Repetition.

The former Manchester United football coach Sir Alex Ferguson says:

“Prominent in the category of principles that are as important to me now as they were 30 years ago is the certainty that good coaching relies on repetition.  Forget all the nonsense about altering training programmes to keep players happy.  The argument that they must be stimulated by constant variety may come across as progressive and enlightened but it is a dangerous evasion of priorities.  In any physical activity, effective practice requires repeated execution of the skill involved.  Why do you think the greatest golfers who ever lived have devoted endless hours to striking the same shots over and over again?  Yes, I know golf, where the ball always sits still to be struck, is so different from football that technical comparisons are foolish.  But the link is the need to concentrate on refining technique to the point where difficult skills become a matter of habit.  When footballers complain about the dullness of repetitive passing exercises it is usually not monotony they resent but hard work.  David Beckham is Britain’s finest striker of a football not because of God-given talent but because he practices with a relentless application that the vast majority of less gifted players wouldn’t contemplate.  Practice may not make you perfect but it will definitely make you better and any player working with me on the training ground will hear me preach the virtues of repetition—repeatedly.”

Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography, Hodder & Stoughton, Publisher