For the student-athletes out there, there is no greater time than Summer. The dedicated will wake up early, maybe attend some camps at a local school, and then your day is over. Often the dedication of time to your specific sport, or specific school, is only one month of two. It’s a time to relax, not think about school, and be outside (weather permitting).
However, this time is the ultimate decider of improvement and/or success the following year. To be given time-off, with varying degrees of responsibilities, but a good deal of flexibility, is a gift that not many people receive. Even if you are working a summer job as a student, rarely is it going to demand from you after-hours the way school does. (If there is a case where it does, it is probably the aim and focus of your improvement anyway). Now is the time to maximize growth!
Ideally, you leave the summer with one less weakness...at minimum. Can’t kick with your left foot? Summer. Can’t finish around the rim? Summer. Inconsistent when back-setting? Summer. If there is something your coach has told you to work on, or part of your game that you know holds you back from the next level of achievement, Summer is the time to eliminate this blemish from your scouting report. If you return to season with the same holes in your game that you ended the season with, there is no one to blame but yourself.
Sometimes these improvements are going to require new motor memory. Think of our neural pathways as hiking trails. When the same route is taken over and over, a groove is created in the earth. The same is true in your brain. There can be a lot of initial frustration in learning an “old skill” a new way. “Why should I change my shot now?”, “I do alright the way I’ve been doing it until now”, etc. But what you are asking of yourself is not to go back and cover that path with dirt, replant the grass or brush, and make it look like no one has ever gone down that path before. You are simply choosing to start a new path, often from some point along the one already there, and run over it again and again until your brain “knows” that is the way that we always take.
Another aspect of this training, and one that will be discussed more in-depth in another post, is visualization. There have been numerous studies showing that when you mentally rehearse a skill, your body does not know the difference between action and thought. Therefore, those reps that you go through in bed before falling asleep may also count toward your daily total of repetition.
Don’t waste your summer! Be honest with yourself about where your game needs improvement and set aside time to make sure you go back to school with one less weakness, a new confidence, and a peace of mind having taken a different path.
Oh, and this doesn’t apply just to sports. Though many of us don’t have “summers off” to devote to our training, it doesn’t take much to recognize weaknesses and address them for a few moments a day. Simple mental rehearsal and repetition may make us all a little bit better.
Suggested searches: Motor memory, muscle memory, motor sequencing, imagining exercise, visualization muscle growth