Conditioning Drills to Get You Ready for Basketball Season
Basketball isn’t just about shooting. You might have a fifteen-foot jump shot and be able to get nothing but net from the center line but if you can only last for five minutes, you’re not going to be worth anything to your coach or the rest of the players on your team. In fact, you’ll find yourself benched more than not. If you’re struggling to stay in good condition throughout the game, you need to think about working on your conditional drills. Here are a few drills that will help you get ready for this basketball season.
Conditioning is essential for all basketball players, and you’ll find that every major team in the NBA does these regularly. In fact, conditioning is important for most intensive fast moving sports. It’s not about improving the sport specific skills but rather simply making sure that you can run and jump at your max for as long as possible. At the very least, you need to be at your best throughout the full game.
Keeping Things Simple
With a basic drill, you just need to run from one side of the court to the other, crossing the sideline with each go. It’s not massively complicated, but it will tire you out pretty darn quickly. You should do this for a minute and count how many times you cross the court. There are no set rules on how many you should be able to do. But, hopefully, you’ll improve your number over time. Make sure you don’t rest for more than a minute between drills to keep things as intense as a real game.
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Suicides
We’re not sure who chose the apt name for this drill, but we bet it was a previous player. After all, completing this drill really does feel like torture, but it’s incredibly beneficial. It’s simple but painful. The starting point is the baseline, and it goes like this:
- Baseline - run to tap closest free throw line with hand
- Back to baseline – run to tap half court line
- Back to baseline – run to tap far free throw line
- Back to baseline - run to tap far baseline and back to the start.
You’ll be worn out by the end and it has a psychological effect too that can make it feel a lot further than it actually is.
Laying Down the Layups
Next, try completing some layups. Only instead of starting a few yards from the basket start dribbling from the far side of the court. Do the right side then left at both sides of the court for a few minutes at least.
Make Those Hopscotch Skills Pay Off
Finally, you can think about putting your skills at hopscotch to the test. Draw some hopscotch boxes with chalk and complete some jumps. So, start in the box, jump once with your right foot out then the next box in and then your left foot out. A few minutes of this will improve your endurance jumping.
We hope you find these conditional drills useful for improving your overall court endurance and energy levels. Don’t do these right before a game though. It will seriously tire you out.
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