Activating Aggression for Athletes Everywhere

Aggression is energy activated.

Aggressiveness is the fuel that activates players talents, strengths and abilities.

The act of activating aggression for a high school athlete will enable him/her to maximize their skill level and achieve their goals.

Without activating aggressiveness, skill and talent will remain unused, like bullets in the chamber never to be deployed.

But athletes will not simply wake up aggressive one day, instead it takes time.

As with anything, aggression can be practiced and primed to higher and higher levels.

What follows is a guide to help any athlete activate their aggression in any environment.

Aggressive Awareness

Activating athlete aggression starts with becoming aware of our aggressive identity.

What is your athlete’s overall confidence level?

Do they truly believe in themselves and their ability?

Do they typically run towards challenges or away from them?

Knowing an athlete’s current aggression level is critical to improving it. Many have limiting believes aka ‘Aggression Antidotes’, that keep them from mastering the use of aggression.

Only The Biggest & Best Can Be Aggressive

Many athletes falsely assume only the biggest or best can afford to be aggressive. They sit back and watch as other teammates and opponents display confidence and aggressiveness, but lack the confidence to impart their own aggressiveness.

Honestly, athletes can develop this mindset naturally, by watching the best players garner attention for being dominate. Yet, we rarely promote the aggressiveness of non-star players. Consequently, athletes assume that only the best players can be aggressive.

Yet becoming aggressive is not about being the best, it’s about being their best.

Bringing their ‘A’ game to every challenge is the primary goal, because this energy enables improvement.

Aggression Leads to Failure

Most athletes assume more aggression will lead to more failure. This is actually true.

Still, parents and athletes must realize that failing forward is the only way to accomplish any goal.

Toddlers would never learn to walk or run if they didn’t embrace failure, aka falling. Likewise, high school athletes will never run towards activating their highest levels aggressiveness without embracing failure.

Some athletes would rather shoot 1 for 2, only missing one shot, than shoot 4 for 10 and miss six shots.

They falsely measure success the lack of mistakes rather than the abundance of positive plays.

This type of thinking is referred to as failure phobia or walking in fear of failure.

Athletes must lay aside failure phobia and be willing to make more mistakes.

Aggression = Awkward

Showing emotion, communicating with teammates, or even competing with force can cause athletes to feel awkward.

As a college freshman I quickly realized my skills were not up to par with the older players.

I committed to playing as hard as I possibly could on defense at all times.

This meant I was very physical with my teammates, constantly taking charges, reaching and sometimes fouling (truthfully I was fouling a lot!).

Many of my teammates thought I was weird. Some wouldn’t talk to me, others talked about me.

It was awkward.

But I prioritized maintaining my aggression at all times and the awkwardness eventually subsided.

High school athletes, especially, need to let go of aggressive awkwardness and activate their aggression at the highest levels.

Aggregating Aggression

When you think of an aggressive athlete, most automatically picture players who shoot a lot.

However, shooting is perhaps the last most aggressive action any athlete can take. Before developing the aggressiveness needed to shoot more, athletes can develop aggressiveness in other, less critical areas.

Athletes must lay aside failure phobia and be willing to make more mistakes.

Dr. Jason Parker

Similar to improving shooting or dribbling skills, athletes can begin building up their aggressiveness. This will enable their aggression actions to build, which we refer to as aggregating aggression.

Warm Up

Look out on a high school court during pre-game warmups and you will find dozens of warm-up wallflowers.

These are players who fail to use the pre-game warmup to rev up their engine.

Warmups are a time for us to begin activating our aggression by running hard, being vocal, eliciting energy, and going full speed.

You can’t be a warmup wallflower then expect to enter the game with maximum aggression.

Practice warming up. Athletes should have a warm up routine similar to the best players on the planet (ie. - Steph Curry is famous for his pre-game routine and never misses it). If it works for pros it can work for high schoolers as well.

Priming their pre-game mindset and amping their energy levels will help athletes begin to activate aggression.

Loose Balls

All players have, or at least should have, some anxiety before and during games.

The tinge of nervousness is normal.

We can turn anxiety into aggression by attacking any and every loose ball.

Loose balls represent an opportunity to use all-out effort and emotion without the risk of making a mistake.

Whether the ball is in the air, on the ground, going out of bounds or exposed in the opponents hands; competing hard for the loose ball will relieve anxiety and activate aggression.

High School athletes should become become more aware of these opportunities to activate aggression.

Physicality

One other area where we can build up our aggressiveness, one step at a time, is by playing physical.

Hand checks, box outs, and taking charges are all small ways to demonstrate an athlete’s aggression without bringing too much attention.

Too many athletes are afraid to be physical and take up space. Physicality is a great way to get in the fight and remove any anxiety.

Often, being physical will cause opponents to regress in their aggressiveness.

Increasing physicality is a great way to increase overall aggressiveness.

Accelerating Aggressiveness

After becoming aggressively aware, then aggregating aggressiveness, the next step is to accelerate aggressiveness or take it to new levels.

Aggressiveness can only be ultimately accelerated through confidence.

Confidence is a product of competence or belief in one’s abilities.

At the end of the day, high-level aggressiveness comes from high level ability.

Although many athletes are training their skills daily; most are often going through the motions and never consider actually performing the skills when it matters most.

To prime skills to their highest levels, athletes must practice them as though they will perform them in tomorrow’s big game.

We refer to this mindset as Practice, Prime, Perform.

Players must being a sense of urgency to their training and adopt the mindset that their skills will be soon tested at the highest levels.

Similar to soldiers who are notorious for training hard for combat. All soldiers realize that tomorrow they may be in the fight of their lives. They practice their skills only to prime them to the highest levels, because they anticipate the fight is coming.

Actors run through their lines and prepare their roles with great focus, knowing they will soon be performing in front of thousands of critics.

High school athletes must practice shooting as though they were going to be shooting the game winning shot in the State Championship, tomorrow.

Dribbling drills should be performed as though athletes will be going up against the hardest press that they’ve ever seen, in the biggest game of their lives on tomorrow.

This mindset will activate players skills training and enable them to practice, prime and perform at their highest levels.

Consequently, this competence will lead to confidence which in turn, will enhance aggressiveness.

Acclimating Aggression

Acclimating means adjusting for any environment.

Athletes who have acclimated their aggression have the ability to attune their aggressiveness to any environment.

This is critical because most athletes can be aggressive in some environments but not others.

Perhaps an athlete is really aggressive in AAU ball, but can’t carry it forward to their high school team. Others are aggressive in training sessions, but not in live play. Even attending a college camp as an individual versus attending a team camp plays tricks on players abilities to maintain aggressiveness.

To acclimate your aggression as an athlete, we must understand the difference between rules, rights and roles.

Rules are like laws, every team, everywhere has them. But despite rules (laws) every citizen has rights. Similarly, every player has rights.

Lastly, every team has roles.

Let’s discuss how athletes can obey rules, yet establish rights to expand their roles on any given team.

Coaches use rules to establish team standards. For instance, a coach may say ‘never give up an offensive rebound’ or ‘never shoot after the first pass.’

Coaches’ rules are not put in place to confuse or over complicate, however, this is often the result.

Rules can cause athletes to loose aggressiveness due to overthinking and wanting to be obedient.

If we consider rules like laws, our country has many laws. One law is that we cannot steal from one another. This law tells us one thing we can’t do, however, this particular rule does not stop us from doing anything else.

The rule doesn’t prevent us from cooking breakfast, taking walks, flying on a plane, going to work, etc. The rule allows us to do anything that doesn’t involve stealing from another person.

Athletes must see around rules and maintain max aggressiveness without violating rules. This means if a Coach says ‘never give up an offensive rebound;’ the rule does not prevent players from doing other things like pressuring the ball, doubling the post, or running through passing lanes, etc.

Too often players let one rule impact their entire energy.

Next, we have rights. As citizens we each have the right to freedom and the pursuit of happiness. However, these rights are taken away when don’t obey rules such as not stealing from others.

Every athlete has rights like the right to dribble, shoot, and make decisions. As long as players obey the simple established rules, they get access to every right.

Athletes have the responsibility to obey established rules while also exercising their rights. They cannot overthink when the time calls for them to dribble, shoot, or make decisions.

Rules and rights are clear, yet they often get confused when it comes to roles.

Each of us plays a role in every environment.

We may be a leader in one environment, a learner in another; or a sibling in one environment and a friend in another.

What’s important is that athletes be themselves in any environment despite what role they are playing. Athletes can accomplish this by recognizing the rules of the environment, then enacting their rights in said environment. This will cause them to not only fulfill their roles, but maximize them.

As a shooter, the player’s role is to come in and shoot open shots. This athlete must first attend to this rule, then exercise their rights to dribble and make decisions like driving the ball, even if they are not in total alignment with the player’s role.

As a defender, the player’s role is to defend at the highest levels. This athlete must abide by the rule of being the best defender they can, then the player must work to exercise his or her right to shoot, dribble, and make decisions, even if they are not in total alignment with the player’s role.

As a ball handler, the player’s role is to protect the ball and make great decisions. As long as the athlete is taking care of this rule, they have the right to shoot, dribble and make decisions, even if they are not in total alignment with the player’s role.

Get it?

Obey the rule, activate rights, and grow your role. Become aggressive in any environment!