Basketball conditioning get into game shape

I want to be the best conditioned athlete on my team and be in the best shape of my life. I don't want to bulk up any more because I have seen guys like brandon jennings, allen iverson, kevin durant, and so on who are skinny but are well conditioned athletes (though Im not on their level lol).

By conditioning I mean:
Stamina, speed, quickness, agility, explosiveness, and vertical jump.

So far the things I used to get me in shape are a jump rope, I run stairs in my house, and I do rim grabs.

Can someone please give me a good basketball workout regimen that will allow me to be well conditioned. Workouts like 7 mile runs won't help for basketball conditioning because it is a game of short bursts, but some form of distance running will be good.

[QUOTE=MannyO]I want to be the best conditioned athlete on my team and be in the best shape of my life. I don't want to bulk up any more because I have seen guys like brandon jennings, allen iverson, kevin durant, and so on who are skinny but are well conditioned athletes (though Im not on their level lol).

By conditioning I mean:
Stamina, speed, quickness, agility, explosiveness, and vertical jump.

So far the things I used to get me in shape are a jump rope, I run stairs in my house, and I do rim grabs.

Can someone please give me a good basketball workout regimen that will allow me to be well conditioned. Workouts like 7 mile runs won't help for basketball conditioning because it is a game of short bursts, but some form of distance running will be good.[/QUOTE]

I'll give you my take on conditioning and basketball physiology. It might not be 100% right, but it'll make some sense. To be an excellent athlete, one must have 100% muscle, or 0% body fat. Fat is useless because it is excess weight (which slows you down, makes you work harder), and doesn't provide energy as easily as carbohydrates. This is impossible, however: Having a body fat below 5% is probably unhealthy and if I could choose I'd keep mine around 8. So step one, no skill or drill work required, is to burn off all unnecessary fat.

Next, you have to determine what type of athletic attributes you want. Do you want to be skinny and quick, or thicker and heavier... it all depends on what your game style needs. You could list the way you play and I could give some suggestions. A key goal for many athletes is the power to weight ratio (PWR). Someone with a high (and desirable) PWR is light but strong. Now in basketball, you don't want to be too light, but in general, you want to be very strong for your size. Therefore do lifts that increase power (power is speed and strength), and if you want, lifts that get you bigger. Power lifts are between 0-6, size lifts are between 7-12. Thanks Swaggin for that info!

You said you wanted to increase your stamina, speed, quickness, agility, explosiveness, and vertical jump.

For vertical, check the "By july 3rd I will be dunking" thread. It's really helpful and I asked alot of questions on that.

Explosiveness isn't really a specific skill. It's basically power which is being strong and fast.

Agility is side to side movement. I'd get some cones and line them up, then slalom back and forth between them, working on minimizing ground time.

Quickness is like explosiveness. It's your first step, not how fast you run. You could be wicked slow and have a ridiculous first step. For that practice just 10 meter sprints. The shorter the distance the more you work your reaction times.

Speed is how long you can keep up a high rate of movement. The length of a basketball court is about 90 feet, so I'd run full out sprints at 30 yards or so. Focusing on the starts will help with quickness as well.

Stamina. For this you should just do all the above drills continuously, but give enough time to rest between them. Do circuits of all of them, but if you don't allow enough rest, you'll start to do aerobic exercise, which you don't want. Keep it short and powerful.

Sorry it's so long. If you have any questions I'd be glad to help.

I want to be like a lean muscular guy with speed, quickness and stamina mostly. I watch guys like jennings, A.I, aaron brooks etc. and they are in GREAT shape because they stay quick and explosive for the whole game. I know their in the NBA and are supposed to be in good condition but I want to know how they do it. I was watching a game tape of A.I and he was full court harrassing this guy and never gave up on the play until he got it and dished to an open teammate for the 3. Then I think moments later on the fastbreak he raced down the court and flushed it.

I really want stamina to be quick fast and explosive thoughought the entire game. And hopefully dunking consistently will come along.

Ok so as a player you want to be a leaner lighter and quicker guard? Can you describe your body type so I can see how you can stack up, in terms of height, limb lengths, build, etc.?

The full court harassing is mainly mental. It's not really a physical ability to play tough defense the whole way long, because most people can but choose to hang back and slack off a little. It'll make your life easier though, to lift and do some running. Remember, less weight means less effort your body has to exert, so if you can sacrifice some muscle mass to get leaner, you'll be better off, and you'll look more like the players you mentioned.

You also need to have good lateral speed. Do side to side shuffles, but only about the width of a basketball court. The reason I say width and not length is that if you are shuffling the whole length to keep up with your guy, you pretty much got beat and are going to get called for a foul. So work on 4 directional movement with shuffles and backpedals.

Same thing with getting out on the break after that. These players train to be explosive late in the 4th quarter. How do you do that? You train when you're tired. Like really tired, which will suck but it pays off in the end. So after a hard workout and you really want to call it a night, run some full court fast break layups and work on suicide speeds, which work on direction changes and agility. Do box jumps and backboard touches when you're tired so your body gets used to being powerful when exhausted.

[QUOTE=carpevicis]Ok so as a player you want to be a leaner lighter and quicker guard? Can you describe your body type so I can see how you can stack up, in terms of height, limb lengths, build, etc.?

The full court harassing is mainly mental. It's not really a physical ability to play tough defense the whole way long, because most people can but choose to hang back and slack off a little. It'll make your life easier though, to lift and do some running. Remember, less weight means less effort your body has to exert, so if you can sacrifice some muscle mass to get leaner, you'll be better off, and you'll look more like the players you mentioned.

You also need to have good lateral speed. Do side to side shuffles, but only about the width of a basketball court. The reason I say width and not length is that if you are shuffling the whole length to keep up with your guy, you pretty much got beat and are going to get called for a foul. So work on 4 directional movement with shuffles and backpedals.

Same thing with getting out on the break after that. These players train to be explosive late in the 4th quarter. How do you do that? You train when you're tired. Like really tired, which will suck but it pays off in the end. So after a hard workout and you really want to call it a night, run some full court fast break layups and work on suicide speeds, which work on direction changes and agility. Do box jumps and backboard touches when you're tired so your body gets used to being powerful when exhausted.[/QUOTE]


well im already lean and light. 5'10-11ish, 150lbs, 6'3 wingspan. I dont know my vertical jump but I have dunked before but not consistent with it yet. Since Im light I atleast want to be lightning quick with breakneck speed, and jump out of the gym. For my weight I am quite strong I hold my own against the big guys at times but my main focus is getting that speed and quickness like allen iverson and be able to play that way till 4th quarter..

Well I'm a pretty well conditioned guy and i score a lot of my points at the end of games where the defense is worn out. Just do suicides and when you feel like you can't go on take it up one notch.

If you aren't naturally pretty quick... and by naturally... nobody is that quick without working out... So, if by playing basketball a lot you haven't developed that quickness... then you never will unless you stat doing other things. You need to do specific and more intense plyos, and lift.

My secret was always stadium laps... lots and lots of stadium laps. It helps your leg strength in ways that are similar to jumping/bunnyhops and your moving fast enough to get your cardio. If anything, basketball becomes easier compared to the same amount of time spent on stairs.

[QUOTE=Swaggin916]If you aren't naturally pretty quick... and by naturally... nobody is that quick without working out... So, if by playing basketball a lot you haven't developed that quickness... then you never will unless you stat doing other things. You need to do specific and more intense plyos, and lift.[/QUOTE]

no dont get me wrong I am quick, and fast and athletic already but I want to be able to keep all this throughout the course of the game. Also I would like to further improve on these areas of my game, but my main focus is game time conditioning.

Yea if I were you I would do HIIT cardio training (The interval stuff). Basketball is a game of high intensity intervals so doing HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) is a good training tool. HIIT also burns more fat than any other form of training... so you got that going for you too.

[QUOTE=Swaggin916]Yea if I were you I would do HIIT cardio training (The interval stuff). Basketball is a game of high intensity intervals so doing HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) is a good training tool. HIIT also burns more fat than any other form of training... so you got that going for you too.[/QUOTE]


yea thanks this is exactly what I need and combine it with weight training this will be killer. I started it today and I couldn't do the advanced workout 30sec sprint/30 sec job. So now im goin to do about 10-20 sec sprint and 1min jog for 15 min

[QUOTE=MannyO]yea thanks this is exactly what I need and combine it with weight training this will be killer. I started it today and I couldn't do the advanced workout 30sec sprint/30 sec job. So now im goin to do about 10-20 sec sprint and 1min jog for 15 min[/QUOTE]


Yea when I do it I do a 30 second sprint, 90 second jog... and repeat that 10 times for a 20 minute workout. I sweat so bad... I have done 30 second sprint, 60 second jog... but only for about 15 minutes. That one is exhausting I can only imagine the 30/30 one. I will definitely be doing that though once my knee is back.

I'd say if you can do the 30/30 for 20 mins, you are in damn good condition. That might be more than you need tho... That's really insane :lol

Just wondering, how old are you?

I've decided I'm going to spend more time working on individual skills rather than just weight work, although I will continue to lift just not max out.

I cant even sprint for 30 secs with limited rest time and 15 mins. I changed my workout now to sprint 15secs/ jog/walk 45 secs. After the running sessions I prolly take shots at the park

im 16