Health and fitness: Hi sir,

Can weight training help improve my basketball game? If yes, how  would you recommend me to go about? 

If no, what else can I do besides just practicing basketball? 

Tsheten 

Hi Tsheten,

Any form of resistance training will be beneficial for sports in general.

Weight training is an integral part of every professional sportsmen’s arsenal, rightfully so because there is distinct quantifiable benefit to not only performance, but also injury prevention.

Basketball is a sport that requires speed, endurance and the ability to jump vertically. Your game involves plenty of short sprints and vertical jumps and diagonal movements.

So these are the very things you must try and work on and improve with resistance and other forms of training.

I would divide your workouts into two separate sessions:

Session 1: (full body weight training designed to build strength)

3 sets of barbell squats 8-12 repetitions.

3 sets of deadlift 8-12 repetitions

3 sets of bench press 8-12 repetitions

Session 2: plyometrics (exercise to improve jumps) and short sprints.

Key in these moves is perfect form and explosiveness, not training to failure as it would be with weight training, Each set should only extend as long as you are optimally explosive, as that slows time to end the set.

1. Vertical box jumps 5-10 times as high as you can scale, resting and composing between sets for maximum output.

2. Double legged hops 5-10 times as long a hop as you can. Resting and composing between sets for maximum output.

3. Shuttle runs using a distance of 10 meters, sprinting in all directions, front, back and sideways, rest as needed.