From my newsletter at CBAthletics.com:
2 – How I Set-up My Speed Training Workouts
Each Tuesday evening I run strength and conditioning sessions for some of the top high-school basketball players in Toronto. Due to a number of circumstances, we do our entire workouts on the court, with no access to any lifting equipment. Yet we've achieved great results in the last two years (improving strength, agility, jumping, and speed) with bodyweight exercises only.
Here’s how I structure our 60-minute sessions to get the most results in the least time. Keep in mind that these sessions would be applicable to all young athletes. There’s very little that would change for a hockey team, soccer team, or rugby team as these sessions are all about building athleticism and speed (and what athlete doesn’t need to be more athletic or faster?).
Athletic Movement Training Warm-up (5 minutes)
- We warm-up as a group. I lead the movements and the athletes mirror my actions (shuffles, crossovers, etc.). We build up the intensity over time and move from general movement to technique-based movement. This is just one example of how we train as a unit and promote teamwork and cohesiveness.
Dynamic Flexibility (10 minutes)
- Next we add in movements that take the group through an increasing range of motion. This includes lunges and squatting movements. For some younger and weaker athletes, lunges might be intense enough to constitute a strength exercise, but for the athletes in this training session, bodyweight lunges are no longer intense enough for strength gains so they have become part of our warm-up.
From observing warm-ups of hundreds of young athletes, I have found that most lack:
a) Hip mobility – So I spend a lot of time on drills that emphasize getting the hips low.
b) Dynamic hamstring flexibility
c) Body awareness to push the hips back into a squat that focuses on the posterior chain
Core & Muscle Activation (5 minutes)
- During the warm-up and dynamic flexibility components, I mix in abdominal bridges, side bridges, bird dogs, various pushups, and modified abdominal curl-ups to "groove the proper motor patterns" as suggested by Dr. Stuart McGill. The core exercises are not done to fatigue, but are done for multiple reps of short durations.
Power Development, Force Absorption/Deceleration, & Jump Training (5 minutes)
- Next we start focusing on getting the guys to train the muscles to absorb the force of landing. We do single jumps with a focus on sticking the landing, we do some reps where we step off benches and land and stick and absorb the force.
- Other ways to do this are the game "red-light, green light". Etc.
- We don’t use an excessive amount of traditional plyometrics (like you might find in some commercial training programs). Most of these young basketball players love to play ball, and end up playing everyday. Therefore, they are already engaged in high-intensity jump training outside of our training sessions. So I am quite conservative with the actual amount of plyos we do (if any).
- But it is important to point out that these guys have all seen increases in jump height without excessive plyometrics. The other components of the training program are helping quite a bit. I believe the majority of the benefits are coming from strengthening the posterior chain muscle groups.
Speed Training & Speed Technique (10 minutes)
- Despite being incredible players, most young athletes need to improve their movement technique and efficiency, specifically their running efficiency.
- For example, the players need to learn to drive their arms back, rather than across their bodies. So even though basketball is a game of short sprints, we work on sprint technique and we focus on accelerations and movement transition (from lateral to linear, etc.).
Open Agility (CHAOS) Drills & Movement Technique (10 minutes)
- We've progressed from basic “set” (closed) agility drills to CHAOS training. CHAOS training is the training method created by Jim Liston and Robert Dos Remedios of Southern California. We do a lot of mirror drills with one player trying to elude another. Each drill is short in duration (almost always less than 10 seconds).
Bodyweight Strength (10 minutes)
- In addition to all of the single-leg exercises you can think of, we also use partner-assisted Glute-Ham Raises (photos will be posted on my site soon – please email for notice). These are an incredible exercise for the posterior chain, but are a very intense exercise. Therefore, we started with a low volume of sets and reps (1 set of 5 for the first session) and slowly build up the volume as the players adapt to the training stress.
- Again, we do all strength training as a team, with each player counting the reps together when possible, thus promoting team building. I also feel the guys work harder this way.
Core Endurance (5 minutes)
- We spend a little more time on core endurance to finish the session. For example, we might hold abdominal bridges and side bridges for single reps of 1-minute or more (this helps determine areas of weakness).
- We also combine some conditioning with core endurance. Dr. McGill has pointed out that taller basketball players often incur low-back problems because the athlete can't maintain spine stability while breathing heavily due to heavy exertion. So we do a little bit of conditioning to get the athletes breathing heavy and then do some core endurance.
All components of this routine is completed in a conservative manner, of course. I have a conversation with each athlete prior to training about injuries, fatigue, and their training and competition schedules. We also perform testing several times each year to gauge the effectiveness and appropriateness of the training program.
I recommend the following 2 books & 3 DVD’s to help you improve your sessions:
Training for Warriors – Written by Martin Rooney
Ultimate Back Fitness & Performance – Written by Dr. Stuart McGill
The 3 Parisi School DVD's (The Parisi Warm-up, Parisi Deceleration, & Parisi Agility).
Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, M.Sc.
CB Athletic Consulting, Inc.
www.cbathletics.com
www.TurbulenceTraining.com
www.grrlAthlete.com
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