You ever have one of those practices where your team starts off real sluggish? Eventually, they pick it up and get into a rhythm but wouldn’t it be so much better if they could just come ready to practice?

There is one thing I do before every practice to set the thermostat for my team to make sure they start with the energy level that I desire from my team.

Give them something to focus on. My team has a mission statement that we say at the beginning of every practice. It encapsulates how we want to approach every practice. Now, you don’t have to have a mission statement, but by giving them things to focus on at the beginning of practice, they know what is expected of them.

Example:  Today, we are going to focus on being loud and going for every single ball.

And if you see players not doing these throughout the practice, you can ask them what the focus is as a reminder for them to step it up.