What’s the Difference Between Grinding and Intentional Training?

It’s not uncommon to see players who feel as though their training just isn’t paying off, be it their aim training, scrimming with their team, or even hitting the gym. They’re grinding, putting in an hour, maybe multiple hours, playing through some tasks or queueing up expecting something to click and change, but… it just doesn’t.

Now, we don’t want to diminish that experience or that feeling, you’re right to feel as though something is missing or wasn’t working, but there’s good news here. That feeling is letting us know that something in the process is wrong, and that actually comes down to intentionality, or put in more common phrasing, intentional training.

Wait, What’s That Mean?

You’ve probably heard the theories about things like the 10,000-hour rule for expertise, and maybe that’s accurate, or there’s something there, but grinding without purpose, going through the motions, and doing the wrong practice isn’t just not helping; it can actually be counterproductive.

This actually hurts your training one of two ways… First, you might just be doing the wrong training. Whether you’re playing tasks that aren’t really designed for the mechanical demands of your game, or you’re just going through the motions doing busy work, you’re not approaching your training with a targeted, strategic approach.

The other way is that you’re going through these motions without checking in periodically to see what’s working and what isn’t. That could be checking in with your Benchmarks periodically, watching back replays and checking in on the notes of your progress over time, or even just paying attention to your trends.

We’re not even talking about changing up your mindset here, or just trying harder, it’s about taking the right approach to get the results you’re looking for. Jumping into Aimlabs or heading into a scrim with your teammates without any plan or goals in mind isn’t too different than going into a gym and randomly jumping onto different machines. You’re not going to see gains by just going through the motions, you see gains when you have a plan, a routine, or a system, and you follow it.

Think about it from the approach of studying for an upcoming exam. It might feel like you’re putting in the work by opening up a book and re-reading a few chapters over and over again, but if those aren’t the areas that you need to actually study on and improve your understanding or knowledge, then come test time, you’re still leaving yourself open to failure. It’s about knowing what you need to study, and doing so strategically.

Alright, What’s This Look Like in Practice?

Let’s just break intentional training down into three easy steps to get a better understanding and overview of the concept.

Step 1 – Diagnose: We need an idea of what we’re actually working on. Whether that means you’re running through your Benchmarks and identifying your weakest categories, or just studying the tape with replays and finding aiming errors or mistakes you’re making in your matches, we need to know what we’re doing.

Step 2 – Isolate: Now that we know what we want to work on, be it a weakness, a tendency, or mistakes you’re making repeatedly, we can target practice around it. We are Aimlabs, so let’s use the aim training example. You’ve identified that strafe tracking is a problem for you. So now we want to find tasks or playlists that target that category specifically. It’s also helpful if those are designed around the game you’re training for, such as VALORANT.

Step 3 – Verify: As you’re working this isolated practice into your training routine, start to check in with yourself to look for improvements. An easy way to do this in our example would be to periodically run back through your Benchmarks, even if it’s just in the tracking section. Are you seeing improvements or growth? Does it feel less challenging now? This step is going to help prevent unnecessary grinding, or clue us in that we need to adjust the approach to see those gains.

Wouldn’t More Practice Help In General?

Sure, getting reps in is great, and it can help a bit, but if you’re just playing tasks that you’re already comfortable with, or they’re not targeting the weaker aspects of your aim, then you can’t expect to see growth in those corners of your gameplay. It’s just like queueing up and going through the motions in matches with the team, without actually identifying what’s leading to lost rounds and lost matches, and then practicing to account for that.

Reps are helpful if they’re the right reps, but you can absolutely spin your tires with the wrong training. It’s also worth noting that structured, intentional training is going to take up far less time than aimlessly grinding. We’re not telling you not to play something if you’re having fun, by all means, have at it. We’re just saying if you feel that practice is overwhelming or a waste of time, that’s likely a reflection of your routine more than practice in general.

It’s also worth noting that if you skip step 1 and you haven’t diagnosed what you’re actually working on, then your practice may even be reinforcing those same bad habits that got you here in the first place. So take a few minutes to identify what needs work, then either create or find the training that will address it, and put your time to productive use. Your wrists are going to thank you in the long run, and you’ll start seeing the results that let you know the work was worth it.