How to Get in Shape for Basketball

Basketball is an incredibly demanding sport. You have to be able to maintain an explosively high rate of movement for extended periods of time, interrupted by frequent breaks but calling on max efforts for brief and constant periods of time. To prepare for a season of basketball, it is absolutely imperative that you work on your physical conditioning and training. Toward that end, this article will explore the kind of training that will really benefit you on the court, seeking to give you general guidelines for you to follow and allow you to take your game to the next level.

The first aspect of basketball that you have to work on is your cardio conditioning. This doesn't mean you should hit a treadmill for hours a day, but that rather you need to find the perfect balance between aerobic and anaerobic training, done preferably in the form of interval training. An excellent blend might look something like this:

A couple of times a week you should hit a race track or the streets to do different kinds of interval training running. This should involve running hard for different periods such as three sets of eight minutes, five sets of three minutes, or sprints back to back. What you want to do is accustom your body to different levels of intensity and then to be able to sustain them. You should focus on intervals over long, steady paces because this will most accurately reflect your time spent on the court.

Second, you should also do a couple of days where you practice anaerobic training. Here is where you would want to put together routines that push you to your max, using perhaps High Intensity Interval Training where you go 110% for 45 seconds before taking a 20 second break, and then repeating. These exercises can involve any variety of jumping jacks, side to side sprints, burpees, high knees, sprinting in place, whatever you prefer. You should shoot to do about 20 minutes all told, with a warm up and cool down book-ending your workout.

Finally, you should invest some time in cross training, whether you choose to work on your cardio and strength in the pool, in the gym lifting weights, or focusing on your flexibility, balance and core strength through yoga. The ideal however is for you to attack your fitness from all angles, allowing you to master your body and the court.

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