Can Not Playing at Full Speed Actually Make a Player More Fatigued?

[Rake2204]

I'm thinking this may have to do with the idea of a player's "second wind". But sometimes when I'm playing a full court game of basketball, I feel like I'm running down the court at 85% speed, and the constant acceleration to 85% speed then near immediate deceleration when I hit the other end of the court sometimes seems more tiring than if I were to full-on sprint. Do you think there's anything to this?

My thought has been that an 85% run would not bring about the same stride and leg lift. As such, different muscles, muscles more in line with speed walking or jogging, would be receiving heavy usage as opposed to the fast-twitch, lift-knee-up-high muscles. Essentially, when I'm not directly a part of a play (with the ball, filling a lane on a fast break, or chasing down an opponent as a defender) I feel myself sort of running without picking up my feet, only to slow down like an airplane on a runway (as opposed to stopping on a near dime and cutting about).

So again, my question is, could jogging down the floor during non-action sequences actually be more harmful to your game and fatigue level than pushing hard? I know my legs feel much more lively after I've been sprinting a lot, but a lot of fatigue also seems to occur during the actual sprinting.

[Pushxx]

I know this doesn't respond directly to what you're talking about but...

I gotta suggest high-intensity interval training (HIIT). It revolutionized my conditioning...I became more effective with a third of the training time. It blew my mind, man...

[percolator]

In pickup I never go full speed the first game, and always felt like I got better the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th game etc. etc, like the more I played the more stamina I would get. I like to play for 3-4+ hours at a time, and like when everybody is getting tired and wants to quit I'm feeling stronger. When I'm in a situation where I know I'm only playing one game, I warmup hard, basically I want to feel like I've already played a game before the game starts

Not going full speed for an extended period though, you're definitely weakening yourself. The more you get the blood pumping, the more oxygen in your lungs, the more you sweat....that all makes you stronger.

It's different for everybody though, everybody has different genetics and makeup and whatnot

[305Baller]

i think you may be right, when i get frozen out and i start slacking on these douchbags, i actually start feeling more tired.