Crazy What A Little Rest Can Do

October 27

My body has never been as happy with me as it was this past weekend. After four straight days of double sessions, my teammates and I were given the weekend off to rejuvenate and relax. It is fair to say that every single one of us needed it. Muscles were sore, legs were tired, and in general, we were just worn out. This was expected of course; we worked extremely hard over the week and it was clear that we had already improved immensely in the short time we had been practicing.

The best part about having the weekend off became apparent at the beginning of practice on Monday. It seemed weird at first, because now that it is no longer fall break, people are actually on campus and we are attending classes before practice again. But as soon as we started stretching and running, it was clear that the rest had definitely done us some good. We were moving a lot faster than we had been at the end of last week, and everyone seemed very excited to be back in the gym after the weekend off. General movements including sprinting, cutting, and defensive slides seemed like they took very little effort compared to last Friday’s practices. As a team, we looked fresh both mentally and physically, and that translated into a great practice, which is particularly crucial in the beginning of the week.

What a lot of programs don’t seem to value enough is exactly what my teammates and I experienced today in practice. Many see a weekend off as a day or two that we are not practicing or honing our skills or improving as a team. But in this case, having an extra day off allowed us to perform much better in practice. We got more out of practice than we would have had we practiced on Saturday, and that was because our bodies were given the rest that they were demanding from us.

We began practice with our usual sprints, passing and weaving drills. We then moved into 4 on 4 half court breakdown before beginning a half court shooting drill, stationary ball handling, and a full court dribbling drill that allowed us to practice our crossovers and other moves. We finished practice with about fifteen minutes of full court play and then our typical cool down. While we had definitely worked hard and had been conditioning during practice, it was clear that both physically and mentally, we felt much better than we had just a couple days ago. My teammates and I all knew exactly why that was. Sometimes, a little rest goes a long way.