Training with Intent & Focus

Doesn’t matter what the subject matter, it could be hitting with more power, or it could be to play a violin, or get better at math.

If you want to get good at anything, it takes time, effort and lots of repetitions. You do need to practice!

10 Years or 10,000 Reps

You’ve heard of the 10 Year Rule or the 10,000 Rep Rule, correct? That rule means that it typically takes 10 years of training, performing 10,000 repetitions (of the same movement performed over-and-over) to become great or maybe even proficient at that movement.

I won’t argue that it does take time and a significant number of repetitions to become proficient, but I’ll also suggest to you that it’s not just about repetitions.

I’ve watched young developing athletes for two decades plus at sports practice and thousands of golfers on the practice range mindlessly practicing their sport movement skills.

My belief is that one of the reasons why it takes so long is due to the lack of any intent & focus many athletes employ when they are practicing their sports movements.

PERFECT Practice, Makes Perfect…

Athletes who have intent & focus in their training get better so much faster.

My belief is athletes can significantly reduce the number of necessary years and repetitions required to get better by having great intent & focus in their training drills & exercises.

What is Intent?

When an athlete has a very specific purpose to every drill & exercise they perform and are focused on how they perform each movement & drill they have intent.

The more intent & focus they have, the faster they will get better!

Quality of Movement

When you are trying to develop specific movements of the body its really important to pay attention and be focused on performing your sports training drills in a very precise way.

You see, the closer your practice repetitions are to what you actually want to perform in a game or competitive environment, the faster you’ll get better (it will take you less repetitions) and your performance in the game will be much more precise and better.

Muscle Memory and Precision of Movements

Some sports movements are more important than others to be practiced and performed with precision.

For example, if your sport is lifting weights and you’re doing squats, then it’s really more about pure strength & power to lift the weight up from a squatted position. A squat is not a precision movement.

However, if your sport involves hitting a ball into a defined area, like a volleyball or tennis court, or keeping the golf ball in the fairway, an athlete needs to train the body movements with intent & focus because they will need to be precise with where the ball goes.

How to Train with Intent & Focus

First of all understand that if you are an athlete and training to perform a specific sports movement, that every movement, drill and exercise you do is teaching your brain & body how to remember to do that specific movement you are training.

The brain is really very well designed to remember the things it does; to memorize things or movements the body performs to make the movements easier to perform, with less conscious thought as you practice the movements.

An athlete should have a specific purpose in every workout they go into and in every drill or exercise they perform.

If you’re a volleyball hitter that wants to hit the ball harder and you practice just banging hard balls against the wall or net, you’ll probably develop great power & speed to hit the ball hard!

But if you actually need to get the ball to land inside the court so you can score a point then you have to be able to control the ball and ball speed so the ball stays in bounds.

I Made A Big Mistake!

Twenty years ago another coach & I developed the first Baseball Arm Speed Program in Denver, Colorado. We were putting on average 10 MPH on high school arms in about 10 weeks.

In the middle of this training, we had a pitcher who came to us who had graduated from high school and college and was told by pro scouts that he needed more velocity on his pitches to prolong his career.

Well we took him from 82 MPH to 92 MPH in just a couple of months and he got a tryout with the White Sox Organization.

The guy wasn’t signed because the coaches, while assessing his ability to throw in the major leagues said that “he had all kinds of velocity”, but he couldn’t hit the broad-side of a barn.”

We never had him work on control. We taught him to just create power & speed with his arm and the ball. It was a total miss for us!

A Quick Learner

I’d like to think we were a quick learner because we then realized that because this athlete required controlled velocity (he needed to be able to control where the ball flew) - he needed to be able to precisely control the ball.

So we then had the former MLB pitcher that owned the place work with all of the pitchers on their control so they could “hit their spots” in the strike zone with velocity.

Small Muscles Provide Precision & Accuracy

The smaller muscles in the body, which are typically deep in the body and surrounding the joints, are the muscles that provide control and accuracy for the body, arms, hands and sports implement when throwing or hitting a ball.

To train the smaller muscles to control the precise movements of the body, arms, legs hand and feet or a bat, ball, stick or other sports implement you might be holding or swinging, you need to be focused on performing the movements in a very purposeful or precise way.

Performed in this way, the brain and nervous system will remember or memorize the precise movements and you’ll develop the muscle memory to make all of this training automatically so it will just happen with a lot less conscious thought in a match or game.

It’s Simple But NOT Easy

It’s a very simple process to train with intent & focus, and speed your development of your sports skills. Just simply be 100% focused on performing precise movements of your body and the sports implement you may be using with every rep as you train.

While this is a simple concept, you’ll find that this is hard to do!

There’s a lot of mental energy that’s required to stay focused on small little repetitive movements of the body.

This process can be boring and mentally exhausting to practice.

The athletes that get better faster and the best athletes in the world were able to have the intent and focus to train with their mind 100% focused on the specific precise movements they want to use in their sports as they are training.

Everyone is capable of training this way but not everyone is willing to commit to training this way. The athletes who are dominant in their spirits spent years if not decades training and refining the small little muscles and the precise movements these muscles can create in sports.

This is Powercore 360 Training

If you work with PC360 in one of our clinics or live or online lesson, it's all about intent & focus.

If you want to just go bang a bunch of balls around mindlessly, you'll find out very quickly you're in the wrong place.

If you want to get better, fast or even want to be the best, that's what we are all about!

We will ensure that we train you in an environment and in a way that teaches you how to have intent & focus in your training.