Student of the Game: Using Academic Resources To Enhance Your Program

Volume 3: The 10,000 Hour Rule, Athlete-Controlled Feedback and Inside-Out Circuits

 by Jack Byrne, Defensive Coordinator, Windham High School (NH)

The purpose of this series of articles is to provide ideas for improving various aspects of your football program using academic resources and studies. If you are anything like me, you are the type of coach that wants a reason and a purpose behind everything you do for your program. Anecdotal evidence can be useful, but is often unreliable and even harmful (if you don’t believe me, think about what would happen if we took everything from an internet forum, Wikipedia, or a TV infomercial as absolute fact!).  Using reliable sources and learning about key concepts in the academic world of sports will help guide and justify your decisions as a coach.

My previous articles have focused on our philosophy of creating realistic environments for athletes and providing as many opportunities to learn as possible.  In this article, we will continue that theme by discussing more efficient practice methods that can be backed up by academic concepts and studies. This installment will include an explanation of two key concepts, the 10,000 hour rule and athlete-controlled feedback.  I will then show you a simple way that we implement these ideas into our practices. 

The 10,000 Hour Rule, Athlete-Controlled Feedback and Inside-Out Circuits

What is it?

Gladwell’s (2008) Outliers: The Story of Success investigates the phenomenon known as the 10,000 hour rule.  This “rule” states that mastery of a skill, art, or career occurs after approximately 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. While mostly anecdotal in nature, the argument remains compelling and the number of interviews with successful public figures confirming this phenomenon could be seen as a statistic. Gladwell will often ask his doubters “how long did it take you to become comfortable and truly master your craft?”. Most will say about 10 years or 10,000 hours. Like all coaches, I am always trying to improve, but I am going into my 10^th year of coaching and it is probably the first year I feel that I am “getting the hang of it”.

Athlete-controlled feedback is the practice of providing feedback only when an athlete or other learner asks for it following a trial. Not to be confused with internal feedback, in which an athlete “feels” whether something was right or wrong, this simply means that the athlete gets to control if and when he or she receives feedback following an attempt at a skill. Think of that friend that says “If I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it…” and you have an example of athlete-controlled feedback.

What are the findings?

As stated above, Gladwell (2008) studied a wide range of subjects, including everyone from Bill Gates to Canadian hockey players to rice farmers in Asia.  All reports point to the fact that the opportunity to practice a skill and/or situation more than those around them allowed these successful people to reach their 10,000 hours faster and get ahead of the competition.

Janelle, Barba, Frelich, Tennent, and Cauraugh (1997) found that when participants were in control of their feedback, they required far less than what was thought to be a reasonable amount of feedback.  They also retained the information better than participants that were provided with more frequent feedback. 

How do we apply it to our practices?

The 10,000 hour rule and controlled feedback are related because they both support the idea that people given the opportunity to learn in an optimal environment will succeed more than those around them. Using this information, our staff wants to provide our kids with as many chances to learn a skill as possible in order to get us ahead of our competition.  We understand that two hours of practice each day during the fall will not lead to 10,000 hours, but we do try to value our athletes’ time as much as possible and we try to fit as many learning opportunities as possible into our practices. Not only do we value the amount of repetitions they get, but we also value their ability to choose how they want to learn a skill. Some kids want to hear how well they did, while others want you to leave them alone so they can figure it out.

Our defensive circuits are a great representation of these concepts in action. Like most of our drills, they are not new by any means. However, our organization of the drills may be different enough to give some people ideas to create more repetitions for their players.

We drill tackling, turnovers, and block destruction in our defensive circuits.  Nearly all of our drills are organized in an “inside-out” fashion, which allows for four groups to be performing the drill at the same time, while keeping the coach in close proximity to all groups. We put responsibility on the players to set up, rotate properly, and say “go”. Our coaches rarely start a repetition. We tell our players that they are big boys and they can yell “go” so that more groups can go all at once. By giving players control over the drill, coaches can move among the four groups, give attention where needed, and make adjustments to help all players succeed. While coaches will always provide tips regarding safety, they will often apply the concept of athlete-controlled feedback by holding off on giving feedback unless an athlete asks for it.

Our angle tackling drill is shown below, but almost any defensive skill can be drilled in this fashion. We try to give players a repetition goal to shoot for (i.e., 10 tackles each in a two minute station) so the pace moves quickly. This is another way that we can create game-like fatigue and conditioning, and we can again evaluate which players are the hardest workers and who takes reps off when they don’t think anyone is looking.  It is another way to cut down on time waiting in line while still having a coach in close proximity to all reps to maximize safety. In fact, we have our own rule known as “The 40 second rule”, where all drills must be designed so that players are never waiting in line for more than 40 seconds (similar to the play clock in a game). We hope that the 40 second rule helps our kids get closer to the 10,000 hour rule.

Understanding the 10,000 hour rule and the benefits of athlete-controlled feedback allow us to provide valuable repetitions that get our kids closer to mastery, while also giving them a chance to learn in the way in which they are most comfortable.