Basketball Conditioning Drills

Jump Rope Training

We use basketball conditioning drills in our training sessions, especially at the beginning of the pre-season and during the off-season, for several purposes. Drills such as these are terribly important in helping our players' excel in their sport.

The conditioning drills we use should do many things:

• improve players' stamina, so they can play at game speed for the entire game
  
  
• improve players' flexibility and balance, to improve their agility
  
  
• improve sports-specific movement abilities, so players are able to move as they need to, quickly and powerfully, in the game of basketball
  
  

Quickness and speed are perhaps the most important, valuable attributes a basketball player can have; they are usually not focused on specifically during training sessions though. This jump rope training routine is one effective way to improve foot quickness and aerobic conditioning at the same time, and can be done all season long.

Agility Drills: Jump Rope Training

This is a simple, straightforward routine with four sections that flow from one to the next. The sections are:

• Jumping with two feet together - jump rope, keeping both feet together and jumping at the same time
  
  
• Jumping one foot at a time - hop on your left foot; after 'x' number of hops, switch to the right foot; after another 'x' number of hops, switch back to the left foot
  
  
• Crossovers - as the rope is travelling above your head, cross both arms across your body so that the rope crosses over as well. After you jump the rope and are bringing it back around again, cross your arms back so that they are once again at your sides
  
  
• Tuck Jumps - also a good exercise for increasing your vertical jump. As you hop over the rope, bring your knees up to your chest. Try to bring the rope around twice before you touch the ground
  

There are a few basketball conditioning drills out there that focus on quickness, but not many. I like using the jump rope since it also includes an aerobic factor and helps improve cardio as well as quickness.

One program you may want to check out is The Truth About Quickness (Affiliate Link), a training program focused solely on improving quickness. There aren't many - if any - programs out there with the same focus, and this seems to me to be the best bet for improving the quickness of your players.

Take a look at the program and evaluate it for yourself - it's always good to change things up every now and again, rather than running the same old basketball conditioning drills year after year. And use this jump rope training routine to help your players get quicker and better conditioned.