Knee PRE-HAB and Hip Strengthening Exercises

I have been wanting to make this video for a while now to give to each of our clients to start working on.  Your knee joint is the weakest point of everyone's skeleton.  For basketball players, it is your lifeline and has to be taken care of.  High level players tend to travel a lot and play a lot of games.  That is great, but only if you pre-hab your knee joint (and others) constantly to prepare for the grind what basketball brings.  Think of your knee joint as a piece of machinery with bolts.  With usage and over time, the bolts tend to loosen or come undone when their is lots of impact and vibration.  You have to tighten those bolts up every so often so it doesn't come apart.  The same is with your knee.  If you constantly jar it (play lots of games) without strengthening it (tightening the bolts) then it will eventually give out.

It just happened this past week with a top 25 player that I work with in high school.  I decided I needed to make it a video and help others immediately.   The exercises do not need equipment and can be done in a hotel room. There is no excuse to not prepare for the major grind their bodies will be going through this summer, but also when we start in the fall. This is high importance.

I gave you a ton of exercises.  Start with just a few and work yourself up. Obviously we do not expect you to do them all in one day, but pick a few of them and perform a few sets of them to start. Good luck!

Should I have my child skip Algebra 1?

Recently, I went into the principal’s office, Mr. Belding, at my daughter’s school to complain about the slow development of her daughter academically within his school.   Keep note, I have worked at same school for the past 13 years as a teacher but that didn’t stop me.  See, my daughter is academically gifted and has far more superior intelligence and potential then her peers!  I stormed into Mr. Belding’s office asking him why my daughter has to take Algebra 1 when she can clearly handle Geometry and Trigonometry!  Falling on deaf ears, Mr. Belding gave me the run around on how it was developmentally appropriate for her to stay on an academic progression, and it was ok for her to master her grade level as part of her progressive development.  What am I to do? Well, hell with him! I am going to pull her from the school and put her in a school that will challenge her!

Was the above story true? Well of course not.  I would never do that to my daughter, or have the audacity to disrespect an educator and question the years of mastery in their education field.   The reason why I made up that story is because the above example represents a metaphor of a more common problem that is occurring with grassroots basketball, primarily with AAU traveling teams.   Parents are becoming way too involved!  Parents have always been involved, however, now they are overstepping their roles and trying to force their players to play at a higher grade-level then they should be currently performing at.  Therefore, players are skipping important steps of learning time/score situation, how to run a team, how to make interior passing, making proper reads, how to control a press, how to compete and dominate, etc.

I am all for players practicing and training with players that push them out of their comfort zones, allowing them to work harder.  That is called an increase in OVERLOAD.  The increase in overload causes a reaction to the body, forcing it to break down, so the body can rebuild it with rest.   The key word here is rest.  What is happening on the AAU circuit is parents are forcing too much overload on player’s minds, ability levels, and bodies, not allowing them to grow naturally.  This can lead to players losing confidence in their skill; lose confidence in their mental game, burnout, and expose weaknesses too early for those players that are more highly ranked.  Players then begin to chase rankings, or players ranked above them by increasing the OVERLOAD or their competition level.  A great analogy to my point is the 1-Rep max for the bench press.  If a person cans only bench press 135lbs, then it doesn’t make sense to try and increase the overload and bench press 150lbs when obviously the person wouldn’t be able to do it.  That person would need heavy doses of progressive weight and repetitions, followed by adequate rest for the muscles to grow and adapt.  Please tell me I am starting to make sense?

Why do parents get involved so frequently?  Well part has to do with ego but also because of the dreaded parent peer pressure.  Parents become more worried about what other parent’s kids are doing, or what people will think of their kid if they do not.  This has caused an epidemic of families forcing their kids to play up, or they will pull them from the team.   Little Johnny has to play Varsity as a freshman or played 17-Under as a freshman or he “will never make it to a D-1 Scholarship”, or “make it to the league”.  They honestly believe their child will be developmentally falling behind, or will be publicly looked down upon for not playing one, two, or three grade levels above their age.  

As I look back to my basketball career, I didn’t start organized basketball until the 6th Grade.   Travel basketball…….It didn’t exist, so my dad always pushed me to train on my skills and go play against competition at my school.   Sounds appropriate right?

It is ok to dominate your age group. I tell players repeatedly to learn to dominate your age group before moving up to the next age level.  It is great to train and practice above with moderation, but to fully master certain skill levels; you need to have success at performing those skills.  Once you develop success in a game situation repeatedly, you will now have the confidence to try more skills and patterns against better talents.

In regards to a highly ranked player, competing at your age group will allow your ranking to increase or rise since you will be dominating your age level.  The talent scout will then see what you CAN DO WELL, rather than evaluate what you DO WRONG.  Dominating your group level will leave a much better impression; therefore, players should use their grade level for their own marketing purposes.
Just because your friend is 5 inches taller, 20lbs heavier, and has a 5 o’clock shadow, does it mean you need to mimic his development because you DO NOT WANT TO BE LEFT BEHIND?

Players and Parents; you will not be left behind.  We all mature and develop at different ages.  Basketball is a journey and not a sprint.   Players need to quit sprinting to 17-Under AAU basketball and learn to dominate your age group first.  In the long run, it will be better for their career going into middle school, high school, college, etc.   

In summary, a parent would never force their children to pass needed steps in education and parents in grassroots basketball shouldn’t be any different.  Let’s get real parents and players! Please do not quit your teammates cause you want to play above your grade level.  Please do not skip Algebra! You will need it, especially when working a 9-5pm job like the rest of us in the future.

New Training Video

Here is another great Green Room Training Video. I thought I would share with all of you. The workout included: Stephen Zimmerman: (7-0') #1 player in the country (2015) Chase Jeter: (6-11") #5 Rated player in the country (2015) Ray Smith: (6-7") #10 player in the region Marquese Chriss: (6-9") #60 Player in Country (2015)

GRT Tip #3: Rondo Arms

You guys are going to love this little training tip.  Cost pennies to make and can elevate the functionality of your training/practices for your coaching staff.  Check out the video below.

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How the SIZE of the basketball/Height of Rim can affect shooting development

Now that I have a blog, I am sure I will be writing a lot in the near future about becoming a good shooter with my philosophies.  With that said, I think it is perfect to start with an area of development that very little people address - How the size of the basketball and height of rim and how it affects the development of becoming a good shooter.

Before I started working with my own children, I would have never thought the size of a ball and height of the rim would affect if someone can become a shooter or not. I always trained high school or college/pro players, who were naturally strong enough and had decent form.   However, there is no doubt it is the most important first parts for youths in becoming a consistent shooter.

Most people force their children to grow up too early.  We want them to mimic adult basketball players, act like them, play like them, dress like them, and use the same equipment. However, forcing them this way would be eliminating the important aspect of youth development - PROGRESSION PRINCIPLE. The Principle of Progression implies that there is an optimal level of overload that should be achieved, and an optimal time frame for this overload to occur. Overload should not be increased too slowly or improvement is unlikely. Overload that is increased too rapidly will result in injury or reduced outcomes.

If you go to any Youth CYO or even AAU league, you notice that by 5th grade (sometimes earlier) they have the boy's teams using a regular 29.5" basketball and playing on 10-foot rims.  In 3rd-4th grade, they have them using a 28.5" (woman's ball).  I recommend a player use a 27.5" basketball regardless of age until they have built a proper shooting base (tempo and form) that will allow them to progress to a 10-foot rim.   When my son was in 1st grade and until present 3rd grade, I forced him to play and shoot ONLY on a 9-foot rim (sometimes less) and with a 27.5" basketball.  I wanted him to learn proper technique, eliminating the bad habits that come with using a larger ball and higher rim.  When he would go to his CYO team, or Boys and Girls club team, they would use a larger ball.   Every kid (including my son) would be shooting with a two-handed push shop, usually from the side of their hip.  Their body would completely turn, as if they were trying to throw a pumpkin through the basket.  This goes against anything any of us learned about child development in relation to basketball shooting.  This would be like trying to teach a young person algebra before teaching them addition and subtraction.  Or having a young person learn how to play golf with adult size golf clubs.  It just doesn't make any sense.

This same concept applies to ball-handling.  Very recently I put a video up of my son Jayden performing a simple ball-handling drill (4-3-2-1-0 Drill).  That is a 27.5" ball in the video.  If I were to have him use a 28.5" ball, he wouldn't be able to do that drill. Why?  His hand size isn't large enough to control and dribble the larger ball with fluidity.  Can he still do it? Yeah, but he cannot control the ball with because of the maturity.  

I want players to have success when they are skill training.  If kids have success, they will continually want to get in the gym and train (Intrinsic Motivation).  If we (Coaches/parents) continually allow these leagues and coaches use improper equipment, we will have a negative counterproductive effect on these players.  Shooting a basketball is an art form and there are very few players that can really shoot as you move up the ranks.  Would this number be increased if proper child development were implemented in these leagues or by parents/coaches?  ABSOLUTELY! 

Lets quit worrying about how many wins and losses our 6-13 years olds are having in these leagues, and really give the proper resources to make them better players that will continue into high school and hopefully college.

Below are training videos for Jayden when he was 4-5 years of age, and another when he was 6-7 years of age.  Both videos he is using a 27.5" ball.   Going back, I probably should have had Jayden using a 26.5" basketball when he was 4 years of age.   Hopefully these videos will be used as motivation for your young players.

Part 2.......Continued……Strategies and Examples for Pre-Season Training

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.