and

 Keeping Practices Interesting

      Many times a coach will go into a training session wanting to really emphasize one thing. For example, the coach might feel the team needs to
work on receiving balls from the air. The coach then has two options. He can either pick one activity and do it over and over again with the logic being that repetition is required in order to be successful. The second option is to keep working on the same skills but to vary the activities, which keeps things fresh.

      The easy way to do things is to pick one activity and keep doing it over and over again until the activity is mastered but as is frequently true,
the easy way is not necessary the best way to do things. While doing the same thing over and over again might create a lot of repetitions it's also
part of the reason players don't look forward to coming to training sessions since the last thing they want to do is get bored.

      It is a lot harder to plan training sessions that work on a particular subject without dragging things out but the results are definitely worth
it. Finding different ways to work on the same thing does require proper planning but it does keep things interesting.

      The coaches who run a training session without a plan will almost always run an inefficient, unentertaining training session. The second type
of coach comes to training with a plan and provided everything goes as planned the training session goes well. The third type of coach plans
for multiple possibilities and is prepared for most possibilities. For a given training session I might plan 20 different activities for a session. This way, if I have 16 players at the start of a session I am prepared or if there is a
traffic issue and only 10 players show up for the start of training, I am prepared for that as well. Does this require a lot more work? Of course but
if I, as the coach, am not willing to prepare properly for practice how can I expect my players to do so.

      Any questions, comments or suggestions should be sent to Lawrence@finesoccer.com or they can be posted on the FineSoccer Forum at http://finesoccer.net

      To subscribe to any of the FineSoccer Newsletters please go to http://finesoccer.com/subscrib.htm

Have a great day!

Lawrence

PS If you want to see examples of how to keep training session fresh, check out the Full Season Training Sessions at
http://finesoccer.com/full_season.htm

We would like to thank Lawrence Fine and FineSoccer.com for allowing us to publish this article on the NASL website.  Please visit http://www.FineSoccer.com and sign up for Lawrence's free coaching newsletters and articles.

Created: 12/20/99
Last Updated: 04/05/04

Since February 24, 1999
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  Web Administrator    Ken Gamble