Two Great Workouts for Basketball Players

Playing full court basketball is exhausting. Even if game strategy slows the transition pace of the game, you still have to shift your body, move quickly and jump frequently. The defensive end of the basketball court wears down players even more.

As the game wears on, the players who are in the best shape will be able to perform the best. When you're tiring, you don't move as quickly or jump as high. One aspect of your game that really suffers is your shooting. Here's a pair of aggressive workouts that will help build your game endurance, and give you an advantage over your opponent.

1. Strength and Shooting Combo

There are frequent references in basketball that mention how tired players become less productive. One of the first aspects of your game that suffers when you're tired is your shot. This is one reason behind substitutions. As the game wears on, your entire body gradually tires. Here is a workout to combine strength exercises and shooting.

What It Does

The strength and shooting combo workout is designed to wear your entire body down. You won't have dumbbells on the bench, or do wind sprints during timeouts in a real game.

However, if you implement challenging exercises in between shot work, you'll help improve your stamina, and reduce the effects of being tired physically from compromising your shooting accuracy.

How You Do It

This workout has a great deal of flexibility in the equipment you need. In fact, you can actually do the strength and shooting combo workout without anything, except for a ball, a basket, and your body. The whole theory is to do some type of exercise to physically stress your muscles, and then practice your shot.

Pushups are one exercise that requires no additional equipment. A set of dumbbells at court side are a basic piece of equipment you can add. There are also band systems, fitness balls, and medicine balls. Whatever you do, the single most important objective is to wear yourself down physically and make your muscles tired.

Doing a series of pushups is the simplest way to begin. If you've added a set of dumbbells, do a set of pushups followed by a set of curls. The idea is to maximize the number of repetitions to totally expend your muscles. You should be exhausted.

Then, grab the basketball, and go work on your shooting. A perfect place to begin is with foul shots. Toe the charity stripe, your arms and upper body exhausted, and intently focus on using perfect form on your shot. It is vitally important to stress perfect shooting technique. Don't worry about your shooting percentage, because it may not be good.

The concept is to replicate the effects of game stress on your body, while immediately shifting to a series of shots. Stress your shooting form on each shot attempt. Once you've practiced a few dozen shots, shifting around to different places on the court, repeat the exercise circuit.

Why It Works

After you've worn your muscles down, grab your basketball, and do it all over again. Repeat this multiple times, avoiding rest. As you do more of these strenuous workouts, you'll begin to find that your shooting mechanics don't suffer when you get tired.

At the end of the game when everyone else is worn down, you'll be the one who can knock down your shot. This workout will help you offset the stress that game action puts on your muscles, so that tired arms don't unconsciously cause you to alter your shot.

2. Medicine Ball Workouts

Basketball players can get an incredible workout by adding a medicine ball to the training regimen. There are three specific exercises you can incorporate into a medicine ball workout. This trio of moves will help develop arm strength, core stability, and leg power.

What It Does

This leg workout is a way to mirror the motion you use when jumping in basketball. Powerful legs are important, and you can do squats or machine exercises to increase your leg power. However, this particular workout mimics jumping. With the added weight, you develop both explosive power, and jump quickness doing the medicine ball jump drill.

How You Do It

Like the strength and shooting combo workout, medicine ball exercises offer variety. The first aspect of this workout involves holding the ball at waist level, and jumping up and down. Medicine ball box jumps help you leap higher, and get off the floor quicker.

This will exercise the muscles that are used for jumping. Holding the ball at waist level allows you to replicate a similar jumping motion to what you use in basketball. A way to dramatically increase the intensity of this workout is to do a set of defensive slides, then stop and jump in place.

Why It Works

When your legs go, your shot isn't too far behind. As the game wears on, your quickness will drop, and you'll be unable to jump quite as high. You'll lose out on rebounds that are just inches away from your fingertips.

This workout will help offset the effects that jumping has on your stamina. It will also help you jump higher at every point during the game. It will improve, not only the height of your leap, but also the quickness of your jumping.

These are two workouts for basketball players that will improve your strength and stamina. Combining them into your shooting practice will help you at those critical times during a game when everyone else is tired. You can be creative with either of these workouts. The bottom line will be when your opponent is struggling, you'll have an advantage.