With our previous blog, we
learned that skill trainers and body enhancement specialists must work together
in developing the full athlete. In this
blog we will go into more detail for each of the disciplines during the
pre-season or preparation phase.
Skill-Development
AAU summer session is over
and now high school coaches and trainers are excited to get their players back
in the gym to get better. Before you
start your workouts, you need to make sure you provide your athletes with enough
rest before the constant pounding of the pre-season. Giving the players a week or two off is wise
to allow their body muscles and joints to repair and recover.
Once you reach the pre-season,
coaches/trainers need to focus on individual skill development, while limiting,
if not eliminating open gym sessions. At
this point, players need to expand their skill set and do not need to play
anymore games or practice learning new offensive sets or inbounds plays. As I
tell my clients, when you take and fail a math test, do you go back and re-take
the test? Or do you go back and study what you did wrong and prepare for your
next test? Basketball skill development isn’t any different than classroom
learning.
Time management is crucial
since players need to also incorporate body conditioning at this phase and school
homework. Coaches or trainers need to
keep all of their workouts functional! Performing two-ball dribbling drills, or
doing gimmick drills that make you look innovative but have no relevance to
game-like situations should be eliminated.
For example, an area of development that players tend to over train is
ball-handling. There are only maybe 2
players on each team that handle the ball, however, there are thousands of
gimmick ball-handling drills that coaches and trainers are spending the
majority of their court time doing.
During this phase, coaches
MUST place their players on shooting programs.
The key to basketball is putting the ball in the basket!!! Therefore, the easiest way to build
confidence and success for your players is to improve their shooting. Set up a “Breakfast Club”, where players come
before school to go through their shooting workouts, or an after school program,
where the players come in with their partner and put up 200-300 shots before
heading home to finish their homework.
Shooting programs do not have to be long. Thirty minutes is plenty enough time to get
up enough shots for improvement. Have
players find a consistent shooting partner that will motivate and push each
other. When I was a high school coach,
Josh Akognon (Memphis Grizzlies) had Angelo Tsagarakis (French Pro B) to use
each other as motivation to become master shooters. They always shot before school and late at
night while janitor was cleaning the gym and locker rooms. It wasn’t a coincidence that both players
made over 130 3-pointers their senior year in only 28 games.
An area of focus I recommend
during this time that is relevant to the entire team is what I call “Secondary
Finishing Series”, and “Finishing at the Rim Series”. Secondary Finishing Series means what a
player does once they beat their man with their initial primary move. What does a player do once they are in the key
area? Teaching players secondary
finishing moves like broad jumps, step overs, floaters, as well as concepts
such as grounding your defender, goofy foot lay ups, will make them more
confident and crafty in the key area.
Points are scored in the paint and getting to the free-throw line at a
higher rate is the easiest way to increase your points per game total, as well
as increasing the success for your team.
Also, players need to pick
at least two areas they need improvement on and focus their skill court
workouts around those two areas. During
this time, a player may want to work on a new “Go-To” triple threat move, or a
new dribble attack move. Players need to
pick one or two moves in this situation and learn to master them. It is okay only to have two moves. As long as the player is efficient at those
two moves, then that is all they will need.
Regardless of what moves they decide to use, make sure they are
functional and efficient. Below is a
video of my “Unstoppable Offensive Skill Set Double DVD”, that does a great job
in teaching this area and more (store.jglove.com). Regardless, keep your moves simple.
(If you want to embed video here go to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR90BlKrUwc&feature=player_embedded
Body Conditioning Training
The student-athletes are now
approximately six to eight weeks out from practice starting. With this being the case, maximal power
output are the main goals of training. Trainers and coaches should also
incorporate more basketball-specific movements into the program, as well as an
increased amount of speed, agility, and work capacity training. As for
weight training, more of an emphasis should be placed on main strength
movements but not with too much volume. Intensity
can stay relatively high, but sets/time should be low. Trainers
need to understand that the players will need to find energy and time for
shooting workouts, and maybe some sporadic open gyms. Overtraining needs to be avoided. Let’s take a look at some of the below
components of Health-Related Fitness.
Anaerobic Conditioning
Anaerobic conditioning is
exercise without the use of oxygen, or the point where Lactic Acid starts to
accumulate in the muscles. Your ability
to recover quickly from this build up will have an enormous impact on player’s
performance. Basketball is a
multi-sprint sport. In a game you'll be required to perform several successive
sprints close to maximum speed on numerous occasions. Therefore, your
conditioning workouts need to be functional and geared toward anaerobic
conditioning. Different types of short
sprints, change of direction shuttle runs, defensive slides and crossover runs,
and jumping, are examples. However, do
not over train anaerobic conditioning in substitute for basketball skill
development. Two sessions per week
lasting a maximum of 30 minutes will do in order to reach peak fitness in time
for the start of the competitive season.
Remember, your practices will also include heavy anaerobic conditioning,
therefore you do not want to peak too soon.
The best coaches and trainers learn how to incorporate this area in
their basketball court training (Hybrid Training).
Should aerobic running be
implemented at all? No, aerobic exercise or running long distances use a
different energy system than what you need for basketball. Basketball is 85% ATP-PCr system and 15%
Glycolytic. In simple terms, basketball
is a pure anaerobic sport, and long distance running should only be used as a
base if at all.
Strength Conditioning
Developing maximum
strength is something that can take up to 3 months, so continue maximal
strength training into the late pre-season.
A lot of players start to eliminate lower body lifts during this time,
which is a huge mistake. Strengthening your core and legs are a must in order
to stay strong during the season but also to strengthen the knee joint to
prevent injuries.
About 4 weeks prior to the
start of the in-season you can then exchange some of your strength sessions for
plyometric training. However, never overdo plyometric
training! Players will accumulate a lot
of pounding on their ankle and knee joints throughout the season. Keep
plyometric training to a minimum. If
there is an area of training that you had to leave out because of time, this
would be the area I would recommend.
Speed, Agility, and
Quickness (SAQ) Conditioning
As the competitive season
draws closer, your basketball training program should place more and more
emphasis on SAQ Training. Again your conditioning must be basketball
specific and functional to the goals of your players or team. To make it more interesting to your players, try
to incorporate a basketball in your SAQ drills.
Yes, you should perform
all the drills at 100% but keep them short enough and allow enough recovery
time in between so that form doesn't suffer. In my GRT program, I include all
SAQ training in my regular court skill training work. In this way, I am meeting my client’s needs
during one workout, while not having to over train them in either area. Remember, it is all about time management.
Flexibility Conditioning
Flexibility should NEVER be
substituted. Players should always arrive early to finish their flexibility
routine. Flexibility also includes foam
rolling, which will help heal the muscles and reduce “knots” in the fascia
(layer surrounding muscle). Foam rolling
also increases oxygen flow to the muscle, hence reducing lactic acid and
recovery. If you ask any NBA player the
one area they have to focus on each day to get through a workout – they will
say REST and FLEXIBILITY. Instead of
just implementing the traditional areas, focus on hip and core flexibility.
Below is a video from my
Green Room Training Program.
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