Stephen Curry's Unusual Basketball Training

A few weeks back I saw a video talking about Stephen Curry and his work ethic displayed at a young age. I think it really captures what it takes to become an elite level athlete in a sport. I was hesitant to write about it because of the physical demands of volleyball and how they differ from those of basketball. Overuse is a serious concern in volleyball. Too much hitting can lead to shoulder injury. Too much jumping can lead to lower extremity injury. Still the sentiment remains. The best players are likely the ones who train on their own outside of scheduled practice time, even if it is just showing up 15 minutes early, or staying after a few minutes.

Extra practice time and over-training aside, getting more reps is necessary for improving at a skill. Of course, the more specific the practice the better. With that in mind, I saw this video and article. It was interesting to me, but most of it is not applicable to volleyball. Basketball is a much more random sport than volleyball with a lot more contact. Dribbling in particular doesn't really have a volleyball equivalent. Dribbling a basketball is something that the best players do without looking at what they are doing, and being able to split their attention between the skill and court conditions around them is valuable. the dribbling drills make sense. I don't know how valuable the other stuff with the goggles and tennis balls is, but it is an interesting hypothesis. He is getting a lot of reps dribbling, but I don't know how the lack of specificity is helping or not.

The thing that I think is important to take away from it is the part about the practice reps he gets from longer than conventional three point range. The article mentions the trainer thinking Curry will eventually start to incorporate half court shots into his regular game instead of just end of game buzzer beaters. I'll leave the discussion of whether or not that makes basketball sense to basketball people. I think the lesson to learn is that it might be a good idea to invest practice time and reps to unusual situations that sometimes arise in matches. Maybe put your team on serve receive down 21-24 and see if they can rally and win the set. Maybe 21-24 is an unrealistic starting point, but put them in a position where they need to make a comeback to win. Familiarize your team with the situations that arise in matches that often cost teams wins. Make the situation familiar, and the solution will also be familiar. They do it all the time in practice.

And Ivan Zaytsev's serving run was ridiculous.