What Kind Of Speed?

Hello BBall Fan!

I hope you had a great weekend and are looking forward to a super week ahead. I know for me, every time I have basketball practice I get excited. I always have been a practice coach. I love working the game during practice. I hope you do to. Have a great week of hoops.

Weekly Training Tip: Lateral Speed

Skill: Lateral Speed and Quickness

Drill: 555 Shuffle

Purpose: The purpose of the 555 shuffle drill is to increase lateral speed and change of direction ability. This is a great drill for coaches to evaluate the movement ability of the players. You want to see a smooth but powerful action. The power leg (rear leg) drives hard while the lead leg pulls at the same time. You want to see the hips level and when the player changes directions you want a quick change of direction with no hesitation or "swaying" of the shoulders. You should see a nice wide plant leg of the outside leg.

How to perform: You can mark off a 5 yard area or simply use the foul lane. The athlete starts with both feet outside the right land and shuffles across to the other foul lane line having just the outside foot cross. Immediately change direction and go across the starting line with the outside foot, change directions and finish crossing the opposite line.

Perform 3 sets starting on the right and 3 sets on the left. Alternate each time.

What Kind Of Speed?

A common question I get is what kind of speed training would I use for basketball? An example is the weekly tip above. Doing drills such as UCLA's or 17's are not an example of a speed drill. They are examples of metabolic or conditioning drills.

When you want to improve your players ability to be more explosive and quick in all directions you have to train them with skill training. Take a speed skill like lateral speed or retreating speed and train it. Break down what it looks like and how far you want the athlete to cover and do multiple reps at 100% effort. Remember you are training the nervous system to fire more efficiently so you have to train it at the speeds you want it to fire the muscles.

If I want to improve my offensive players to be more explosive in their first 3-4 steps I will design a drill that replicates what I want. I then talk about body position and how I want them to start and finish and then go with it. The key is to not go over 7-10 seconds and give a decent rest so they can go 100% effort with close to full energy again. Otherwise I am training more conditioning.

Now, Conditioning is incredibly important for basketball. I some cased with certain athletic teams I might concentrate more on conditioning (more on that in a moment) because they are already fast on the court. Remember...You must evaluate your team and see what they bring to the table and then design a plan of action.

Conditioning. I am not going into a big conditioning talk for this article but most of my conditioning for basketball players is done with the ball in hand and where they must make basketball decisions. Example; Have them perform one on one full court or half court but not stopping or breaks for a pre-determined time. Or 3 man weave drills. I will use UCLA drills and other drills on occasion but I want to combine basketball playing with conditioning as much a possible.

Back to speed. The next time you run a practice allot 3-4 minutes to devote strictly to speed and quickness. You will be glad you did.

Play Hard,

Lee

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