Variability is key (an overview)

In this series, I am detailing the goal of our summer: train like cats to become more like cats—built on the pillars of functional variability and a quick central nervous system (CNS). Welcome to part one. In this post, I want to lay out some initial ideas and the goals that shaped everything we did.

This summer, one of my personal goals was to figure out how to make our workouts more relevant to the whole athlete, not just the basketball player. In the five posts in this series, I’ll break down what we did, why we did it, and where we may go from here.

I’ll be honest, this series has not been easy for me to write. I’m not a strength and conditioning coach, and I’m far from a skill acquisition expert...yet many of the topics I’ll cover touch directly on those fields. I’m simply a coach looking to expand my range, and this series is my attempt to document how I’ve worked to be more intentional in developing athletic traits that truly translate to the court.

To start, I believe everything we do in the performance space should have a direct connection to the game. Recently, while listening to legendary track coach Tony Holler (@pntrack) on the Phi-Lacrosse-Ophy Podcast, something clicked: we needed to improve our level of integration between those areas.

Now, our goal is simple: train like cats to become more like cats (or in Tony's words, feed the cats!). As I researched more about our offseason strategy, I leaned heavily on the work of @kneesovertoesguy, @ShakeyWaits, @TheUofStrength, and @ZacGoodman_ as well.

Here are some traits that might distinguish a cat and a dog:

Cats: Fast-twitch · Quick changes of speed/direction · Bouncy and agile · Adaptable · Fresh and ready · Functional strength · Vicious assassins in short bursts

Dogs: Slow-twitch · One single speed · Flat-footed and stiff · Rigid · Burnt out or hurt · Muscles for appearance · Constantly fatigued

Over the years, I’ve seen players enter high school as natural cats—then, through growth spurts, weight room training, and in the chase of various athletic goals, they slowly (and unfortunately) lose those qualities and start moving (and performing) like dogs.

Training like cats is especially relevant for us because of our style of play. We want our games to feel like track meets (not wrestling matches)—fast on both offense and defense, pressing on makes and misses, and forcing opponents to play at our pace.

Some teams may benefit from "dog" qualities—but in our system, we have no use for those types of players. We chose to double down on developing cat-like traits because they translate to our game immediately. We could train like dogs for five years and see no real results, but training like cats can produce an impact right away given how we play.

In rethinking physical performance and our practice sessions, two things stood out: the importance of functional variability and the importance of a fast, responsive central nervous system (CNS) (which, of course, are two defining traits of a cat).

In my upcoming posts, I'll break down exactly how we trained with these in mind, but first I want to explain why they matter so much and what they actually mean.

Functional Variability

Variability means moving in different ways rather than relying on the same pattern or technique...but functional variability is where elite athletes separate themselves—making those movement changes at full speed, under pressure, and without breaking down, all based on the situation, the environment, and the context around them.

Developing functional variability, then, becomes the goal. Here’s an activity I did and then showed our players: find an NBA game and pause the film at various points. Look at the body positions, joint angles, and movements of players on both offense and defense. Do they look like the weight room lifts we train? Or the traditional warmups athletes usually do? They don’t. Knees go over toes, heads lean past knees, and bodies twist into positions you’d never teach in a "perfect form" drill.

The best athletes haven’t eliminated certain movements in favor of one perfect technique. Instead, they’ve expanded their range of solutions because the game is chaotic and unpredictable. It’s played at extreme angles, in awkward situations, at varying speeds, in tight spaces...and we simply can’t remove those qualities. They’re inherent to the game. They are the game.

Perfect movement is whatever solves the problem quickly and effectively, no matter how it looks. Our job as coaches is to design environments that expand each athlete’s movement solutions and the confidence to use them under pressure. The reality: most warmups don’t set up the practice, and most practices don’t simulate the game. So we need to weave game-like variability into everything (warmups, the weight room, and on-court training), so these functional options can emerge. When athletes practice within that variability, they prepare for a wider range of solutions, reduce overuse risk by spreading load more evenly across parts of their body, and arrive ready to perform in the exact environment they’ll face.

The Central Nervous System

The CNS is the body’s command center for movement—and in games, it has to "fire up" instantly, processing hundreds of variables in that exact split second to be effective.

Traditional speed, quickness, and agility drills often miss the most important point: it’s not about simply having "fast feet." Ladder drills, for example, probably don’t improve game quickness. Robust game quickness comes when the CNS learns to react faster to what’s actually happening—an opponent’s movement or the flight of the ball.

P3’s testing gets closer to capturing this difference. In one of their assessments, a ball is dropped, and a player must react, jump, and touch a target as quickly as possible—measuring how fast the CNS can process the cue and produce an explosive response. Interestingly, Nikola Jokic ranks among the best in their database on this test.

I’ve used mirror drill variations for years in warmup settings, but now I recognize their true performance benefits (even in sports where the connection isn’t as obvious as in football). These drills train the CNS to read, process, and respond to unpredictable, game-like cues at full speed.

Speed, agility, and jumping are measurable indicators of how quickly an athlete can tap into their CNS—the brain-body connection that turns perception into action. Training these qualities is a cheat code: improve the CNS, and you might just improve every skill it controls. When athletes can process what’s happening and get their bodies to respond instantly, performance in other areas (shooting, passing, defending) rises because every action depends on a CNS that’s fully active and ready to fire.

Ultimately, if you combine functional variability with a fast, powerful CNS, you get an athlete who can quickly, explosively, and efficiently solve any movement problem.

And that is the essence of a cat.

PART ONE: Variability is key (an overview)

PART TWO: Variability is key (warmups)

PART THREE: Variability is key (sprinting, jumping, lifting)

PART FOUR: Variability is key (shooting)

PART FIVE: Variability is key (looking ahead)