How A Few Words Can Make or Break Basketball Players (Internal vs External Cueing) - Podcast 85

Foreign Training Podcast Appreciate you guys for tuning in today. Whether you're listening on Apple Podcast or Spotify or Pandora, Google Podcast or wherever else podcasts are found or you're watching on YouTube right now, shout out to you. I appreciate you for taking the time to tune in. Listen and if you are Apple Podcasts, do me a favor, leave a review, let me know what you think about the Show. You're on YouTube. Drop a like subscribe new podcast coming every week. If you're on YouTube as well, drop a comment, let me know what you think. You have any questions, any suggestions for future episodes, let me know as well. And last thing, if you guys are not following me on Instagram, make sure you do that as well. At Vision Driven Basketball. Keep up with all the stuff I'm doing over there. So without further ado, we'll hop into this so this episode is geared a lot more towards trainers and coaches who are listening right now. I think players, you can get some value out of it as well, but I'm going to be speaking more so from a trainer's perspective and as a guy I know I do a lot of stuff gearing towards the players, so I figured it'd be nice to switch it up and talk to my coaches who are out there as well. And today I really want to talk about internal versus external queuing and why this is so important and how you can best optimize this to help your players achieve the most both in their short term performance as well as their long term development as well. At the end of the day, the goal is to develop players to a high skill level, high level of movement, accuracy, consistency, and in general, you know, fluent and economical movement requires a lot of practice. Right? In order to get really good at doing something, we have to put in a lot of practice or time into that. But then we have to look at, well, what's the best way of practicing? Okay. And obviously you can get into block versus varied and all that sort of stuff which I've talked about numerous times. And that's kind of the big thing is all block training versus random training or varied training or whatever you want to talk about in that regard. And that's certainly an aspect to it. The, the, the ultimate point of that is that when you talk about making sure that we can develop players at a fast rate, the fastest rate possible, the first piece to that is implementing effective training methods because that can speed up the learning process and ultimately lead to better performance as well as better long term learning. And if we do that we implement, you know, the most effective training methods, then not only are, you know, higher skill levels reached, but they're reached faster and there's less of a toll that require is required to get there. So less time is required to get there. Usually less energy is required to get there as well, because you're saving time. And that's probably going to lead to, you know, safer athletes in terms of less injuries and ultimately better in game performance. Right. So if we can do all those things and we can get those by, you know, adjusting the way that we practice, then obviously it's something that we're going to, we're going to want to go to. So again, like I said, that's kind of the block versus, you know, varied conversation right there. But another aspect to practice, to training that I think is important to focus on is how athletes respond to cues and the attention that they have to put on the cues that are given to them. How does that affect their performance and their development long term? So there are numerous studies out there that show how big a difference cues can have. Literally just with one to two word differences, you. You add in or take away one or two words in the same sort of cue, talking about the same sort of subject, and it can completely change how effective it is when it comes to improving that player's short term performance and their long term development. It can really be as simple as just that. Queuing is obviously a major part of what we do as coaches. So it's important that we're able to be the most effective we can with that. Because if we're in ineffective at queuing, then we're leaving so much development potential on the table. And again, that just is delaying the process of us getting our players to the level they want to get to. And it also makes it just way more difficult than it needs to be as well. So there's a study that I'll link below that I got a lot of this information from, but it was essentially the first like comprehensive meta analytic review of all the findings on this topic of queuing and specifically external queuing versus internal queuing. And we'll get into those in a second. But the first thing we have to define is performance versus learning. And you guys who have listened to the podcast for a while have heard me talk about this as well. But essentially performance is the short term. Okay, so how do you play today? How do you perform in this drill right here? Right, that's the short term performance. And then what long term is? Long term learning is just how well do you play long term? How does your development happen long term? So for example, when I look at, you know, an off season workout, I might not be prioritizing short term performance, meaning we might be doing a drill that's really difficult and might make you perform a little bit worse in the short term. But long term, because of, you know, the adaptations you're gonna have to make and all that sort of stuff, you're actually going to be better. You know, in the long term, that could be an example. Might be right. We could do five shots, five spots, and you're shooting the same shot over and over and over again. And you might shoot 21 or 25. And in the short term you performed really, really well. But then we might shoot 25 shots where I'm just having, I'm going to have you start turning with your back facing towards me. I'm going to throw the ball somewhere and as soon as you hear it bounce, you have to run and grab it and then shoot the ball as quick as you can. And you might only shoot 15 to 25 on that one. Well, your short term performance got a little bit worse. But because we are adding that element of variability, which is a much more game like aspect now all of a sudden your long term performance, come game time is actually going to be better. You're going to be retaining more of that ability and that actually is going to transfer a lot more than that, that, you know, short term, you know, that short term first view would, if we were to do that five shots, five spots drill. So that's just an example of kind of performance versus learning. And those are both elements that we're going to touch on when it comes to cueing. We, based on the studies though, we can see that an external focus, right? So when an athlete is externally focused, meaning that the cue is an external cue, it provides more immediate performance benefits than an internal focus. Okay. And so, you know, we can kind of define this in this internal versus external cueing and focus. So when you have an internal focus or we'll talk about internal cueing, that's essentially me telling a player to do something involving some part of their body, right? So that might mean, hey, snap your wrist. That's an example of an internal cue. Or it could be something like make sure you bend your hips, okay? So another sort of internal like self focused sort of cue right there. It could be something like drive your knees a little bit higher or it could be something like, you know, spread your fingers wider on the ball or something like that. Something where it's internally focused. And what that internal cue does is again, at least to that internal focus. And what these studies have shown, and we'll get to this in a second, but when that, when that athlete is more internally focused, performance actually goes down. And so we talk about the, the other side of that, which is an external cue. That's something where we're queuing based on something in the environment or some sort of outcome that we might want. So this could be, for example, if I'm queuing, let's say shooting, okay, And I want my player to maybe their release is kind of weird. Instead of saying, hey, I want you to make sure that your finger is pointing down at your follow through, you could say pinch the bug, right? Where you're almost telling them to imagine if there was a bug on their thumb and they're trying to pinch that bug or with their finger as they shoot it. So pinch the bug could be a cue, or you could even say something as simple as point to the ground, right? So those are both external cues, okay? We're focused on punt, pinching the bug or the ground. And like I said, when an athlete has that external focus, performance actually goes up. And there's a lot of studies that have, have gone on to actually back up this, this theory as well. So the other couple things to, to understand are just retention and transfer. So essentially what's done with a lot of these studies that they do retention transfer tests where they're going to see how the skills that that athlete's been working on actually how it holds up usually 24 hours later. So a retention test would be, let's say they go through, they do some sort of drill and they go back and they do that same drill again to see, you know, whether or not they perform better or worse. And then a transfer test would just be, can you do similar things? Well, so it might be that you're not going to do the exact same drill, but you're going to do a pretty similar drill. So an example might be instead of you shooting shots on the left wing, maybe the next time you're shooting shots from the right slot or the right corner. Okay, so in basketball, both matter, right? You want to be able to retain information, but you also have to be able to transfer what you do. So that would mean that, yes, I obviously want to be able to hit that same shot on the wing that I've practiced, but can I also hit a shot when I'm 3ft lower on the wing? That would be an example of having your skills transfer into that environment. Typically it just means that a slight variation of that skill. And all of these, the biggest thing is can they do those without the coach? Right. Without me cuing them, can they repeat or perform in that environment that we need to perform in? Okay. So when we look at motor performance, so short term performance, the first part of this study, they looked at 88 studies involving 2,182 participants where they basically compare the effects of using an external cue versus internal cue, that external focus versus the internal focus. And those studies found that when there was an external focus, performance was significantly more effective compared to the the internal focus. And then they did the same thing where they looked at motor learning this time. So now we're talking long term performance. And they did that with a retention test. So how well did the athletes retain the information? This is athletes, this is, this is a whole bunch of things. So don't just think basketball. This is for a whole spectrum of different areas. This time they did 47 studies with over 1600 participants and it again showed the same thing, that that external focus produced significantly better long term retention versus that internal focus. And then they looked at the same things with all the studies done on motor learning when it comes to actually transfer. So they looked at 22 studies with almost 800 participants and they again found the same thing, that that external focus led to significantly better performance than the internal focus did. So in literally every single aspect of performance and learning, an external focus was found to have better outcomes than an internal focus did. And the thing is, in basketball, but in a lot of sports, it's almost the exact opposite with how often coaches are using internal versus external cues. You're going to hear internal cues happen way more often than you're going to hear external cues. And that's partly because it's a little bit easier to internally cue, because it's very, very straightforward. You don't have to really think outside the box for it. You know, if you see that, you know, a player isn't following through the whole way, you might say, hey, snap your wrist next time. That's an internal cue. But it's just the easiest thing to say. So that's number one. Number two is we've all grown up being internally queued. All of our coaches, unless you had coaches who were reading this sort of stuff, reading the studies and reading all the books that would tell otherwise, probably were internally cueing you most of the time, if not all the time. So it's not only the easier thing, but it's what we've been kind of programmed to coach like, because that's just how we were coached. Now the goal becomes how can we find ways to externally queue so that we see these long term and short term performance benefits. And you know, I'll come back to this in a second, but obviously you're not going to always be able to externally queue. There's going to be times where you have to have an internal focus just because of, you might not have a good, a good way to queue it. And that's okay. But how can we find in the most amount of situations an opportunity to externally queue? And I actually feel that this is done really well in baseball. Like when I was thinking about this, I was like, man, there's a lot of examples in baseball of this being done pretty well. So you can even look at the most basic ones, right? So you know, maybe the first one, glove to the target, right? Every five year old kid playing T ball is heard when they're playing catch, right? Hey, you got to point your glove at the target, right? Instead of, hey, make sure that, you know, you have your, your left arm, you know, pointing the direction that you want and then you step with that, your left foot towards your target. Like it's just hit glove to the target. And there's an external key right there. Okay, I just got my glove to my target. They're not thinking about, oh, that makes sure that my shoulders are where they need to be and I could generate enough rotational torque. They're not, that's not what they're worried about. They're just worried about glove to target. And everything else kind of takes care of itself when you talk about like your back foot when you're swinging. And listen, if there's anybody here who's like, you know, a big like a baseball coach or anything, listen, I'm not a baseball guy. I'm just repeating stuff that I've heard, cues that I've heard. So whether or not this is the right cue or a good thing, whatever this is, that's not the point of this. But there's the cue of squash the bug. I still remember this from when I was 9 years old playing baseball. Squash the bug. Whenever you swing, you're supposed to squash the bug under your, under your back foot, right? And that versus rotate your foot. If I had been taught growing up just rotate your foot and never heard, I wouldn't have remembered that. But I remember squash the bug because, you know, that was, that's a, it's a, it's something that you just. You remember, right? And that's the external focus. I'm focused on squashing the bug every time, okay? So I think that almost goes to show of the power of those external cues, even all these years later. I don't play baseball. I don't coach baseball, but. But I still remember squash the bug because of the way that it was presented to me. And then another one could be, you know, show the pitch of your belt buckle. So we talk about, like, rotating your hips when you. When you swing the. Or when you swing the bat, you know, instead of saying, hey, you gotta rotate your hips, or, you know, generate force in your hips, or you gotta make sure you got more torque from your hips. Instead of saying that, just say, hey, show the pitch of your belt buckle. And now you're just gonna naturally be rotating your hips. You know, in weightlifting, it's done very well as well. So when we talk about, like, deadlifting and engaging your lats, right? That's a big thing when it comes to deadlifting, is engaging your lats. Another way to say that would just be protect your armpits, right? So imagine someone's going after your armpits, and you're trying to protect them. You're trying to keep your arms nice and tight. There's one right there where you could say, hey, crush the grape under your armpit. And if you even just sit there and try and do that, like, you're gonna notice your lats are gonna be engaged. So there's another way to cue that. That actually is more effective than saying, hey, engage your lats. Well, what does that mean? How do I engage my lats? You know, like, it becomes much easier when there's that external cue. When we talk about learning how to squat, right? You could be, hey, sit in the chair, right? That's. That's the first answer that, you know, make sure that we're going back into our squat first. You know, sit in a chair or whatever, right? There's a lot of different external cues that are used in weightlifting as well. And this is an area where I feel basketball is kind of behind because there's a lot of other areas to look at that I think do a better job of this kind of stuff being more mainstream and more widely used. But when we talk about basketball, I kind of came up with a few examples of, you know, internal versus external. And so I think one of the first ones we can look at is, you know, raise your shoulder on your follow through, all right? Or get your arm higher on your Follow through and replacing that with, you know, finish high on your release or get higher, right? Get as high as you can in your release. And now you're focused on just getting high. Like you're not worried about my shoulder being here or whatever. You're just worried about getting up as high as you can with your release. Another popular one is hand in the cookie jar, right? You're trying to reach up high for that cookie jar. So there's another kind of analogy you can use right there. As simple as it sounds, we've all heard it, but you can really use that, you know, to your advantage. Maybe you want to make it more like, okay, well, what does that actually mean? Maybe you give a little bit more context at first, but then when you feel like they're not getting high in their release, then you can go back to, hey, listen, that cookie jar is up there on the top shelf. You got to get up there for it, right? You can't afford. This isn't like on the second shelf. No, this is on the fourth shelf, right? You can't, you got to get up there in that cookie jar. So there's, there's a way to be able to cue your athletes to get higher up on their release without actually having them think about their wrist or think about their shoulder or whatever you want from them. Like I said before, instead of saying on their release, like, hey, I want you pointing your finger, you know, straight down in your release so that you get good rotation on the ball and the ball comes off the middle of your hand. Instead of saying that, we can say pinch the bug. Or we could say, hey, make sure that you are pointing right at the ground, right? Point at the ground, point at your shoes, Say something like that. Where now we're worried about it in external part of the environment. Okay, I'm pointing at the ground, I'm pointing at my shoes, whatever the case may be with that. Another really great external cue is using swishes. So maybe you don't like the arc on a shot. Maybe you feel like they need to get more arc on their floater or whatever. You might say a great way to do that is just say, hey, only swishes count right here. Or hey, you got to try and swish every single shot. I think that's one of my favorite things to use, especially like on form shooting or anything with a warm up, where I'll just say like, hey, only switches count here. So that's going to force them to put more arc on the ball naturally because they don't put arc on it, then they're not going to be able to switch it. It's going to hit the. Remember, single time. So there's another way to externally cue based on the environment or the outcome that we want and be able to kind of, you know, achieve that, that, that performance and that learning that we want from them. And. And that's something that is easy for them to remember moving forward. So when they're by themselves shooting, they can think about just trying to switch the ball. I'm just trying to get switches when I warm up, I'm just trying to switch the ball. And that's going to naturally put them where they need to be in terms of their arc, in terms of their release. All the stuff that you might cue internally, you can say and have them almost do naturally just by trying to force a certain outcome with that external cue that you give them. So another one could be, if you're, you know, working on shooting, maybe they're standing up too straight. Instead of saying like, you know, oh, get your hips lower, or you got to produce more force in your hips, you can just say, get loaded up, or, you know, be like a spring. Or you could say, like, get ready to jump. And I'm just kind of like throwing these out there. But you can kind of play with it yourself. And that's just another example. So, you know, we talk about this kind of getting even more technical, but, you know, we talk about getting the ball to your pocket, dribbling the ball. Some of you guys will hopefully know what I'm talking about with that. Getting the ball to your dribble pocket. Instead of saying, like a dribble pocket, I think, is a great term to use, right? I can say when doing. When we start off, we're just working that stationary. We can say, hey, okay, now we're working on getting the ball to your pocket. So just imagine you're literally taking the ball and just bringing it to your pocket on your. On your shorts. That's what you're thinking about doing right here. And that. That is the cue. Instead of saying, you know, get your hand on the side of the ball, or get your hand on the back of the ball, or get your hand to the back of the ball and pause, right? Taking it from internal to external. Get the ball to your pocket, take the ball to your pocket. Or you could even add that pause in there. Get the ball to your pocket and pause. Whatever you want to say. Or get the ball to your pocket and hold it for as long as you can There's a great way to externally cue that as well. So there's obviously going to be times when, like I said before, that internal cue might be necessary for something, especially when, you know, when you're first learning something or when you have to go through something really specific. I understand that, but it's about finding a balance, right? So how often can you externally queue and looking for opportunities to do that? And I think this is one of those things about coaching that makes it so fun, is you can try and come up with ways to externally queue now. Right. And I was honestly going through looking for, like, more resources on this. Nobody's talking about this when it comes to basketball. People talk about it with baseball, with, you know, like I said, weightlifting, even football, I've seen it. But when it comes to basketball, the focus on external cueing is just not there. But this is a great opportunity for, as a coach to be creative and come up with ways. Okay, how can I externally cue this right here? So you're going through whatever your plan is for that workout, and you're looking at the stuff that you're going to do. Okay, here's some stuff they might struggle with. How can I find a way to externally cue right here? Right. And then again, not only is that going to help them in the immediate performance, but long term, they're going to remember that cue. They're going to go. They're going to be able to go back to that without you being there. And ultimately they're going to perform better. And that's good. That's what we all want. That's what we're here for. So this is about you being able to take ownership of that as a coach and finding ways to help your players through that as well. You know, things aren't always going to be black as black and white with this. Right. External focus has. It's in a lot of these studies and pretty much every study that they went through here was found to be superior to an internal focus. That doesn't mean that, you know, you can never use an internal cue or an internal focus, you know, at times, you know, but again, like I said, it's just about finding those opportunities to maximize the amount of times you can use those, those external cues because it's going to speed up performance, it's going to decrease the amount of time it's going to need for that learning to take place, and it's ultimately going to put your players in the driver's seat when it comes to their development, which is what you want because you can't be in the driver's seat at all times because you're not the one who's going on the floor and playing. So that's got to be on them at some point. And you can put them in a position to do that by externally queuing and giving them the tools and giving them kind of natural confidence to do stuff themselves as well. So hopefully this, this kind of exposes you guys to that. Something that I'm certainly trying to get better at in terms of my consistency with it and something that I've been reading about a little bit as well. I'm going to link to the study below if you guys want to check it out. There's a. There's so many studies that are linked from that as well. So you can read even more into this and any coaches listening right now. Actually, if you guys have any good external cues you can think of that maybe you use or you've heard, drop that in the comments or send me a DM and tell me about it because I'd love to hear it. Anything that, you know, I could potentially take from you or if you have questions on a specific skill and you want to know how maybe I would externally cue it or whatever, just hit me, let me know. But I appreciate everybody who's listened who's tuned in. Apple Podcast, Spotify, Like I said, if you guys are Apple podcasts right now, drop a review for me. Let me know what you think. Think. If you guys are on YouTube right now, drop a like, subscribe and I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace.