Conditioning drills help basketball players stay in shape and improve their speed, agility and footwork. If you never run conditioning drills with your team, your players might not develop sufficient stamina to succeed in competitive games. Keep your team interested by alternating between conditioning drills that focus only on running or sprinting and conditioning drills that incorporate skills training.
Warm-Up
Before each practice, have your players perform certain basic conditioning drills to warm up their muscles and elevate their heart rates. Have players jog several times around the court, then run a certain number of lengths across the court while lifting their knees up with each step, kicking their feet toward their buttocks or skipping.
Suicides
The suicide sprinting drill requires endurance and the agility to make quick turns. Spread your players out along one end line. Describe the drill to players before they begin. Players must sprint to a series of lines on the court, including the near free-throw line, the half-court line, the far free-throw line and the opposite end line, each time pivoting to return to the original end line before sprinting to the next line. Players must bend over to touch each line with their hands. Blow the whistle to indicate the start of the sprint.
Hourglass Run
The hourglass run helps players develop footwork and stamina. Players move in an hourglass pattern on the court, alternating between different styles of movement. Have players line up at one corner. Describe the drill to players before they begin. Players must sprint from the corner to the half-court line, shuffle in the defensive stance across the court, sprint to the far end line, shuffle in the defensive stance around the 3-point line, sprint to half-court, shuffle across the center line, sprint to the original end line and shuffle around the 3-point line back to the starting corner. Let players go one at a time, and blow your whistle each time a player reaches the half-court line to signal the next player to start.
Loose Ball Recovery
toward the opposite basket. The first player in line must sprint towards the ball to recover it before it goes out of bounds. If the player recovers the ball, she can then shoot it to make a basket. You can run this drill in both directions on the court if you have an assistant.
Speed Shooting
Divide the players into two groups and have one group line up at either end line. Give a ball to the first player in one line. Blow the whistle to indicate the start of the drill. The player with the ball must speed-dribble across the court and shoot a lay-up. The first person in the opposite line must rebound the ball and speed-dribble toward the other basket to make a lay-up. The whole team must work together to make a certain number of lay-ups within a time limit. For example, challenge the team to make 50 lay-ups in three minutes.
Member Comments