Full-body workout routines for basketball players should incorporate dynamic stretching, plyometric exercises and weightlifting. Players should train to improve quickness, agility, leaping ability and endurance. "Basketball is a game of starting and stopping and jumping with varying bouts of very high intensity activity. Your conditioning workouts should mimic this," strength coach Alan Stein wrote for iHoops.com. "You should aim for each workout to incorporate drills that include sprinting, cutting, back pedaling, defensive sliding, and jumping."
Flexibility Work
Hurdle step overs and duck unders improve hip and glute flexibility, improving a player's range of motion and vertical leap. Former NBA star Michael Jordan used the lying glute stretch and the standing quad stretch to work his legs.
Upper Body Weight Training
Appropriate lifts for basketball players include the chest fly, bench press, chest press, incline press, decline press, pullover, pull-ups, lateral raise, shoulder press, rear delt raise, seated row, low row, upright row, tricep extension, bicep curl and dip. Stein recommends four days of training, with two days of upper body work alternated with two days of lower body work. He recommends one or two sets of each exercise, reaching fatigue between eight and 12 repetitions, and resting one to two minutes between sets.
Lower Body Weight Training
Good lifts for basketball players include squats, leg curl, walking lunge, stepups, calf raise and lower back extension. The dumbbell step-up was integral to Jordan's workout routine. He started in an athletic stance holding dumbbells at his sides. He stepped into a box and drove up until his leg was fully extended. Then he drove the opposite knee high and slowly returned to the starting position before repeating with the other leg.
Explosiveness vs. Pure Strength
Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard clicked off 365-pound bench presses easily, but that strength didn't translate well on the basketball court. He realized players should stress explosive athletic movement with the training rather than building sheer strength. “Rate of force production is the most important thing in sports,” Howard's strength coach, Bryan Meyer, told "Stack Magazine." “That’s strength times speed. In other words, how fast you can produce that strength. If you can’t produce a movement or strength quickly, then it doesn’t help you. You want to be able push or pull a weight as quickly as possible.”
Quickness Training
Players can use the "quick foot ladder" for a variety of drills designed to improve their footwork. High stepping, with one foot per square, and hopping, with both feet in each square, are examples. So is the crossover. With both feet outside the ladder, the player crosses the outside foot into the ladder, then the inside foot to the other side of the ladder. Several shuffling drills can be executed on the ladder to mimic basketball movement. Developing a quicker "first step" is more important than building maximal speed in basketball.
Agility Training
Stein recommends running three 20-second agility drills in each workout, with five repetitions each with one-minute breaks between drills. The "Star Drill" is an example. Several cones are placed along the three-point line on the court. The players performs a basketball movement on the baseline, such as backboard taps or the defensive slide. A training partner calls out a cone number. The player sprints to the cone, assumes a defensive stance, then sprints back to the baseline to resume the original activity.
Vertical Leap Training
One-legged trampoline jump works the fast-twitch muscles critical to vertical leaping ability. To build lower-leg explosiveness, Jordan used squat jumps and split jumps in his routine. For the latter, he started in a split stance with his left foot forward. He lowered into a squat until his front knee was bent at a 90-degree angle. Then he exploded upward for maximum height. He landed softly in the start position. He completed his repetitions with one leg, then switched to the other.
Basketball Endurance Training
Players should run drills with basketball movements. The Full-Court Z starts in one corner of the court. The player uses a defensive slide to reach midcourt, then takes a drop step and sprints diagonally to the opposite corner on the same baseline. Then the player backpedals, with hands high, to the corner on the far baseline. The player jogs along the baseline to the other corner and starts again. The Hourglass drill starts in one corner. The player sprints diagonally to the opposite corner, takes a drop step and uses a defensive slide to reach the other corner. Then the player sprints diagonally across the court to the opposite corner, takes a drop step and slides to the starting point.
References
- University of Texas; Preseason Strength and Conditioning for an NCAA Division I ...
- "Stack Magazine"; Dwight Howard's Movement-Based Training; Josh Staph; March 2011
- "Stack Magazine"; Luol Deng Pre-Season Strength and Flexibility Workout ; Kyle Woody, May 2009
- "Stack Magazine"; Michael Jordan: The Mind and Muscle of a Champion; Josh Staph, November, 2010
- iHoods.com; The Definitive 6-Week Guard Workout; Alan Stein
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