Will YOU Be Ready? - Part II

I know my entries of late seem to have an overwhelming negative slant to them rather than a positive one and they continue to be on the same topic over & over again…improvement in the off-season (or shoes). Which should be a hint. I guess I am trying in a very subtle way to get some of you into the gym (without much success I might add).

I know the type of schedule we have before us next season and know that we need work (a lot of work) in order to conquer that schedule and the available time before Volleyball & Soccer take over is quickly disappearing.

To give you an idea of our schedule, in the first 13 days of the season, we have six games and only two practices during that timeframe. Who will we be playing in those first six games? Central (Conference Champs), Aletheia (#2 in conference), Emmanuel, Maranatha, Rutherford and RF Munroe.

Make no mistake, Central & Aletheia will be coming into our house and they will be MOTIVATED to win.
I know their coach well enough to know that he’ll have them worked into a frenzy trying to prove that they BEAT us rather than us losing because we were missing key players due to illness or injury. You can throw out all of the mental advantage we’ve had over them for the past five years of East Conference domination over the West. Now that they’ve finished #1 & #2 over the East, they no longer “think” they can beat us, they now “know” they can beat us – and it WILL be a battle. Winning gives birth to determination and determination grows into success.


Then we have Rutherford who beat us by 7 points and then we beat them by 4 points. That’s a pretty close margin for two games. It will be another battle. And to make matters worse, the very next night we play RF Munroe. Who is RF Munroe? They were ranked #11 in the State last season in 1A. Enough said.

So, will going to the gym and working out be enough?

No, going to the gym and “working out” isn’t enough. It’s easy to tell when someone is working out, but how can you tell when they’re making progress? Let’s think about it in different terms, let’s say like mowing a lawn or washing a car. Both have transparent progress, meaning that as the work is progressing, the result is visible to everyone. But with complex work such as building your ball handling skills or improving your shooting mechanics for better consistency, it is a little harder to identify true progress in a relatively short amount of time.

If you base your progress on how many shots you take or maybe how many hours you spend shooting, that is a poor measurement of improvement, since that only measures activity and not progress. You’ll need time and repetition of the proper mechanics in order to see noticeable improvement.

Before each workout you need to set target goals for the day and then afterward, you need to ask yourself the following questions in order to measure your progress.

Measuring your efforts:
 Did the work I did today significantly contribute to my goals?
 How did it help me get closer to those goals? (be specific)
 How large a contribution was it? (Did it get me 5% closer to the goal? 50%?)
 Did I use proper mechanics or did I just go through the motions?
 Do I need to adjust the workout to be more efficient in a particular area?
 Did I set the goals too high?
 Honestly ask yourself - what do I need more work on?

Will YOU be ready when the season starts?


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