Slowing down to Speed up Development: Secrets of Success series

Faster. Stronger. Bigger.

Thats the tagline of a lot of training and conditioning programs. They LOOOOOVE to get you doing something faster. However, is faster always better?

Recently,  I was coaching our fall conditioning group in "Stances and Starts" which is basically starting in different foot positions like right or left foot foward and then going to small jog with either the same or opposite foot moving first. For some reason, a few of the guys were in good stances and when they started, there was a moment where they rocked back and then rocked forward into the jog. At first, I was puzzled as to why they would do that. It wastes a lot of time and is pretty uncoordinated. Well, I had to stop the whole group for a moment to tell them that when you want to start walking/jogging/sprinting, you simply had to lose your balance forward, the body would react by moving either foot forward. Therefore, rocking back to then go forward was very inefficient. After a few times, some of the boys got it but one did not. He simply wanted to just get started any way that his body could do at the time.  I let another coach work the rest of the drill and coached this young man. I told him to simlply "slow down, feel the weight of your body (which is 6'8", 230lbs) in the balls of the feet, lean forward and just go but DON'T RUSH!" Everytime I saw him start to rock back, I stopped him and had it do it over and slower. Big guys need to have as much finesse, balance and body awareness as anyone else on the court. If not, it makes for a BIG ineffective clumsy player. Well, after a few minutes of really focusing and slowing down, he was finally able to feel the ground under feet and every start and stance after that was perfect.

This young man need to allow himself to slow down and get into his body. So many people, especially athletes, go through their activity with their brains half-on and hoping that they 'get-it'. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't but when they do not get it, the recipe for success is not going to be do it faster. Speed covers up a lot of errors. It's in the slow speed that's when we can see what's going on.

Below is a video of the famous golfer, Ben Hogan, who was meticulous in his practice. You will see him do a few super-slow swings. It's amazing that Ben is taking the time to a) breakdown his swing into parts and b) do it a slow speed so that he is aware of the movements taking place. Notice also who he steps slowly into place. Not only does this take patience, it also takes a tremendous amount of discipline to practice with intent, focus and attention to the most minute detail.

Are you able to slow down to really get a grip on what you doing? It doesn't have to be athletics. It could be anything from work to raising a family. Some moments deserve a slow practice to appreciate the subtleties of the activities as well as the big movements.

Is there something you aren't getting within an activity? Here's a simple solution:

1) Slow down. Breathe.
2) Break the movement down into parts. Taking one big skill in one bite can be too much to deal with but smaller parts, that are then connected together make the task MUCH more approachable and attainable.
3) After practing slowly, start to integrate speed and if there is something still wrong, go back to Step 2 and do it again. Maybe something else in the chain is going wrong. If so, find and fix.

Have a productive day!!!

Will