One of the weakest parts of most athletes' games is their knowledge of tactics. Athletes are either “joy sticked” (which means their team just runs plays instead of reading situations) or they come from lower level programs and haven’t been exposed to different zones, offenses or 6 on 5’s.
Sit down with your athletes and walk them through different zones and teach the “why” would you do that zone and “how” would you break it.
Quizzes are a great way to help athletes get engaged and understand different scenarios. Example: If you are having a 6 on 5 practice, give athletes homework the night before and see if they understand what the roles of everyone on 5 man defense are.
Water polo chess is another great activity to improve tactical knowledge. Divide the athletes into teams and set up a scenario. You will have to act as the referee but have each of them take turns (one on offense and one on defense) breaking the scenario and responding to the other teams.
Virtual reality is another incredible modern tool that can rapidly improve athletes’ tactical skills. VR creates a one-of-a-kind deep-learning environment that rewires and optimizes the brain for high-performance while automatically grading and evaluating every rep.
Try to watch as many games as possible together as a team. The more communication amongst your athletes talking about the sport, the smarter they will be.