Pre-Season Basketball Conditioning

Conditioning Requires More Than Straight-ahead Running

I work as an offensive skills coach; I teach basketball players from 10-20 years old to shoot and handle the ball better. Lately, however, I feel like a movement specialist, as more of my time is spent teaching players to squat properly, run properly, and move better so they can improve their sport-specific skill. Unfortunately, these young athletes simply lack basic movement skills.

Complicating the matter is the pre-season training of high school basketball players I train. Their pre-season conditioning consists of running; some teams run long distance, some run sprints; either way, teams spend almost all their pre-season conditioning time running in straight lines.

Speed and quickness are important to basketball success. However, basketball is more than a straight-ahead race; basketball is a dynamic sport. Players need an array of movement skills, not just straight-ahead speed. The game is played quickly with numerous stops, starts and changes of direction. Knowing this, an off-season sports conditioning program for high school athletes must incorporate multi-directional movement.

In a perfect world, coaches have an accessible gym and weight room five days a week; the world is not perfect, so adapt the following to your situation.

If training a high school team five days a week, I would break my workouts into two days of weight lifting, one day of sprints and two days of open gym basketball. The open gym is important because players get into the best basketball shape by playing basketball; they need to work on sport-specific skills and playing with little instruction is often an optimal environment for learning and experimenting with new skills.