# of reps needed to excute a skill or play

If you do something correctly 17 times it will become a habit.

From "Coaching Football's Spread Offense" by Tim Stowers and Barry Butzer

pg 9

"A company in California studied sports skills and found that to become familar with a skill, an athlete must perform that skill 250,000 times. To perfect that skill the athlete must perform it almost 1, 000,000 times."

Not trying to be a butt, but 250,000 reps is 100 reps a day (including weekends and holiday) for 6.8 years.

And all that gets you is familar with a skill?

I call BS!

Successfully? It depends on the kid, but I'd feel comfortable saying that I can teach an average kid to reach block with <100 reps...




I feel comfortable calling a play when my kids can execute the play without prompting/correction from the coaches around 5 times. If they can do it, we can run it.

As far as skill Mastery goes? I'd say the # of reps increases exponentially...maybe 1000+ per skill...

I read some research somewhere that once a skill has been attained it should be correctly repped no more than 3 times daily. Once you go beyond 3 the law of diminishing returns kicks into gear.

Funny, I was watching a D1 practice and noticed that they were repping everything (individual skills) 3 to 4 times. No more, no less.

This isn't to say that a player who is just learning the skill of tackling should only rep each part of the progression 3 times. Once muscle memory has the skill in place, it should only take 3 reps to keep it sharp.

sweep26 is spot on. That is a great point.

The number of reps depends heavily on the athlete's sense of feel for what you are asking him to do.

Talent is the ability to process a request and apply it quickly. The teaching can be complicated, and the reps even tougher, so talent plays a huge role for sure.

I am also going to add maturity to the discussion as well. That is a big factor in the willingness of the athlete to process new material.

I have seen this over and over again in our training. The more innate ability the athlete possesses, the easier time he has implementing a teaching point. It does not mean a lesser talented athlete can't get it, it just takes more time.

Reps are important, but if you can inform those reps with teaching that produces understanding and feedback in the athlete, the number required for lasting change reduces dramatically.

It is much easier to learn to do something (create a habit) the correct way than to reteach it the new way (or break and existing habit).

Researcher Henry Wong stated that it would take a person between 1,000 and 2,000 reps doing something the new way to break an established habit. If you return to the old habit before reaching the magic number of between 1000 and 2000 you start over at 1.

Learn the correct way the first time and life is much simpler.

As a general rule I would say 200 reps of a play for it to be near automatic.

I would say quality reps. Any sub par rep might cause a person to repeat that sub par behavior. Stress the proper technique and use it in a quality game speed rep. Mental reps are a whole different story/dimension. Like running veer steps backed up to a fence so you will not belly back on the option. Play reps better look like your backed up to a fence or they are a waste of time.