In today’s game good skills are not enough. If you get out-hustled, out-run and pushed all over the court by your opponent, they’re going to beat you, even if they have less talent.
Strength training for basketball players is essential for success in today’s game, even at the high school level, and is for all positions from guard to center. A good weight training program can transform your game, helping you to go up stronger, drive the lane harder, hold your own in the key and last for more minutes on the court, which means better stats, more wins and better chances of a scholarship.
In this article I’m going to show you 3 weight training principles that will help you to gain more muscle mass, but keep it functional, strong and explosive, which will help you to play better basketball.
Progressive Overload
The idea of progressive overload is a muscle building principle that top bodybuilders use and has been proven as one of the most effective techniques to help skinny guys pack on muscle mass and gain crazy amounts of strength.
The technique relies on constantly increasing the amount of weight you lift each time you go to the gym, so that your body is always forced to adapt and grows muscle faster to compensate for the increased load.
Making progressive overload a part of your strength training for basketball workouts will ensure you are constantly building muscle mass AND increasing strength and power.
High Intensity and Periodization
Making sure your strength and weight training for basketball workouts are high intensity is a second key factor in increasing your strength. Many guys fail to keep their workouts at a high intensity with short disciplined rest periods.
You need to get in and get out of the gym, in less than an hour. Performing your workouts at high intensity will help you do this, plus you’ll see an added benefit in increased strength and muscle size.
Periodization is important to keep your workouts varied and prevent you seeing a plateau in your muscle and strength gains. It relies on you changing up your workouts regularly so that your body does not get used to one type of training.
This is especially important for basketball players as your strength training for basketball routines need to be flexible and varied anyway, reflecting the different physical aspects of the game – strength and power, speed and agility, and explosiveness.
3:1 Rep Tempo For Explosiveness
To improve your explosiveness try incorporating a 3:1 tempo in your strength training for basketball routines. For example, if you are performing a bench press, the down part should take you 3 times longer than the up part (which should be explosive).
This technique is a great way to work on your explosiveness and recruit maximum muscle fibre throughout the exercise, giving you an added bonus of extra gains in muscle mass.
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by John Wheeler
