Strength Training For Young Basketball Players

Strength Training For Young Basketball Players

In my 20 plus years of involvement in the fitness and sports nutrition businesses I have a difficult time believing that so many people are still falling for the same old hype and misinformation. It seems that most folks are confused by the constant barrage of worthless and misleading fitness information that spews from the infomercials’, supplement ads, and magazines that are only looking to see how much of your money they can grab.

Needless to say, I was very pleased to be invited by Hoosier Hills Hoops (www.hoosierhillshoops.com) to contribute a monthly, no-nonsense article covering the essentials of strength training and nutrition for Basketball players. Over the next several articles I hope to introduce you to a couple of essential training concepts that will elevate your athletic skills to new heights.

The first of these concepts is called “functional” strength training.

Everyone knows that a stronger athlete is a better athlete. But, it seems that most people have a very foggy notion of exactly how to create an effective sport specific training program. Strength training is very much like investing money. You should only risk your valuable time and effort on things that offer a good return. After that, your time is better spent on the court working directly on basketball skills instead.

In order to develop a highly functional strength training routine it is necessary to keep in mind the specific movements that you will be performing during your sports activities. Unfortunately, when most people think of “strength training” the first things that come to mind are exercises like the bench press and bicep curls. Certainly, these movements have their place in a well rounded program and they will help you to look better at the beach. But, the fact is they probably won’t do much to increase your performance on the basketball court.

This is where functional strength training comes into play. The term "functional" is simply used to describe exercise movements that strongly correlate to the sport or activity that someone is training for. Although this is probably a gross oversimplification, you could say for example, a dumbbell shoulder press would be a functional exercise for a shot putter and the lunge is a functional movement for sprinters. In other words, functional exercise emphasizes training of movement patterns rather than training simply for physical appearance or isolating individual muscles. In order to get the most bang for your buck, you should stick to a short list of “money” exercises that will directly improve your sport specific skills. Spending hours in the weight room is not a recipe for success. Although, it can be a difficult concept for many people to grasp, the truth is, more isn’t necessarily better. When done properly strength training should be high in intensity and relatively brief in duration.

The second basic concept that every athlete should be familiar with is “periodization”. Although conventional periodization programs can be quite complicated and confounded with a great deal of terminology, I believe that (to start out) we only need to grasp the simple fact that our training style (volume, rep range, exercise selection, rest between sets, etc) must vary relative to our competitive season. In other words, during the competitive season we will train for maintenance of strength. In the pre-season we will create a program to build/increase strength. Immediately after the season is time to allow the body to rest and recuperate. As with other things in life there is a proper time and place for everything and when we try to emphasize everything we actually emphasize nothing. Therefore, periodization allows us to focus on or prioritize specific training methods at the most logical times while allowing sufficient time for recovery.

There are a number of physical attributes and skill sets that could be said to make an athlete a more dangerous player on the basketball court. Speed, quickness, agility, vertical jump, endurance, and lateral movement are a few that come to mind. Over the next several months I plan to lay out a recipe to help you develop the ideal strength training system to incorporate in to your basketball pre and post-season training schedules. In addition, I will offer some useful information on how to help you build a better, more efficient body by adding some increased octane to your diet as well… Stay tuned!