Basketball is a dynamic sport where performance is influenced by multiple systems, inclusive of reaction time, coordination, game IQ, power, endurance and more! It’s for this reason that factors you are able to influence outside of the games are a good way to improve your performance.

Due to how diverse basketball is in performance, we will touch only on some main contributors. Acceleration, Power and Agility are factors this blog will touch on. Endurance can be improved with a sufficient running program and coordination with ball skills simply requires practice and a good coach!

Acceleration

Notice how we did not use ‘speed’, this is because an NBA court is only 28.65m, top sprinters only begin to reach top speed AFTER 30m. Fast breaks require you to beat the opponent ring to ring, whether on the attack or defence!

Sprints: 10 – 50m dashes at near maximal intensity with 2 – 7 min breaks between (300m max in a session with 2 day breaks between sessions)

Resisted Sprints: Weighted sled or vest sprints, more effective in improving sprinting power. Here is an informative video explaining how.

Power

The question everyone who plays wants answered, “How do I jump higher so I can dunk?”. Well your answer to that is improving power, but remember there are limits. Here are some vertical jump exercises:

Body weight jumping: Our personal favourite is Drop Jumps (Check it out), which have been shown to improve vertical jump maximal ability by 4 – 9% and power 2 – 31%. Can advance to weighted jumps after!

Calf Raises: Simple but effective. Controlled and perform until fatigue, start with double leg (Check it out) advancing towards single leg, weighted double and then weighted single.

Agility

When you’re looking to cut through that zone defence and drive to the rim you need agility that will complement your explosive power. This goes hand in hand with coordination so practice those skills!

Balloon Drill: Have two different coloured balloons, try to keep them from touching the ground but you alternate between tapping each colour. Add more balloons or do a squat between hits to make it harder!

Advanced: There are plenty of cone drills online, they can act as ‘defenders’ on the court to dribble around. Check out how some Pro NFL athletes train their agility here.

Stay tuned for more basketball blog posts coming soon, if you have a topic you would like to hear about let us know! Remember, if suffering from injury please do not perform these exercises without consulting with a health professional first. Thanks for reading 🙂