STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING FOR BASKETBALL

The biggest advancement in basketball over the past 20 years has been the emphasis placed on strength and conditioning for basketball.  Coaches these days are looking for ways to get their players into better shape and to make sure they get bigger and stronger.  This article will give some important advice for coaches looking to build an effective strength and conditioning program that will help take the performance of your basketball team.

Lifting

Every week during the year, we are always lifting weights.  Depending on the time of the year, we are lifting anywhere from two to four days per week.  We will lift four times a week during the second half of the off-season and throughout pre-season practice.  We will lift three times a week from the end of early-season practice to the end of the calendar year and then again from the end of the season to the midpoint of the off-season.  From the first of January to the end of the basketball season, we will only lift twice a week.

When developing a lifting program, there are five core lifts that should be used: the clean, the bench press, the shoulder press, the deadlift, and the squat.  These lifts are designed as core lifts to develop strength in the body and they are the most efficient in working all the major muscle groups.  However, when designing the program, you should use the following format for weekly scheduling:

Running

Basketball is a unique sport in that it requires both explosive power and endurance.  Running is the most interesting part of developing a strength and conditioning program for basketball.  A good running program requires that it develop both of these attributes.  The sport requires that the athletes be capable of quick, short bursts of speed along with being in condition to have a great aerobic capacity.

In looking at the dimensions of a basketball court, the floor is 94 feet in length and 50 feet in width.  Knowing these dimensions, an effective running program can be developed.  No part of any sprint should be longer than 94 feet but no part of the sprint should be shorter than 15 feet.

Three types of sprints can be implemented.  The first of these is the basic "Down-and-Back" sprint.  This sprint has the players line up on the baseline.  To complete one sprint, the players will run from one baseline to the other and back once.  For the purposes of conditioning, the players should do no more than five in a single set.

The second of these sprints is what is called "Nine".  This sprint has the players line up on the sideline and will run to the opposite sideline and back four times then run through the opposite sideline on the last one to complete one repetition. 

The last of these are the "Senior" sprints.  Here, the players line up on the baseline similar to "Down-and-Back" sprint, but it is run differently.  To complete one repetition, the players will sprint to the free throw line-extended and back, to the half court line and back, to the opposite free throw line-extended and back, and to the opposite baseline and back.  These sprints are not done as much, but they are effective in that they work with stopping and starting as well as being beneficial in developing agility.

As you may have noticed, I did not put any minimum times for these sprints.  The reason being is that the objective is to get the players to run as hard as they possibly can.  When I was at William Jewell, we had a junior varsity program and two players stood out the most when it came to their running abilities.  Chris Weston was naturally fast so a "Down-and-Back" sprint being run in 11 seconds was not much of a challenge.  Meanwhile, we also had a player named Matt Wuestner who had to work even harder to complete the sprint in 11 seconds or less.  This approach forces the players to run the sprints as fast as they can and develop their explosiveness instead of having to meet a goal that is too easy for some and may be too difficult for others.

The endurance runs can be done in a number of ways.  They can be done for time or for distance.  When we do runs for time, we will schedule them to last anywhere from 12 to 20 minutes.  If we do them for distance, we will run no more than two miles.  The best place to do these runs is on a track with a coach using a stopwatch to get times (for distance) and to calculate distance (for timed runs).

There is also a run that can be used from time-to-time that is an endurance run that incorporates the need for explosiveness.  We call this the Fartlek.  We can use either the track or use the basketball court for this run.  If we use the track, we will place four cones 50 yards apart on the straight-aways.  Meanwhile, if we use the basketball court, we will place four cones at the free-throw line-extended on both ends on both sidelines.  Our players will sprint down the straight-aways between the cones and jog at half speed the rest of the run.  A typical Fartlek lasts 15 to 20 minutes.

We will not do any running from January 1 through the first third of our off-season period.  This is so that our players can get rest during the season and to recover once the season is over.  Here is what the running schedule looks like:

Plyometrics

Plyometrics are important for the players in that they will help them develop agility and improve their explosiveness, especially when it comes to their leaping ability.  Plyometrics can also be instituted to prevent injuries.

For the purposes of this article, I will focus instead of when to use a plyometric program and the intensity level of each.  I would advise each coach reading this piece to get a program for your players that works best for you and your team.  If you are coaching a team of players who have not yet reached puberty, I would strongly advise against using such a program because of risks.  However, if you are coaching a high school, college, or professional team, it would work well for you.

When putting this program into place, you should only use the program when you are halfway through the off-season and use it until the end of the off-season period.  That having been taken into consideration, you should vary the intensity of the program and base it on when your players do their cleans.  Since we are doing cleans on Mondays and Fridays, the days of highest intensity should be on Tuesdays and Thursdays with days of lower intensity being on Mondays and Fridays.

Testing

The reason that we do strength and conditioning for basketball is to improve player performance.  The most important aspect of any strength and conditioning program is that it be measured in order to demonstrate progress.  With our program, we will test twice per year: nine weeks prior to the first day of practice and the week before practice.  We want to measure strength, body control, explosiveness, lateral quickness, agility, and endurance.  To accomplish each of these measures, we will conduct testing over a two-day period.

The first measures that we institute are to measure both strength and body control.  To measure this, we will have our players do pull-ups and dips for a maximum number of repetitions.  We will test three times and the players will do as many repetitions as possible.

The second measure is the explosiveness of our athletes.  For this, we will measure the standing vertical jump of our players.  This test is to be done from a standing position.  Make sure that the players are not squatting down before exploding.  They need to do it from a position in which they are standing up straight and explode as high as they can.

Third, we want to determine the lateral quickness of our players.  We will do this by having our players step slide in a 10-yard space for 30 seconds.  We want to see how many times a player can go from one end of the 10-yard space to the other.  The space is set up with pieces of tape 10 yards apart from each other.  The player will go from one piece of tape to the other using the step slide.

Fourth, we will measure how agile our players are.  For this, we will use a 20-yard shuttle run.  Place a strip of tape five yards from the half court line on each side.  The player will start in the middle and will initiate the start of timing when they move.  They will sprint and touch both pieces of tape and run through the half court line.  Timing ends when the player runs through the half court line after having touched both pieces of tape.

Finally, we will measure the endurance of our athletes with a running test.  For this, we take the players out to the track and we will have them run one and a half miles.  Each player is to get this done in 12 minutes to pass the test.  This test is called the "Military Run" because it is the same running test that is used by the United States military.

Conclusion

The way in which the strength and conditioning program for basketball is developed is important to the success of the team.  Players who are in shape will perform at their best when called upon to do so.  Whether you need to close out the tight games at the end or endure a long season, having a physically fit team will be a benefit to all coaches and will result in more wins.

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