Beginners are rarely held back by the amount of time or energy they are willing to invest in training. More often, the issue is consistency. One training session might be sharp and well-focused, followed by several days of nothing, before a subsequent training session is started in a daze. Skill acquisition is accelerated in sports by frequent opportunities for the body to be reminded of the required pattern. This doesn’t mean hours of long, draining sessions. It means having a weekly rhythm that can be kept consistently within a limited amount of time. An unambitious plan that is consistently kept is far better than a more advanced one that is abandoned after a few repetitions.
The easiest way to create that consistency is by assigning each training day in the week a different task. In other words, rather than trying to work on everything every time, have a focused theme for the training sessions to be repeated each day. The first session might be about working on a very clean technique at a slow pace, the next about timing or coordination, and another about applying the skill in a slightly more challenging environment. Say you were training about balance and direction change. The first session might focus on getting the stance and feet correct, the next focusing on the movement into a push and the next linking these into a whole. In this way, you avoid one of the most common pitfalls for new learners: repeating the exact drill over and over with the exact same faults because each training session feels the same.
Another common error is trying to fit too many different things in during a week. It might feel productive to try out many different exercises but constantly changing between them often results in the body having pieces of information instead of a reliable pattern. Also, it can be easy to wait to train until you have a perfect day with a clear mind and lots of time to train. These kinds of days are rare. A solution is to lower the training goal until it feels more sustainable. Fifteen minutes three times in a week is often more helpful than one long training day followed by nothing. Sports skills work best with frequent repetitions. As long as the body meets the training pattern before the skill has gone stale, each session requires less mental work to get into the correct state.
The weekly training rhythm can be easily adapted to daily life. There could be three training blocks during the week. In the first training block, work for 15 minutes on a specific movement in a slow fashion and with lots of attention. Begin with a series of easy reps and then work on a core drill with a focus on one detail, such as making the landing quiet, and your feet in a balanced position. Then, in the second training block, return to the same skill but make it a little harder, by adding a change of direction, going farther, or going quicker. Next, in the third training block, try to combine the skill with other moves to make a bigger sequence. At the same time, keep the training focus from the previous blocks. In this way, you are helping the body learn that you train with repetition on a drill to then use that skill in a game situation.
It often is the case that a person’s schedule does not run perfectly. When this happens, shorten the training session and don’t skip it. You can maintain the training rhythm for a week with a session as short as six minutes. On a particularly busy day, warm up for three minutes and then practice the drill for three minutes with a lot of attention to the skill and then stop. This keeps the connection between your brain and body active. When it feels like training is going wrong, don’t throw out the plan altogether. Ask if you might be asking too much from a training session. The more reactive drill might have started in week one rather than later in week two, for instance, and the skill might start to break down because of tiredness and there isn’t time to do the training reps needed for the skill. Tweak something and try again. Often when training begins to work better is when it feels less stressful, not more.
A weekly training plan benefits from reflection after a training session. Following each weekly training block, write down one sentence about what held up and what didn’t work. Make this note specific. “Maybe the movement was easier when I dropped into a deeper position or maybe the throw was straighter when I kept my foot placement balanced.” This will give the next session a focus and mean you spend less time guessing and more time refining. After a couple of weeks of a regular weekly training routine, what you might notice is that training isn’t as intense as it used to feel. That feeling isn’t a bad thing. Control starts to build as a result, errors become simpler to notice, and new skills might start to feel like skills your body can retain.