“I believe hybrid coaching is the bridge we need to balance skills training with performance training.”
In a world that increasingly demands an agile approach and the ability to wear numerous hats, Coach Sean Davy of Brick by Brick Performance Training and Redline Basketball Club joins Rapid Fire host Coach Justin Ochoa to break down the hybrid coaching model that both pursue with their basketball athletes.
What does that actually look like on the court?
“Within basketball, we’re trying to train motor patterns, we’re trying to teach these kids to move a certain way. If a kid can’t shift their body weight the right way, can’t find the edge of their foot the right way, how can they change directions in our sport?” Davy asks. “When you add the same principles from S&C towards the parameters of what it takes to be a great basketball athlete, you can reverse-engineer and start to help this athlete get the best outcome with their potential.”
While sport-specific performance training is not without its naysayers, much of that criticism tends to focus on adding instability or load to sports-based movements rather than tailoring sound performance training to support key sports-based movements. Davy addresses misconceptions about what a hybrid training model is and does, as well as how he makes the best use it with his basketball athletes.
If a kid can’t shift their body weight the right way, can’t find the edge of their foot the right way, how can they change directions in our sport? asks @journeymansean. Share on X“People assume we’re just gonna take a ball and add a resistance band and then we’re gonna jab step all day, or we’re going to put them on a Vertimax and do a bunch of ball-handling drills…that’s not it, that’s crazy,” Davy says. “But if we’re using a hybrid approach in general prep, we’re going to work on a lot of stop and starts, we’re going to work on a lot of early acceleration and trying to get as much ground covered with their first step…and then you can complement that with triple-threat work, trying to show how to get somewhere with one-to-two dribbles. If we’re in a max velocity month, cool, we can complement that with a lot of ‘In-Transition’ work and getting the ball in our lanes.
Rapid Fire Episode 3. Watch the full episode with Coach Sean Davy and Coach Justin Ochoa.
In addition to training the physical and technical side of the sport via his hybrid approach, Davy also targets the tactical and mental qualities athletes need to reach their potential. In teaching tactics, Davy dives deep into the specifics of how he uses game film to develop higher Game IQ’s with his players.
Rapid Fire Excerpt. Coach Davy describes how he uses game film to improve his athletes’ tactical understanding of the sport.
Davy is also forthcoming with his players when it comes to how much of a differentiating factor mentality becomes as they look to reach their goals of advancing from level-to-level and progressing from high school to college to ideally a professional career.
“Every college coach that recruits their kids will tell you this—if you’re not top ten or top twenty in your state, at that point they’re looking for the glue guy, the energy guy, defensive-minded, and a worker.”
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