How I Became A Trainer, Creating Quality Workouts and How To Train By Yourself (Q&A Podcast)

Foreign welcome to the Vision Driven Master Training Podcast. I appreciate you guys today. Whether you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or SoundCloud or Pandora wherever else, maybe listening to or all of you guys who are watching on YouTube right now. I appreciate you guys for taking time tuning in to this episode. If you guys are on Apple Podcasts, do me a favor, scroll down the bottom of the page and leave a review for me. Let me know what you think. You guys who listen know I read any new reviews at the beginning of the show. So I've got one this week. Comes From Smitty C. YouTube and it says great podcast, great coach. This is an excellent, very helpful podcast. It has helped me realize how much I really have to work to get better and explains what kind of work I need to do. Also, I really like Coach Ethan. Seems like a great guy. I appreciate that Smitty and I really do appreciate the support and stuff like that. That's awesome. And I really appreciate reading that guy. So again, if you have anything that you want to say, any questions that make for me even drop a review on Apple Podcasts helps the show grow, helps it to rank a little bit higher and kind of helps to more people, for more people to organically see it through that. So again, shout out to you guys who have done that. I really do appreciate that. And let's hop into it. So this is a Q and A episode. I posted a story on my Instagram just asking for questions. So if you guys are on. If you guys don't follow me on Instagram right now, you missed that. My Instagram is at Vision Driven Basketball. Okay. At Vision Driven Basketball. And make sure you give me a follow. So you guys see whenever I'm posting, you guys don't miss anything. Anytime I might have another Q and A, I will at some point in the near future. So make sure you follow me on Instagram if you have not. Again, VisionDriven Basketball, we'll hop into it. I got a ton of really, really good questions. So the first question we'll go to comes from Harry says how to train decision making when you're by yourself. So this is a question that I get semi frequently because I've been talking so much about decision making and how important it is. And you know, decision making is one of, you know, if not the, I would say, in my opinion, the most important skill in basketball when you take everything into account. Right. I always talk about shooting being the most important skill, but when it comes down to it, your ability to make the decision on, okay, when do I shoot, where do I shoot, why am I shooting this basketball? Right? That all goes into the actual decision that happens before you even make the shot. Right? So you know, there, there's like a three step process to any sort of action. The first thing is you're going to perceive it, right? So you're going to actually see what's happening going on and you're going to have to actually like be able to identify and say, okay, this is happening right now. Here are my options right here. Okay, I can do this, I can do this or I can do that, right? I catch the ball, I can shoot it, I can drive, I can pass to my teammate. Okay, I got three options right there. So you're perceiving the situation, right? Right. Then the next step is you have to actually decide and make that decision. Okay, what am I going to do right here? So you decide to shoot it, you decide to pass it, you decide to drive. Okay? And then the third part of it is you actually have to make the action, which is you make the shot or you drive to the basket, or you actually physically make that pass. So the action part, the part that we train is actually only a third of what actually goes into that play happening. Okay? So any play that you see anytime that any bucket that you see, there's three parts of it and the actual physical bucket getting part is only the last third of that. Okay? So that's why decision making is so important. Because if you neglect to work on your ability to make decisions, then you're essentially skipping out on 2/3 of the actual game. Right? And that's a lot of times why players might not see the game transfer from their workouts or their practices to actual real games because they might not be spending as much time or as much focus on those first two aspects as they are in the third one, which of course is important. But the first two also are very important as well. So the best way to do this obviously is by training with other people. And I have videos that I can link above. I'll link a video above that talks more about this in depth on how you can train decision making. And actually I'll link below too. If you guys go to the top link in my description below, I'll leave my decision making checklist. So, so it's just like a real quick thing that's going to tell you how to train your decision making, why it's important. It's going to give you like a step by step breakdown of how to do that so I think it's really, really be really, really helpful you guys who want to get better. So again, click top link in my description below and I'll send that to you. But to get back to the question, so going, you know, do being able to do this with multiple players, right? That's how I run all my workouts. If I have multiple players, typically I'm going to put them in positions where they have to make decisions based on, based on what the defense does. Okay. So the best way to do things, to work on decision making is to actually have defense out there. But there's other ways we can do that. So you know, ideally if you have like a partner, I think that's one of the best ways to do it. I'll have to post some stuff at some point on Instagram. Going more in depth into this. What I love doing is putting my players in an action. So like let's say we're going to work on, let's say I'm working with one of my players on ball screens, right? So I might set a ball screen for them and, and they're going to come off the ball screen and I might be the roller, the pop guy and then I might have to, you know, I might either call for the ball or I might not call for the basketball, right? If I don't call for the ball, then they're going to go off and they're going to shoot or they're going to get to the basket or whatever they're going to do off of it. But if I do call for the ball, then they got to get me the pass and then maybe we'll play out of that. So maybe I'll go give them a handoff after that and then they'll have to go score out of that. Or maybe I'll call for the ball back again or maybe I'll tell them to go to the corner or whatever. Like there's so many ways you can add an element of like randomness to your training and I think that's the best thing you can do if you don't have like full fledged defense to play against. So that's one thing. When it comes down to decision making though, like training it by yourself, is it really when you're by yourself, that's, that's the best time to work on that. The third part we talked about, the action part. So your ability to make shots, right? You're, and we can even talk like the, the foundation. So like your shooting foundation. So your form, your mechanics, your all the aspects that matter, balance, your shot, pickups, your, your footwork and your efficiency in that regard. Like, that's where it becomes super, super important when you're by yourself. And then ideally when you get in situations where you can train with another person or with a group of people, then you can put yourself in those situations. We say, okay, you know, I need to get better making decisions in, you know, the pick and roll. So we're going to. I'm going to grab, you know, three of my friends and we're going to play two on two out of a pick and roll on the wing, right? There's just an example what you can do where you can start to work the decision making a little bit. That's the best way you can do it. And when you, when you are by yourself, really, that's where you can get better at the action part of it. But ultimately the decision making aspect is something that you get from playing. Now, one thing I think you can do, and I forget the technical name of this, there's some scientific name for this where it's essentially like the mirror effect, right? When you watch somebody do something, you actually subconsciously go through it. And I'm blanking on what it's called right now. But basically, we as humans have the ability to empathize with each other, right? So when you see somebody going through something difficult, you can typically feel that, right? You're. Oh, man, that's really, like, that sucked. When you see somebody who is homeless, you start to feel like, oh, man, what, like, what would it feel like if I was homeless, right? Like, that's, that's, that's empathy right there, okay. And it works the same way when it comes to, like, our, our ability to empathize with, like, motor patterns, right? So if I watch somebody go through a drill subconsciously, I'm. I'm kind of going through that drill mentally, right? Because I'm able to empathize and put myself in their shoes. So one way you can use it to your effect is by watching basketball, right? And specifically watching, like, okay, I want to get better the pick and roll, so I'm gonna go watch film on the pick and roll. That could be some YouTube breakdowns. That could be you going and watching some highlights of Chris Paul or Trey Young using the pick and roll. Or Devin Booker is great in the pick and roll too. Like, maybe you just go watch somebody do that and your, your ability to understand the game is going to improve because of your, your bot, your, your brain's ability to empathize and be able to almost repeat and learn those patterns that it sees. So that's another way that you can, you can hit decision making without actually having another person on the court with you. But end of the day, check out my decision making checklist is going to go if you got some more ideas for that. But best thing you can do is just grab another person and. And as much as you can, work on that. So there's one thing right there. Okay, question. Two bucks, your sons. As this, at the time this podcast comes out, it will have. We are going into game six. So the Bucs are up 3, 2. They won a close one last night, and I think I'm going with the Bucs. You know, this has been one of those really weird playoff runs and playoff series where it seems like up until last game, like, every game was a blowout and it seemed like almost every game in the playoffs was like, it was either, you know, you look at like a, you look at a series and like every game was a 20 point game, right? So Team A would win game one by 20 and then the next game, team B would win the game by 20, right? It didn't make a lot of sense. But that being said, I think three, two. I'm going to go with the Bucks to finish it out. I just don't. I just don't have enough. And look, we'll see. Like, both these things are really, really good. I think you can make the argument the Suns are a better team than the Bucks are from top to bottom in terms of just like the, the depth that they have. But at the end of the day, I like the. I like the Bucks top two versus Versus the Sun's top two, right? And ultimately the Bucks have the best player in the series, which is Giannis. So something to think about, but I'm gonna go with the Bucks here at this point, so we'll see if I jinx that by saying that. Now, this is a question that I got a little bit, and it said, basically, what inspired you to become a trainer? Why did you become a trainer? And, you know, there's a couple of things building off of this. But, you know, I've talked about this a little bit before, but I've always like the. I've always been. I've always loved just like the off season, right? Even back to when I was younger, when I was probably in like seventh or eighth grade. I remember, like being so excited for February, March to get here because then the season's over and I could just Go train. And I could plan on my workouts for the. For the summer. And, like, that was what I always loved doing, and I always look forward to doing that. And I was always just so obsessed with, like, okay, how do I get better? Okay, what do I do now? Like, well, how do I get better at this? Okay, why am I struggling with this in games? What can I do to make that better? And it was just always a constant, like, obsession for me. So I was reading everything I could about it. I was reading all about, okay, how do I become more confident in the court? Like, what do I do to. To become a better leader? All those things. Like, I mean, I just did. I did so much to become the best that I could. And that was just kind of my obsession was, okay, what can I do in March through October so that I'm prepared for this season? And that was just what I love doing. So now it's like, you know, me being able to be a trainer now, it's like, that's what I do, and that's my constant focus is, okay, how do I put my players in the best position to be successful now? And obviously, you know, I've learned a lot since that, but that kind of built the. The groundwork and the foundation for where I'm at now, for sure. You know, for me, it really came down to, like, when I was going into college, I was planning on playing or I was trying to play, and there was a couple of schools that. So I took a year off after. After I graduated high school, just kind of weighing my options, training, seeing what I could. What I could get the next year. I had, like, a couple of jucos that I could have gone to play at and then. But I also was coaching, too. I was coaching a middle school team. I had a couple parents ask if I would train their kids just kind of randomly, like, during that winter. So I started doing that, picked up a couple more kids, and I was like, okay, this is actually what I want to do. And so just decided to stick with that and instead of playing. And so, you know, here we are. And ultimately, like, end of the day, like, I never, like, you know, I was a. I was a. I was an okay player at best, right? I had my moments. But what I always loved more was just the process of everything. I love the process of getting better, of helping other people get better. And even when I was in high school, like, I was always, like, trying to get my teammates in the gym. Like, always trying to, okay, how can we do this? And, like, that was always how I was. And again, that's just kind of the natural progression that took me to where I'm at now. So that's kind of my background on why I became a trainer. And. And, you know, for me, that's just like. It's what I want to be doing ultimately. So that's. That's why I did it. The other. The other question that I got was, what would you do if you weren't coaching or training basketball? Shout out to Hasan guy. My guy, Juice made hoops. You guys have not. If you guys don't know Juice made hoops is. You got to check him out. And so he was. He asked, what would you do if you weren't coaching or training? And that's a great question. That's something I didn't think about really, until I had had read this. Honestly, like, that's one of those things where it's like, I. I couldn't even tell you. Like, I don't know what else I would be doing. I probably would still. I'd probably be in school right now. In fact, I'm sure I would be in school right now. Probably gonna. Probably about to graduate school, actually. And I don't know what I'd be studying. I don't know what I'd be doing. I probably would have tried to place. I probably would have found a place to play, at least for my first years. At least my first years of college. I don't know what I would have done after that, but that's probably what the answer. I'd probably be playing basketball right now, or at least I would have been doing that. I'd probably be finishing up school right now. Not sure what else aside from that, but that was really the thing, like, back when I was, you know, in middle school, high school. Like I always say now, I think it's a good thing to play multiple sports, right? I think it helps you develop as an athlete. But when I was in, like, 8th, 9th grade, and, like, you know, I loved playing football when I was younger, but, like, I got to that point, I was like, I just want to play basketball. Like, I did. That's what I want to do. I don't want to play football. I don't want to play because then I can't. If I have to go to full practice, I can't play basketball, right? Like, if I have a football game, then I have to miss that workout or that open gym or whatever. Like, there are so many like this. The. The trade off was not worth it for Me, I just didn't want to do it. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to do that. I just didn't want to. And so ultimately, like, that's just. I. I don't know what else I'd be doing if not for this. So. It's a great question, though. Again, shout out my God, juice my hoops. The other question is kind of relating to that is, like, what do you. I had people ask me, what do I need to do to become a coach or become a trainer. I think the first thing you need to do is it kind of depends where you're at. But it just. It start off with just learning as much as you can, right? Understand, like, and I say this now, I look back on myself, like, every couple months, and I literally will say, like, man, I knew so much less three months ago, right? A year ago, I knew I was so much worse at what I do now. I was so much worse a year ago. It's crazy. Like, it's crazy how much worse I was a year ago, two years ago. When I first started, I literally knew nothing. I thought I knew. I thought I knew a lot, but I. I didn't, right? I literally knew nothing. And that's. But that's the goal right there. Like, you want to push yourself so that you learn so much, and you learn so quickly that you look back and you're like, man, I can't believe I didn't know that. I can't believe that I was doing that. I can't believe that, like, that's what you want. Like, that's how you know you're making progress, right? So the first thing you want to do is, like, commit to learning as much as you can. Commit to getting as good as you can get at it. And that might mean, like, okay, call up a couple of your. Your teammates and, like, just, you know, run them through some workouts with you, right? Hey, say, hey, you guys want to go to the park? Go to the gym and, like, do that. Like, it can literally start with you just doing that, right? Because at the end of the day, like, if you. If you have nothing, like, if you haven't really, if you haven't. If you don't. If you don't have a track record yet, like, you might not have anybody who's willing to pay you right now, but you can't think about that off the bat. It's got to be, okay, what can I do to get experience and get good at what I do? Because if you get good at what you do, then people are going to know that people are going to see the results and then people are going to. People are going to start talking about it, right? And as you can, it's like a snowball effect. As you continue to get better, more people talk about it and the more popular to become, more people want to train with you. But it all starts with your commitment to being as good as you possibly can be. Your goal should always be like, okay, in three months, I can look back and say, I was terrible then. I didn't know what I was doing. That should be your goal. And the number two is just get experience. So get players, get in front of players. Go work with somebody else if you have to, go coach a team if you have to. Like, just get experience working with players and you'll start to get better at that naturally. That's the two biggest things I can say to you. So up into our next one, this is a really good question. What's the best advice you've heard from a coach, professional player or trainer? There's so many, like, there's so many people I can look to. There's so many both in, like, you know, my personal life, but also, you know, online or whatever, people that I watch, people that I learn from to. And there's. That's. That's the thing with, with social media. Like, there's so many great trainers out there that I learn from on a daily basis, and I could take a number of things from any of them. But one thing that I thought about as soon as I read this question, there's one thing that I thought about kind of randomly. I remember, you know, a lot of you guys probably watch gametime Elite training on. On Instagram. Shout out to Gabe. Been following him for a little bit. I love what he does, but I remember seeing an Instagram post that he posted, this is a while ago, it was probably back in like February or March. And it basically was just saying, like, you know, he basically was like, okay, I want to challenge all you guys to do something without knowing the what the result's gonna be, right? Like, be willing to bet on yourself a little bit, take a step into the unknown and be willing to potentially fail at something, right? You have to be willing to take that step. And I thought that that was. That was something that I kind of took. And I was like, you know what? Like, I think that is. That's the mindset you have to have, right? With, with, you know, me with training, like, trying to get, you know, trying to work with. With New players and trying to run camps and all this stuff. Like, you don't always know what, what the outcome is going to be. But I think that it's important to keep on taking that next step forward even when you don't know what it's going to be, right? Even when you're unsure of it because things might go poorly for you or they might go great. But regardless of that, it doesn't really matter because it's all experience, right? Going back to the last question about how to become a coach or a trainer, like, even when you start off and you're terrible, that's, that's, that's fine because you learn from it. You learn what works and what doesn't work. And that is ultimately what makes you a better trainer or better any. Like, basketball is the same exact thing I always talk about. Guys, you got to play more, you got to play more, you got to play more. Okay? Drills are great, and you should be doing them, but you got to play more because when you play more, you make mistakes. But. But you also learn what works and what doesn't work. You learn when to do what and when not to do what. Right? And you don't get that unless you actually, you know, kind of step into the fire a little bit and challenge yourself a little bit. So that's the biggest thing is like, stepping outside of your comfort zone and stepping outside of what's sure to you is the best way to reach that next level. Okay, I think that's a big thing for, hopefully you guys could take that message and apply it. But for me, like, I know that that's just a, like a. It's a game changer when that's the mindset you post, you post things with. And it just gives you a whole different level of confidence, too. I think when you, when you, when you realize that, like, I'm okay, like, I press into mistakes, like, I'm 100% fine with making mistakes because that's what makes me better. So if I'm not ever making mistakes or messing up or failing at something, then I'm not becoming as good as I can possibly be at it, and I'm limiting myself by doing that. So you have to press in and want to make mistakes and want to fail sometimes a good thing. Actually, when you look at it with that regard, man, it just changes the way that you approach everything. So I got another question, this time talking about Cam, because you don't know who Cam is. Cam is my younger brother who is just graduated from high school is going to play college basketball at the University of Scranton next year. And so I was asked, how do you feel about Cam going to college and how he's going to pan out as a player? So it's a good question. And you know, Cam has been featured in a couple videos and on my channel, if you guys haven't seen the vlog, I'll link that above on the day and the day in the life. I think I said, I think I titled it A day in the life of an all state High School Basketball player or something like that. But I'll link that above for you guys. So check that out if you haven't. So you guys have an idea of who I'm talking about. But yeah, I think, you know, Cam has been. Cam's had a very good offseason, right? He's, he's gotten, you know, the biggest thing is like high school to college is just, it's the, the difference is that everybody is good, right? In high school, not everybody's good. There's. There's good players in high school, but not everybody is good. In college, everybody's good, right? Especially if you go to like a good program. It's grands a good program. They play in a good conference. Like everybody that they play is going to be good. And so when you understand that, like, you have to elevate yourself even more because what you did in high school and everybody did that too. Everybody at, at his level, at the Division 3 level was, was all state. Everybody was all conference. Everybody was. Thousand boys score. Like everybody did all that stuff. Everybody was the best player on their team. Okay? Everybody's team were. Everybody's teams were competing for state championships. A lot of his teammates probably won state championships. A lot of the players in his conference probably won state championships. So it's a, it's a, it's a level playing field again, like, nobody really cares about what you did. It's all about taking those steps forward. And I think the biggest thing is just like the physical side of things, so being able to catch up to the speed of the college level and the physicality of it. Again, everybody is good. Everybody's older now. Everybody's had years to develop. And everybody's serious about it, right? Everybody wants to. Like every team is trying to win. Every coach is recruiting players to help them win games. And so the. One of his biggest things for Cam has been just getting stronger. And he has, he's gotten stronger. He's gotten more athletic this offseason, which has really been the Biggest thing for him because that's going to be the biggest adjustment is just the physicality of it. And then obviously there's going to be a, you know, there's, there's, there's a learning process when it comes to just like playing college basketball, right? Being a part of whatever the system looks like, understanding what is expected. And then, you know, in Pennsylvania, there's no shot clock in high school, so you have to adjust what shot clock. Now there's just like, there's, there's stuff to adapt to, but, you know, and it'll be a learning process. But in the day, like he's in a very good position, I think, and you know, he's continued to get better and he has all the physical tools to be a good player at that level. But again, it just comes down to, you know, adapting and how quickly, you know, he's able to kind of figure that out. And I think that's how it is for every freshman walking in there. But I will say, like, he's gotten a lot better this offseason and the progression has been awesome. So I'm, I'm confident in what he's going to look like at the next level. So my guy Marty asked me, how do you structure your group workouts? It's a good question as well. Typically it can depend a little bit, but usually when I have a group workout, it's going to be, I'd say The first maybe 10 to 20 minutes max will be more like block on air type of stuff. So we always start off with like a little ball handling, footwork, warm up. And then for some of my groups, for some of my, my players that we'll go with the passing, little passing series too, just to work like some pick and roll passing and just like some, some stuff that you got to be able to do. And so usually we'll start off like the first 5, 10 minutes will be that basically every day. Every workout's gonna look like that. And then if I'm in a group, I'll probably do like a 5, 10 minute shooting, warm up. We're doing some form shooting, doing some like kind of light spot shooting just to get know, get your feel for the ball, your feel for your shot. And then at that point the rest of the workout, whether it's an hour workout or an hour and a half, like the rest of time is going to be live, going to be competitive almost always, right? We might have, there might be a workout maybe we're working on like changes speed. Okay. We might start off like, okay, you know, okay, I'm going to give you guys, we're going to work on. Okay, two dribbles to the side, boom. Quick change of speed. Two dribbles to the side, boom. And then we'll do that for maybe two minutes. And then we're playing live out of. Okay, now we're going. You, you, you know, you kind of lull your guy to sleep and then as soon as you want to go, quick change of speed and then it's live one on one. Right? So that, that can be an example of how we might build something up right there. And then we're probably just gonna play like, be like put. I'm probably gonna put those guys in competitive situations the rest of the time that we're going. So if I have a group of four, it's great because we'll work two on two stuff. We can work some drive and kick stuff off two on two. We can work some, some stuff coming off attacking closeouts and that's how that's going to look. And then usually if I have a group two, we'll add in some contested shooting as well. So, you know, especially with like my older guys, like with my college guys or really even any of my high school guys who like are really good shooters, guys or girls who are really good shooters, that'll be like, we don't, we're not going to do a ton of on air shooting in terms of just like catch and shoot like with no defense or anything like that. Like, we'll do a little bit of it, but typically what we're going to do is all contested shooting. So there's always going to be a defender coming at you, trying to block your shot while you're shooting the basketball. And we can do that in a number of different situations. We can do it off of a driving kick, we can do it off of an extra pass, we can do it off of a skip pass. There's so many ways we can do it. And I post on Instagram all the time with just some contested shooting drills. So go check out my Instagram and look at my, my stories, my highlights, just like the training stuff. And you'll see some contested shooting examples. But that's typically how we're going to do a lot of shooting if we do it within groups because it's just the best game transfer. Because, you know, there's another thing going to the high school. At the college level. At the college level, over half of the shots that are made are contested. Right? This is how it Is defense is just better. So we got to get better. We got to get better making those game shots, which for the most part game shots are going to be contested. So as a level of competition to that shooting, but also as just another level of game like feel to it as well. And then if we do any on air or any on air shooting without a contest, it's typically going to be some sort of like, pressure shooting. So it might be okay. We have you got to make three shots in a row at all five spots. Or I love doing a drill where it's called nine for 10, but we'll do it for six for seven or seven for eight, whatever it might be. So let's say will go six for seven. So you have to add all five spots for three. You've got to make six shots, but you can't miss two in a row. So you shoot your first shot, you make it, you shoot your second shot, you make it, you shoot your third shot. That's cool. You have to make the next shot, though. You make the next shot cool. You're at three, you miss the next shot and you miss shot after that. You miss two in a row, you're back to zero, and you repeat that until you get to six makes at that spot and you go to the next spot. So depending on how good the, the, you know that the group I have when it comes to shooting, like how good they are, we might do 10, we might do five. It just depends on what we have. But typically there's going to be some sort of, like, pressure put into everything, some sort of live aspect put into everything, and that's the most fun, in my opinion. I think that the. I think that my players, like, enjoy doing that, but also that's just the best when it comes to actual game transfer as well. So our next question is how do I have quality workouts or what defines a quality workout? That's a great question. And I think that this is where the focus has to be for workouts, right? When it comes to it, anytime you look on, on social media, on Instagram or on Snapchat or on YouTube or whatever, it's always people bragging about, oh, I shot this many shots. Oh, I was in the gym for six hours today. I was doing this, I was doing that. And everybody wants to brag about how much they work and how much time they spend the gym, how many shots they make, but nobody, like, nobody cares to talk about the actual quality, right? You can go in the gym, you can make a thousand shots and that's, that's all well and good, but there's a difference between going in there and making a thousand quality shots and making a thousand not quality shots. And I think for the most part, when you hear about people doing thousand make workouts, most of the time it's leaning towards that, not quality shots. What we just talked about with, with, you know, when I was talking about my group workouts, all of our makes, all of our shots are quality makes because we go off of contested shooting or we go out of pressure situations where every single shot that you make is going to be with either a contest coming or with pressure riding on that shot. You have to make this shot or you go back to zero and you don't complete the drill, right? You have to get this shot off quicker, like quickly or quicker than you might normally do in a workout because there's a defender coming at you trying to block your shot. So all those makes that we have, even though it might only be 100, 150, right, it's, they're all going to be quality makes that are going to transfer to games very, very well. And that's the biggest thing. So kind of what I just mentioned, right, if you want to have quality workouts, you have to first ask yourself how does this translate to the game? Is what I'm doing transferring to the game. If you spend 30 minutes a day just working on two ball pounds, right, that might make you feel like you're working hard, but how well is that going to transfer to the games? Even if you take it as simple as like, okay, if I, if I set up four cones, I just work on dribbling through these cones for two straight hours, that's working hard. You might be getting, you might break a sweat, you might burn a ton of calories doing that. But how does that actually translate to the game when all of a sudden now you have defenders trapping you, you've got guys fouling you. Like, you can't necessarily just work on pound crossover, pound crossover because you're going to have to do so much more than that. So I think a couple of things you can think about when it comes to actually making your workouts quality is you want to first of all figure out how you can add in elements to your workout. They're going to force you to work on adaptability. And all of that means your ability to just kind of figure stuff out, right? Basketball is not a perfect game. It's not a perfect game and you know, even though it's a lot of Times our workouts might make it seem perfect. It's not like I can walk into a gym and somebody can be working out and they can look great, right? They might be, oh, they're making every single shot. But then I put a defender on the ground, the floor, and all of a sudden it's way different because that's what defense does, right? It adds a completely different element to what you're trying to do. So when you're by yourself, the first thing I'd say is that every shot, every drill has to be a game speed. I'm going to say for the most part, if you're, if you have workouts where you're making 500 shots by yourself, I can almost guarantee that unless you have like a shooting machine doing. And even still, if you're doing all that by yourself, you probably are making every single one of those shots at game speed, game intensity, and you probably are just chasing makes at that point. I heard Duncan Robinson talk about, and obviously Duncan Robinson, you know, well, we'll see if he's back with Miami Heat. It's currently a free agent, but one of the best shooters in the world, right? One of the best shooters in the history of the world, right? In phenomenal shooter. And so obviously what he does is not necessarily going to be applicable to every single player. But he talked about how this, this offseason for his training, he is not doing any, like, spot shooting, right? Catch and shoot, five shots, five spots. Like, think about that. He's like, I'm not doing any of that. He said sometimes he'll do a little bit extra, like in the evenings. But for the most part, his actual workouts, like his main workouts, there's none of that. Every single shot that he shoots is coming out of some sort of game action. So coming off of a pin down, coming off of a relocation, like coming off of stuff that he might see in games. And that's where all of his makes come from. So while I guarantee you, if I were to ask Duncan Robinson if, you know, is he making, could he make more shots in that same amount of time, if he just did spot shots the whole time, he would say 100%, yes. If I just stood there and shot the ball over and over and over again, I could probably make double the amount of makes that I do in my workouts now. But would that make it a higher quality workout? No, it wouldn't. Because you're not getting that same game, like, translation that you are with what he's doing where every, every single Drill that he does is targeted to the game. And I'm not saying, again, I'm not saying to not do spot shooting. I'll do spot shooting with basically everybody that I work with. But I think there's another element to that to think about. So how can you work on those game situations? Well, what shots matter, right? Are you working on the shots that are important? Shots coming off of a relocation where you have to slide to the corner and hit a three or you have to slide up to the wing, hit a three. Are you working on shots coming off of a jab or a shot fake like a one drill or a two drill, pull up? Are you working on those shots right there? Are you working on developing a couple of quick moves you can go to? So if you're in the mid range, you need to get your shot off quickly. Do you have a step out you can go to or a puncher that you can go to? Right? Those things that matter, that's what you got to work on. If your offense has a lot of pin downs, do you work on being able to shoot the ball coming off of a pin down? Right? Do you work on. If your offense has a flare read where you flare out to the wing, do you work on being able to hit a shot coming off of that? Okay, so getting good at hitting shots that matter at game speed, that's what I would define as quality when it comes to working on your shooting. So I'd rather have a workout where you make 20 high quality flare threes on each wing than you make 60 low quality, you know, low to mid quality flare layer threes on each wing. Even though you're making way more with the 120 versus the 40, the quality of that matters. So if you can go through 20 times at game speed and make 20 shots from, from a certain action that you, that you do in games, that's going to translate for you so much better than trying to chase an arbitrary number of makes. So the first thing you need to do is just throw that idea out the window that makes the amount of makes you have matters. It does not matter. Okay? There are 150 shot workouts that are way better than a 500 shot workout. There's. That's just how it is. It's all about what you're getting out of it. So you have to ask yourself, okay, what am I getting out of doing this drill? How am I getting better from this? And that's where the quality is going to stem from. So what that might mean is that you're not going to shoot as well in workouts. And I say this to all my players. The point of our workouts is I want you to be uncomfortable. I want you to mess up. I want you to not look as good as you probably feel like you should. Right. I don't want this to be somewhere you can come to a workout and, like, just kind of cruise through and be, oh, yeah, I'm great. Like, I, like, I want you to at times, like, really be frustrated with yourself. And I want you at times to sometimes lose a little bit of confidence right throughout that workout. Right. Obviously, at the end of the day, I want your confidence to go up, but during a workout, I hope that you're. You're being pushed enough, you're going. The speed is pushing you enough that you know, you. You struggle a little bit, and that's. That's where you want to be. You want to be right on the edge of, like, grasping it, but also struggling at the same time. And that's how you know that you're getting something out of that workout as well. So that's obviously with shooting. And another aspect that I'll talk about with shooting, too, is we'll add in, like, shot shooting series. So maybe our first shot is going to come. It's going to be a backpedal into the corner for a three, and then the next shot, you're going to slide up to the wing for a catch and shoot. The next shot, you're going to be catch, jab, into a two, drill, pull up at the elbow, and then your third shot is going to be a catch and shoot at the top of the key. Okay. When you shoot shots like that, right, when you're in a game, you. You might shoot a shot from the corner. Chances are you're not going to shoot a shot from the corner the next time you shoot the ball. Okay. So if you just. If all that you do for your shooting is work on shooting spot shots at the same shot, the same spot over and over again, that's just not game like, because if I'm. If I'm going to shoot 10 shots in the corner and I miss my first one, well, I can adjust real quick and say, okay, I missed that one long. So now I'm going to do this. In the game, you don't have that, that, that luxury because you're going to a new spot the next time. So how adaptable are you when it comes to, I shot from the corner this time, and the next time I get a shot, it's a pull up of the elbow. Can you go from making it in the corner to then making it in the at the elbow? That's, in my opinion what it takes to be a great shooter is you, you have the ability to be adaptable and hit different shots. So I love using different shooting series to do that. Where I'm shooting three or four different shots in a row. And I might say, okay, we've got to make three sets of at least three for four, or maybe two sets of four for four. Right? And that puts pressure on those shots and it forces you to be adaptable. So that lends itself to quality right there. When it comes to like ball handling or even finishing ball handling for sure, is all about creativity. So a ton of the ball handling we do is just creative based stuff. And ball handling, there can be some stuff that's less creative. Like I love like our dribble manipulations over the cone, where I have a cone in front of me and I'm kind of manipulating the ball over the cone and maybe add on some crossovers or some between some double moves, whatever it might be. But literally just having a ball in your hands and like, okay, for 20 seconds you're just freestyling, doing like whatever kind of dribble combos you want. Okay, that's. That in my opinion, is great. And then the best way to train ball handling is just grab one person or two or two people and have them play defense on you. Say, okay, I'm going to get from the baseline to half court and I've got one person or two people playing defense on me. That's the best way to train ball handling. But if you don't have that, then just working on your creativity with the ball. Because again, in a game, you, you might not be able to go pound between crossover every time. You might have to go pound between crossover the first time to protect the ball. And then a defender jumps out at you, you got to go quick between legs again. So had you trained your ability to be adaptable and do that? So ultimately, when it comes down to the quality of your workouts, you have to ask yourself, what am I getting out of this? Right? It's not about the makes, not about the time you spend on the core. It's what am I getting better at through this? And the number one key, that number one aspect that your workout should have is that it forces you to train to be adaptable. And when you do those two things, you have those two things in mind. That's when you're going to have quality workouts. So I'll go with a couple more questions. I've got one from Drew right here. He said, what can I work on to be able to get myself good looks in the mid range off the dribble? I would say the biggest thing you can do is be able to attack closeouts. I'll post a video on this above talking about 1 and 2 drill pull ups. But the best thing you can do is get good at attacking closeouts. And the reason that is is because that's where most of the mid range shots are going to come from. That and then ball screens, two ball screens in transition maybe as well. But probably the area that you'll see the most, most often is like okay, defender closes out, you give them a pump fake, they jump for it. Now you attack downhill, help defender steps up so you can't get to the rim. So it's pull up, that's one right there. Or you might have, you know, ball gets swung to you, quick rip through before your defender can get there to recover and you're pull up in the mid range. That's, that's typically where your mid range shot's going to come from. So that's how you get those shots is be prepared and be looking for your defender to be over anxious on a closeout and then attack it right, get by them and then get into your pull ups, into your mid range coming off of that. So I've got a lot of questions left, but the last one I'm going to answer is from my guy, Gabe Sandoval. Shout out to Quicksand Mindset, one of, one of the dudes out there who's just like a good dude, right? There's, there's, there's guys who are like about it and there's guys who aren't. There's guys who are really about like helping players get better and kind of pouring themselves into what they do. Gabe's one of those dudes. A shout out to my guy if you guys have not like I've done two podcast episodes with him. Just one of those dudes. Like if you follow him, I promise you, like just mentally like mindset, confidence wise, you're just going to go, you're going to go to a whole new level. Okay, so Quicksand Mindset, go check him out. Okay. On Instagram, on YouTube, he's posting great stuff and so he says speak about specific skill sets and movements that are being taught to international born players. Typically players from overseas are fundamentally sound and have high basketball IQs, while players from the US fall back on athleticism unless coach otherwise. This is a great question. And obviously with the Olympics being, you know, upon us at this point and, you know, the Team usa, you know, losing games to teams that are way less talented, that there's, there's different there, there's a couple different angles to look at this from. The first thing is that the international game is a little bit different than the NBA. The, the size of the floor is smaller, so it's a lot easier to be able to kind of clog up the paint when you have like, big bodies. And as opposed to the NBA where there's more space so guys can get stretched out a little bit more. Like, bigs aren't going to be able to be as effective because they can't cover as much space as they can in the international game. So that's one thing right there. And that's one thing with Australia beating the U.S. i was watching, I forget, but Jordan Lawley had a guy on who, who's on the Australian team or at least as a pro, and he's from Australia. I don't know if he's on the team or not, but he was talking about like, why the, the defense is how it is. And a lot of it just comes down to the spacing on the, on the court. So it's, it's kind of a thing that they're going to have to adapt to, going from the NBA to now playing internationally. And all these other players for the most part have grown up playing that sort of style. So, you know, back to what Gabe asked, like, that's really how it is when you look at like these, especially like these places in Europe. And I'm sure it's the same in a lot of other places, but I, I listened to a podcast with a coach from, I believe Serbia. I might be wrong on that, but one of the countries in, in Europe or near Serbia, if it's not that one. And he, he was saying that, you know, when, when players are being brought up, like, they don't, they aren't brought up as like being a big or being a guard. Like, they're just brought up as being a basketball player. That's why you see all these international bigs who are really, really talented. Nikola Jokic, Kristas Porzingis, these guys who like, are super, super skilled, but, you know, not like, not, not traditional guards. Right? They're not, they're, they're as skilled as guards, but they're seven footers, seven foot plus. And the reason that is is because they, how they grow up is they grow up learning all those skills when they're young, playing basketball at these academies in, in those countries that's like they're taught how to pass, they're taught how to handle the ball, they're taught how to shoot, and they learn concepts early on. They learn like, okay, how do we, like, you know, how do I move the ball to get a great shot? Right? So they have like an IQ for the game as well. At an early age. They learn like, how, okay, how do I use a ball screen? Right? Or, and actually I believe I heard that they don't even introduce ball screens to players. And again, this is from the coach I was listening to, I think it was in Serbia. And he was saying, like, they don't even introduce ball screens until like players are like in middle school or going into high school. They just teach players like how to move off the ball, how to be able to score just with off ball movement and just with ball movement like that. They teach that. And that's something that in America, that's not a focus at all. What, what players learn at an early age is, okay, how do I ISO somebody and then get a bucket on them? Okay? Because when I turn on overtime or I get on TikTok, all I see is, you know, some kid who's 5 foot 6 trying to cross up all these dudes. I want to do that. And so all these kids grow up just, just knowing how to do that. They don't actually learn how to play off the ball. They don't know how to play good basketball. And on top of that, if you're tall, then you're probably going to get put down in the post. So you aren't actually developing those guard skills early on. Which is why the international bigs who are playing in the Olympics are like the best bigs in the NBA are not from America. And that's, that's, there's a reason for that. It's because, you know, the, they grew up training differently than our bigs did. Our bigs were big and athletic and they weren't given those same, those same opportunities to work on ball handling, to work on shooting the way that their bigs were. And that's, that's the issue. So, you know, the solution for that would obviously be like, the players have to learn about off ball movement, how to work for shots for themselves and for their teammates early on. They have to learn like how to actually play basketball early on. And then the other aspect Is like players can't be put into a box because, you know, the days of, oh, he's a post player, she's a post player, he's a guard, she's a guard. They're two different things. That those days are over. Like positional as basketball is here, right? It is, it's here. Like that is here. And it's going to be here for the foreseeable future. And you know, I think about with my own or my own high school team that, that I coach now, like our, our brand of basketball is very, very positionless, right? That's not to say that everybody's allowed to do everything. If you're not a great ball handler, you're not going to handle the ball for, for us, it's not how it's going to be. If you're not a great decision maker, you're not going to use ball screens, right? If you're 5 foot 6, you're not going to be playing in the high post a lot. But that being said, we have some guys who can play in the high post who also are good enough to play guard for us. They just happen to have a little bit of size. So we can put them in the high post and we can trust that, okay? If they pick and pop and they catch them on the perimeter, they can hit the shot, they can make a good pass, they can put the ball on the ground and score, right? And now we have, we can put five guys on the floor who all can play. And it doesn't matter who's a big. Who's this. We can put you in a position to be successful because you have skills to play basketball. That's what it has to, has to come down to. Like, everybody's got to be able to shoot, everybody's got to be able to make good decisions. Everybody's got to be able to pass the ball and handle the ball. That's why these, you know, that's why these European countries are just doing it better than America because that's what they focus on. And we again focus on the, the flashy who's the best ISO player and who are the best athletes. And they don't actually learn how to play until maybe high school, if they're lucky, and a good program. And a lot of players don't even learn how to play until they get to college, right? And some of them are so talented, they don't even have to do that. They can get to the NBA before they actually have to learn how to play. So that's the difference right there. But that's a great question, a great talking point, and that's why I'm so excited to watch the Olympics and and, you know, get to see what it is. Because there's certainly something to be said for how the US has played so far, considering the talent that we have. But again, these countries play good basketball. Like, basketball is so competitive. And even countries who might not have the amount of talent that America has, like, they play good basketball. So that's why it's going to be fun to watch. So I appreciate everybody who asked questions. I didn't get a chance to get to all of them. I mean, I probably only got to maybe half of them. So if you guys didn't have your question answered, don't worry about it. Because like I said, at some point in the future, I'll do another Q and A episode. So be on the lookout for that as well. And if you have any questions in general, just send me a DM as well. That's another way that I get questions for for the podcast and topics for the podcast too. So a little bit of a longer episode. But I appreciate you guys who have stuck with me, who have tuned in. You guys are awesome and I appreciate you. Like I said, guys, if you're Apple podcast right now, go ahead and scroll down. Leave a review for me, let me know what you think of the show. I appreciate you guys who have listened and who have been watching on YouTube here on YouTube. Leave a like and subscribe as well. I will talk to you guys soon. Peace Sa.