The most prevalent form of conditioning and learning the skills and strategy involved in a game is performing drills. As a result, many practices consist of doing drills.
Further evidence of the popularity and use of drills is the sales of sports books dealing with sports drills. These books commonly far out-sell books dealing with skill instruction, strategy, tactics, and so on. Drills are a great way to run large groups of athletes but are they effective in improving performance? If they are used for conditioning the answer is yes, but to a limited extent. Athletes can do running and jumping drills and even some throwing and hitting drills that do not rely on a high level of skill. The drills keep the athletes active to develop aerobic or anaerobic endurance.
Drills can also be used successfully when teaching a certain tactic or strategy in a game. It the athletes run the same pattern they can reinforce what should be done in a game. However, keep in mind that even though the drill may be effective in practice, in a game situation many other factors come into play. Because of this, the drills may not duplicate what occurs in a game situation.
The greatest misuse of drills is in the learning of skills. It is usually believed that by doing different drills the athlete will learn more effective skill technique. However, just because the athlete does a drill that involves a certain aspect of technique, it doesn’t mean that he will master or incorporate that action into his technique. In fact, most often is just the opposite!
The only way that true learning or improvement of the skill can take place is to first master the skill and then visualize how the movement occurs in his execution of the skill. In this way he can become cognizant of what is taking place. Merely doing the drills as most often occurs does not provide an automatic transfer or reinforcement of the skill’s neuro-muscular coordination pattern.
If enough repetitions are done then of course there will be reinforcement of the skill regardless of whether it is well executed will poorly executed. From my experiences it appears that most athletes do these drills when they do not have full mastery of the skill. Because of this most often they are reinforcing ineffective technique. It is mainly because of this that most drills do not make a better athlete.
This is especially true in sports such as running in which many drills are used regardless of whether the athlete executes the movements of the skill in his run. For example, many drills for the improvement of foot speed do not relate to the actions that the athlete must perform in execution of running or a change of direction. Thus they are often of little value. When teaching skills, it is important that the athlete master the actions that must be executed, and not simply use a drill that may involve other elements of speed, technique or agility.
Athletes must first learn joint actions and how the movement occurs. Then they will be able to incorporate them into their overall movement patterns. This must be done on an individual basis. Teaching of skills in a group is very ineffective mainly because corrections cannot be made for each individual participant. Some in the group may pick it up but most players usually do not and need extra attention. This however, is rarely done. As a result, many athletes do not learn skill technique as effectively as possible, which is one of the keys to becoming a better athlete.
For more information on this topic read Build a Better Athlete. See also “Soccer Fitness Drills”.