Basketball Stretching – 5 Benefits That Enhance Your Performance

June 15, 2014 By basketballtrainer

Basketball Stretching – Have You Committed Yet?

Basketball stretching is an essential component of fitness that is often undervalued by young athletes for its ability to enhance overall basketball performance. Many young players are only spending a bare minimum of about 5-10 minutes simply “going through the motions” of their stretching routine without any real commitment to achieving the benefits that stretching has to offer. Does this scenario sound familiar to you?

This lack of stretching issue isn’t a matter of ‘want to ‘in most cases, it’s simply a lack of education as to what stretching does for the body. Whether you’re a player that already enjoys spending time stretching or one that wouldn’t spend any time doing it if it weren’t for your coach or trainer requiring that you do so – my goal within this article is to teach you more about the ways that stretching can help take your basketball performance to the next level by increasing your flexibility and range of motion, reducing muscular imbalances, preventing injuries, increasing circulation in the body and strengthening the nervous system.

Increase Basketball Flexibility and Range of Motion

Flexibility comes more naturally for some people than others, however anyone can reach their full flexibility potential by increasing their average daily stretching time from 5-10 minutes to at least 30 minutes. Some people take it a step further by utilizing a yoga practice that typically lasts up to an hour. Basically, the more time you spend stretching the more flexible you will become and the better range of motion you will have in your shoulder and pelvic girdles.

An increased range of motion means a lot for a basketball player. How would you like to increase the size of your first step to the basket? What about being able to extend your reach to the goal a bit further on your layups or dunks? Or, maybe you need to lengthen your defensive shuffle strides to make you a more effective defender. Increased flexibility and range of motion can take you to the next level with your basketball game by giving you a competitive edge physically in all of those tiny ways that you need it most!

Reduce Muscular Imbalances In Basketball Bodies

Every basketball player is susceptible to muscular imbalances simply because of the nature of the game. Hours of strength training, maneuvering laterally on cuts and explosive jumping take a toll on the muscles and joints.

Muscular imbalance happens when opposing muscles in the body such as the quadriceps and hamstrings of the knee joint become out of sync due to repetitive movements or poor posture over an extended period of time. Basically, one of the opposing muscles either becomes too tight, too weak or often both causing increased tension on the joint that the imbalanced muscles surround leading to aches, pains and potentially injury.

For example, what do you guess is going to happen to the knees of a player who has been playing defense with their weight distributed too forward over their body rather than centered for years? Hopefully you get the picture here – they have developed a serious muscular imbalance between the quads and hamstrings which could lead to aching, injury prone knees even at a young age. You can be sure that this player is not going to reach their full potential athletically until they correct the muscular imbalance.

The good news is that most muscular imbalances can be alleviated and even prevented by including a quality stretching regimen into your program. If you have a knee, hip, shoulder or ankle joint that has been bothering you and don’t recall any traumatic incident that would have caused the pain, then it’s safe to assume that you are needing to spend more time stretching yourself out. Proper daily stretching will ensure that you are giving much needed attention to all of your major muscle groups to help maintain balance for healthy muscular function.

Prevent Basketball Injuries

Some of the most common basketball injuries involve the hips, knees, ankles and feet. From ligament tears in the knees, chronic ankle sprains, inflammation of the tendons in the feet and pulled hip muscles – all of these injuries can cause players to miss several games if not the rest of the season.

Quality routine stretching, before and after you exercise and play, can give you a peace of mind by knowing that you are doing the number one preventative thing to offset these most common basketball injuries. It isn’t always a guarantee because sometimes things just happen, but the facts are that the more flexible you are, the less likely you are to suffer from common basketball injuries. It’s impossible to make a difference on the court if you are always worried about injury or nursing injuries, so the best thing to do is take action to prevent them the best way possible.

Lessen Recovery Time

A strenuous basketball workout or game can really push your physical limits leaving you sore and less mobile for hours and sometimes days after.

The soreness that you feel after a limit pushing game is due to micro tears in the muscles. Once these tiny tears have occurred, the body needs to send more blood to the damaged muscles to help them begin to repair and heal. Stretching helps speed up this process by increasing circulation and blood flow; where blood travels, so do oxygen and nutrients. So, the more time you devote to stretching, the less time it will take your body to recover and be ready for the next workout, practice or game.

Strengthen the Nervous System

Daily stretching is a practice that not only benefits your muscles, but also helps to strengthen your nervous system.

The nervous system is bundled within connective tissues that run along the muscles of the body, meaning the health and function of your muscles and nerves are closely related. Proper stretching incorporates deep breathing techniques which helps balance the mind and body. When you are breathing deeply rather than shallow and rapid, your nervous system is able to relax and reset resulting in an overall strengthened system. A healthy nervous system can enhance your basketball performance by preparing you to handle and withstand stress that happens often in high pressure game situations.

As you’ve now learned, stretching is not something to be taken lightly. It is a key component of fitness that is capable of helping you improve the function of the muscles, ligaments, tendons, joints and nerves in your body which is sure to enhance your overall basketball performance. Austin basketball trainer Chris Corbett has a couple of students who are also in Austin Gymnastics programs. Their commitment to gymnastics and stretching makes them standout amongst their peers as their balance, flexibility, and core strength keeps them on their feet and flexible.

Aim to spend no less than 15 minutes during both your warm-up and cool-down before workouts, practices and games. Remember, always stretch after a brief cardio warm-up since cold muscles are more inflexible and you won’t get the results you will with already warm muscles. Get to your basketball trainer, discuss basketball stretching and enjoy the great benefits it has to offer your body and game!

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Ask The Basketball Trainer

June 6, 2014 By basketballtrainer

Ask a Basketball Trainer Part 1

We get questions from parents and players all the time regarding player development, so we thought we’d take the time to answer some of these questions publicly. Let’s go to the mailbag.

I’m concerned that my son is not using the tools and skills you are giving him in basketball training during his games. He thinks he is playing well, but from an observer’s perspective he looks no better than he did 6 months ago in games. He is simply not being aggressive enough on offense, and therefore is not making a real imprint on the game. I think you have been awesome, but is there something you can do to help him realize he needs to implement more of his new skills in the games? – Mother of 11 year old shooting guard

I think your son has really developed some good skills over the last 6 months, but of course the key is to use those skills in game action. Let’s try three things. First, I will have him do a self-evaluation survey about his performance in the games. If there is a disconnect between perception and reality, we can address it head on. Sometimes young players can mistakenly find their value in what they are merely able to do, meaning the ability to do ball handling moves, having a good general shooting stroke, etc.

However coaches and observers value players for what they are actually doing in the games. If we find a major disconnect is there, I can talk to him about being the type of player his coach will love and that his team needs. Critical feedback about his game at this age may be uncomfortable for him, but it will help him in the long run. Secondly, I’ll give him a game within the game. Since your son has become a pretty good ball handler and is depended on to make plays for his team, I’ll give him a goal of six red zone touches per game.

We’ll start at six and increase as he consistently hits that number. In this case we’ll refer to the red zone as the area inside the 3 point line. As a shooting guard he needs to utilize his footwork, ball handling ability and explosiveness to beat perimeter defenders in driving towards the basket. Holding him to a certain amount of red zone touches will force him to use what he’s learned in training. And getting inside the three point line with explosive drives is going to translate into positive things for his team, whether it’s him scoring or making a good pass to a teammate on the inside. The third thing we will implement will come from you.

We’ll have you give him an Aggressiveness grade after each game. For his position and role on his team we want him at an 8 on a scale of 1-10. If he’s not performing at an 8 on the Aggressiveness scale, he may not be giving enough value to his team for his position. If he wants to play that shooting guard position, he’s got to realize that it comes with offensive responsibility. I think if we implement these three things immediately – one thing from me, one thing from him, and one from you – we can get him on the right track towards being a more effective basketball player.

Basketball Scholarships – Chasing The Full Ride

June 2, 2014 By basketballtrainer

Basketball Scholarships – Chasing The Full Ride

(Part 1 of 7) – 7 part series A Definitive Guide To Your College Basketball Dream

Part 1: The Full Ride Basketball Scholarship

For student-athletes in high school basketball preparing to find a college of their choice the search for the “full-ride” athletic scholarship is a common dream. However, is there such a thing? First of all, there are minimal 1-year and no 4-year full-rides. NCAA D1 men’s basketball has about 4,400 total scholarships, 13 per program. These scholarships are almost always one-year deals and the more money that is given, the more pressure there is for the student-athlete to produce. Full-ride, means full-time job.

A very small percentage of student-athletes earn full-ride athletic scholarships. In fact, according to the National Collegiate Scouting Association (NCSA) website, of the seven million high school athletes graduating each year, 1% will receive full rides in ALL sports combined. These full rides are in NCAA D1 in the sports of football, men’s & women’s basketball and women’s volleyball and are labeled “head-count” sports and require coaches to hand out full rides. All other NCAA D1 sponsored sports and all sports in other collegiate athletic affiliations within the US (NCAA II, NAIA, NJCAA, USCAA, NCCAA) that offer some sort of athletic scholarships will see coaches split athletic money to maximize rosters and get the best “bang for their buck.”

In 2013 scholarshipstats.com reported that 5.9% (31,863 out of a possible 535,569) of high school basketball boys and 6.3% (28,002 out of 436,100) of high school girls went on to play varsity college basketball. The average athletic aid among this small percentage of players was $5,266 for males, and $6,382 for females. To put these numbers into perspective one must understand the landscape of college basketball recruiting.

Full Ride Basketball Scholarship Competition

The competition for full rides is intense and virtually all top 100 level recruits entering grades 9-12 now play year round utilizing not only their high school seasons but high exposure ultra-individual player marketing club level leagues such as the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU). These club teams are now arguably the best way for players to make a name for themselves and get exposure to division 1 coaches that they simply can’t find with their short, sometimes isolated high school seasons. An average high school season is around 20 games while high level AAU teams are playing 40-50 games per year. Nearly every college recruit is also working diligently on their skills with a qualified basketball trainer. There are more players than division 1 programs and college Coaches will usually recruit at least five players for each full scholarship spot they have available. Recruits not only come from US high schools but also from prep schools world-wide, junior colleges such as the highly competitive National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) and overseas organizations of every kind. Division 1 programs will have kids on their radar as early as eighth grade. The process is complex but if players are playing and exposed to recruiters the opportunity is there. A regular practice of College Basketball and College Football programs is to ask for a top level recruit to make a “verbal” commitment to them which is simply a public announcement by the recruit that they are planning to play at a particular school. This agreement is usually made during a recruit’s junior year and is not binding but most often ends with a formal written offer or letter of intent from the school within a year. Once a letter of intent is signed which will occur in the fall or the spring during the two separate signing periods, the deal becomes final for a full year between the recruit and school. A full-year scholarship will be taken off the table for a variety of reasons but most often boils down to either the player feeling they are better than the program and the grass is greener elsewhere or the coach no longer feeling the player is worth the money and somebody out there will be. At this point, a player can get a release from the school but if they are going to another division 1 program, they’ll have to sit a full year. Typically, they will sign with the next school, be under scholarship and play the following season. This only adds to the competition for the available full rides in any given year.

Chase the Dream… But Know the Odds

In summary, the full ride is available each year for a very small percentage of select top level basketball recruits. Serious basketball recruits who want every chance to chase their dream, would be smart to look beyond the full-ride, and see the full picture in the recruiting game. Continue to chase the dream, but understand that there are more than one ways to reach it. Once again, numbers state that kids may not earn a full-ride and in-fact, most scholarships come through academic success as well as federal funding. In addition, the cost of education continues to be substantial. College Board reports that a “moderate” college budget for an in-state public college for the 2013–2014 academic year averaged $22,826. A moderate budget at a private college averaged $44,750.”

Special thanks to the guys at BasketballHQ.com for the great infographic below breaking down the anatomy of a college basketball scholarship.

Part 2; “The Numbers Game,” in this 7 part series, will discuss academic and athletic scholarship options and we will begin to look at the best ways to package yourself as a basketball recruit. Subscribe to our email feed to get the other 7 parts delivered to your email inbox. This series is written primarily by Coach Eric Werntgen of U Maine – Fort Kent. Eric is also a former college basketball player himself . Coach Werntgen is part of the BasketballTrainer.com staff.

Move From Good To Great In Basketball Training

June 1, 2014 By basketballtrainer

Skill development is great for youth basketball players. Developing skills is great for players of al levels in fact. But it takes more than just skills to be a great basketball player. There is an intangible component to greatness that one can’t measure in a per game average or shooting percentage. But you can still see greatness when it’s there. From over 20 years of being a diehard basketball fan in addition to being a player at various levels, there are 3 qualities I’ve noticed that most, if not all, great players have. Here are 3 major keys to being great on the basketball court. And these are things that you can implement starting today.

Here Are Three Keys To Go From Good To Great In Basketball Training

Great Basketball Players… Set the Tone

Great players set the tone on the basketball court. There’s a quote by author Robert T. Kiyosaki that sums up what setting the tones means: “There are those who make things happen, there are those who watch things happen and there are those who say ‘what happened’?” Great players make things happen. And they do that from the opening tip. No waiting for your teammate to give you the ‘green light’ to go block a shot on one end or attack the rim with the ball on the other. No waiting to see how good the other team is before you start to exhibit your skills. Great players go out and cause the other team to react to what they are doing, not the other way around. If you want to be a great player, you have to be a tone setter with your skills, no matter what your skills may be. You can set the tone with shot blocking, perimeter defense, running in transition, 3 point shooting, passing, driving, post scoring, etc. Whatever it is that you do, there is some way for you to set the tone for your team. And great players make sure to do it.

Great Players… Take Responsibility

Great players take responsibility for their own performance and sometimes even the performance of their team. Taking responsibility for your own performance means not blaming the refs for an off night, holding yourself to a high standard, and working on your game in the offseason. Players who take responsibility allow themselves to be great because they take complete ownership of their game and performance. When you take ownership like this, you can effectively correct mistakes and work to improve your game in the areas where it is lacking. Conversely, players who don’t get what they want in the game of basketball can choose the lower road of blaming referees, politics, and teammates, etc. for their own lack of success. These players limit their ability to improve because of their “it’s not my fault” attitude. Players who take responsibility for the performance of their team don’t blame teammates after losses. Even when he or she might have played well, a great player will ask themselves “what could I have done better to help my team win?” This attitude causes great players in the NBA to raise their production in the playoffs. Instead of saying “Well, I scored about what I usually did tonight; I did my job”, a great player will say “Well, I’ve scored 30 so far but I need to do more so we can get this win.”

Great Players… Play with Competitive Fire

Truly great players play and train with a competitive fire. Do you know what this means? A competitive “fire” refers to an insatiable appetite. That appetite “burns” inside the great player just like a fire. The figurative fire or appetite cannot be quenched by looking good on the basketball court. It can’t be quenched by a few highlight plays. It cannot be quenched by “not messing up”, and it cannot even be quenched by statistics. A competitive fire can only be quenched by competing and winning! Players with this mindset often end up looking good, making highlight plays and having pretty good statistics. This is because that competitive fire drives you to put it all on the line and do whatever it takes with whatever skills you have to win the game. When you are playing this way, those other things are the by-product.

My advice to youth basketball players work on being GREAT on the basketball court. Do not settle for anything less than greatness in doing what you do. Being great does not mean you have to average 30 points per game, nor does it mean you must have the best skills of those around you. It means bringing greatness to the things that YOU do on the basketball court. We encourage you not to settle for anything less than greatness in this wonderful game of basketball. Be great!

How To Be a Better Basketball Teammate

June 1, 2014 By basketballtrainer

What Do You Want From Your Teammates?

Do you want to be a great basketball teammate? What should youth basketball players want from their teammates? It sounds like a strange question, but it is one that needs to be answered.

Why is it important you understand what you want from your teammates? Well, it took me a long time as a player to figure out what I wanted from my teammates. This affected how I treated them, how I approached the game, and even how I selected teammates in pickup basketball. I want you to bypass some of the issues I had in this area. I want you to be a great teammate and view your teammates in the right way. Pay attention to these four things to look for in your current and future teammates.

You want teammates who can play basketball

For a long time, I wanted to play with guys who would give me the ball. I didn’t care how good they were; I just cared if they were going to pass to me when I wanted it. So I “encouraged” my teammates to give me the ball whenever possible. If you’re a pretty good offensive player, you may have this train of thought as well. And this is wrong thinking. I eventually realized that I wanted teammates who could play basketball whether I was on their team or not. Do you know why? It’s because when you really start to understand cutting, setting and using screens and the two-man game, the game is so much easier. You never want to play on a team where the defense only has to key in on one person trying to do it all himself, whether that person is you or somebody else on your team. It makes any scorer, shooter or playmaker’s job much harder. And it makes the game less fun overall. Once this clicked for me, I began encouraging teammates to play their games. And I began helping them to do just that. I began setting on-ball screens for driving teammates, getting in position to receive passes from playmaking teammates and looking to find shooting teammates for open 3 point shots. The game became easier for me as a playmaker and as a scorer. It also became more enjoyable for my teammates because I was encouraging them to use all of their skills to help our team win.

You want teammates who play hard

This is another thing I learned over time. You don’t necessarily want the tallest guys on your team. Or the most athletic guys. Or the most skilled guys. Or the most confident guys. You want players on your team who are going to play hard. As a youth basketball player, you’ve probably already experienced that it takes more than just skills to pay the bills. You need players who play hard to score in those underutilized ways, to play effective team defense and to win those 50/50 balls that often make the difference in close games. My college coach would say “playing hard is a skill”, and he was right about that. All players don’t exhibit that skill, but you want to be around the ones that do. You can make an effort to encourage teammates to play hard by being a player who plays hard himself.

You want teammates that are committed to process

You might have heard your coach or trainer talk about the difference between “process” and “results” based training. Being committed to process means that you are committed to the correct things even if they don’t always produce the correct results. This is because over time, correct processes yield the correct results more and more. For example, let’s say you have a teammate who is a good shooter. Your point guard drives in and passes it out to him for a wide open shot and he misses. The next time down the court, the point guard makes the same drive but doesn’t make the pass to the open teammate. Instead, the point guard tries to take a contested layup over two defenders at the rim. During the next timeout, you ask your point guard why he didn’t pass to your wide open shooter teammate, and he says “’Cause he missed the play before. I’m not gonna pass it to him if he’s gonna miss.” This point guard is showing a commitment to immediate results instead of the process of getting a good shooter open shots. Do you know what you should do in that situation? You should tell your point guard that hey, this guy’s a shooter so pass him the ball. He’s gonna make that shot. You want teammates who are going to keep doing the right things and not abandon ship the first time something doesn’t go right. That goes for team defense, shooting, playmaking, etc. Teammates who are committed to process are going to encourage you when you miss a couple of shots that you usually make. This creates a healthy, positive team environment. You can get the ball rolling by encouraging your teammates to do what they do best, especially after they make a mistake or miss a couple of good shot attempts. Be the same type of encouraging teammate you’d like your teammates to be when the shoe is on the other foot.

You want teammates who stay encouraged!

It is easy to get discouraged when things aren’t going right. That’s human nature. But you need teammates to stay encouraged to keep up the fight until the end. Let me repeat that: you need teammates to stay IN-COURAGE. That means keeping an aggressive, hopeful, competitive attitude throughout the game. Every time one of your teammate makes a mistake, this is an opportunity to encourage them. Even though you may have a much stronger urge to do something else. When you see a mistake weighing heavily on one of your teammates, take the onus to tell them “it’s alright”, “don’t even worry about it”, or “shoot it again next time”. These words can do wonders, and can make sure your entire team stays in-courage and ready to keep fighting. Whatever happens, be the encourager for your teammates because an encouraged teammate is exactly type of teammate you really want!

Defensive Basketball Training

May 30, 2014 By basketballtrainer

How Much Time Do You Spend On Defensive Basketball Training

“Defense wins championships” – Youth Basketball coaches around the country.

We’ve heard the clichés and we’ve heard the exhortations to “play defense”, but let’s talk a little bit about what that means. Here are some tips for playing sound defense.

Have a Quality Defensive End Goal

We see a lot of players giving effort on defense without a clear end goal in mind. But what are you trying to accomplish by playing defense? Are you trying to get a steal? Are you trying to block a shot? A lot of players play defense as if they don’t know. Unless you are executing a certain defensive scheme at the direction of your coach, how about this: stop your man from getting a layup or an uncontested jumper. A contested jumpshot is one of the lowest percentage ways to score in basketball. Whereas a layup is the highest percentage look, and an open shot can be a good percentage shot depending on the player. If as a player you know your goal is to stop your man from getting to the basket, you are going to be less inclined to gamble for steals and blocked shots. When you gamble on those things, a lot of times that’s how you get blown by or commit a costly shooting foul. Players who play defense to stop their man from getting to the basket focus on moving their feet to stay in front of him. If you are able to stay in front of your man, even when he shoots you will be in position to contest the shot and make it tougher for him to convert.

Understand You Can’t Stop Everything On Defense

This point ties in with the previous point. The greatest defender still is not going to be able to stop a player from doing everything. If we focus on taking away the best thing the offensive player can do – get to the basket – then we can be good at doing that. When we try to stop him doing anything at all, this is when we start to reach for steals and lunge for blocked shots. Players need to understand that “allowing” a player to shoot a contested jump shot is not the worst thing in the world. Players can even get into the habit of staying on the ground on their contest instead of jumping high to try to block the shot. The blocked shot attempt may produce a block for you, but it also may produce a shooting foul or open up a lane to the basket. Players who stay grounded while contesting can avoid these troubles while also giving the offensive player one of the toughest shots to make. It takes discipline to stay closer to the ground and to understand that you’ve played good defense even when a shot is sometimes made over you. If you can discipline yourself to make staying grounded and committing to sound defensive practice a habit, you will have sustainable success as a defender… even if a shot is hit over you from time to time.

Don’t Be Fooled

Offensive players frequently use ball fakes and dribble moves to get by defenders. A lot of fakes and moves play on the nature of a defender to reach for the basketball with his hands or follow the basketball with his eyes. If you have committed to stopping your man from getting to the basket and contesting jumpers as a sound defender, you have given up playing for steals and blocks in most 1-on-1 situations. Since you are not playing for steals and blocks, you have no reason to be fooled by an offensive player’s dribble moves and pump fakes. A helpful practice to counteract your natural inclination to follow the ball is to keep your eyes focused on a single part of the offensive player. Don’t watch the head of a player or their hands, but try watching their hips. Or the jersey number. An offensive player is not going anywhere without their torso going also, so the torso is a good place to tether your eyes. The torso also doesn’t move as much as the feet and hands, so tying your eyes on it won’t leave you jerking from side to side. If you can put this into practice, you can make your job of keeping a defender in front of you easier. And you will still be in position to contest a jumpshot.

These are just a few of the many tips you can put into practice regarding playing sound defense. This is an area that 95% of players can improve in, regardless of if they are already pretty good defenders. Give your local basketball trainer a call today to start your development as a sound defender. We can’t wait to see you winning at this end of the floor!

Basketball Stretching – 5 Benefits That Enhance Your Performance

Basketball Stretching – Have You Committed Yet?

Increase Basketball Flexibility and Range of Motion

Reduce Muscular Imbalances In Basketball Bodies

Prevent Basketball Injuries

Lessen Recovery Time

Strengthen the Nervous System

Ask The Basketball Trainer

Ask a Basketball Trainer Part 1

Basketball Scholarships – Chasing The Full Ride

Basketball Scholarships – Chasing The Full Ride

Part 1: The Full Ride Basketball Scholarship

Full Ride Basketball Scholarship Competition

Chase the Dream… But Know the Odds

Move From Good To Great In Basketball Training

Here Are Three Keys To Go From Good To Great In Basketball Training

Great Basketball Players… Set the Tone

Great Players… Take Responsibility

Great Players… Play with Competitive Fire

How To Be a Better Basketball Teammate

What Do You Want From Your Teammates?

You want teammates who can play basketball

You want teammates who play hard

You want teammates that are committed to process

You want teammates who stay encouraged!

Defensive Basketball Training

How Much Time Do You Spend On Defensive Basketball Training

Have a Quality Defensive End Goal

Understand You Can’t Stop Everything On Defense

Don’t Be Fooled

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