I don’t know who told me that little saying years ago, but it is so true. “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” Maybe it is not grammatically correct, but it for sure is practically correct.

There can be no growth if there is no change in the variable. Take our human bodies, for instance. Begin going to the gym and lift 100 pounds on your bench press five times. Day after day you go to the gym and lift 100 pounds five times and go home. There will be a little strength gain, or some muscle toning in the first few weeks. Keep doing it for months in a row and the gains level off into a plateau. The body acclimates and adjusts to the activity, and has built the strength to do it comfortably without much effort. Continue going to the gym day after day, month after month, doing the same five reps of the same 100-pound bench press, and soon a year passes and the body hasn’t changed much. It is used to the activity and resistance, so it doesn’t get stretched and broken down where it rebuilds itself stronger.

Another great application is in our coaching. Sometimes older coaches tend to do the same practice plans, same workouts, and same game plans they have done for 20 years. Sure, the team roster changes each year, so at the beginning of the season the workouts push them a little. But as the season gets longer and opponent challenges get stronger, do those same workouts cause any growth?

Exercise science has taught us the importance of weight training for athletes in all sports. I know some older basketball coaches who don’t believe in weight training because their coaches didn’t make them lift, so they’ve never made their own teams lift. They win enough games to keep their job, so they cruise through another year. But what if?

High school sports have become year-round commitments. Like it or not, to become successful, teams must be training and competing all year to keep up with opponents. Coaches can no longer do what they’ve always done and still be successful.

The game has changed dramatically. Look at the shot chart of the NBA and college today compared to twenty years ago. The 3-point line is lit up with thousands of attempts. The midrange areas are clean as a bathed baby, but the area at the rim is full of layups, put-backs, and dunks. High school coaches are following the trend in philosophy. Defensive philosophies of 20 years ago will not be successful against today’s wide-spaced, 5-out, dribble-drive offenses.

Athletes are training year-round now. Skill development has increased at an unfathomable rate. Middle school kids are now developing the fundamental skills of varsity athletes from a decade ago. The talent pool is getting larger and larger, faster and faster. There simply is more talent than there ever has been before. Kids can no longer shoot standing jump shots on a wooden basket and a dirt court like Jimmy Chitwood. (I know, I know, some old-timers are grumbling right now saying, “shootin’ is shootin’ and it don’t matter what the court is like… I shot on a rim with no net that was nailed to the barn.”)

And I get that. Trust me, I get that. We still need kids to shoot standing jump shots against an old red barn. But that alone is not going to get them a spot at State Tech. They are going to have to develop a killer crossover with both hands and have sick Euros going in either direction. They are going to have to finish same-foot/same-hand on the backside of the rim while some 6’9” freak of nature tries to smash it into the stands. And then they will have to hit that red barn jump shot coming off of a dead sprint, stopping on a dime, elevating into a quick release so as not to send another ball into the bleachers.

Coaches and players can no longer do what they have always done. Athletes are getting better and bigger and stronger. Kids are playing 50-100 games a summer with their traveling teams, developing collegiate moves and skills. It is imperative to do more, and to do different.

Part of doing different is measuring what you’re doing. The best programs today track their athletes’ development over time so they can see whether the new work is producing new results, or just repeating old ones. Platforms like Ballogy give coaches and athletes that record, so growth isn’t a hope. It’s a picture you can point to.

Make your training and your coaching grow every day. Stretch yourself to get better as the game and athletes get better around you. If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. Unless you are State Champions every year or the nation’s leading scorer five years running, you aren’t doing or getting enough. Go be great today!