coachmccormick
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Re:WOW! all sounds so familiar - 2008/03/25 18:49
Funny. I went to Santa Clarita yesterday to watch Robert Dos Remedios work with the men's basketball and women's volleyball teams at College of the Canyons. Coach Dos has won the NSCA Strength Coach of the Year award, writes for Men's Health and speaks at Perform Better clinics, so he is well-regarded.
We were talking about pre-season basketball workouts. He said he does lots of 100s and suicides. Then, the coach makes them pass a 5-mile run through the hills in early October, when it's 90-degrees outside in Santa Clarita. He said he's caught because he knows basketball players need anaerobic conditioning, but if the coach is going to use a 5-mile test to decide who gets a uniform, he feels he has to prepare them for the test.
So, the question becomes: prepare players for the basketball season or prepare players for a random test that the coach picks because he does not understand basketball conditioning?
Many colleges do the same thing and they question the toughness of those who cannot pass arbitrary 2-mile or 5-mile tests. But, what's the point?
I have never heard a kid complain about not running enough. My team this year was probably in better shape than any team we played. In several games, the girls noticed the other team looking tired. We had no pre-season workouts, though five girls played volleyball where we did zero running, and we ran no more than 5 suicides all season.
My favorite conditioning drill is 3v3/no dribble.
If kids do not believe they are in good enough shape, maybe try the bleep test (next thread) or another such test which is more basketball specific. Or, do timed basketball drills early in the season and late in the season to show improvement.
As for teams that run laps. almost nothing makes me think less of a coach than one who starts practice with laps. It's a colossal waste of time and illustrates a coach who does not know what he is doing and is not prepared for practice so he buys more time with laps.
My team asked if they could run laps once. I said we would never run laps because it has nothing to do with basketball. They never asked again. I liked my team because they often asked questions. They wondered why I did things that no other coach had done and why I did not do things they were used to doing. And, each time I had an answer based on basketball and understanding training, whereas nobody ever explained to them why they stretched or why they ran laps or whatever. So, in many ways, once I educated them, they accepted my word and did what was asked of them.
There are, however, plenty of ways to make practice hard and remain functional. I like doing 20 push-ups, 20 squats and 20 sit-ups for 5 sets each as fast as possible. I met a coach who did a sprint-push-up pyramid. They sprinted to one end and did 10 push-ups. Then up and back with 20 push-ups. 3 sprints/30 push-ups, etc until they worked to 50 push-ups and then back down.
Conditioning is a part of basketball training and there are many ways to do it. The key is managing the available time and resources and making the conditioning basketball-specific.
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