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Before you put on your basketball shoes, read these articles to improve your basketball skills. You’ll find basketball tips on jumping, fitness training, basketball coaching and basketball training… To browse our library of free sports training articles, browse using the categories on the left or use the search box.
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Short and sweet – why all sportsmen and women should consider 40m sprinting!
Short and sweet – why all sportsmen and women should consider 40m sprinting!
Can body fat loss and lean muscle gain be targeted with nutritional supplements?
Can body fat loss and lean muscle gain be targeted with nutritional supplements?
Strength Training for Basketball: How to improve your strength and power on the court
Improve Your Jumping Ability and Basketball Skills with the Right Weight Training Workout
Increase Vertical Leap and Improve Jumping Ability with Plyometrics
Plyometric Exercises to Make You Jump Higher and Further
The Drop Depth Jump: A plyometric exercise to increase vertical leap and improve jumping ability
Plyometrics Training: The drop depth jump
Zig Zag Sprints
A useful agility drill to develop acceleration, deceleration and rapid changes in direction whilst sprinting.
The Single Arm Low Cable Row
The single arm low cable pull unilaterally strengthens the upper back while at the same time improving your ability to move weight with one arm.
Ladder Drill: One Foot in Each Rung
The most simple of ladder drills can be used for beginners and young athletes to teach them about moving quickly. The ladder drill can also be used to teach running mechanics.
Ladder Drill: Two Feet in Each Rung
A progression from the One Foot in Each Rung drill, challenges the speed of co-ordination of the athlete.
Ladder Drill: Two Forward One Back
One of the more complex ladder drills, it helps develop co-ordinated quickness in two directions: forwards and back.
Lateral Ladder Drill
Challenges co-ordination by teaching quick lateral movements. This drill can also be used as an aid for teaching correct lateral movement mechanics.
Lateral Zig Zags
One of the most common movements in sport is running side-ways on an angle. This drill helps develop lateral speed and changes in lateral direction.
Agility Drill 1
This agility drill is great for learning to decelerate and rapidly change direction following a period of acceleration.
Agility Drill 3
This drill is designed to focus upon quick feet movements followed by an initial acceleration. The quick foot movements will help “prime” your body for the sprint and rapid change of direction.
Agility Drill 4
Similar to agility drill 3, this drill offers a little more challenge to the co-ordination of the athlete by having them side-step in and out of cones before a sprint.
Agility Drill 9
This drill can be performed as part of a warm-up or as a separate agility drill.
Dynamic stretching exercises increase jumping ability
Basketball Warm-ups to Increase Vertical Leap
Basketball players: What you drink can improve your basketball skills
Maintaining hydration can help improve your basketball shooting and performance
Half-time nutrition – what’s best for maximising fulltime performance?
Half-Time Training for Team Sports
Skills Based Training: Female Games Players
Skills Based Training as an Alternative to Traditional Strength Training
periodisation
Periodisation: Advanced strategies for bringing your performance to a peak at just the right time
agility
Agility: Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee: sport-specific drills for boosting agility
successful coaching
Successful coaching: The secrets of success with high-level athletes
How Athletes Perform Under Pressure
Choking under pressure
pre-conditioning
Pre-conditioning - or how to do the preparatory work needed to stay in tip-top training condition all year round
weight training for women
Weight training for women: Why women avoid weight training - and how coaches can change their minds
carbohydrate electrolyte drink
How carbohydrate and electrolyte drinks help team sports players
complex training
Complex training: The potentiation effect - can one training mode really enhance another?
drugs in sport
Drugs in sport: “Far from being unfair, drugs that enhance performance actually promote equality”
drugs sport
Drugs in sport: Let athletes take drugs, but I don't want them in my club - or at my Olympics'
off-season training
Off-season training: Three off-season programmes to set you up for what lies ahead
Plyometric Exercise | Power Training
Plyometric Exercise and Power Training
Fitness programmes
How to design a sports-specific fitness programme
fitness program
Fitness program - How to design a sports-specific fitness program
Running economy 2
Running Economy 2: How to make headway on improving running efficiency: can freeloading African women provide some important clues?
Knee joints
Knee Joints: Knee instability has more to do with work than sport
Speed Training
Speed Training: Talking turkey: why hill work helps athletes in football, rugby, basketball, cricket - and even running
Smell of success
The sweet smell of sporting success
bilateral co-ordination | training
Bilateral Co-ordination: Why dexterity alone just will not do: some lessons from a young piano player
lateral preferences
How to overcome lateral preferences and end up with two dominant legs:
Owen Anderson offers practical guidance on how to identify your own dominant side - and bring the other side up to par
Strength training | strength programs
Strength training programs
running surfaces
Running Surfaces: Why Haile boycotted the Atlanta oval - and can tuned tracks improve your own performances?
medicine ball training workouts
Medicine ball training workouts: Does medicine ball training really work?
Muscle Imbalance
Muscle Imbalance: Why detecting muscle imbalance is an essential part of an injury-prevention strategy
Shin splints 1
Shin splints: These exercises will help to strengthen your lower legs, and prevent or repair shin splint problems
Caffeine
Caffeine proves less of a help to team sports sprinters
Longevity
Longevity: Exercise helps you to live longer, but how important is intensity?
Sports Knee Braces
Sports Knee Braces: Does wearing a knee brace improve or hamper your ability to perform?
Conditioning
Conditioning: Next to cross-country skiing, running is the best type of fitness training for all sports.
Biological clocks
Biological clock-watching can give your performance an extra boost.
creatine facts
Creatine facts: The latest research results are all good - and don't believe the rumour that it causes cramp.
Choline
Choline: Supplements of this essential compound have helped swimmers, basketball players and distance runners
Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) knee injury and prevention
The knees of female athletes are very vulnerable to injury, especially ACL tears. Here's what to do about it.
anaerobic performance testing
Here's a new running-based test of anaerobic performance for which you need only a stopwatch and a calculator.
vision in sport
Vision In Sport: A guide to improving performance by training the eyes.
Ginseng
Ginseng: Another scientific study gives the thumbs down.
running foot injuries - plantar fasciitis
Running Foot Injuries - Describing plantar fasciitis is easy: It's simply an inflammation of the fascia on the bottom of the foot. Getting rid of plantar fasciitis is hard
Infection and sport
Infection And Sport: Which infections are spread during sports activities?
HIV risk and sport
Hiv Risk And Sport: What's the real risk of HIV transmission during sports activities?
Music and sport
Music and Sport: Music hath charms to soothe the savage workout - or perhaps it doesn't.
Cross Training Workouts
Cross Training Workouts
"run-play" training
"run-play" Training: These workouts can boost fitness, speed, endurance and correct weaknesses - and are fun to do.
Anterior cruciate ligament (acl) injuries, treatment, training and surgery
Complete tears of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) - the key ligament which bonds together the upper and lower parts of the leg at the knee - account for more than two-thirds of all knee injuries in skiers and are fairly common in other sports as well.
Does foot structure affect injury rate?
There's been considerable confusion concerning the effects of foot structure on injury rates. Some researchers - and large numbers of people in the population at large - believe that individuals with low-arched feet have weak foot structures and are more predisposed to injuries in the lower extremities.
overtraining effects on performance
Overtraining Effects On Performance: If you want to prevent staleness and overtraining, keep a record of your quality of sleep and levels of fatigue!
Reading the game
Reading The Game: While lesser mortals grind out victories with their patient shots, eliminating risks and playing the percentages, the truly gifted seem to conjure with time. They bring an unhurried genius to their game that allows them to play shots with an audacity that sometimes surprises even them.
Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury prevention exercises, rehabilitation and training techniques
These four exercises can help prevent your ACLs blowing up - which is especially good news for female athletes.
Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury prevention exercises, rehabilitation and training techniques
These four exercises can help prevent your ACLs blowing up - which is especially good news for female athletes.































