The Real Way to Weight Train for Basketball: Part One

In the past, many basketball coaches believed that weight training made athletes big and bulky and thus, immobile and ineffective on the court. That thinking has long passed and now, many coaches start to incorporate weight training to their athletes training regime.

Although this change is for the better, it is ironic as the training these athletes do is ineffective and a waste of time. Bodybuilding style workouts are the staple for old-fashioned coaches and the modern coach design horrible training programs.

It is the few coaches who take their time to educate themselves about designing training programs from reliable sources that leads their team to success. After all, players who are more athletic get more exposure.

In part one of this article, I will discuss about how to weight train for basketball. In the second part of the article, I will then go through the reasons why and how you can manipulate a training template.

How to design a good program for basketball

In the world of basketball, power output is the most important factor. Every movement on the court is a sprint, jump or an explosive movement. Increasing your strength will help you run faster and jump higher. Unless your sport is an endurance based sport, focusing on power output is almost always the best way to train.

The equation of power is: strength/ time taken

Strength

Strength in this case is referring to maximal strength, not endurance. As such, your training should compromise mostly of compound movements for low repetitions and higher sets. You should be aiming for weights you can handle for only 1-3 reps. This does not mean you should not include other exercises which you can do for higher repetitions, it just means that heavy weights for low reps should be the priority.

Compund movements are generally the best indicators of strength. If you wish to test if your strength has improved, simply attempt a higher weight in one of the compound movements which you previosly did. To learn more about the types of exercises which you can use as an indicator, click here.

Speed

Time taken is the amount of time you take to execute a movement. This is heavily influenced by the amount of fast-twitch muscle fibers you have. To learn more about muscle fibers click here. The faster you execute a movement, the more power you will have. To take an example, when you attempt to jump 'faster', you will gain more height compared to trying to jump slower.

Plyometrics and Olympic lifting is a great way to teach athletes how to perform movements with explosiveness. The main problem is the learning curve needed to learn how to execute these training movements safely.

Although some coaches feel that the efforts and time spent is too much to override the rewards of these high-technique movements, it depends on each individual. Some athletes have the ability to emulate movements just by seeing them once, we call them motor geniuses. If your athlete is not a motor genius, it would be advisable to find alternatives to Olympic lifts and plyometrics.

A second factor in speed, is the central nervous system. The more effecient your nervous system is, the faster you are, the higher you jump and the faster you react. The central nervous system is taxed when lifting heavy weights, plyometrics and even just by playing basketball.

The last thing an athlete should train for is simply mass. A healthy weight for an individual will allow him or her to perform optimally on the court. Basketball is a contact sport, having additional mass will protect the athlete from injuries. Sub-maximal weight for higher repetitions will allow enough volume to stimulate growth of muscle. Of course, you want the weight which the athlete carries is muscle. That's why nutrition is important and the athlete has to clean up his diet.

Cardiovascular exercises

Cardio is probably one of the most popular methods used by coaches to train. Basketball is a sport where you sprint/jump and stop. At no point are you running for over a long period of time. As such, cardiovascular exercises which simulate game-time conditions will work better than aerobics.

Intervals, in which an individual does a high intensity activity followed by a low intensity activity and repeat, is great for basketball conditioning. If strongman equipment is available, it is also another great alternative to aerobics.

This first part of the article is to introduce briefly how to weight train for basketball. The second part of this 2-part series will explain why and how to manipulate a training program. Click here to read it.