Sunday, October 19, 2008

Preseason Training is crucial

The general purpose for pre-season basketball training is to prepare the athletes for the demands of the upcoming season. Talk to you school's Strength and Conditioning coach. It is their job to get the athlete in the best shape possible to cope with the rigorous practice and game schedule that will follow. If your school does not have one, Kitsap Sports in Silverdale has the Bodylink program which can help you build strength and endurance.

The basketball season often begins 17th of November and continues until March. This five-month season is very demanding, even for highly trained athletes. Often the first two weeks of the season may include double sessions. This sheer volume of training is severe. Once the regular season begins, the on-court volume often decreases. The main objective of pre-season conditioning is to get the players ready for the end of November and to help them maintain that level of conditioning throughout the season.

To successfully prepare the team for the season, you must not take lightly the conditioning demands of basketball. Remember, a basketball court is only approximately 30 yards in length. There is a lot of sprinting with start and stop motion. Also important to consider is the fact that slower teams usually lose. The focus of the training should be on speed, agility and anaerobic conditioning.

The objective of preseason training is to execute a sport specific conditioning program that will successfully prepare for the season. Hard work and a great effort are expected of every player. Training must be a five day a week effort splitting the time between strength training and conditioning. As you can see, the focus of our training is on specific conditioning for basketball. Agility, flexibility, strength training and conditioning are all addressed to make a complete program.

Conditioning is extremely important during this training period. Conditioning takes place five days a week. Here are some ideas:
• Monday emphasizes change of direction type movement.
• Thursday is interval day, focusing on track work.
• Tuesday and Friday could be stationary bike workouts.
• Wednesday includes shuttle drill work.

All workouts are preceded by a warm-up and flexibility session. Many high school athletes lack the needed flexibility to play at their potential. The key to any warm-up is to raise the body temperature. If you are able to do that, your flexibility sessions will be more beneficial.

A pre-season program with different modes of training can produce improvements in the conditioning levels of basketball players. To handle the stresses and demands of a competitive season give our program a try. It is very worthwhile.

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