Here’s What The BEST Players Do In Their Workouts (Get RESULTS)

If you're watching this video, then you're probably a committed player who spends a lot of time trying to get better. Whether that means you're consistently at the gym or out in your driveway or at your local park, you likely put in the effort to become the player that you want to be. But in order to actually become that player and reach your goals, whether that means becoming a better scorer, improving your ball handling or whatever it is your focus is, just putting in the time is not enough. There's a lot of players out there who are putting in the time, but far less players are actually spending that time putting in work that's actually going to help them succeed in games. You need to be doing things the right way. So many players don't see the improvement that they should, and it's because they're missing some key things in their workouts. In this video, we'll talk about exactly what those things are, and I'll tell you how you can add those into your workout so you start seeing those massive results in your training and finally reach the goals that you set for yourself. Let's get into it. So the first thing that every player should be doing in their workouts is freestyling. And this is an incredibly important part of developing a lot of different parts of your game, but especially ball handling. I think it matters a lot because it prepares you for an imperfect and variable game. Are you able to string together different sorts of dribble moves or different types of just dribbles in general, depending on the situation, whatever is necessary to succeed in the moment. Are you able to do that? I think this is where there's a disconnect for a lot of players because they spend a lot of time just working on moves, and they have these set moves that they practice, whether it's a between cross or a cross behind or a double between or whatever the case may be, they. They go and they work on these set moves, and then they get to a game and the way the defender plays them, or the situation may call for something different, something unique, something that they maybe don't work on explicitly, and they're not able to make that reaction or be able to use that in the context of a game to succeed in that situation. What you want to be is an adaptable player, a creative player, who, no matter what the situation is, you're able to find a solution for it. And when we look at that, I think that's the important thing to understand the best ball handlers in the world, right? Or you think of Guys who, when you think of, like, the best ball handlers, you think of Kyrie Irving or Steph Curry or Trae Young. These guys have solutions to every problem. What I mean by that is that no matter the situation that they're in, they can find a way to accomplish their goal. So if they come off of a ball screen and the defender jumps to blitz it, they're able to maybe split the screen with a low dribble, or they may be able to bounce it outside of that dribble. Maybe that defender plays more of a soft hedge, and so they're able to get to more of like a float, and then they're able to beat them on that outside hip. Or maybe they get downhill and a defender steps up and they're able to go the quick between the legs to change direction or a quick spin move to change direction or whatever the case may be. Maybe they're being pressured full court. A trap comes late, they're able to quick change direction. All these things can vary depending on the situation, depending on who they're going against, how quick is that defender, how big is the defender, who's in help? All those things might be different. But because these guys can find solutions when it comes to their ball handling, they have an answer for every problem. Now, what this means is that you might not explicitly practice every single move that you ever make in a game. You know, you might not. You. You might make a move in a game, and it might be something that you've worked on a hundred times before, but because you work on your ability to freestyle and string different moves together and be creative, depending on the situation, sometimes you might find that you're just able to do things that you haven't really even worked on because you've worked on the ability to figure things out and to try different things and to be able to adapt on the fly. And I think that's what freestyling really does. So just. Just examples of freestyling, it can be as simple as literally just freestyling. So just starting at the baseline and just going to half court or full court, just practicing different moves. I think a really great way to do this is like imagining that you have a defender who is guarding you, right? And they're guarding you full court. You just got to handle pressure the whole way up the court. That's a great way to do it. Another way I like to do it, and we're going to get to this in a second. But starting out of like a crawl or a low position and then just Trying to get from the baseline to half court as fast as possible, just using different moves and seeing how fast you can do it, how many, how many different types of moves you can string together. And it just allows you to be really creative and you go from thinking about things, oh, what movie should I be doing? To just doing things, which is exactly where you want to be in a game. If some something jumps out at you, you don't have to think about it, you can just react to it, you can just do it. You don't have to think or process it. You just are able to, to do and adapt on the fly. Really, really important thing to develop. And you can also use freestyling as a way to like target something specific. So maybe your left hand isn't very good. So you work on, okay, I'm going to go from baseline to half court just using my left hand with different sorts of combinations, different sorts of moves. How creative can you get using that left hand? Can you change, you know, directions with just that left hand? Right. And so now we're taking away that right hand. So now we're going to be able to use that left hand and now we get into a game. Our left hand is much more able to perform in a game context. Is again, now you're able to be creative. You're able to, no matter what the situation is, have a solution with that hand. You can also use it as like a way to work on change of speeds, right. So if you feel like you're really predictable ball handler, you can work on a freestyle where you're changing speed. So maybe at some points of your freestyle you're only at 20% effort and then you hit 100% for a little bit and then maybe you're down to 50% and then, and you're just working on changing speeds, being creative, being unpredictable as you freestyle up and down the court. I think this is one of the best ways to improve your ball handling. And it's something I think every player should have inside of their workouts. Again, when we go back to the best ball handlers in the world, you look at Kyrie Irving, Steph Curry, Trey Young, any of those guys, and you look at the amount of movement solutions that they have, which just means the amount of different things they can do, they the amount of different movements they can go to to succeed in a situation, right. If you watch Steph just as a mover, you'll see that the ball is just something that he brings with him. Right. His movements are really what makes him so good as a ball handler, he has what's called a incredibly deep movement bank, meaning there's all these different things that he can go to because he's able to be creative, he has a lot of solutions. So it's really hard to be able to guard that. So I think instead of working on moves and being focused on what move am I using, you want to develop a lot of different movements that you can get to. And the great way to do this is through freestyling. So this is the first thing that I think a lot of players are missing in their workouts. And I think it's an incredibly important aspect of ball handling that you should develop. And I also think we talk about freestyle. It can also apply to finishing as well. So a lot of times when we're in a game, finishing isn't going to be your, you know, layup line layups every single time. A lot of times that's what players work on. And then they get to a game and there's all this different stuff that gets thrown at them. Help. Defenders are rotating over their defender is. Is, you know, maybe creating contact with them. And now they got to finish through contact with the defender. Rotating. Somebody rotates late, somebody comes early. They're going at a weird angle. You have to have different movement solutions to all these problems. And the best way to do that is to freestyle different finishes. So, again, this can be as simple as working on, like, putting the ball at different heights on the backboard. So working on high finishes or working on being able to spin the ball really close to the edge of the backboard and putting enough English on that so that it spins in right. When you think about, like, Kyrie Irving, like, some of his layups are insane because of the amount of spin he can put on them. And that's something you can develop just by freestyling and just trying it out. Just seeing, hey, how close can I get to the edge of the backboard and still make this layup? Or how high can I put the ball in the backboard and still made this layup? Right. We think of Steph Curry. Steph's one of the. Obviously, Steph's the best shooter ever, and he's an incredible ball handler. But I'll also argue that for players six, three and under, he might be the best finisher of all time. And obviously, Kyrie right up there with him. And the reason for it is because Steph is able to, like, Steph's touch on his finishes are insane. He can put the ball high up in the air, he can go back, backboard, no backboard. He's able to get up in the air, hang, change hands in the air. He's able to finish off with two feet through contact. He has all these different solutions to that, any sort of problem that he may face as a finisher. So again, another reason why it's important to develop creativity as a finisher and why freestyling applies to not just ball handling, but finishing as well. I'm going to say this now, I'll mention it at the end, but if you guys want a free program that goes through all all this stuff, that has all this stuff we're going to talk about is inside of this completely free, click the top link in my description down below and you'll be able to get that. We touch a ton on freestyling, both when it comes to finishing and with ball handling as well. So go ahead and check that out. And obviously on YouTube, I have a ton of workouts that touch on a lot of this stuff as well. But top link in the description down below, completely free. And so that's the first thing is freestyling is something that every player should be. Should be including in their workouts if you really want to develop when it comes to especially ball handling and finishing. And I can even argue shooting as well. But it's kind of along the same lines as the first two things. So the second thing that's really important that every player should have in their workouts is crawls, or working on playing at top speed. I think this is an area that I think a lot of players overlook. And it's something that I've noticed for sure. Just like when I'll, like, I'll watch a player workout and I'll see, like, you know, there's a difference in the speed you're going here and the speed you're going in a game. And what I don't necessarily like the idea or the concept of, like, coaches being like, oh, got to go game speed. Why you got to go in game speed? I think that it's a lot more difficult than that because in a game, obviously there's defense that's going to force you to be at top speed, right? In a workout, if you're by yourself, you don't have that same sort of pressure from a defender. So we have to find ways to actually truly force our top speed. A great way to do that is through crawl starts. So I'll put a video up right now just so you can see what I'm Talking about. But we can use crawl starts as a way to get ourselves into these low positions, which is going to innately just make us move faster. Coming out of that, we want to think about falling into this right here. So instead of standing up out of this crawl, we're actually falling forward into our. Whether it's a finish or into our dribble moves or into our shots, whatever the case may be, we're falling forward. And what this is going to do is it's going to use our momentum, it's going to use gravity in our favor because we're falling into the again, the drill move or the finish that we're trying to make. So we're going to be going really fast. And this is a great way to be able to get game speed, ball handling, finishing into your workouts because it's going to force you to go really, really fast and try and control that top speed. A really big aspect of ball handling for sure, finishing for sure, is that again, there's defense. So a lot of times you're going to have to be going at your top speed to get to where you want to get to. Right. You may want to get to the rim. In order for you to do that, you're going to have to like hit 100% getting downhill to beat the rotating defender or to get past your defender. Can you first of all control the basketball when you're going that fast? That's the first thing that's really important. A lot of players can't control the ball when they're going 100%, which is why they're not confident with ball, with their handles. It's why maybe they can handle the ball well in workouts, but they get to a game and they lose the ball or they can't do what they want to do with the ball because they don't feel confident doing that at 100% speed when they're asked to, which is going to be pretty often. And so if that's the case, that you've got to find opportunities to be able to put yourself in that environment in that setting where you. You're going at that top speed. And crawls are a great way to be able to do that. And I think this is again, where there's a huge disconnect is sometimes players don't and they get to a game and all of a sudden they can't handle the ball anymore. They keep losing the ball. They're not confident with the ball. And it's because they know if I have to go 100%. I'm probably not going to be successful. So we have to find ways to work on our top speed in our workouts. And crawls are my, one of my favorite ways to do this. And you can again use this for ball handling. So sometimes we'll start like baseline and kind of like we talked about earlier, you can almost combine these first two things between the freestyling and the crawls or top speed work. We starting to crawl on the baseline and we're falling into a freestyle, going to half court, just stringing moves together. So you can't use any normal dribbles. You can only use cross between behind spin moves. But we're starting off at top speed now. I want to keep that top speed as I'm getting to half court, meaning you're probably going to lose the ball. And if you aren't losing the ball sometimes you should be going faster. You want to be on the edge of losing your, your control here because again, that's how we know we're at that 100% because you might push over into 102% and when you do that, you're going to lose the ball. So we want to try and expand our, our ability, our, our competence when we're going 100% and that's the best way to be able to do that is by training that top speed in practice. So again, this is something I think that every player should be adding into their workouts when it comes to their, their ball handling and their finishing too, I think is a great way. Just starting at like the free throw line or the elbow and just getting into what one dribble or two dribbles into a finish. But again, you're going as fast as you possibly can into that finish and now preparing you to be able to finish the ball better. When I see players who struggle to make layups in games, a lot of times it's because they can't finish going at top speed. So working that into your training is a really important way to be able to see more success when you do that in game. So that's the second thing is working on top speed, which a great way to do that is through our crawl starts. And then the third thing that I think every player should have in their workouts is pressure shooting. So I think the best way to put this is in a game, you get one shot, make it or miss it, you're, you're going to go back on defense or you know, maybe your, your teammate gets an offensive rebound, but you might not get the ball back that possession, you're probably going to shoot one shot and make it or miss it. That's it. You're going to go probably three, four more possessions where you get another shot. Maybe depending on, you know, if you're the top player on your team, you might get the ball the next possession, or if you're not, you might not get it for another quarter. So you've got one shot, make it or miss it, and you're going to go down and play defense, go on offense, maybe crash the boards like you're going to do a bunch of other things before you get another chance to be able to make that shot again. And then you're going to get another shot and you get that one shot, you got to be able to make it. So shooting in a game is different than shooting in practice, because in practice a lot of times players are shooting and you get the ball right back. Shoot it, make it or miss it doesn't matter. I'm gonna get the ball back again. I'm gonna, I'm gonna get another shot, right? And so if the problem with that is that if that's all that you do, that's not going to translate as well. When you get to a game and there's innate pressure on a shot because you only get one of them, you don't get a do over, you don't get to try it again. And the other aspect of it also is like the game is five on five. When you're in a workout, let's say by yourself, it's just you in a gym, right? Or even if you're with a partner or with a couple people in a group, there's not as much pressure because when you're in a game, there's four teammates on your team, meaning when you shoot the ball, that means there's four other people on your team who didn't shoot the ball. So all of a sudden the only way that they score, that they get points on the board is if you make this shot. If you don't make this shot, they don't get any points for it. So you have to be able to live with that consequence saying, hey, if I shoot this ball and I miss it, in a way I'm almost letting the other four people down because they didn't get a chance to shoot it. I took the shot, right? I'm not saying you should think about it that way, but it is, it is how it is, right? So you have to be able to deal with that pressure as well. Of hey, by me taking this shot, not only is it the only shot I'm going to get right now, there's other people who are counting on me to make this shot, too. Obviously, that's way different than a lot of the way. A lot of times the way that we practice. So we want to be able to handle this pressure. A lot of times a disconnect for players. They get to games and they. They feel so nervous shooting the ball because they never work on shooting with pressure in their workouts. So this pressure of a game is just unfamiliar to them. And I think it's important that we add this in there. So there's certain ways we can do this when we're by ourselves in our workouts. And you can do this by forcing yourself to essentially have a goal. So maybe it's makes in a row. So instead of going at your five spots and making five shots, you've got to make three in a row to move to the next spot. So now all of a sudden, shot two, little bit more pressure. Shot three, like, okay, I just made two in a row. If I make this, I'm. I'm. I finished a spot. If I miss it, I'm back to zero. Now there's legitimate pressure on that third shot, which is again, preparing you to be able to shoot through pressure in a game. When there's pressure on every single shot you're going to take as well, you can do it that way. A really great way that I like to do with a lot of my players is we'll go for a certain amount of makes without missing two in a row. So maybe we go for nine, and you have to make nine shots as you do that. You can't miss two shots in a row. So you miss one shot, that's okay as long as you make the next one, right? You get to first shot, make second shot, make miss that next shot. You got to make the next one. You make that one, okay, you're at three, makes your next one, you're at four. You miss your next two, you're back at zero. So now, again, every time you miss, there's a little bit more pressure on that shot because you need it. We got to make the shot. I get this one shot, it's important. There's pressure on it. That's a great way to do it as well. You can do like, you can call it like some called golf shooting, where you're. Maybe you start at, you know, you start at seven, right? And your goal is to get to zero every make is minus one. Every miss is plus one. If you get to plus 14, then you lose. Or if you get to, you know, zero, then that's a win right there. So there's another way that you can shoot through pressure, add pressure to your shots, add weight and meaning to every shot that you take. You can have like a shooting series with a goal. So maybe you shoot four different shots and you have to make at least three of the four. So you shoot like a pin down, maybe you do a relocation to the corner, relocation to the wing, and then you go with like a, like a screen and pop. And you've got to make at least three of the four shots to complete the drill. Now we got pressure in every single shot. By the time you get to that last shot and you're two for three and you need to make this one now there's pressure on it. And again, the more you do this, the more, the more you're going to be prepared for games when you're required to make shots in spite of the pressure that you're going to face on every single one that you shoot. So that's the third thing that I think every player should be having in their workouts is pressure shooting. The fourth thing kind of building on that is variable shooting. So probably the most common way that players work on their shooting is in a very simple way. They'll go to five spots and they'll shoot for X amount of shots or makes. And that'll be the extent of what they do. They'll have their workout and say, okay, we're going to shoot now and there's going to be 10 makes it five spots and that's their shooting, right? And I'm not necessarily saying that's, that's bad always, but if that's the extent of what you do, then kind of like what I said earlier, how are you going to be prepared for a game when you get one shot and you like, it's, it's do or die. Like you miss that shot, you're not getting it again. That possession, you got one of them and on top of that, who knows what the shot's actually going to look like? Meaning you might shoot the ball in the corner and then three positions later you might shoot the ball coming off of a pin down on the wing, right? So now you're. The two shots you just shot were completely different shots. Your third shot might be like a mid range pull up. So now you have three completely different shots. How good are you at being able to go from this type of shot to that type of shot and being able to make both of those, Being able to adjust and make both those shots. That's a very important part of consistently scoring the basketball, Consistently making shots that I think a lot of players don't train. I think it's important that you want to add variability to the shots that you shoot in workouts, Meaning you don't want to spend all your time shooting the same shot over and over and over and over and over again, because again, in a game, that's not realistic at all. So a very simple way you can do this is just by making it. Making it variable. So you might shoot a shot in the wing, and then shot's going to come to the top of the key, and then the next shot's going to come on the opposite corner, the next shot's going to come and in the left slot, and you're just going to a different spot every time. Having to make that new perception of where you are and, you know, being. Having to adjust every single rep now, because that's how it's going to be in a game. So that's a very simple way you can do it. You could even say, like, okay, instead of shooting my 10 makes at five spots, I'm going to go from, you know, corner to wing, and I've got to make make or miss. I'm changing corner or wing, and I gotta make, you know, 12 shots before I move from wing to top of the key. And now you're getting a different look every single shot. So it's getting a little bit more representative of what a game is actually going to look like as well. And so that's a simple way to be able to do that. Another way you can do it is, like, sometimes we'll just mix in, like, okay, we're going to go catch and shoot three, and then your next shot is going to come off the dribble. So now the shots can be a little bit different every time. And again, we can add this into what we did we talked about earlier with our pressure shooting. And now maybe you have to make two. Two shots in a row to get a set. You got to get four sets. So I need four sets of two in a row. But the shots are going to be different on each rep. So training ourselves to, again, be able to adapt from shot to shot, really, really important. And then there's other ways we can do this too, where we, you know, can add in some. Some really variable things. We talk about, like the variances, but like, shot to shot. Sometimes you're going to catch the ball and your footwork is not going to be perfect. So are you able to hit a shot when maybe your feet aren't lined up exactly how you want? So a way that we can do this is through, like weird footwork shooting, meaning we're gonna shoot like a catch and shoot three. But the rule is your feet can't be normal. And that's gonna again, prepare us to handle the variability that might come from shot to shot. And now we're gonna be prepared in a game. If we happen to be off balance or our feet aren't exactly how we'd want to, we can still make the shot. We'll do the same thing with, like, bad passes. So, you know, you can have, if you have a partner with you or whatever the case would be, even if you're by yourself, you can throw yourself a bad pass. And now we're working on being able to shoot off bad passes. I think if you really look at it, probably the majority of times that you get a cash issue three is coming off of a pass. That's not ideal, not a perfect pass. So can you still make it despite that? I think it's important and a great way to train variability as well. Like I said, we can change spots, we can alternate our footwork with every shot. So maybe you're working on shooting off the dribble and maybe you work on, okay, first time, I'm going to shoot off a left right, and I'm going to shoot off a right left, and I'm going to shoot off of a hop and we can work on those. And being able to interchange shot to shot and still make it. And by doing these things and by adding variability into especially our shooting work, I think it really helps us to prepare for the game when again, you get that one shot and. And you don't. You don't know where those shots are going to come from in a game. You don't know. But you got to be prepared to step up and make it regardless. So that's an important thing that you should be adding to your workouts is variability when it comes to especially your shooting. But also that of course ties into the freestyle we're talking about earlier when we freestyle. Like, that's incredibly variable work right there, which is why it translates so well because again, just like shooting can be very variable in a game, also ball handling and finishing, it's going to be like that as well. So that's the fourth thing. And then the fifth thing, and I Think maybe the most important aspect of all of this, because a lot of times this, the rest was gonna be tied into it is competing. So this is why it's great to be able to train with like a partner or a group if you can, because you know innately there's gonna be some competition. But you know, even if you're by yourself, competing with yourself, I think is really, really important. We think about the point of training or the point of working out, it's to take your abilities to the next level, whatever that next level looks like for you. And competing forces you to be at your best. Especially if you're going against somebody who's on your level or better than you, it's going to require you in order to not lose to, to really push yourself and bring the best out of you. And I think that's really important thing if you want to get the most out of your training, is like, how, how often can I be at like the edge of my abilities? Competition and good competition is going to force you to do that. And that's the best way to get better at anything is having to be at the edge of your abilities as often as possible. Because what that's going to mean is that you're going to make mistakes there because it's going to be uncomfortable, you're going to lose there, which isn't going to be fun, but it's also going to be where you're going to see actual growth. Because that's how you, that's how you start to stretch what you can do as a player. And next thing you know, you're way more capable after doing that over and over again because you've been working at the edge of your abilities, increasing those abilities when you're at that, that edge of your comfort zone. So it's important to be able to do that. And you got to think of improvement a lot like lifting, like lifting weights, like getting stronger, right? If you want to get stronger, you've got to be lifting weights that are challenging you. Eventually, as you get stronger, you've got to increase those weights, right? And so competing allows you to do that. So when we talk about what that looks like, that can be in a workout, ideally with players who are on your level or better than you, you know, and now we have like, okay, we're gonna go with a shooting drill and we're competing so you can get a better number or you can complete this drill faster or, you know, you can obviously go live situations where we're playing one on one out of a closeout or playing 2 on 2 out of a ball screen, or 3 on 3 out of whatever the case may be. You can add competition to what you do. And even when you're by yourself, you can find ways to compete with yourself. Whether it be, hey, I'm trying to beat my time in this drill, or I'm trying to really move faster in this drill than I did yesterday, you've got to find ways to make it a competition when whether it's with other people or by yourself. And when you compete and you really take pride in your ability to compete, then that's how you're going to get better and really get the best out of yourself and get the most out of your workouts and really see that work translate to game success. So those are five things that I think players should have in their workouts if they want to see more success. See that work translate. So if you find that you're missing any of these things, make sure you add that stuff into what you're doing and you're going to see way better results. Like I said, click that top link in my description down below. Get my free Elite Perimeter Score program and that's going to have all this stuff in there for you to be able to add to what you're doing. And like I said as well, like I have my workouts here on YouTube, I have my programs as well. Where all this stuff is is really the focal point of what we do. So if you enjoyed this video, make sure you drop a like subscribe. I appreciate you for watching. Drop a comment, let me know what you think. If you have any suggestions for me, I'll talk to you soon. Peace.