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Don Lawson's avatar

This will shed light on incorporating strength into a Basketball program.

Predicting Performance and Injury Resilience in Collegiate Basketball Athletes : Part III

via Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group, LLC Blog by Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group on 9/13/12

by Art Horne

Just recently Dr. Stuart McGill, Jordan Andersen, and I published an article in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research examining the link between traditional pre-season strength, fitness, and sports medicine testing to overall on-court basketball performance and injury resilience throughout the course of two collegiate basketball seasons.

Looking towards swing, throwing, carrying things as well as prioritizing horizontal displacement vs vertical displacement, and complexing basic lifting movements will provide you with bigger gains on the court than the traditional push pull press programming

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Don Lawson's avatar

Comment for James and then one for the article. The lifts you refer to are not bad in and of themselves, it’s what you do with them that matters most. If there is no “goal” when do you stop. Having minimal or acceptable levels of strength in these areas do contribute to overall athletic success. But the question needs to be how much is enough and when you’d the time be better spent elsewhere? Plus the age when you introduce these movements matter as well.

I’ve worked at the Collegate, High school and middle school levels. At times the College work outs looked like a middle school workout and a High school workout looked like a College workout.

Training age not years on the planet comes into play when training an individual or a team.

And as for the “Basketball” coach increasingly more and more the stay in their own lane and let the experts handle the Fitness and if the do add something it’s what was done to them not necessarily what worked. Finally American Football is usually footing the bill for the Strength coach, so yes the lens will be through that coaches “eyes” and bigger & stronger is better from their perspective.

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James Marshall's avatar

Happy New Year, Brian. One size does not fit all and you are correct about there not being one 'Europe.'

I would say that strength and conditioning coaching here is more varied than you state. In the UK, rugby has a huge influence and bodybuilding exercises are still predominant: they are dressed up in other forms and over-jargonised, but bench press, deadlifts and squats dominate programming.

This leads to lots of big, slow and cumbersome players: even within the basketball teams I've observed.

My 5 by 5 exercise programme was created to help an athletic guard who'd gone to Leeds University and had the 'mass is best' programme inflicted upon him. His back was knackered within weeks and his agility, his best attribute, was reduced.

I have found that coach education programmes absolve the coaches from any from of understanding of fitness principles: that may be different on the mainland where the coaches may be able to discern 'nonsense' and influence accordingly.

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Brian McCormick's avatar

Writing only from my experience and primarily in last two countries, as only times I have not served as my own S&C coach. No doubt my experience is not comprehensive for the entire continent. No idea what happens in GB or other sports, and despite its popularity, I wouldn't consider GB representative of "European basketball".

Incidentally, after I wrote this, I saw an IG video on a college program's basketball S&C - if I had to guess, I'd say Maryland due to the colors on the court — that was similar in content (movements, explosive, isos, med balls, bands) to what I have seen with 14-19 year-olds here.

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