Building a Solo Workout

Welcome to the Coach Dave Love Podcast with NBA Shooting Coach Dave Love and your host, Matt Robertson. Exploring the cutting edge of evidence-based shooting development in basketball today, from shooting form to skill acquisition to shot metrics. This is the Coach Dave Love Podcast. Welcome to the Coach Dave Love Podcast. I am your host, Matt Robertson, coming at you in a new year with me as always, NBA Shooting Coach Dave Love. Dave, where in the world are you right now? I am currently in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I usually right after new years. I do about three or maybe four days on some years of clinics up here who have a great relationship with the people at Edmonton Youth Basketball. The last two days were sold out at 70 players per clinic. Tomorrow is their first day back in games as well. We only have 45 signed up for tomorrow just because they were conflicts and then head home. January is a good grind, but how was your Christmas new year's all of that should be? I think it was great. A little fellas first Christmas, he's still has no idea what's going on, trying to get him to tear paper and he's just like, "Boxes are awesome!" And also my favorite toys are still my favorite toys. My household family came over, I trained a bunch, it was a good, really good run. Really like in the thick of basketball right now, personally. And then our university team just got back today, which is the third, I think today is the third. So I had our first practice today. So it's a good basketball stretch. Life is good. Life's great, man. Honestly, I'm a little tired and run down and that's okay. My voice is timbrey today, so I. I guess I never utilize my massive nose to speak, but then I don't even have the option to utilize it even the tiny little bit that I normally do, or do I overutilize my massive nose, which I underutilize it normally, but I save Norris now. Gentle, be kind. Be kind. It's a massive nose, I have a large, large nose. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to yourself. We have the same nose. Anyways, so happy anniversary, buddy. Yeah, we did it. Yeah, this is one year anniversary. This will be, I think episode number 53. And so do you want to do a quick state of the union for the people that might be the least bit interested in that? Absolutely. For the people I asked for paper for this anniversary and Dave said no. So you get there in the past that's where the first anniversary is oxygen. Oh, you listen, it's important. Yeah, state of the union. So 52 episodes completed in 2024. We had at least 15 guests ranging from professionals overseas, professionals locally skill acquisition, geniuses to local coaches and you never, D1 assistant coach, graduate assistants and assistant coaches, like a varied group of guests, very group of topics. We definitely have some Redux to do on a number of the topics, which is exciting. Yeah. Yeah. And that's that's what I think I'm most excited about is it just normalizing that like I'm in this next year. We're going to go back and say like I disagree with myself from from last year. I've every time somebody brings up, hey, I saw a video of yours on YouTube. I'm like, oh, I hope I agree with what I said. And, and I think most people is kind of Chris Oliver referred to like most people avoid that. And we want to normalize that with the podcast of like, hey, you should be working to improve as a coach. And as you work to improve as a coach, you might end up changing your line of thinking about different things. And that's a good thing. It's like when I say to players at clinics today, like I said, raise your hand if you've like I got them to take video of themselves and said raise your hand if you saw a habit that you didn't realize you have in this video. And all they all cut timidly put up their hand. I'm like, no, this is a good thing. How are you going to get better unless you know what to work on? And all of a sudden, you now know what to work on. And we look at that as a negative thing. And it's not. So over this next year, we're going to kind of modify some of the episodes and say, like, all right, here's what we would have taught 18 months ago. And here's how I've grown as a coach. And here's how we're thinking about this a little bit differently, but that's that's not today's topic. No, it's a very it is very modern. No, where growth is the mindset and it's not me being a flip flopper. It's not you. It's just straight on growth and willingness to accept that the thing I was doing, even though I really felt strongly about that, maybe wasn't optimal. And this new thing that I think is more optimal, I feel very strongly about also, it just happens to fly in the face of the thing I was doing before. I think it's super healthy. I hope so. So yeah, we it's been a great year. We had over 20,000 listens. And that's not including any of the YouTube content. So thank you very much to the people. As the voice of the people, thank you to the people, forgiving us a reason to keep touching in every week, because that's a lot of fun for me. Yeah, we yeah, as you say, 22,000 total listens. On Spotify, our most listened podcast would be the episode five, my non-negotiables at 600 plus listens. But that's just the Spotify number for that. And we as I tried to dive a little deeper into it, there were some episodes that have like a couple thousand listens. And so that's that's fun. And ultimately we we've talked about it, you and I that we don't really care like what the number is. Hopefully we're just helping the people that come back regularly and and thus demonstrate that they want a little help. They want they find this fulfilling. So those are our people. And I'm pretty happy with I got to talk to talk to my buddy Matt once a week, which uh, it wasn't happening before we started doing this. So awesome dozens and dozens of listeners we love having you. Dave, the the other milestone of the year was there was at one point this year for two days where we were in the top 20 basketball podcasts in North America for two days. And then we were dressed to the to the mean pretty heavily. However, hold on tight to that. Um, very exciting stuff. I'm shocked by that given like how many players now are like former players or current players are like if you're a fan and there's a lot more fans than there are coaches, then then that's probably the stuff that you want to hear the stories and you want to hear the opinions of those people and I uh, our demographic I'm sure is a lot smaller than than that. And that's just fine. But I'm shocked that we ever got anywhere near that number, even if it was just for two days. I don't know how chartables calculates that but regardless by their metric, I list two podcasts called we're here to help with with Jake Johnson from New Girl. And he says, uh, number one podcast in America. Don't look it up. So that's, uh, oh yeah, referring to his podcast is, but don't actually confirm whether what I, look it up. Yeah. I love it. Okay. So today's episode is a little different because I get to kind of take the wheel and I'm being vulnerable today and I'm being a little nervous today. And the topic of today's episode is if you are a player or a coach who has a player who's a load of the gym and just trying to get better, what does that look like? And for me, in my current journey, uh, back to very semi-freshable basketball, um, doing workouts by myself is sort of a requirement because there's nobody else, um, that has my schedule, nobody else around that that's able to do this with me. So I'm going to give Dave my workout. Um, we're going to start with the question that we always start with, which is what is the purpose and everything we'll should reflect back to that. And then Dave is going to critique slash destroy slash improve, uh, my workout. And this is great for coaches to learn kind of, uh, and what I'd love to add to this match is, um, can we talk about like, is you describe what you, what you've been doing? Can you also kind of describe what you would have done? Oh, you're a half ago. Absolutely. Like, let's not focus too much on that because I think regular listeners have have an idea of the, the basic things we're trying to avoid, but maybe we spend like 15 seconds, which are really good to be concise and, uh, and succinct to brown ideas. So we'll, we'll be concise around. We, you might have done this here, but we're moving on. We're doing this and then are there little adjustments that I might suggest? to make that potentially even a little bit better. So awesome. So Dave, I walk into the gym by myself. No music, no headphones. We're just happy place, me and the gym. The purpose of my workouts has been something that, before I got started, I did some soul searching and said, what is the purpose? It's a very Dave love question. I would never have done this 18 months ago. The purpose of these workouts, cardio is really important to me. Getting confidence back is really important to me. And feeling comfortable releasing the ball from the edge of my balance, from a pace perspective, like as far as I can push that balance, from a pace perspective, I want to be comfortable at that pace. Can you describe, Matt, before you go on a further kind of, what, like you shot 100 free throws in the net, BGM, how many would you make? Last time you played professionally, how long ago was it, how good of a cue to wear you? The people a little bit of information about where you were and how long it's been since you've been there. Great question. So to go back to 2006, 2011, I played Division II Canadian basketball. So small college, I played the four a lot and could shoot the ball really well. I had a great coach who was my Christian coach in college and became a heat, turned me into a third-point shooter. I played professionally for three years, from 2012 to 2014. So for the mathematicians out there, that ended a cool decade ago, which is a terrifying thing to say. Very much time. You continued to get older. Father time, undefeated, turns out. And always have been in reasonably good shape. Have kept pretty trim and kept in pretty good shape. But it turns out Dave, that 36-year-old pretty good human shape is not professional basketball shape. I don't know if you know that or not. I can also let you know 50-year-old regular person shape is not anywhere near 40-year-old regular person shape. Yeah, that. So OK. Empty gym, 100 free throws. How many do you make? And what, like, give you as a professional basketball player, what kind of three-point percentage do you figure you had? Yeah, so 2015, if you put me alone to the gym, I'm probably hitting 90 to 95 free throws of 100 at that point in time. Empty gym, 103s. I'm probably hitting 75 at that point in time, although to be very honest, that was not a good professional basketball player. Defending anyone is a challenge at my foot speed. But my values as a floor spacer, I was just a little early. So given my limited playing time, my 3-point percentage as a pro is probably around 30%. But it's like one attempt to game, two attempts to game over the course of three seasons where I might have played in 70 of 152 games. So that doesn't necessarily reflect my shooting ability. But given my lack of other skill sets, the fact that I was able to live there for three years means that I could shoot the basketball. That's just simple. That's the only note in my scouting port. I'm 6'6", I'm a little tough, I shoot 3s, and that is all. All right. So now you're coming back. And you expect what to be your role. And these are these-- like, I'm asking this because these are the kind of questions I would be asking a player as I'm starting to get to know them. Usually most of the players I'm working with, I can look up their stats. But I kind of want to see what their opinions are of themselves and dig a little bit deeper than just what the number on basketball references. So what do you have going on? What is the plan for the role? Yeah. So painful self-awareness is the starting point. So the league that I played in in 2012 or 2013 to 2015 was the NBL Canada, which was at the time two Canadians and 10 Americans, most of which were about G-League level. At that time, the salary in the G-League was not what it is today. So we were really competitive and have a number of players kind of go up and down every season to G-League. So that was kind of the level. This is a little lower than that. There's going to be probably seven Canadians on a roster, four of which are local. We live in a city of 180,000 people, so take for that what you will. My role is likely going to be 12 to 15 minutes of game, mad floor spacer, and coach will likely be scheming around my defensive liabilities is sort of the space. But again, value in a floor spacer where my guy, my gravity score is going to be way higher than the super athlete who's not a great shooter on the other side of the floor, but is going to begin to the rim and dunking on fools probably. So that's right. What I'm hearing from this so far, and correct me if I've got this wrong, is that probably no big significant mechanical changes to the way that you shoot it necessary. You found a way that you can replicate and adjust and have success with. But it's been a while since you played at this level. And so game like reps and conditioning are a little bit more of the focus. That's correct. And my issues stem from it. Again, this has sort of been pretty static throughout my career. As I get to the top end of my respiratory capability, so around 160 or cardiac 160 beats a minute or so, I start to get lazy and my thumb starts to creep towards the rest of my hand and I no longer have control coming up through the set point. So that's sort of the issue that is presenting. And again, better cardio will allow me to shoot with better mechanics for longer. And also being aware of my fault focusing on that once we get into that place also, also kind of a focus. And I think that is so important even for elite shooters. It's like I just I talk with on the teams that I work for still talk with the better shooters, even though I'm not working with them, just so I can like ask questions. Just so I understand what they do well when they shoot well. And then be able to offer an opinion on when they become a human being again, and they struggle, that what do I see? That might be different. And then what's historically have they discovered that they might do like I get tired of my hand, gets a little bit lazy, that they might forget. Like I just know how hard it is for me on the golf course to remember the, okay, what causes me to slice it? What do I, like what has helped me not slice the bulb in the past when I've corrected that? What was that thing that last year? What was that? So I think that's really, really valuable that you've discovered that even as a good shooter that, hey, as the game goes on, if I miss a couple in a row, this is the first thing that I'm going to be checking. Yeah, there's like two or three things in my checklist that, so if I struggle and we have halftime, I'm coming after halftime and warming up, I'm like, I'm checking these two or three things up my list to be able to get back to a place where I'm as confident as possible. And oftentimes the, the game pace and the game feels correct. A lot of that overthinking and a lot of that, a lot of those issues, but to be aware. And so honestly, like Dave, when I start my workout, so I do the what's the purpose the piece. And I do isolation drill. First thing, for a bunch of different spots close for about three or four minutes, just to get that feeling of where that thumb should be on the basketball, where I'm balanced and perfect to remind myself, this is the feeling of that. I wasn't necessarily doing that 18 months ago. It was more of a traditional slow shooting closer to the hoop as you left to, as you left to say. That's something that I do now every time because it just that feeling is really important to me, especially when maybe I miss a couple in a row and it just doesn't feel quite right coming up. Okay, my first thought is for a shooter of your level, I went necessarily, you can do isolation drill, which for people that might be listening, essentially start the ball at the set point, hold that position without the guide hadn't touched the ball and make that short, efficient move from your set point through your release. Like it's the most form shooting, form shooting drill that I do. And if you're going to do it, I would only do it for your mental comfort early on in the workout. If you're going to do it to remind yourself of the feeling, I would do it at the end of the workout when you're a little bit more tired. If that's the thing that's causing you to, like, fatigue causes you to make the mistake. Give yourself a reminder while you're fatigued, but even still I would move on. I don't think there's a lot of value and isolation drilled but besides the warm fuzzy feelings. I don't think there's a lot of development in there, so I would move to a more holistic shot as quickly as you can in that warm up. So 5 or 10 reps or whatever you need. Yeah, or if it's early in the morning or it's cold out, something doesn't feel right today. You give it a little bit more, but if it's a warm and fuzzy thing, as I say, the four of you, like it's a security blanket, then okay, cool. That's fine. But I don't think it's a valuable development drill for somebody at your level. So for context for the people, I've been playing for a decade since then, but it's like a one-a-week you know, or twice a week or a turn of many year or whatever. So the volume just hasn't been there to feel great all the time. And so you're right, warm and fuzzy is exactly what that makes me feel. After that as part of the warm up, I do, I call it footwork shooting and it just literally is spin-outs and a curl middle mid-range and curl baseline mid-range. So going right and left at about three-quarter speed just till I get my body up to pace and get a little bit of a glow on. Okay, so we're kind of doing like an elbow to baseline elbow to baseline elbow to elbow to elbow to elbow other side repeat this guy. Gang our heart rate up. Full shooting motion, no task decomposed drills, some variability, some heart rate up. Yeah, okay, good. And again, just like you may have different situations where you make slightly different little mistakes. Like it's hard for me to get, I notice, righties don't square up going right as well as they do go and left. And so if that's a thing for you, then you know, okay, in this situation, I just got to remind myself of that. In this, that situation, the reminder needs to be here when I get tired, it's got to be thumb wide. So the other part is this is again, it is kind of a warm and fuzzy one because those are not shots I'm really taking. Like if I'm taking mid-range shots, something is going wrong in our set. One of my players asked me, when do you work on your dribble moves? And I say, dribble moves are not a thing that I have in the bag because if I'm making any dribble moves that's beyond a one dribble slide pull up or two dribbles directly to the hole, we are in a very poor place. Right, right. And that's such a great lesson for that young player to learn is like, yeah, work on your bag. Like work on and create, but your bag is pretty well determined. Your role is pretty defined. And so we're be good at what's the old expression people are using a lot that I love. Be great at the thing you're good at. I like that. And yeah, like I'm going to do this eight times a day, a game, and I'm never going to do that. So why am I working on that? Ever. Not once, not in 80 games, if in 80 games season, not once am I making a hesitation cross cross. And again, if that happens, the other room I'm going to work for the ground on Spotify, Apple Dave just gave the clear out motion with his arms. Never am I attacking anyone off the dribble except in a very dracical situation. Okay, end of the warm up is literally corner to corner threes. So take a three from the corner chase my revenge. It's the other corner. Take a three, not really focusing on footwork too much again. This is like the last of the getting warm and getting the heart rate up before I actually start my workout. How many minutes into it are we at this point? We're probably five minutes into it. And this is about five minutes to the point where I'm like, hey, BPMs like 130 140. So I'm like in a sweat. And I feel good now. It's time to like really get down to business too long. Okay. And then what kind of shooting percentage are we at? Like if you were to or are you striving to be around? I'm guessing like you're your disappoint because you're 5% lower than than you're kind of expecting to I'm expect this can be you. Well, last year would have been or 10 years ago. It would have been 80%. But now it's 20. I don't know. It's probably 60 to 65. It's probably closer to 50 right now. And it needs to be closer to 60 65 to be honest at the pace that I'm moving at in those in those situations. It's probably close to 50 and maybe a little higher, but not not a lot higher. Yeah. And that kind of the thing that I want to continue to emphasize to people is a great shooting workout doesn't look like shooting. I an outrageously high percentage a perfect if there were a perfect workout that is not not missing a shot. Perfect workout is spending a poop ton of time in the challenge point where you are missing probably half of your shots. And so Matt's talking about his warm up. I don't mind it being 60 65% at that point. But if if you were saying, hey, my warm up, I'm shooting 80, 85. I'd go really up your warm up might be able to be a little more challenging. For sure. So Dave, this is kind of the meat of do you want to take a quick break actually before we get into the meat of the workout? Let's do that. We'll be back after this. Hey, basketball fans, Coach Dave Love here with an exclusive offer just for you, my personalized video shot analysis. Imagine having an NBA shooting coach analyze your shooting form just like I do for the pros. That's exactly what you'll get with my video shot analysis. Here's how it works. You send me a video of your shot and I'll break it down frame by frame. I'll pinpoint your strengths and identify the areas of improvement and give you tailored advice to take your shot to the next level. You'll receive a comprehensive analysis designed just for you. Whether you're a beginner or an aspiring pro, my feedback will help you shoot with confidence and precision. It isn't just feedback is a game changer with my video shot analysis. You're not just practicing, you're evolving and every single shot counts ready to transform your game? Visit coachdavelove.com/store to learn more and get started. That's coachdavelove.com/store and look for video shot analysis. All right, welcome back. Coach Dave, anything in there that you want to emphasize in a little ATO here. For new listeners what we do in ATO is we have a timeout and after the timeout we drop a play for just an ATO and Dave needs to give a concise look at an important thing in the last segment. Dave, you have anything I know we haven't really covered a time. The biggest thing is just the the purpose behind like why Matt has reliable shooting mechanics. So that's not the purpose of his workout. His workout is to improve his cardio and to get into game situations. And so make sure for every every time you're on the floor to find what that is, that purpose is for you and it might be different from player to player. Crush it. Awesome. I love that. So Dave, first drill again, we're by ourselves. We have to be a little creative not only to make it effective but also to keep it fun and interesting. So my first actual real drill and then I'll give you the purpose for this is I call it wall ball and I will start in the baseline and I will underhand like chuck the ball off the wall with as much spin as possible. I have to sprint out to the three point line and catch it at a sprint on balance and raise up and take a take a jumper. The purpose of this is to be as as balanced as possible at as fast a pace as I can manage to get into that because never will they taking the rarely will I be taking that shot in a game. However, if it's 20% less pace, it would be really comfortable if I'm able to make a reasonable amount of a bucket to that pace. I love your thinking. Again, with a player of your level, I would be right into what are the general habits that people can be working on everybody, including the best shooters can be working on being balanced in hard situations. And so I love that you're using your the pace. I'm loving that you're getting creative about figuring out how to incorporate a pass. We could just spin the ball out to ourselves, but that's going to end up being like the perfect pass every single time. And then it's really freaking hard to throw yourself a realistically bad pass and make that real it. Like you can throw some horrendous passes and you can ride it through some bad passes that end up being pretty good. but it's really hard to find the outer edges of the sandbox, especially by yourself. And I think that throwing it against the wall, how much space are we talking about between the baseline and the wall? - So it's pretty close. It's about three or four feet. So I'm standing on the court side of the baseline. And so if I really hook it, I have to move to get it to the three point line 'cause it's gonna land and spin. And I need to be there on balance, good for work to catch to put it up. - So essentially you flipped the court where like the imaginary court is on the wall side and the backboard is in the front side of the rim and you're shooting from the court. Like the real court on your court in this imaginary situation is out of bounds. - Oh yeah, that's right. - Well the last is coming out of bounds. In this imaginary situation is actually the court that you'd be sprinting to the left corner is actually you sprinting to the right corner in this. Like and it's like good for you for figuring out how to be creative. If you had somebody to like this one is very, very obvious but I think this will be valuable for us to do within this exercise. If you had somebody there with you, obviously they'd be making the pass and I think we can clearly see what adjustments you made. Well, it's death rowing the ball against the wall. This person would be standing about where a pass would be typically made from and Matt would still be making the same kind of move out to the corner. So where's you're trying to add variability by throwing it with different spins against the wall? Is that what I'm understanding? - Different spins against the wall. Different spots on the court trying to make it come off at different angles. So I have further to cover at pace. And again, that's not particularly realistic because there's never gonna be a situation where I start at the your free-throw-line marker on one side and have to sprint out to the 45 at a full sprint and catch and balance and shoot. That's not a cut at a pace I'm gonna be making. But that's not the point. The point is to be as balanced as possible in that situation because for my thinking Dave, I played one high level tournament every year. And the first quarter of the first game, I always am a terrible shooter because my brain and my body is not at the pace that I needed to be at. - Right, right. And what I think the mistake that a lot of people make is that they focus almost entirely on by their habits or more commonly situations, the game situations, that, okay, what are we doing? We're gonna start at the break and we're gonna drift to the baseline and catch and shoot. And, okay, that becomes the focus, that situation or they work on a particular habit. But the value becomes entying those two together. You don't really have the kind of habits that need a lot of focus. And then you're limited by your situation on being able to apply this into a realistic game situation. But you're getting creative to say, "All right, I'm working on my balance in a situation that might not be in a ton, but just so I can find the challenge in this particular drill otherwise like why am I here?" So I applaud you for that. - Oh, thank you. So this drill becomes challenging very quickly at that pace. And once I get above, again, about 160 beats a minute, I feel the mechanics are to go. And I try to stay there for, until I start to miss three or four in a row. And then I take a step back and do one of two things. One is I'll do corner footwork shooting where I spin out the basketball. And again, two sprint steps in half to rotate my body that I'm coming in at a direct sprint and rotate some square with the hoop. It's just really focusing on my footwork at pace without having to sprint all the way across the court, like in the wall, the wall pass drill. And just really focusing on my footwork and balance in that corner situation. Because that is a more realistic place where, you know, we're on the fast break. We're really out in the break. And I'm never cut into the rim. I'm always going to the corner because somebody has to come with me. So to be able to catch in that spot with good footwork, with good pace and good balance is paramount. - What variations of footwork do you use or do you vary it at all? - Yeah, great question. So I like every other right-hand shooter struggle going right. So on the right side of the floor, when I'm sprinting, I have to go outside inside footwork and land baseline foot first to be as square and as balanced as possible. I still try and work on the one two inside outside. So closest to half court foot first, left foot first, right foot second. But I just find I end up fading. I end up, I'm not perfectly square. So I find sprinting down the right side of the court, the most effective footwork is, right foot, left foot. So baseline first to be balanced and stable. And it's a little harder on the body to get to that from a sprint, but it's a better shooting motion. It's more balance shot. - I would encourage you try to, in this kind of situation. So you're talking like, everything is a sprint to the corner. - Yeah, so it's like a two or three step sprint. It's not like a starting at half court and sprinting down. - I would give yourself like one of those. And then I'd move inside the three point line and like space out to the corner. - Oh. - And then so you've got like one coming off it inside foot outside foot or pivot. The next one still starts inside the three point line. Sprint out with an outside foot inside foot, reverse pivot. Maybe mix in a hop if that would ever happen at all. Like even just if it's like pass gets deflected, your feet were now ahead of the pass actually arriving. And you just say you had to kind of, so I'd add more variability rather than keep doing the same one each time, especially for somebody of your level, I would say like, no, give a different angle of cut in a different footwork each time. And make the challenge in that way. - So the second variation again, just so still working and still trying to push pace, but trying to bring my heart rate down just a little bit is I will literally stand with the basketball and do the footwork like I'm coming off a curl and fading to the corner. And again, add as much pace as I can muster and then bring it from a catch point, which again, it's not super realistic, but it's the closest that we can get while alone in the gym and again, working on the footwork where heart sprint step up to the 45 and all you cheated over. So I'm fading to the corner balance, but holding the basketball the whole time. - That's good for you, that's really creative. And I'd love like, it sounds like I want to make sure that because I have the luxury of seeing what you're doing as you're describing it, you've got the basketball on your hand, let's imagine like starting a curl and then flaring out, you would have the basketball in your hand that whole time. And then very like, let's imagine I caught the ball here and like over top of my head, over top of my shoulder and I've got ripped to the other side or over there and I got to be able to get here. You're, I think that's a really creative solution and then I'm guessing you probably do this because it's far less creative. Just if you can figure out how to spin the ball to yourself. Yours in some ways might be more challenging and the spin out might end up just kind of leading you to the perfect pass every single time, which is I think what you're trying to avoid doing. - That's kind of accurate. - Absolutely accurate. I will admit, I feel like I look crazy, like I look stupid when I do it and admittedly I'm hesitant if there's other people working out in the gym to do this particular drill, which is dumb because I know it's, I know for me it's valuable and I still feel self-conscious because it is a creative approach, you know? - Can you, can you even like, I haven't done this before but I think there's value in something like this. Like, okay, you've got the ball over top of your left shoulder as a right hand or should are simulating a bad pass there and then can you do something to simulate actually catching the ball? Like can you flip it out of your hands and have to grab it? Again, can you punch it out of your own hands and then like to like add a little chaos to the catch part which you're trying to simulate chaos in. Yeah, just I'm listening, I'm like, I wonder if you could try that and it might be something that you do like 10 times and you're like After a couple of days, I might be able to kind of simulate this in a weird way or it might you might be chaos for the sake of chaos Or it might actually be a little valuable. So I love this. I love this. It's just an extra little wrinkle that will add some challenge And again at the stage of my career I really need to push the challenge in the workouts because I never You asked me previously what I would have done and the answer is a million spots or like star drill where I'm just I'm five spots and I'm getting sprints between each spot And I'm getting reps up and try to vary the footwork, but that's I'm trying to stay away from that as much as possible Good for you Mormon fuzzies, you know, yeah, and and so as I'm trying to think of the creative Side of this what what I'm kind of going to next is like Okay, this is ridiculous. You already feel like what you're doing is ridiculous and I'm about to make it worst Who do you bounce the ball off your own shoulder or Off your own head and who knows where it's gonna go or and and then like I like it listen. Yeah, like something worth trying Yeah, and it like even as we're saying this we're both smiling um, so just describing it and challenging ourselves and our thinking has made us has made it more fun um And and ultimately that's like That's what we should be searching for not the fun, but games are fun make it game like that will make it more enjoyable because there's more challenge to it and especially again as I keep saying Especially at your level you're not a guy who is a 50% free throw shooter that is trying to relearn how to shoot the basketball Your you have a workable solution. You need to be practicing into challenging way No, I really like that Dave. Thank you for that. That is kind of something I'd next in. I will let you know how that goes Yeah, in an episode alone So so those are sort of my two very Variations to get my heart rate still be working at pace but bringing my heart rate down And then I'll go back to wall drill a couple of times and we'll do that variation Shoot some free throws have a drink and then I literally am doing full court shooting where um start in the baseline Full sprint as much as possible get to the ups the three point line shoot a three get a rebound five down and backs and trying to hit five out of ten um and then running the difference like Just that's just general cardio and I don't know if you have a so if you have a suggestion for better Full court cardio that includes some shooting um I would I I worry that you're losing the value in Uh the time because it's like Start at one and shoot one shot sprint to the other end Shoot one more shot sprint back yeah, uh can you um Can you sprint to the other and off the wall catch shot um Then okay, let's say I didn't get that one now I'm in the corner um I to hang out for Five seconds as there's an action on the other side of the floor of floor and then I I Lift out of the corner On a sprint for three steps Self-tossed to myself Shot from there. Can let's imagine I didn't get that one Uh now I'm gonna kind of just uh Gently sink back down to the corner and quickly sprint to the other corner uh relocate catch shoot there Uh and get rather than spending a whole bunch of your time with the wind sprint Hmm get more shots while you're getting that And get a little more variability in in that in those shots um But uh I think that's um That's a two percent improvement over something that was already It reasonably good especially given the constraints that you have working out by yourself It is an old this is something I would have done in my old life and it is truly Shooting at the 45 with the same footwork every time and it's just to get the value of the wind sprint But to add some variability and to add some game like Pieces and take four or five shots and then a wind sprint down to do the same at the other end To get the value of that with also Shooting well tired shooting a good footwork shooting a different situation and so on and so forth We yeah like they just kind of give yourself 24 seconds At each end of the floor. I love that you get three more shots and then uh And then yeah Okay, now we're going back the other way and I got to okay this first one's coming in transition the second one is coming out after Transition and look and like just to use your imagination go back to what we did when we were 12 years old at the park by yourself And you would visualize and pretend the game is going on And and just kind of okay, where's the ball going the balls going there and now it's skip skip and Uh, and I'm getting it at the at the the wing and okay shot all right if I didn't get that shot now I'm I'm cutting through and Yeah, just play Which it sounds like you're already doing No, listen, I really like that those are easy actionable additions to make these 10% better than I was doing before and getting more More of the focused work and less of the busy work In in the season how many games in your season? So it's 24 games in a three month season so seven eight days in those 20 In those 24 games if you were to guess at the total number of free throw attempts How many are you going to shoot are you going to shoot seven or right shoot 15 Okay, yeah, so And you're pretty confident in your ability to in those 15 make 13 of them this season I'm pretty confident Okay, so we don't necessarily like need to rep out um getting your heart rate up for um For 48 seconds and then shooting two free throws So then your in your ability to be able to step to the free throw line and make two free throws After my full court shooting to bring my heart rate down again, I will shoot sets of two free throws But I'm not I'm not it's nothing I'm focused on and maybe we'll shoot 20 or 30 in the whole workout There's more value in you for you to uh to have your heart rate up for longer and have more shots In that situation then there is in Shooting free throws with your heart rate up your confidence like you do that. It's the I got to get I got to get bear shape Yeah, okay Um Madison is feels like you're describing like the best Uh or a pretty good situation given the fact that you were highly constrained as a single individual in a gym by yourself um obvious like I think it's pretty obvious At least to the two of us and hopefully to the regular listeners what What adjustments we be making if there were a second person which is essentially they're making probably a lot of bad passes to you um And then if we had a third person What would you add? Oh So I had this opportunity right before Christmas where one of my players was like hey man Can I get in for some work? I said yeah great love that And on the day he brought Another player like hey man can chuck it in with us. I was like oh uh Yeah, but what I was doing wasn't doesn't work with threes so um We spent our time doing two kind of two specific kind of drills and one is I call it relocate shooting, but basically you have two balls First guy starts with a ball gets a shot up the guy underneath the hoop is a passer to the second guy And after the first guy shoots he gets his rebound and finds the third guy who was relocated and after I make the pass I relocate the second guy gets his rebound and hits me and it's constant or Movement and you play a game to 20 or 30 or you know, whatever makes that you want to do that's the first one When you do that guessing most of the time it's at least starts with uh everybody shooting service stationary catch and shoot there There there variety of different locations everybody's going to a new spot, but you're catching and you're shooting from like I've made my pass. I'm becoming the shooter. I'm going out to the spot while you're getting your rebound You're about to pass to me. I turn and I stand there. Yeah, and then you pass to me and then I shoot. It's usually how we all start and then like adding the layer of, okay, you go to a spot, but then you have to make a movement as your shoot, meaning like, recognize that the passers now ready drift to the corner and we're passing to the corner as opposed to passing where you're already standing or you're in the corner and you're going to lift out where you're on the wing and we got a space and like just to get that kind of, and ideally like the first thing would be like the shooter doesn't determine where the ball goes. The passer has to pass it to like two steps away from them. So the shooter's got to react to where's the ball going and how do I get there quickly? How do I be on balance when I get there? And we just introduce a little bit of chaos in a little bit of, I feel like you get 10 fewer shots in an hour, but your shots become much more game like. Right. Yeah. Right. Love that. The other thing that I would do, so that great starting point for that is in everything I'd say, okay, let's take an advantage of the fact that we have multiple people and I don't want to be by standing. So let's have somebody will be the passer, somebody will be the shooter, somebody's going to be the defender. And then it can just be as simple as like, okay, we need some movement and I need there to be an actual contest. Where does the, where does the defender, since the defender knows what's kind of happening, how does the defender, where does the defender need to start? When are they allowed to start moving so that we can simulate a realistic contest that forces the shooter to actually have to make a read. And then if the defender wins and they take away the shot, their contest is fantastic and they're, they're going to block it. Well, don't just let them block it. What's your read? It's going to be, will allow you a head fake space dribble and a, like fly by kind of situation. In that specific situation, I generally have constrained the defender and said, don't block a shot. As, as all over him as you can be, as hand in the grill as much, but you're not allowed to block a shot. But that read is, is less game like because why no one's not going to block. So if you're going to do that, like I understand why you do that. And I've done the same thing at different times for different reasons, some being just naive and overprotective as the other coach. And then sometimes for a purposeful, like, you know, it's more important for this guy to get shots with a Phantom defender. But if you want to introduce it, just put in the rule, like you're only allowed to actually block one out of roughly five or 10. But you decide which one you're actually going to go after and no pattern. And so the shooter they never know they could, the defender could pick two shots in a row and just say, like, all right, that was my last. And now this is my first. And I'm going after both of these, but you better be paying attention as a shooter to the kind of things you have to be paying attention to in the game. So that's the random practice portion of the skill acquisition principles, right? Yep. Yep. That, uh, well, I guess it's not fully random. This would be high end variability. Hmm. Or now, if we were fully random, we wouldn't be constraining the defender at all. We would be saying, like, if you can block it, block it and and shooter, you have all these different, like any solution is on the table. I guess we're constraining the defender slightly. And we're only giving limited options to the, uh, to the shooter. So I guess that gives them like highly variable, but maybe not random practice. Cool. Uh, so that's kind of that's sort of the space where we worked around those two kinds of drills. And then we did some cardio that's, you know, again, it is wasted time, but sprint to half court or jogged to half court sprints at the corner, hit five, you know, but, but again, that a little more blocky, a little more block practice. It's really hard to, um, like I was talking to one of my skill acquisition mentors, uh, in a conversation where I was, I was kind of questioning some of the stuff that I was doing and like, is it too explicit of instruction? Am I doing too much like of a traditional forum shooting? And he says, like, they just be aware, like, if anybody tells you that they are 100% ecological dynamics approach and they never do any block practice or any just they're lying. Like, we like, it's, it's never going to always be everything. Sometimes you're going to go like, hey, listen, I, I got five minutes and I want to get my heart rate up and I, and I don't know what else to do and I'm freaking tired and I'm by myself. So I'm going to get, I'm going to get 25 reps from five, five shots from five spots. Yeah. And, uh, and fight me, bro, if you think that like it's, like it's just, it's unrealistic to say we're always going to make the, every decision we make as a coach or is going to be the correct decision. Like, so cool. You did a great job with a highly difficult situation. You want to have a little dessert at the end of it to feel, leave feeling good about yourself or just feel like you really sweat. Cool. A warm and fuzzy is underrated for real. Dave, let's take one more break here. Let's summarize, wrap up, and I do want to do a bit of a hammer action because I have some, some good thoughts for that. Hey there, basketball fans. I'm NBA shooting coach Dave Love and I've got exciting news just for you. Introducing my exclusive free basketball shooting newsletter is packed with insights and techniques straight from the hardwood. Have you ever wondered how NBA players improve their shots or how you could get to the next level, whether you're a college player, a coach or a budding youth player. My newsletter brings all this and more directly to your inbox. Each edition is a deep dive into the world of basketball shooting. I'll share some of the tips and ideas that I use with my NBA clients tailored for every level of the game, but wait, there's more. Subscribers receive exclusive monthly discounts on my online products. From training videos to personalized coaching sessions, you'll get it all for fraction of the price. And the best part of all is absolutely free to join. So what are you waiting for? Elevate your game and join a community of passionate players and coaches from around the globe. Signing up is easy. Just visit coach Dave Love dot com. Welcome back on the coach Dave Love podcast where I do think that Warman Fuzzies are underrated Dave. As a summary, so this is my this is my full workout. It takes about 45 minutes when all is said and done. I honestly don't need more time than that. I'm tired. I'm not in good enough shape at this point to do that intensity for any longer. And 45 minutes is about the length of the game. Is it not? Well, for me, it's going to be about 12 to 15, but yeah, like oh, so you'll be in. So we could argue you could do a great workout in 12 to 15 minutes then spread out over 48 minutes. So Dave, my first experience with sort of game representativeness, let's call it. When I was playing professionally a decade ago, I had this coach from Colorado, his name is Mike Evan senior, played the NBA for a long time and was a microwave score off the bench. And I was really struggling. So the schedule of the day is, you know, you get a good sweat. Believe it's the game. You're working out for an hour, you're getting a lot of shots up and then you sit and you sit for sometimes 20, 30, 40 minutes and they're like, okay, back, go shoot the ball. Okay, like these, these need a second to wake up. And I went to my said, Mike, I'm really struggling, coach, I'm really struggling with this. And he said, okay, we'll give me that schedule and let's do workout. So we worked out for an hour, I got a good sweat. And then I sat and we chatted about life for like 25 minutes and the alarm went and he's like, all right, go bang 10 threes. And that was like three weeks that I just did that for my workouts. And truly, game representative adjacent in the manner that we're talking about, right? Even to taking that idea to an extreme, there's a famous story. I forget in what book this was published in. But it's like one of the like really popular basketball books from 20 years ago. Chip England, who's the shooting coach in Oklahoma City is working out with Steve Kerr, who is then a player for the Chicago Bulls. And struggling with that exact same thing, I just went from playing high minutes. And I think Steve was in Cleveland and maybe somewhere else before going to the Bulls, playing a couple of years on a Jordan, less Bulls team. And then all of a sudden Michael comes back and Steve goes from playing. 25 30 minutes game to playing 12 or whatever it goes from like I was getting 15 shots or man probably not that many but like a decent number shots to now I get to and I'm expected to make both of them and so their workout was six shots over an hour. That was just like sit down talk about our families talk about life and then spring to the corner and shoot one and then sit back down and let's talk for another 15 minutes and now it's sprint to the other end come off a screen and shoot one and sit down and so like yeah highly game representative for a guy that he has a workable solution it doesn't it's not that he needs a high volume of reps he needs to get comfortable in a specific situation in his coach and your coach started to simulate that situation great. At the time I was like this might be dumb you know going into my first one you want to sit for 30 minutes and just chat but absolutely it makes sense like that's exactly the situation I find myself in I'm a sweaty ass and then I'll be setting up cold because I've been drying you know for an hour. So as here's my hammer action because I thought of this as you were describing the episode and you said something about half time and I'm like oh I got to remember to sneak this idea and then I just forgot about it until now. In I will do this in a workout where okay a player is missed like their last eight shots and they're about ready to kick either the basketball or me and and I like the frustration levels now like it's hitting a high and I'll stop the workout be like all right it's half time take five minutes go grab a drink of water come back and and when they come back I'll say okay at half time once you come back on the court how much time do you have before the coach is going to call you to huddle up like three minutes perfect what do you what is your team doing in those three minutes are you guys doing a layup line is it just sort of like a bunch of basketballs and you've got people passing out and if they say layup line I'm like okay how many times through the layup line do you have and those three minutes like six eight okay what's the number is it eight let's imagine it's eight on the first one I want you to just kind of take your time you're not going to lay it in you're just going to go give me ABC on the then so and we will do this like two people alone in a gym her tendency layup line and now you don't get to go whenever you get back you got to wait there's a couple of people in front of you okay now you get to go stop there give me ABC okay now always that know you gotta go rebound for me you're going into the rebound in light and you got to wait like in another 45 seconds before you get your next rep now two steps further out give me ABC or give me a slow to quick and like simulate it's half time and there's a problem how are you going to solve the problem and and it doesn't always work perfect and it won't always work perfect in a in a game or in a half time either but you're just we're what are we doing as coaches we're trying to give players tools to solve problems and this is a semi creative little tool that might help or you can do nothing and just cross fingers and hope also not really a great option right so that's my am traction for the for the day no I love this and my thinking about this episode is not a I it is selfish of me that I want you to give me some better options some some some better solutions for me personally and not for the coaches out there to be like oh this workout is great for your shooters but it's a workout that's catered to my needs and that Dave you've made subtle changes that are super simple to implement and now my workout is 8% better and more gamer-presentative like the creativity piece if you are a coach that has players that are like hey I'm working up myself what should I be doing and just adding variability adding challenge to it I think it's it's it's not a bad place to start yeah yeah so I I love that we've we've done this I feel like this is I wasn't sure that this was going to be like a great episode I thought this will be good this will be beneficial I feel like it's ended up being more beneficial than I thought it was I thought we were also going to knock this out easily in 40 minutes and now we're at an hour two plus commercial so we should probably start to wrap up here listen Dave really appreciate you happy new year to all the listeners out there we really appreciate you thanks for sticking with us through the first year this project we're very thankful for you please rate your review subscribe tele-friend it all really helps Dave where should the people find you if they want to engage more your content I think I have a new newsletter automation going where like when you sign up for the newsletter now your your initial 10 emails are different than they have been for the last couple of years so even if you're maybe even unsubscribe from my newsletter if you are a subscriber and then go to coach Dave love dot com and sign up again so that you're getting the new emails and if you're a new user you're not on my email newsletter at all coach Dave love dot com to do that or look for me on Twitter or Instagram at coach Dave love how do people find you Maddie awesome yeah I'm at Matt Robertson on LinkedIn at coach Maddie Robb on Twitter yeah thanks a lot gang appreciate you dozens and dozens of you and we'll see you next week thank you for joining us on today's episode of the coach Dave love podcast to stay up to date with our future episodes please remember to hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform don't forget to sign up for coach loves free shooting newsletter on coach Dave love dot com and be sure to follow him on social media you can find him at coach Dave love