Practice time v game time

In the past few years, fastpitch softball teams seem to have become more and more obsessed with seeing how many games they can possibly jam into a season. The belief is that the more games you play, the better you get.

Yet if you actually look at what the professionals say, more games doesn't necessarily equal better performance. In fact, it's the opposite, at least as far as developing skills goes.

The current thinking across different sports is that you should have anywhere from three to five hours of practice for every hour of game time. Yes, you read that right.

article: on the USA Hockey website, they recommend a 3 to 1 practice to game ratio. They've done a lot of studies about the amount of stick time players get in games, and it's not nearly enough to develop skills. You get far more in practice.

World class soccer programs go even more. They follow a 5:1 ratio, i.e. five hours of practice to one hour of games. Dan Coyle in his Little Book of Talent and The Talent Code recommends the same ratio based on his study of talent hotbeds around the world.

While they don't give a specific recommendation on what the ratio should be, they do recommend against a 1:1 or even a 2:1 ratio. They essentially advocate many more hours of practice time than game time.
Check out pages 10 and 11 for more specifics.

So there you have it. If you want your player to develop her skills, look for a team that emphasizes quality practice time and instruction over an endless series of games. It may not be as much fun to watch, but it'll pay off better in the end.

So what do you think? Is practice time more valuable than game time? Or do you believe the only way to learn the game is playing the game?


More...

Hmmmm... Interesting post. I think practice is great but game time is very important as well. I cant tell you exactly what the ratio should be be but no matter how much "game like" practices you hold nothing beats the real thing.

We Americans always believe that more games are better. But it's not what the studies show, and it's not what's being done in the talent hotbeds.

Look at the numbers. How many swings does a hitter get in a game? Maybe 12-15 if she's lucky. That's one station at a hitting practice. Outfielders might get three to five balls hit to them, and those balls may not come close to developing all the skills they need. In addition, practice is about development, whereas games (more often than not) are about winning. Mistakes are less likely to be tolerated in a game than a practice, but mistakes are how we learn. If you're playing out to the edge of your abilities, rather than safely in the middle, you're going to make mistakes. If you're not allowed to make those mistakes because the team might lose the player will never develop fully.

Again, these are the experts -- the sanctioning bodies of their respective sports and someone who has spent a lot of time studying how great performers become great performers. They've put a lot of thought into those positions. If the evidence said games were more important to development than practice I believe they'd say it. They didn't.

Where the practice to game ratio goes up is that players are expected to work on their individual softball skills on their own time, as players get older strength and conditioning too.

In youth softball a lot of emphasis seems to be placed on the player to improve outside the Team practices.

We setup the games, you practice.

I would be curious what the ratio's are for NCAA college softball.

Problem is it is very difficult to create game-like situations in practice for many teams -- it takes a lot of equipment, a good supply of savvy coaches (including a demanding head coach), great organizational skills, enough pitchers to make live pitching possible, etc.....not to mention it is challenging to get your full team to every practice due to dueling commitments.

So while practice is good, it is GREAT only if it is game-speed/game-like practice....especially at the higher levels that can be hard to emulate...

My two cents (based on this fall's experiences, unfortunately : >)

Not surprised there is so much resistance. This seems to be the way most people think -- that the only way to get better is to play more games. Try looking at the research, though. Why would so many sanctioning bodies endorse more practice/less game time if they didn't believe it would help develop better players?

This is like "squish the bug" or "close the door." The concept takes an open mind, and some getting used to. Start with core skills. Which will help a player learn how to field a ground ball better -- getting three or four in a game, or 40-50 quality reps in practice?

You can win a lot of games with weak skills - for a while. But as you get to the higher levels that won't apply. If you want to develop high performers, practice is the key. Games are the measurement.

I would think the answer to this question probably varies a little based off of the age group. The younger the kids are the more core skills you are developing. The older they are the more you are maintaining and refining some of those core skills.

The other key that was mentioned already is that you need to practice at the same speed of the game.

More evidence that more games and less practice is not the way to develop elite athletes. These guys did some pretty in-depth study of hockey players in the US, Canada and Europe, charted the trends in the NHL, and reviewed evaluations. They are not offering opinions, they are using research. Smart hockey > About Us > Philosophy

I think that game speed for hockey is just as important as it is for softball. Maybe even moreso. Also note what they say about coaching to win v. coaching to develop players.

As for less skill development required at the older levels, you should watch some of the All Access DVDs from Championship Productions. They take you behind the scenes of practices at various top-level college programs. I've seen the UCLA one, and the University of St. Thomas one with John Tschida. Lots of skill development going on there. Keep in mind that college coaches complain that they are getting kids who don't even know how to throw. Mike Candrea says it, the Harvard coach says it, others say it. We at the youth level apparently are either not spending enough time developing these skills in our players or we are not doing it correctly.

They won't learn to throw in games. They'll learn to throw in practice.

And here's one from basketball, talking about development of players in Europe versus the USA. Yes, LeBron and company won in the Olympics. But that's the superior athletic ability of a very few. On a larger scale we could be developing more, better players with another approach.

The United States Basketball Development System « Basketball Coaching & Youth Basketball