Many youth coaches make the mistake of having their teams run at the end of practice, during warm-ups or during a “punishment” period to help build conditioning and stamina. After many years of trying every combination you can imagine, I have arrived at a solution. It is a combination of practice, individual commitment and game trust. The past few years, I have not had any team that was out of shape or exhausted during a critical time in a game.
First, I use several things in practice to condition the players. Here are a few examples: Build full-court drills into your practice plan. Winning Hoops has a variety of full-court drills to help teach shooting, lay-ups, defense and offensive moves. For instance, every other practice, I like to run a full-court “V-cut” drill. This requires players to sprint ahead to cones, perform a “V-Cut” and come back to the ball. As soon as the ball is passed, the next player starts their move. Normally, six players are always in motion up the court.
I run all of my half-court plays and sets after the team has sprinted from the opposite end of the court, simulating the transition from defense to offense.
When the team is shooting free throws, I have them run wind sprints for the results. Shoot two, if you miss one it is one sprint, if you miss both, it is four sprints and I add three additional sprints for any air balls.
Also, anytime I scrimmage in practice, I have them go full-court on offense and defense. They seem to really step it up and this builds stamina as well.
In between practices, I give the team assignments such as five minutes of rope jumping, two miles of bicycling or jogging. I ask the parents to initial the assignment sheet after the player has done this. I tell the players (and the parents at our parents’ meeting) that a player won’t start in the next game(s) if they have not returned one of the assignment sheets. I have found a great acceptance of this practice and have heard back from players in high school that they have a bicycle-riding ritual that they like to perform during the season.
Finally, I have a meeting with the team and explain my substitution patterns. If a player is tired and asks to come out, I sub for them, but keep it brief. If I notice they are not hustling, or they are holding the legs on their uniform shorts while at the foul line, I will take them out.
The time off the floor is longer in this case. Once they trust you and see the results, it works. Please leave a few comments on how you condition your players, or any thoughts that you have on the topic.
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I heard Bobby Knight say once, and I paraphrase, “we do all of our conditioning with a basketball”. For the most part, I agree. You might get the benefit of some conditioning by having ‘losers’ run after a competitive drill, but it’s minimal. I absolutley despise running for the sake of running during the season. It is a waste of valuable gym time. Having said that, you can get a kick start on conditioning in the ‘preseason’ when gym time is unavailable. If possible, get your kids out on the running track 2-3 times a week, 2-3 weeks before actual practice starts. Winning Hoops has published some helpful suggestions in the past on how you can develop a workout program you can follow. Once you start practice, Bill has alot of good suggestions in his blog post on how to keep your team in shape. Coaches who don’t know what to do have their kids run for the sake of conditioning. Be creative when developing your practice plan and be sure you build in the conditioning your kids need to be tough both mentally and physically at the end the game.
Comment by Mike Freshwater — May 27, 2009 @ 2:41 pm
To make the full-court drills more competitive set goals like some many made shots in 2 minutes, or split the teams into two and have them compete against each other with a reward at the end for the winning team. Don’t get them to sprint as a punishment because that defeats the purpose.
The other thing to do is every time they drop the ball or turn the ball over they need to keep score. The team with the least turnovers gets a reward.
The easiest conditioning drill to do is your fastbreak 5v0 full court with each player getting a shot each time down the court so thats 5 times down the court, the others can do a shooting drill while they wait. Then if you have a secondary fastbreak you can do the same with that.
Because without competition they will only give you about 90% effort.
Comment by costco1 — May 28, 2009 @ 5:28 pm