As with soccer, conditioning for basketball is important because your players will be running for almost an hour and it’s usually which team has more energy left in reserve that wins the close games. As youth coaches, we have to walk a fine line between getting what we want out of our players and making sure that they have some fun doing it. Some of that comes from your coaching attitude – which should be a lot like a parenting attitude: fun, but firm. We try to make these drills a competition between the players; with the losing group of players doing jumping jacks, push-ups, toe-jumps or another similar drill to get them in better shape to challenge for the next time. Many of the drills that we run are “dual-purpose” drills that will work on two skills at the small time. Here are some conditioning drills that we run throughout the year:
- Ladders – Either full or half-court (go twice for half-court). Line up the players across the starting line (an out-of-bounds line…). On go or sound of the whistle, the players will sprint to the first line they come to, bend down and touch it with their hand, sprint back to the start line and touch it and then sprint to the second line they come to, touch it and run back to the starting line. This will continue until they have touched the opposite out-of-bounds line and run back. Winner gets to count out jumping jacks/push-ups/whatever for the rest of the team. We usually run this at the beginning of practice to make sure they are worn out enough to listen or at the end to see how much they have left in the tank.
- Dribble Ladders – This drill is exactly the same as the “Ladders” drill listed above – just done while dribbling a ball. The players still have to touch each line they come to, but now they also have to change the hand that they are dribbling with at each line they come to. Most players will hate having to switch to their non-dominate hand, but it will force them to get better. We always stress control over speed with this drill – sometimes going as far as making someone who loses control of the ball to start over.
- Fast-Break Lay-Ups – At the beginning of the season, I will start this from half-court and then progress to full court by the end of the season. Evenly split the team up placing one group under the left side of one goal and the other under the left side of the opposite goal. Each side has a ball and on “go” or the whistle, the first person in each line dribbles the ball to the opposite goal as fast as they can, ending with a lay-up on the right side of the goal. When the ball-handler begins their lay-up, the next person in line comes onto the court to get the rebound. Once the ball is secure, they then sprint back to the opposite goal to repeat the process. This will work running, ball-handling, fast-break lay-ups and rebounding in one drill.
I hope you can use these drills to help your youth basketball team improve and feel free to change them as needed to fit the type of practice you run. Time is always valuable when coaching a practice and the drills that work on multiple skills at the same time are best.
