What exactly is Sweat Academy?
First and foremost, Sweat Academy is something that has been created because Michael MacDougall (Co-Owner and Co-Founder) and I felt there was a need for it. Before I carry on, let me take the time to explain what it is NOT.
Sweat is NOT:
- limited to basketball only (it is for now but we do have plans to expand the idea to other sports)
- designed to undermine or contradict or "show-up" other programs or associations
- showing new skill techniques or tactics
- pretending to be perfect
So let`s get to the point of this blog entry. What exactly is Sweat Academy? What are we trying to accomplish?
We want to wear one hat. What I mean by that is we want to help build high level athletic performance. We do care about grassroots but there are plenty of options out there for grassroots. Where the athlete is limited is higher level development. We work with the middle to higher level athletes on the stages of performance pyramid. Athletes that aspire to play past their High School or University years is who we work with because that is the need. What we are doing is nothing new. However, our approach is!
- very family oriented (our athletes have a connection to one-another and it does not matter if you are a High School aged player or Professional player)
- our coaching staff is very diverse and is passionate about being current in practices and science of athletic development and art of coaching
- we use data to encourage and target development
- we use technologie to assess performance and again target development
- we emphasize fundamentals (but fundamentals for grassroots is different than fundamentals for high level athletes and we get that difference)
The big thing with how we coach is the rule of No Absolutes. So many coaches will lose their minds if a player leaves his feet to make a pass, or not be in a defensive stance at all times, or have hands down while in help position, or not jump stop when in the paint or cross the feet on a defensive slide. They view those as absolutes. Not us. Not by a long shot. For us everything depends on the situation during game play or even practice. We may tell a player not to leave his feet in order to make a pass. BUT, we will explain WHY. For instance in open court, jumping to make a pass takes away a lot of the power one needs to cover the ground needed in order to execute the pass, therefore a defender can much easier shoot the passing lane and steal the pass. But maybe jumping to make a pass is necessary because you are saving the ball from going out of bounds or you need to have that higher angle in order to pass over a shorter player so you can hit that open teammate in the corner from a baseline penetration. Everything we do at Sweat has the basketball IQ factor (The Why).
The other big thing for us is conditioning. It is my experience that the higher the level, the more skill becomes even. It is the ability to execute the skill at the speed and stamina necessary on a regular basis that makes the difference between a good player and an elite player. To be consistent with performance, the elite level athlete will be incredibly conditioned.
Finally, the psychology part. Nobody thoroughly enjoys the GRIND. It is called GRIND for a reason. It is not fun. Nothing about it is designed to be fun. But it is absolutely necessary for regular positive success. The elite level athletes understand this and they embrace the GRIND. Those that do, succeed and do so regularly. Those that do not will have some success but it will be inconsistent and become frustrating which then leads to complacency or even worse....quit!
So there you go, that is who we are in a nutshell. Visit us at www.sweatacademy.com for more info.
