How can pressure be applied to practice sessions?
Increasing task difficulty is one obvious method of applying pressure. However if coaches make practice tasks unnecessarily difficult, they may be viewing the objective through a fault-centred or ego-involved prism. Practice is usually enhanced by making tasks as game-like as possible. Sometimes competition pressure can be simulated beneficially. At other times better practice outcomes can require deliberate departures from competitive conditions. Practice evaluation criteria should always be defined beforehand. In accuracy practice, for example, bowls that settle one metre short, long or wide rightly have the same value. In tactical practice, a bowl that settles one metre long is of more value than bowls the same distance wide or short.
