I didn’t understand what consistency was
… maybe I still don’t
Is consistency in a competition different to practice consistency?
How to practice and develop consistency?
That was both my goal and my confusion, and can it be measured?
This post is a summary of my journey over 10 yrs of trying to work out what consistency really means and all the different aspects that can affect it.
It will take about 5 mins to read.
If you are interested in a longer read click on the image.
It will give you more background and lots more to think about.
How it started
I would sit and watch players in a match
Players who had been training for several years. I believed that they were technically proficient as they could reproduce near-perfect repetitions in routines and single shuttle multi’s.
However, in matches, they would make mistakes in situations that seemed to be easy or something they had practised for hours before.
The coaches I knew called them “simple mistakes” or would say “ah that’s due to a lack of consistency”.
Coaches and players would say that they were working on “consistency” in training
I was never really sure what they meant and what their practice looked like
What did I try next
I spoke to the coaches and looked around at what others were doing
The advice for practice seemed to be:
- increase the repetitions: start with 10 or 20 and maybe progress to as high as 30 or even 40 (the goal seemed to be ‘more is better’)
- reduce the movements: make that initially very simple and predictable (take away decision they said)
- check the players’ technique – inconsistency is a technique issue (they said)
- include ‘pressure’ by using penalties and forfeits (just losing a rally isn’t a big enough punishment they said)
I didn’t understand all the advice or why it would work
so I just copied, and hoped it would work
What happened next
There was a big change in practice
The players could now hit 20 shots or more in a row (over and in) with ‘good technique’.
They knew the format of the routines, the multi-sessions, the practices.
They felt less pressure. They didn’t even mind the penalties!
The consistency in these routines improved, and even in the long routines they made very few ‘simple’ mistakes!
But in competition
They still hit ‘easy’ shots into the net or out of the side of the court at times when I felt it wasn’t too difficult to just get it over.
Worryingly for me, the return of service errors (into the net or out the side) still happened at times when they made a big difference to the match.
They seemed to lack the same consistency as they did before. Even though we had been working on it in practice (and practice consistency had improved)
The solution
That didn’t come until years later, unfortunately !!
I’d been talking with other coaches and my mentor, often complaining that my players still weren’t consistent enough. I could list all the things we had worked on, the different patterns, routines, and scenarios.
He asked me if all these repetitions had worked?
I had to say that it didn’t appear to work in matches, but it was working in practice. Practice certainly did look better.
They could play longer rallies and return more shuttles in a multi-shuttle drill. I thought that ‘no mistakes’ equalled ‘improved consistency’.
I suggested that the players had improved, as I could tell that by the ‘quality’ of their strokes. Although I wasn’t sure how to define what quality really meant.
I guess I was describing the technique I could see, the hitting, the movement and of course the reduction of mistakes.
Then he made these statements
Stop thinking about consistency as a technical issue!
Your players are ok technically, that’s not the problem
and
If practice doesn’t include the factors found in a match,
they will become is better at practice.
I was given this advice, here is a summary 🙂
- Think about consistency as a mindset, “players need the ability to make a clear decision when they need to”
- As often as possible, the practice should contain real game-like factors (of which there are many, so select carefully) that challenge players.
- Be aware that any underlying technical issues will often show themselves when under pressure (physically, mentally, tactically) and this isn’t a lack of consistency; it’s a technical issue. Bea ware that practice may not expose these as an opponent would.
- We should accept errors, but strive to reduce those crucial errors that make a difference in a match.
- Consistency isn’t aiming for 100% perfection. It is the ability not to make mistakes on the important points or those parts of the game that you decide matter.
- Just hitting more reps in practice and making practices simpler isn’t the key to changing match performance
Send me a question
I’m always grateful if you have read this far.
If there is anything that you have read that has helped or that you disagree with, then please send me an email.
I promise to read all your comments
It would be great to hear from you contact@badmintonandy.com
