The Ultimate Guide: Basketball Team Conditioning

The game of basketball is physically demanding. The best players and most effective teams have conditioned themselves to perform at a high level throughout the course of a single game and over the length of an entire season.

There are million different ways to help your players get into “basketball shape”. Each coach and program should base their conditioning model on a variety of factors including:

Length of the Preseason
Number of Healthy Bodies
Kids playing Other Sports (at the High School Level)
Timing and number of breaks during the year
Sequence and timing of games
Style of Play
Baseline Fitness Testing

Regardless of the specifics of your conditioning model, there are a few key principles that you should consider when it comes to developing a plan for your team.

Build From the Ground Up
Quality over Quantity
Track Everything to Show Progress/Regression
Choose a Plan that Aligns with Your Long-Term Goals
Challenge Your Players but Don’t Make Conditioning Something they Hate

I’ve put together a conditioning guide with:

8 Workout Templates
Player Profiles
Testing Sheets
Conditioning Times Based on Position

To download the entire guide click here or on the link below.

Click here to Download the Conditioning Guide

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Here’s a look at the 8 conditioning workouts:

The Shuttle

The Interval

The Climb

The Grinder

The Gauntlet

The Mile Test

17’s

The Circuit

To download the entire conditioning guide click here or on the link below.

Click here to Download the Conditioning Guide

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The Ultimate Guide: Basketball Team Conditioning

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The Principle of Perseverance

(as originally posted on The Assist)

There are times in all of our lives when we feel like giving up. Circumstances and challenges can conspire against us in a way that makes it difficult to press on. For these reasons, perseverance becomes critical in the life of every leader. Perseverance is necessary for anyone passionate about living a life of purpose through their leadership. It will push you through the times in life when you feel like giving up or checking out. Any leader who is committed to transformational, life-changing leadership must embrace the principle of perseverance in order to walk in purpose. The principle of perseverance is simply this: perseverance will propel you towards your purpose.

Digging a little deeper, perseverance can be defined as simply running YOUR race well, one step at a time. Purpose can be defined as the work that only you can do. Armed with these definitions, let’s look at how we can apply the principle of perseverance to our lives.

Learn. Grow. Lead.

Find Out How

The Path of Perseverance

No two people ever walk the same path. History is replete with examples of men and women who persevered through the peaks and valleys on their journey to help others. Men and women like Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and Harriet Tubman demonstrated perseverance to endure through challenging times which ultimately helped propel them toward their purposes. The path of perseverance will look different for everyone, but leaders who are committed to excellence will anticipate the inevitable valleys and prepare for the challenging times ahead. They will have the foresight to encourage their teams to run their races well, each and every day, one step at a time.

The Place of Perseverance

The place of perseverance refers to the times when perseverance becomes most critical in a leader’s journey. The two most difficult places to exercise perseverance are in the peaks and in the valleys. Everyone can relate to valleys (most people can remember a time when life was especially difficult), but why is it difficult to persevere during the peaks, when you’re on the top of the mountain? Peaks are especially challenging because when you experience success, you can lose sight of where you want to go. You can lose focus on why you do what you do. You can misplace your focus on the things that don’t really matter. Perseverance requires having an aim and a perspective that allows you to push through your present circumstances so that you start climbing towards a new peak in the future.

The Prize of Perseverance

The prize of perseverance is not a trophy, an accomplishment, or a destination. The prize of perseverance is about people. The reason we run our races well is to effect lives that echo in eternity, to gain a prize that does not perish and will never tarnish; the prize of perseverance is our motivation, our guiding light, and our reward. The motivation to persevere comes from looking to a prize that is worth the work and challenges along the way. Leaders who understand the true prize of perseverance will learn to run their races well.

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Becoming a Leader Worth Following

The most effective leaders are those who become the type of person that others willingly follow.

Most of us know the type of leader that we would be willing to follow—intuitively we are drawn to these type of people. We might not be able to give a detailed description, but we all know a true leader when we experience one.

Transformative leaders have a presence, they have an aura about them that embodies the principles they stand for and demonstrates the values they preach.

In assessing our own leadership the challenge is clear: How do I become the type of leader others are willing to follow?

Transformative leadership is only possible when a leader develops the necessary habits, dispositions, and mindset that allows their effectiveness to be unleashed.

Start with You

Great leadership is more caught than taught. Simply put, your habits, dispositions, and character are what define your leadership in the eyes of thepeople that follow you. For better or worse the team is going to take on the personality and habits of the leader.

Leaders have a huge responsibility then to become the type of people that they want the people in their organization to imitate.

Effective leadership always, “starts with you.” As a leader if you want the people around you to be self-controlled, selfless, full of integrity and passionate about serving others then YOU have to embody those qualities on a daily basis.

Remember leadership is more caught than taught, which means that the people on your team are going to follow your example more than what you say. You need to look in the mirror and become the type of person for others that you are asking others to become for you!

Focus on Them

As leader’s become the right people for others, they will inevitably inspire those around them to become the people they were created to be. A relational approach to team-building and leadership should be the natural extension of any leader’s commitment to becoming a leader worth following.

No one follows someone they can’t relate to and no one follows a leader they don’t feel connected to. A core requirement in becoming a “leader worth following” implies that my growth as a leader is not a self-serving exercise, but is founded on the desire to help others reach their potential.

The effectiveness of your leadership is tied to how well you marry these two approaches—“Starting with You” and “Focusing on Them.” World champion coach Gregg Popovich offers insight into how he leads his players:

“I think relationship building helps them want to play for you, for the program, for their teammates. Beyond that from a totally selfish point of view, I think I get most of my satisfaction from that. Sure winning championships is great, but it fades quickly.”

Gregg Popovich

Leaders understand that a genuine concern for the people around them is the relational building blocks that every great team is built on. Popovich does this by making an effort to build a relationship with his players on and off the court: the entire scope of their lives becomes a matter of importance, not just how many points they can score or assists they can dish out.

When leaders show that they care, strong teams are built and lives are transformed.

We can all get started by growing into a leader worth following by developing two simple habits. Here are behaviors that manifest “starting with yourself” and “focusing on them.”

Daily Nourishment

“Starting with you” begins with building a sound mind, body, and spirit every day.

Every day find a time, a place, and a resource—this could be anything from a book, podcast, sermon, or article—that feeds your mind and heart with the truths of transformational leadership. Write those three things down right now.

Time
Place
Resource

Relational Approach

Write down one person you want to connect with and build into as a leader this week. Invite them to lunch or schedule a phone call. Be intentional and focus

on building that relationship this week by showing interest in who they are as a person.

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The Arete Manifesto – Why we Exist

The Arete Manifesto

What is Arete Hoops? Who are we? What do we stand for? Why do we exist? Why should you care about what we have to say?

Put simply, Arete Hoops believes basketball can change your life because it has changed ours. We think basketball and sports have serious power: they have the ability to transform you, shape you, and mold you into a better basketball player and person. We want to give anyone who will listen the chance to consider these ideas because we want to give everyone a chance to make their dreams come true.

Our approach to basketball is a philosophy, a specific set of ideals. We have crafted this ideology through personal experience, by making observations in our lives, and building on the ideas of thinkers who express these ideas much better than we do.

Our Mission is Simple: We think the world can be changed through the game of basketball. We know there are coaches and players who want to make a difference. We know leaders are powerful. We want to question the status quo. We want to think differently. We want to consider the traditional ideas of how to approach the game of basketball and take the path less traveled.

If you choose to read it, this is the Arete Hoops philosophy; our manifesto, the good stuff, the nuts and bolts of what we believe. We hope these ideas resonate with you and ultimately help change you for the better. We hope you make a decision to abandon a life of mediocrity and start walking the path of excellence. If you have the desire to…

Walk the path less traveled

Commit yourself to an uncommon standard of excellence

Develop your leadership capability

Question the status quo

Approach the game of basketball differently

Make a Difference

Then take 5 minutes and consider these ideas and make a determination for yourself. Download the PDF below to get started.

The Path of Excellence is open to anyone who decides to take it…will you start your journey today???

The Arete Manifesto

How Open Communication Changes your Team’s Culture

You can find the original publication of this article on the Team Snap Blog

Managing the Complexity

The dynamics between players, coaches, and parents have become notoriously difficult to manage, and understandably so. The complexity that results from the intermingling of these relationships is due to the very nature of sports and competition. Generally speaking, the coaches agenda is centred around the team, a players agenda is centred around themselves, and a parents agenda is centred on their child’s wellbeing. This is not to say that a player can’t care about their team, or coaches always disregard the wellbeing of their players, but usually this is where priorities lie. To put it another way, the allegiances of all parties involved are usually directed (and rightfully so) towards their primary interests. These allegiances can cause coaches to be insensitive, players to show disrespect, and parents to overstep their bounds.

In youth sports, the majority of this friction could be laid to rest if all players received one specific thing from their coaches and parents. This one thing is a mindset as much as anything else, and if all future decisions can be measured against this principle, everyone will benefit. Players simply need: honest, truthful, supportive communication from their coach and parents. This may sound simple, but the impact can be dramatic. Here are three ways that this type of communication will have a positive effect on everyone involved.

Realistic Expectations

Sports (especially when you have to deal with tryouts, playing-time, and other similar issues) can be a great learning and growth experience for many kids. However, I believe one of the biggest reasons athletes can have a negative experience with their coach or team is because their expectations are never met since expectations are never set. If an athlete walks into a team with a particular set of expectations, and the coach never communicates his/her expectations with that player, inevitably someone will be disappointed.

Players simply need: honest, truthful, supportive communication from their coach and parents.

In my opinion, truthful communication about a coach’s expectations for both individual players and the team is one of the most important moves that diffuses toxic feelings between players, parents and coaches. A coach should lay out expectations at the beginning of the season with the parents, as well as during the course of the season with the players. Players roles can change and expectations can shift with the ebb and flow of the season and a coach should do their best to be on the same page with the players regarding these issues.

Truth is the Best Medicine

Truth is the best medicine when it comes to potentially toxic communication in youth sports. If a coach fails to communicate to a player how he sees them fitting into the team, then the player is left to patch together a picture of his role from the mysterious verbal and non-verbal cues he sees in practice and games. This guessing game can drive players crazy and undermine a coaches credibility.

Truth is the best medicine when it comes to potentially toxic communication in youth sports.

Although it is more difficult on the front-end to sit down with a player and tell them they might not be seeing a lot of playing time, ultimately this is the healthiest type of communication. This removes the ability of parents and players to blame the coach for any kind of deception or misconstrued information.

In the same way, if a coach delivers truthful feedback, it is the job of the parents to do their best to honestly assess how their child could improve. Parents can offer feedback without undermining the authority of the coach and should do their best to empower their children to improve through hard work and skill development. The truth can sting at times, but ultimately it is the best stimulus for growth and character building.

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Positive Opportunities for Growth

Every directive from a coach to a player should come with a caveat on ways and opportunities to improve (should the player choose to). Positive communication begins and ends with the idea that regardless of how much playing time a player gets, that their inherent worth is never tied to performance. Sports are so much bigger than minutes played, or baskets scored because they teach us about ourselves. Opportunities for personal growth abound in the world of youth sports; but coaches and parents alike need to prioritise providing these opportunities for their athletes regardless of skill level. When honest, truthful, and supportive communication becomes the norm, everybody wins.