By Coach Flint Wallace-
I was fortunate enough to be able to be a presenter again at this year’s Ultimate Pitching Coaches Boot Camp this past weekend at the Texas Baseball Ranch®. It was truly awesome, and I highly recommend this annual event to every coach. I have been attending it every year since 2003, and it is always an exceptional weekend of coaches sharing, learning, and growing to help their players and themselves become better.
One on my presentations was on Command Training – Ranch Style. The premise of the presentation was not only on some activities or drills that we use to help our guys develop better command of their pitches, but also to give a way to gauge any activity or drill to see if it has the qualities necessary to provide for optimal retention and transfer of a particular skill to competition.
If you want to get better results, you have to practice or train better. Daniel Coyle, the author of “Talent Code” and “Little Book of Talent”, came up with the R.E.P.S. Gauge. I believe it is a simple, but not necessarily easy, way of measuring whether the training or practice we design is truly helping our players, or ourselves, get better at a specific skill.
The R.E.P.S. Gauge is an acronym that stands for the following:
- R – Reaching/Repeating
- E – Engagement
- P – Purposefulness
- S – Strong, Direct, Immediate Feedback
Reaching and Repeating
- Does the activity or drill have the person operating on the edge of their ability?
- How many reaches is the person having to make?
Engagement
- Does the activity immerse the person?
- Does it command their attention?
- Does it use emotion to propel them towards a goal?
Purposefulness
- Is there a direct connection between the task and the skill you are trying to build?
Strong, Direct, Immediate Feedback
- Does the person always know how they are doing?
- Does the person know where they are making mistakes and where they are doing well?
- Is the practice telling them in real time?
Go over every activity or drill you are doing. Use the R.E.P.S. Gauge to see if that training is providing the best learning environment it can. If not, how can I alter it so that it does meet the requirements of the R.E.P.S. Gauge? Or, do I need to scrap that particular form of practice, and replace it with one that will provide a better chance of learning and retention?
Applying the R.E.P.S. Gauge to all your practice activities is how I believe you can have a solid idea of whether your training, whether it is for sports, academics, or any other area you want to improve in, is quality time spent or maybe just false hustle.
So, don’t count the number of reps you do, make sure the ones you are doing count. Make sure the magnitude of the rep registers on the R.E.P.S. Gauge.
Until Next Time…Keep Getting After It!
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Our Ultimate Pitching Coaches Boot Camp was a tremendous success. You might have missed it but you don’t have to miss out.
Eighteen incredible presentations all captured on DVD. Get your own set by going to www.PitchingCoachesBootCamp.com.
“I have been coaching for 30+ years, attended and have presented at many clinics, this clinic is the single most informative personal development clinic I have ever attended!” – Dave Lawn, Pitching Coach, Univeristy of Arizona
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