Conditioning For Basketball Players
Alright, here we go.
From all of our research and education, the optimal way to train your basketball player’s conditioning outside of playing basketball is going to be within the domains the sport is played. The principle behind this methodology goes by the name of the SAID principle. This stands for specific adaptation to imposed demands and today we are going to break that down in the form of basketball.
If you look at the demands of a basketball player it becomes very clear that acceleration and repeatable high-intensity short efforts are where basketball players live and breathe. Top-end speed is virtually non-existent and the athletes can simply accelerate and decelerate at a high level.
How do we train this?
To begin it’s definitely not by running the mile. Let that one sink in. If you are the coach responsible for conditioning work outside of playing the actual sport of basketball here are our recommendations.
If you did sessions two times a week this is what I would implement to a degree, but remember this is a general template we are putting onto the internet… if you want this specific to your needs and team pay us!
Day 1: Full effort sprints, hill sprints, or stairs + change of direction
Notes: These need to allow PLENTY of rest between sets. The goal is to run and sprint FULL speed and not lose quality due to fatigue. We are training SPEED, not half-ass tired running. As you start to see your athletes really slow down then you are losing the qualities of what you are trying to accomplish. Stop it there and call it as you’ve already gone too far.
These will be low volume and INTENSE. Think 5-12 full-out efforts starting at the lower ranges and increasing throughout the weeks and keep them in the ranges of 10-40 meters. I would work in the change of direction work BEFORE the all-out efforts. Think dynamic warmup, sprint tech, change of direction drills, AND THEN full sprints.
Day 2: Look at interval-based running with set rest periods.
The intensity of this work is going to be tied with the rest periods. Scale up the challenge of the efforts by decreasing rest time over the weeks. Basketball is a fluid game so an ideal rest time to work towards would be 10-20 second rests between efforts.
As they progress you can begin to ask them to simply keep walking in-between efforts [as they would always be moving on the court] and then full sprint for the distance or duration, think 20-60 meters. By building up total sets and decreasing rest times it will become obvious as your athletes are adapting to this type of work. It’s important to note that you can also add in a change of direction here! This is common in the form of ladders or suicides just be aware and watch the total distance.
Final thoughts
Keep in mind this type of work is not easy and will really challenge them! Build over time and error on the side of too little over too much in the beginning.
Let’s move past the idea of doing something “because we did it” and begin the trend towards educated and targeted training of our athletes! They deserve the best. Reach out to us if you have any questions or would like to hire us to help write your training protocols.
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