Aerobics For Basketball Players?

Back when I was playing hoops in college, in the pre-season our team was tested in the 1-mile run.  I didn’t think anything of it at the time, other than, coach wants to see how good of shape we are in, so I’m going to run this thing as fast as I can.  Fast forward a number of years later, and I started to learn more about the body.  I learned about different energy systems and which ones are used for particular tasks that we perform when competing in sports, or when working out in general.  And as I become more educated, I remember thinking; I wonder why our coach tested us in the mile???  I mean, there is never a point in the game where we run 5 + minutes without a break.  Hmm?

Anyway, I now know the mile to pretty much be a pointless test for basketball players.  Basically, we sprint  up and down the court, get in a defensive stance, chase our opponent around a few screens, box him out when the shot goes up, and sprint down to the other end of the court, run our opponents off a screen or two, and this continues for a bit.  OR, a whistle is blown due to a foul, the ball goes out of bounds, a coach calls a T.O., a brawl breaks out in the stands (ahem, Detroit Pistons fans ), or something similar.  Regardless, there is a break in the action very often.  So again, none of this even comes close to resembling a 1-mile run.

I even touched upon the topic in this article that I wrote a few years back (towards the end of the article where I mention fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fibers).  Strength Coach Charles Poliquin goes into a little further detail on the matter in his article, “Do Basketball Players Need Aerobics?”

With basketball season right around the corner (except for you NBA – come on, get it together!!!), coaches will be preparing their players with their conditioning program.  Most basketball coaches know X’s and O’s, but are not qualified to run an “optimal” strength and conditioning program (understandably, as their time is spent recruiting, running camps, scouting, game planning, preparing for practice, etc etc.).  Therefore, I’m hoping articles/blog posts like this will help steer these coaches in the right direction.  So, if you are a basketball coach that’s about to start conditioning your players for the season, just remember, that basketball is a sport that is filled with a lot of starts and stops throughout the game.

Testing your athletes or simply conditioning your players with the mile run (or further) is NOT the way to go.

Feel free to forward this on to any b-ball coaches that you know.  And don’t forget to check out Coach Poliquin’s article for more information on the topic.

Happy training!