How To ACTUALLY Get Better By Yourself (Without A Trainer)

I hear this problem from players all the time. Hey, coach, I really want to get better, but I don't have a trainer or other players to work out with. So what am I supposed to do? Even if you're fortunate enough to have a trainer or other people to work out with, there's going to be times where you're going to be by yourself. And if you don't know what to do, this can be a major problem. Now, can you get better if you're working out by yourself? Absolutely. But it becomes much more difficult to have a focus and to make sure that you're truly improving. You don't have other people around you to push you or to compete with or to hold yourself accountable. I see and hear from a ton of players who are making crucial mistakes when it comes to working out by themselves, and this prevents them from seeing the results that they should see or sometimes prevents them from even seeing results at all. Right now, I'm going to take you through exactly how you can get the most out of working out by yourself. And I also want you to stay tuned until the end, because I'm going to explain to you how you can take control of your own development so that you develop at a rate faster than 99% of other players out there who are not by themselves. And once you make this simple mindset shift, you're going to start seeing incredible results, and people are going to be wondering what it is that you're doing that's allowing you to do this. So if that sounds good to you, start, stay tuned. Let's get into it. When it comes to working out by yourself, the first thing that's so important is to have a focus. And I think this is the main thing, and it seems so simple, but a lot of players miss out on this. They're working out by themselves. And so they head to the gym, they head to the park, they head outside of their driveway, and they don't really go out there with any sort of idea of what they want. When I talk about focus, the first thing I mean is that you have to understand on when it comes to the bigger picture, what. What it is that you're trying to do. So what is it that you need to get better at? Right. First of all, do you understand what you're good at, what you're not good at? Most players kind of do, but what you need to do is like, sit down, open up your phone, start a note, and just write down, okay, these things that I'm good at, these are things that I'm okay at, and these things that I'm bad at. Okay. And then once you have that list written down, pick two or three of those things and make those your focuses. Okay. This is what I want to focus on, Right. And that might not mean every single workout is going to be those things, but that, that should mean that the majority of your work is on these things, or at the very least, you're hitting these things, at least in parts of every workout that you do. But it's important that you first list out what you are actually trying to get better at, what's important for you. That way you can have that focus. So, big picture, it's important that you're able to have that and you know what you're doing. But then when it comes to just the day to day of it, do you actually have a focus when it comes to the workout that you're about to do, or do you just go to the gym or go to the park or whatever and just kind of see what happens for an hour? Right. Because if you do that, you're going to struggle to see any sort of tangible results on a consistent basis. And this is one of the main problems with working by yourself without another person with you or a trainer is it's hard to be able to keep yourself focused, keep yourself accountable. So it's important that you take control of that. And that means that when you show up, you actually have a tangible, concrete thing that you're focusing on. Okay? So today maybe, you know, you want to work on shooting off the catch. So you're gonna work, you're gonna shoot 25 threes, you know, from the wings, and then you're gonna shoot 25 from up top. Right? There we go. There's. There's just like an example what I'm talking about, where now you can go there and you say, okay, this is what I'm doing. Like, I know what I'm going to get done. That way you can have some sort of strategy, some sort of idea, and you can look at what you're doing and say, okay, every day I know what I'm working on, I know what I'm doing, and I can have some confidence in those things now because I see what I've done, right? If you don't do that, then you're not going to know, you're going to forget. And it's a lot harder to build confidence when you don't have a set plan and you don't know what you've done to this point. So Far so we can take it for shooting off the dribble. Maybe you say, I want to go and I'm going to shoot 25, two dribble pull ups in the mid range and then I'm going to, you know, make 25 pull up threes coming off of a ball screen. Now we have again, just an example of concrete things that we're working on. Maybe we're talking about finishing and you're going to work on, you know, you're going to make 25 floaters coming off of, you know, a change of pace where you're starting relaxed and then going to an explosive attack downhill, getting to a floater or maybe working on some other sort of finish, getting to a pro hop or getting to, you know, some sort of Euro or a two foot finish, all whatever the case may be. You need to have these things listed out so you can focus on them and you can say, okay, I have these five things that I'm doing today when I go to my workout and I know that there's a reason for it. So, hey, I put this thing in there because I got to focus on that. And now you're making sure that the time that you're spending on the court is actually valuable, right? It actually has some sort of worth to it because if you don't do that, then a lot of times you're just going there and just spending time doing nothing, accomplishing nothing. If you don't have a focus on what you're doing, can you account for every minute that you are working out? You should know, hey, there's a purpose on every single minute that I'm out here. Right? And if you can do that, then that's where you're going to make sure you get the most out of working out by yourself. And it's much more likely that you're going to spend your time working efficiently. And that means that you're probably going to see improvement, you're going to see results as opposed to the many players out there who don't go out there with a focus and just kind of spend time, get a sweat and then feel like they've accomplished something, when in reality, reality they haven't. So make sure that you're first of all going out there, understand the bigger picture of, okay, what do I need to get better at? And then on a smaller, a smaller scale, each individual workout, what is it that you're doing? Can you account for every minute that you're on the court? Five, six things that you're going to do Five, six drills that you're going to do whatever you want to split it up as. Do you know exactly what you're doing before you get there. Now that doesn't mean that you have to necessarily stick to that 100%. Maybe you start off and you say, hey, I want, I'm going to shoot 25 pull ups in the mid range coming from a stop. But maybe you get to 25 and you kind of feel like, you know what, I think I want to work on this a little bit more. So you move some things around, you skip something so you can do 50 instead of 25. Obviously being able to adjust on the fly, there's nothing wrong with that. But are you at least going there with some sort of plan in mind, some sort of focus in mind? That's a super important thing. So number one, and the first step to making sure that you're working out by yourself is actually helping you get better, is having a focus and going in there with a plan and knowing what it is that you're going to be doing. That's the most important thing to start off with. Number two is a concept that I think is really going to change so much for you as a player, if you can understand this, and that's that you need to chase improvement and not chase practice. So one of the biggest misconceptions out there is that the amount of time you practice, something matters, right? There's a 10,000 hour rule and where, if you don't know what that is, basically just means that if you do something for 10,000 hours, you're going to be a master at it. Right? And is that probably, is that, is there likely a correlation with that? A lot, of course, right? If you do something for 10,000 hours, you're probably going to be pretty good at it. But there's very, there's variation in that someone might spend 10,000 hours doing something and be in the top, you know, 0.1% at it, and somebody might do something for 10,000 hours and just be pretty good at it. You know, they're not. Everybody's going to be at that same exact level after those 10,000 hours. So what's the difference between the person who's the, you know, the, the master, the Expert, the top 0.1% and the person who's just pretty good. The difference is in what they actually did in those 10,000 hours, in the amount of improvement they actually saw. Because time means nothing. I've used this example before. If you're on a team, right, let's say you're working out all summer, all fall, and you're at all the team stuff, right? Let's say you're at all of your open gyms, all the summer league stuff, all. All the workouts, all the lifts. You're doing all that sort of stuff, doing extra whatever. When you get to the season and it's December, January, February, March, and you're trying to win games, the coaches aren't looking down the bench, you know, looking to make a sub and saying, oh, you know what? I think I'm going to sub that kid in because, you know, he worked out more hours in the off season. No, they're looking at the down the bench saying, who's going to help us win a game right now? And they're going to put that kid in. And no one cares about how many hours you just spent working on it. It doesn't matter what. What matters is how much can you produce right now. So we need to get away from this mindset that the amount of time you spend doing something matters. You can go work out for an hour and get way less out of it than somebody who worked out for 30 minutes. Because maybe you're just there to say, hey, I was there for an hour, got my work in, and that person who went for 30 minutes was chasing after actual improvement and got a lot more done, find a lot more value in that time than you did. So what do I mean by this? One of the main problems I see with players who work out by themselves is that there is no challenge. A lot of times they're just going out there and they're shooting shots that they're already pretty good at it. They're. They're doing things they're already pretty comfortable doing, and they're not expanding what they're doing at all. This is one of the reasons why working out with people is such a great thing, because you can make things competitive, you can make things live, and that forces you to raise your level a little bit in order to be successful. And another reason why it could be valuable to have a trainer, because they can force you to do the same thing. They can push you. So a lot of times it's not that you can't do that by yourself, but you have to have a certain amount of discipline to do that. A lot of times players will go out and they're just working on stuff that they're already good at because it's comfortable, because they're familiar with it, and they don't seek to challenge themselves. But if you don't challenge yourself, there's no reason for you to improve. I've talked about this a little bit the last couple of years, couple weeks. Especially if there's, if your brain doesn't have an obstacle that it says, hey, we need to improve to get better at this, there's not going to be improvement. It's like lifting weights, right? I've used this example a bunch over the last few weeks. If you go in and you lift, you go bench press, but you do a weight that you can comfortably do for eight reps and you never increase that weight week after week, you're not going to get stronger because why would you, why would your brain spend the physical energy to build muscle? And it gets stronger when it doesn't need to. It's the same thing when it comes to improving your skills. If you don't need to get better, you're not going to. So if you're going out doing stuff you're comfortable doing, then you're going to get stuck in a rut and you're going to plateau. And that's what happens to a lot of players who are working out by themselves. If you're, let's say you're doing spot up shooting and you're doing five shots at five spots. If you're making 20 out of 25 every time, you've got to find a way to make that more difficult or you're probably going to find yourself stuck there eventually. Let's say you get to 25 out of 25. Are you shooting 25 out of 25 in a game? No, you're probably not. So how can you start to improve? Because you can't shoot 26 out of 25. So what do you do to make those shots more challenging so that now you're bringing yourself to a new level? A simple way would be okay, maybe you're shooting high school threes, now you're shooting college threes, and now you're going to work yourself back to okay, can I get up to 20 again? And then once you do that, maybe you go back and now you shoot pro threes and okay, now I'm down to only making 16 and you work yourself back up to 20. Well, now you've gotten better at that skill because you've had to increase your range, it's become more difficult and that's improvement right there. But if you just allow yourself to stop after you've mastered a skill or done pretty good at a drill and you don't find a way to make it harder, then that improvement never happens. So that's a simple example of just, hey, moving back farther. And now I shoot and now I have to adapt, I have to get better. And now you're going to see improvement. Okay, so that's the mindset that you have to approach things with. This is called the Goldilocks Principle. Basically, in order for learning to occur, which all that getting better is, is learning. The same way that you learn your ABCs, you learn how to do long division in school, getting better at shooting, ball handling, finishing, it's all the same thing. You're just learning. In order to create an environment for learning, it needs to be not too difficult, but not too easy. Think about Goldilocks, right? Lays on the bed. One was too hard, one was too soft, one was just right. Sits in the chair. One was too tall, one was too short, one was just right, you know, drinks the porridge. One was too hot, one was too cold, one was just right. That's how our training needs to be. Can't be too hard where you're failing every single time you're shooting over 25 because you just aren't capable of, of making shots from wherever you're at or you're losing the ball every single time. We don't want that, but we also don't want the opposite of that, where you're just on autopilot making every single shot or making 80, 90, 95% of your shots, barely losing the ball ever. If things are too easy, then that also becomes a problem. So we've got to find a way to put ourselves in a position where we're succeeding 40 to 70% of the time. Okay. So what you need to do is evaluate your workouts. And if you are feeling really comfortable for 90% of your workouts, you gotta change something to make it harder. So what are some things that you can do to add challenge? Like we already kind of talked about, a simple way is just moving back farther when it comes to shooting. Also shooting, adding pressure to your shots. So saying, okay, for, you know, my threes, maybe instead of going five shots, five spots or five makes five spots around the three point line, maybe you have to make three in a row now to move to the next spot. So now there's pressure on each shot. Okay, you get to two makes, I've got to make this next one. And now we add a pressure element to it, which is something that you face in games, right? So that immediately makes that skill a little bit more difficult to execute because there's pressure involved with it now. Okay, so there's something that, that can be simple. You can add that into anything else that you do. Maybe let's say you're working on floaters, okay? And you're working on changing pace, so going from slow to fast, getting to a floater downhill. And maybe you say, okay, you were originally doing 10, makes 10 made floaters and you're good, but now you want to make it more difficult. So you say, all right, I'm going to make two in a row and then when I make two in a row, I have to make just a catch and shoot three. And then that counts as a set and I've got to get four sets. So now there's pressure on every shot. There's pressure on that second floater, there's pressure on that catch and shoot three. And again, you're challenging yourself a little bit more than you would be if you were just going for 10 and kind of being able to mindlessly go through it with no pressure. So just adding pressure elements to your workouts is a great way to get yourself out of autopilot and immediately make it a little bit more difficult. Because if you're on autopilot, meaning you're thinking about, you know, your homework that you have, you're thinking about what you're going to do after the workout. You're thinking about, you know, that, that you know, podcast you just listen to, you're thinking about that movie you just watched all while you're doing your drills. You, you're probably not getting better because your brain isn't entrenched in the task. By adding pressure, you force yourself to be there, to be present, to be focused on what's going on. And that's really, really valuable. So just adding pressure to your shots can be big. And again, you can do that in any sort of way. You've got to make two, two dribble pull ups in a row in the mid range and then you've got to make a catch and shoot for that set to count and you got to make five sets. Super simple way to make things more challenging for you. Failure inducing drills. So chasing after failure a little bit more, changing something that's going to make it so you're probably going to miss more. So making your feet weird on your catch and shoots. Now, now you got to overcome that, making it so that, you know, let's say you are sprinting into your shots now, right? Like you're like out of control. Maybe you bounce the ball and you have to wait until it bounces once, and then you've got to immediately run and get it before bounces a second time and shoot your shot as quick as you can. I just posted a workout that went through some of this stuff if you're by yourself shooting, so go check my channel. Literally just posted that a couple days ago. Just a solo workout that you can add, and it's a bunch of stuff in it that adds challenge to your shot. So go check that out for, like, examples of all this sort of stuff, you know, for finishing. It's like working on stuff that's a little bit more challenging than you normally would. So maybe you have to shoot the ball, Maybe you're shooting layups, but they have to touch above the square. So you're working on getting up high on your layups, having touch up high on your layups. Maybe you have to shoot layups, but they have to touch outside of the square, like on the, you know, towards the side of the backboard now. So you're really working on your touch, ability to put spin on the ball, whatever. Maybe you're working on your floaters, but you. You only count floaters where it's a swish, so you can't. Can't hit the rim at all. So you're working on how precise you are on it, which is going to challenge you to be better. You're going to have to focus a little bit more, and there's a way we can add challenge to that. And, you know, this is just like, those are all just ways to improve and to make things more difficult. Right. And there's a lot of other things that we can do when it comes to, like, ball handling, for example. You know, I've talked about crawl starts all the time, but basically, I'm just trying to go as fast as I can. And my goal is to find. My goal is to put myself in a position where, like, I'm on the borderline of losing the ball at all times. Right? Especially depending on the drill. So you've got to find ways to make yourself a little bit more uncomfortable, put a little bit more pressure on yourself, and this is how you actually improve. This is where we see improvement. Start to judge your workouts by how challenging they are and not by how long you're actually there for. Right? Time doesn't matter. Stop basing it on how many times, how many makes you had, on how many misses you had, on how good you feel about it. Focus and. And base your thought on your workout base, and judge your workouts based on, you know, the level of improvement that we had, which comes from the level of challenging. Was it a challenging workout? Did you push yourself? Did you feel pressured? You feel a little bit stressed? That's good. That's what you want. If you want to develop at a rate way faster than everybody else, you need to focus on chasing improvement and not chasing after practice or chasing after time that you spend with with the basketball in your hands. When you're constantly striving to push the envelope, challenge yourself to meet a new demand that you set for yourself. You're going to make more progress than all the other players who are out there just practicing and just there to be there. And when you can do that, that's how you actually get better and that's how you develop at a rate that people are going to look at you and be like, why is it that you're making this progress? And it's because you're there to improve and you're not there just to practice. Make that mindset shift and it's going to completely transform the way that you develop and it'll really allow you to take control over your development as a whole. If you guys want step by step workout workout plans that will help you to be able to have something to do when you're by yourself, make sure you guys check out my programs down below, my ball handling program, shooting program, the perimeter score system, where it will give you guys all stuff that we've kind of talked about today. Ways to challenge yourself, but really give yourself that focus to move forward with. So if you guys are interested in that, check that out. Obviously, if not, I've got a ton of workouts on my channel, so go check those out as well. If you guys just want ideas of what to do, do. End of the day, guys, focus on challenging yourself when you're by yourself. Make it difficult, add pressure to things and you're going to see progress. And that's how you really make the most out of working out by yourself. If you guys enjoyed this, drop a like subscribe, Leave a comment, let me know what you think. Make sure you click the link in my description below to get my free leap perimeter score workout. I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace.