Overcoaching kills self-organization. The nervous system doesn’t learn through instructions, it learns through experience. Motor learning is implicit, not verbal. Sure, you can manage & solve the problems for them, but every time you do, you steal a rep from their brain.

Overcoaching is the biggest blindspot wreaking havoc on our kids development. Coaches overcoach because: 1) It looks productive. 2) Parents expect endless visible instruction. 3) Social media rewards complexity. Development is slow. Messy. Real coaching requires restraint.

THREAD: When I coached football at DeKalb, my stipend check arrived every two weeks. For $99. Not per day. Not per practice. Per pay period. One season as a freshman basketball coach brought a grand total of $1,000. For an entire season. Today, as a varsity basketball

Imagine trying to teach someone to swim by pulling them out of the water and giving them a PowerPoint presentation. This sounds ridiculous, but we do this all the time with mental training. We “talk” mindset, but then we’re frustrated when players aren’t executing under

Great stuff here. Practice should be harder than the game. The more variability we introduce into training, the more prepared a hitter is for a game that is truly unpredictable. Velocity changes. Shapes change. Locations change. Sequencing changes. The environment is

Chances of your child becoming a pro-athlete: less than .015% Chances of your child standing before the Lord one day: 100% Make sure you prioritize the right things with your kids.

Let’s talk about the culture of “drills” and how I think many are misguided: So what is the end goal of this drill? It’s to get your OL to be able to brace back off their gallop step when a DL slants away. So we are trying to train a “perceive and react” type of drill. But

New study. 8 weeks of dual-task training in U16 football players. Adding cognitive challenges during physical drills improved speed, agility, working memory, processing speed, AND technical skills. Simultaneously. Training the body without the brain is leaving half the athlete

Most youth coaching sessions prepare players for a game that doesn’t exist. Lines. Unopposed drills. Technique before understanding. But the real game is messy, chaotic and full of decisions. Here’s why the best coaches design sessions differently 🧵

If your QB's brain training is an iPad on the couch, you're training the wrong brain. New research: movement based cognitive training produces more significant brain activity changes than passive computer alternatives. Train the brain that moves.

this is why reading is the best. Someone in 1970 figured out feedback during movement is useless and 60 years later it’s still the predominant model of “coaching” If they had picked up a book maybe they wouldn’t rely on archaic methods

Repetition without repetition.

New study: U16 athletes did 10 to 15 minutes of dual-task training, 3 times a week for 8 weeks. Processing speed improved. Working memory improved. Response time improved. Speed and agility improved. Technical skills improved. All of them. At the same time. Why is anyone still

If we recognize the benefit of physical activity and play for kids with behavioral issues and give them more of it, why don’t we have more physical activity for every kid in school. I am pretty certain no one has died from a lack of math! 🧐

“The play shapes the mechanics, not the other way around.”

I texted a coach this morning and asked how the new job was going after about a month. His response was one I’ve heard many times… and lived myself: “Not bad. Some kids pushing back culture wise. Always worried about staff and numbers.” If you go into a program and start

I'm in full agreement with Andrew on this one. Practice time is precious. Don't waste it on things that have no real bearing on development. Movement should be based on the same KEYS and CUES that the player sees in the game. We're looking to gain "Unconscious Competence" in

A lot of coaches don’t realize they’re actually educators. That their “job” goes beyond X’s and O’s. Kids should be learning values and systems that transcend the field. The best thing I ever did in BASEBALL was start a book club. Hundreds of kids reading and coming together