chore for you. Then at that point, you got to evaluate and think, you know, maybe I'm burning myself out a little bit. Maybe I got to take a step back for, for a few days and then, and then reevaluate. See where I'm at. I think that's important because the thing is two things. First of all, you should be doing something because you want to do it. You shouldn't be doing it just because it's what you do, right? You should enjoy it. And the other thing too is like, if you aren't enjoying it, you probably aren't going to be giving your full effort to it. You probably are going to be giving your full attention to it. And what's the point in not doing it the full way, right? What's the point of not giving something your all right? Because you're just not going to get. You're not going to get where you want to get to anyway. So you may as well just not do it. Okay. If that's what you got to ask yourself. And again, I think the remedy for that a lot of times can be take a couple days off, take a week off. Then you're going to start to feel like you miss it again. And also you're going to come back, you're going to have a new drive for it and you're going to feel good again. The other thing you can look to do is switch up what your training is. So it's a little bit more difficult when you're at home because there's limited amount of things to do. But for example, you can go out. So let's take my no weight room example. If your gym is closed, you can't get in the weight room. What can you do to switch up your workouts? Maybe you're tired of doing your push ups every day. Well, you can do, for example, you can do what's called a Murph, which is, I believe I have this right, but I believe it's 300. It's, it's a one, it's a one mile run, 300 squats, 200 push ups, 100 pull ups, and then another mile run. So that can be your workout for the day. It's called, it's called a Murph. And I did that a couple times. And I think that right there, like that's something that's kind of interesting. Like, oh, that seems good. Like just, just switching things up. So all of a sudden you're like, okay, you know that that's kind of what I want to do. That's literally what I do with, with all my stuff here. Like there'll be times where like I'll have a video plan. Like I want to, like, I'll, my plan will be to make this video. But then I feel like, you know what? I don't, like I don't feel like making that video right now. I want to make this video instead. So I'll do that. You know, there'll be a day where like, you know, I'll, maybe I'll have an MBA workout plan, but I just don't really feel like. I just don't really feel like doing it. But I'm like, you know what? I'd rather do this specific scoring workout right here. So I'll make that one instead. And then maybe I'll come back to that other workout another time because I feel like I can give more of myself to that one that I actually feel passionate about doing at the time. And again, this is different from me saying, oh, I don't feel like doing it, so I'm not going to do it. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying I want to switch it up. I want to do something different, so I'm going to try something else. I think that's important for you guys to make that distinction between. So like I said, you're able to switch up those workouts as well. And then obviously, from a basketball perspective, maybe you've been doing a ton of stationary ball handling. Maybe you just, again, you just switch up the workouts you're doing. Maybe you switch up the time that you're doing. For example, if you go on my channel, I have my live workouts, my live ball handling workouts, which obviously you guys can do. But also I have some workouts from back in, I believe, the end of March or beginning of April, where it was literally like 5, 8 minute quick ball handling workouts where like, you literally just put the video on and you do the workout with me and you're done in eight minutes, five minutes, six minutes, whatever the heck it is. So check those out too. You know, you do those a couple times a day. You know, all of a sudden it's like you can switch up your workouts just by doing that. Okay, so that, I think is important too. So if you're feeling like you're stagnant, you're just doing the same thing over and over and over. You're getting tired of it. Switch things up, okay, Try something new. Even if you might feel like, oh, I don't like it, well, just try it. Because again, absence makes the heart grow fonder. So maybe you try something new for a little bit. You don't really want to stick with it. So you go back to what you're doing before because you're like, you know what? Actually, I like doing that and I'm ready to do it again. Okay? So that's an important thing to do. And you know, the other thing too is you could even. You could even make it smaller than that. Maybe you always work out in the morning. Maybe try working on the afternoon or at night. Right? Just switch up the time that you do things at. I think that in itself can bring a whole different vibe, a whole different energy to your workouts, and that itself can help you. So, you know, I think burnout is something that is very, very important for players to be able to overcome because again, you shouldn't just be doing something because that's just what you do. You should be doing because you want to do it, because you enjoy doing it, because you love doing it. Basketball is a game, right? It should be fun. If it's not fun, then that's a problem, right? You need to evaluate that and say, you know what? I got to take some time off. All right, I got it. Or I just gotta switch up my workouts a little bit. Okay. I gotta find out, you know, what's fun again. The other thing, too is I think a big thing players can, can take is that if you don't, like, let's say you're working out a ton, right? You're. You're really working hard, basketball wise. And, you know, the, the, you're, you're, you're training kind of getting stagnant. You're feeling kind of burnt out. I would say an option could be play more, right? So you're used to. Maybe you work out five days a week and you play once, okay. Maybe cut back for a little bit for a couple weeks. Work out three or four times a week and play three times, right? Like just, just again, make things more fun for yourself for a little bit. And then maybe at that point you're like, you know what? I'm ready to get back to working out a little bit more. Or maybe you stick with it. Because honestly, I think, you know, three, four days a week working out, and three days playing is pretty solid split. Okay. Or if you were like, you know what? I'm gonna still work out five times a week, but you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna make sure that I play, pick up or play one on one with one of my friends. I'm gonna do that three times a week now, okay. Because I just want to look forward to. Now you're like, okay, you know what? I work, I'm working out today, but also I get to play later. Okay? Make it fun for yourself. Okay, Switch it up. I think that's very, very important for you guys. So burn out. Something that every player experiences and I experience, I experience as a player for sure, but also even doing this stuff. So I have to be able to find ways to challenge myself into moving the right direction as well. So very important that you guys focus on that. And then I got another question from Amanda, and, you know, she was asking, hey, coach, I've been having this question for a little while, and I was wondering, when should I start my basketball conditioning to be conditioned for next season? So this is a good question as well. I think that when it comes to conditioning, there's a couple different aspects to look at. So I think the first part is that when you're in the off season, you know, I don't think you need to necessarily be unconditioned. Right. Like, I don't think you need to necessarily, like, stop running, stop working out. Obviously, you might run more during the season, but I think from my perspective, like, you should be. You should be playing enough in terms of, like, pickup, like that. That's. That my first thing I'll say, you should be playing enough pickup that, like, you're still in pretty decent shape. You're still running up and down the floor a lot. And obviously, you know, right now, maybe some of you guys can't do that. So understandable. But at the same time, if you can, you should do that. That's the best way to stay in shape, in my opinion. Playing pickup, you know, two, three, four times a week, you're going to stay in pretty good shape. And. But obviously, you know, not everyone's going to be able to do that. So, you know, what you can do still is, is add some sort of elements of conditioning to your. To your workouts. You know, players always ask me to make a conditioning workout, which I'll probably do at some point, because I think you. You can have a conditioning workout. But at the same time, my. I think my preferred way of conditioning, again is by playing. So, like, let's play more pickup. We're going to get conditioned just if we just play pickup for an hour and a half straight, like, you're going to be in pretty good shape. You do that a couple times a week for a few weeks. Right. But also you can do is you can add sprints into your workout. So, for example, you might start off your workout doing some stationary shooting. We'll say, so you're working on maybe we'll say five shots, five spots. Okay. Or so, you know, you may. You make those shots. After that, you shoot your two free throws. Actually, maybe we'll say you make those five shots at those five spots and then you run a 17. So if you guys don't know what a 17 is, it's where you start on one sideline and you run to the opposite sideline and then back. So every time you run across the court, it's one. Okay, so I run across one back, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, you know, all the way up to 17. Okay. That in itself is a really good conditioning drill. What you can do with that is you can Start to time yourself and try and beat your time. So maybe you get it in a minute and five seconds, right? Well, the next workout you're going to try and get in a minute and four. So you might do that, Those. That. That shooting drill, and you go do that 17, and then you go back, shoot your free throws, go to your next drill, whatever. Maybe you run another 17 after the next drill. Okay? So you're just adding and conditioning to your workout. Or you might even say, I'm going to go through my whole workout, right? And then at the end of my workout, I'm going to run three 17s back to back. I'm going to go 17, give myself 30, 45 seconds of a break. Then I'm gonna go, another one little break, another one little break, right? You can do that with suicides if you want, whatever it might be. And I think that is a great way to also be conditioned. You don't necessarily have to do full conditioning workouts, though. Again, I'll probably make one, because you can. But just really, just adding it into your game at this point, I think is very, very important. And I think add. As you approach the season, the biggest difference is that, right, you know, right now it's. It's about to be July. You know, we're the end of June. I think the biggest thing now is, like, you know, you probably aren't going to be running as much, and as the season approaches, you're just going to ramp it up a little bit. So if you can play more pickup as the season approaches, you can play four times a week with your team or whatever. That's. That's great, right? If you just make sure that at the end of your workouts, you're running sprints, or maybe in between your drills, you're running sprints. Those 17s are suicides. As the season approaches, you start to ramp it up. I think that's important, too. But, you know, at the same time, my big thing is, like, you can stay in pretty good shape in the offseason, too. Like, you don't have to just stop running, stop playing. That's a mistake players make, too, because if you're not running, you probably aren't playing. And playing is so important in the offseason. Like, you should be playing so often. Okay, so. So that. That's an important thing for you guys to recognize. You know, I think the good thing now is that with. And obviously this year is different with everything going on. But with aau, players are usually still playing in the offseason so they still have that sort of baseline of, of. Of being able to have some sort of conditioning. Right. I think the only difference is as the season approaches, you sort of ramp up the intensity a little bit. So you add in a couple more sprints, maybe you play an extra night, whatever it is you can do. And honestly, we can even take a look at the, the context of what you're doing when you're playing. So when you're playing, maybe you, you make it your goal to guard the other team's best player, right? Because you're gonna have to do more work and you're gonna be in better shape because you got to work harder on defense now. So I think that in itself, again, it's gonna help you not only basketball wise, but conditioning wise too. Okay. So really, it's. What it's about is, is it's not always about working harder. A lot of times it's working smarter than. Okay, so how can I kill two birds with one stone? When I play pickup, I'm working on my skills, but at the same time, I'm getting in better shape too. Okay, so that's something that I think of. But again, we can have this discussion in terms of full workout that I'll definitely drop at some point, but between playing and those extra sprints, you'll be in good shape. So thank you guys for the questions. Like I said before and again, like I tell you guys every video, make sure if you guys have questions for me, send me a DM on Instagram @visiondrivenbasketball. Even if you don't have a question for me, give me a follow and, you know, you'll see all my posts again. I told you guys about the post I had about the punch drag, the punch dribble, check that out if you haven't. But again, that's why you should follow me. So you always see that stuff. And, you know, I mentioned my live workouts earlier, but you know, that's something that I do twice a week. So again, on Instagram, I always post the day before when I'm gonna go live. And you just gotta tune in YouTube and work out along with me. You know, we got guys who tune in every single workout, and a lot of those guys have really seen a ton of improvement. So make sure you guys check that out. Usually it's Wednesday and Saturday, so like I said, follow me on Instagram. I'm always gonna post about it before I do it. So you guys are gonna know exactly when and you guys can plan to do that with me. I think that'll be big for you guys. And you know, especially like we just said, if you're stuck at home, right, you're feeling burnt out, you're like, I'm doing the same workouts every day. Go ahead and join a live. Like, that can be your workout, right? And you'll be able to kind of be on there with me and a lot of other players too, and be able to do something a little bit different. Okay? So I think that'll be big for you guys. But you know, like I said, really appreciate you guys listening. And again, any questions, send me a dm. This podcast is all about me helping you guys with your questions, okay? So the more questions I get, the more stuff I know to make to help you guys out with. It really keeps everything going. So again, appreciate you guys listening. If you're an Apple podcast, scroll down, leave a review. Really helps everybody out. And if you're in YouTube, leave a like, subscribe. I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace.