Book Contest Winner!

Congrats, Collin Wright! Please email me with your address so I can send you Daniel Coleman's "Emotional Intelligence".

Brain Games

Researchers from the Karolinski Institute in Sweden have discovered that cognitive training can fundamentally change the brain at a chemical level by increasing the release of dopamine, a neurochemical crucial to many brain functions. 

What exactly is dopamine's role? As a neurotransmitter — a chemical used for communication between brain cells — dopamine is important for signalling reward. The brain releases dopamine to say "good job, do that again!" in response to pleasurable experiences — thus, dopamine is often critical to learning.

The improved working memory helps for everything from remembering groceries to being more creative.


Check out the training (game) tool that I use on my iPhone, Luminosity. They also have a website here. 

Quote of the Day:

"Things turn out best for people who make the best out of the way things turn out". -John Wooden

You Snooze, You Win!

It's no secret that lack of sleep can negatively impact academic and athletic performance.... but now researchers are finding that extra sleep can provide extra benefits- specifically for collegiate athletes.

Excerpts from July 1 Stanford School of Medicine article:

In a study appearing in the July issue of SLEEP, Cheri Mah, a researcher in the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Laboratory, has shown that basketball players at the elite college level were able to improve their on-the-court performance by increasing their amount of total sleep time.

.....Over the course of two basketball seasons, Mah and colleagues worked with 11 healthy players with a goal of investigating the effects of sleep extension on specific measures of athletic performance, as well as reaction time, mood and daytime sleepiness.

....At the end of the sleep extension period, the players ran faster 282-foot sprints (16.2 seconds versus 15.5 seconds) than they had at baseline. Shooting accuracy during practice also improved: Free throw percentages increased by 9 percent and 3-point field goal percentage increased by 9.2 percent. Fatigue levels decreased following sleep extension, and athletes reported improved practices and games.

Read the whole article here. 

Quote of the Day:

"Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life." -Sandra Carey

Watch & Learn

I'm amazed that most players do not know how to "watch & learn" basketball on TV.
 

There are two forms of viewing:
   1) For pure entertainment value
   2) To absorb and learn the game

For pure entertainment value- how do you watch? The answer is: as an average fan. You watch the ball. You see the one-pass-to-a-score/dunk, the athletic drive or the in-your-face-shot. It's fun, exciting, and instantly gratifying.

How to you watch basketball to learn the game? Teach your players this one simple rule: don't watch the ball!! This habit is difficult to adopt because it goes against what most of them have done for years. When you are watching off the ball action, you'll see the screen that led to the cut that led to the pass. You'll see the weakside action and how that impacts strong-side defense. You'll also see players set up their cuts, execute screens, go backdoor, play help defense, etc.

Quote of the Day:

"There are no traffic jams when you go the extra mile." -Zig Ziglar