I have been asked to create and administer a strength and conditioning program for an inner city basketball team that has won 3 big school state titles in the last 7 yrs.
Obviously I want to do well. These guys play a lot of aau hoops in the summer.
My goal is to give a good strength and aerobic base for the comp phase and most of all, increase speed and agility (lateral, forward, backward)
I am primarily a sprint coach so I will take what I have learned from experience and this site and build on that.
I have 12 weeks of prep before the season and it will be fahioned in this manner.
12 weeks broken into 3 x 4 week macros
Macro #1
2 x weekly- tempo 3000m or long hill runs, jumprope; core work
2x weekly- short speed such as: hill accel, side shuffles or karaokes on grass incline (for lateral accel), backwards sprints up to 20m
***all speed work is w/ full recovery
Weights on speed days-
workout #1-Bench, pull ups or lat pulldowns, military press, curls, biceps, forearms
Are these guys in the aau and/or summer leagues now?
If so even this amount of running might be a little much and the athletes are probably getting a lot of their workout from the games. Obviously it depends on how many games a week they play and so on, but I believe that in basketball most of the training off the court should be focused in the weightroom and depending on the amount of summer games etc that they are doing maybe some light to medium plyo work.
Why 3K of tempo?
I would also split the weights, so they have upper/lower body work twice.
For the same reason (trained twice per week), I am a bit sceptical on what no23 says, IF such a need exists at all! Depending on game practice, that is.
they play during the summer but that season is complete now. The basketball season for HS does not begin until December.
as far as tempo goes, I want to utitlize an aerobic conditioning format that will aid in their recovery for workouts and game-play.
The bball specific skill work will come into play during the second macrocycle. They have just finished summer leagues so I want to give them somewhat of a mental break, if you will.
The temp will decrease by 2000-3000m by the second macro cycle and I will begin to introduce a bit of lactic work. I have heard the arguements for and against its purpose in gameplay but I have to believe that there could be some use for it if playing in a hi tempo game (eg-fullpress, or situations where points need to be scored very quickly.) Don’t discount the purpose even if minimal.
I will probably split the speed work up. By the second macro I will introduce speed on flat surfaces mixed with small inclines from 1st cycle as well as some plyos.
Do you not think that they already have an aerobic base built from summer games and previous years?
Also for the short sprints with full recovery is this close enough to game style or would shorter recoveries be more beneficial?
The point I am trying to get at by saying that the running may be a little much is not that the type of sprint training you have laid out will have no benefit, but even coast to coast a bball athlete will only be traveling 30m and rarely is this at max speed. Would weights and rudamentary skill work not be more beneficial at least in place of some of the 4 days of sprinting? Does lifting and plyos not cover most of 30m being travelled?
Also I would be cautious with depth jumps, bball players take a lot of pounding during the season, especially coming off summer games as well, I would perhaps stick to short hops, box jumps and maybe step hops or bleacher blasts, just my opinion.
Pope- I am trying to get pure speed in place first. I hope to focus on this before I begin to shorten recoveries. I want them to understand that the best way to improve speed first is to deal with IT without much interference. I am not creating sprinters but the ability to generate speed without thinking too hard at game speed is what I want. Then I will focus on shorter reps and shorten the tempo.
WHy does everyone think the tempo is too long? alternate suggestions?
I do like the idea of splitting the wts and loosing the depth jumps.
About dedicating a full session on agility and the second one on linear speed work, as no23 suggested. I may be wrong, but depending on their game practice, is it worth missing a speed session for agility work? What do you think?
I define agile as the ability to change directions quickly and fluently as well as the ability to quickly adjust the body’s position and center of balance and still perform athletically
But I believe accel, short speed and flexibility all contribute to this quality. I have some exercises that will enhance mental alertness for defense. However, helping an athlete get use to moving his or her own body weight in various directions quickly encourage this quality also.
assigned accel work will focus on backward, sideways and linear speed. Not just agility.
oh yeah, clarify whats wrong with the tempo volume for prep phase