From what can be determined in the papers and from comments made by players, commentators and coaches, there appears to be a set routine with possibly some modifications. For example, in baseball there is typically practice in the AM and game play in the PM. The practices may consist of some stretching, fielding and hitting. Individual players may look at videos of previous games or individual players so that they can better prepare against them. This is usually done by pitchers and catchers.
In football,there is usually some stretching and running of plays to prepare the offense. Very often the plays are based on what was found after looking at game film of the opponent by the coaches. An analogous situation takes place with the defensive team. Other sports follow similar patterns. Are these routines however, the most effective?
If the team is hot and all players are doing well one can say it is very effective. If they are not doing well and if they wish to do even better, then following this routine may not be the most beneficial. For example, Rockies’ pitcher Cook dispatched the Padres on 74 pitches. This equaled the fewest needed to throw a complete game in the majors in the 21 seasons since pitch counts became an official statistic.
According to Cook, “I know this team. I’ve seen his team a lot. I know they are looking early.” But did the Padres know everything they could about Cook? According to manager Black, “Anyone with good movement and control of that movement around the strike zone is going to be difficult. He’s very efficient with a good sinker. And tonight he was getting in on the left-hander’s hands.” According to Greene, “His ball isn’t straight but he throws a lot of strikes.”
Since the Padres played against Cook 12 times previously they should have had a good idea of his capabilities and the type of balls that he throws. In addition, their scouts could have scouted Cook in recent action and reported on the type of pitches and when they were thrown.
To prepare for Cook, the team could have had one of their pitchers throw the type of pitches that he throws. For example, sinkers could have been thrown to prepare the players for this type of pitch. This could have been done prior to the game. In this way the players would become accustomed to the pitch and be ready for it when it came at them.
The key point here is that the teams can prepare the players for what they should expect in the game. All too often however, this task is left up to the players on an individual basis. Tony Gwynn reportedly did this with his extensive filming of pitchers. This may be one reason why he was such a successful batter.
In football, instead of looking only at the offensive and defensive plays of their opponents, if the teams had movement and technique specialists, they could look more closely at exactly how a player executed particular movements and then develop a strategy to take advantage of them. For example, if a defensive player had poor cutting actions, they could put a pass receiver up against him knowing that he would be able to break away from his opponent and then be free to catch the pass.
In other words, teams could be much more precise in their preparation and look at how well the player executes his skills. They could then take advantage of the players abilities and/or lack of abilities and prepare for them in advance. But since most teams are still not into technique analysis or analyzation of a player’s physical abilities, this type of preparation may be many years away. This is a shame since the technology and knowhow are available.
For information on technique and skill analysis see Build a Better Athlete. It covers all the basic skills such as hitting, running, jumping, throwing and kicking. For more detailed information on specific sports see Explosive Running, Explosive Basketball Training, Explosive Golf, Women’s Soccer: Using Science to Improve Speed and Explosive Tennis in our secure store, and Coaches Clipboard at HSHD.