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Topic:  Short Practice Time

Question from Stephan:
One thing I wonder is that in Germany, we have only up to 2-3 training units with "lower class" Basketball Teams with only 2h of training time.

How would you organise training in such a limited period of time? Stress more defense, offense, how would you integrate athletic training etc?




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Carrie Belt says:
7/12/2007 at 7:33:23 AM

Answer:
Believe it or not, two hours is a standard practice time for many American middle school and high school basketball teams. Unless your players are professional athletes, their bodies would probably not be fit enough to endure more than two hours of training at any one time. As such, it’s very common for coaches and players to have to fit in weight lifting, drills, scrimmages, plays, and cardiovascular training into one two-hour practice.

In order to achieve all of your practice goals, it’s important to stay on track with your practices and develop a plan for each week before the week begins. Some players and coaches like to keep a notebook of drills and exercises with them along with a full practice schedule. The idea is that while the players are in the gym, they should never have time to simply stand around, unless they are watching a play or learning about a drill from the coach. At all other times, they should be interacting with other players and with the equipment.

In terms of what you should stress during practice times, your team’s performance will largely dictate what you decide to do each week. For example, if your team desperately needs to work on zone defense after a bad game, you can adjust the schedule. If your team needs to work on plays, then it will be obvious from scrimmages. Your practices, otherwise, should be balanced between defensive drills, offensive drills, and athletic training.

Also, many coaches like to rotate focus on different days. For example, Mondays and Wednesdays might be largely set aside to go over defensive drills while Tuesdays and Thursdays could be important for offense. Friday would be a day to review whatever the coach felt needed the most reviewing. Keep in mind that you do not have to do everything at once; your players will benefit from the change of schedule as well, as it will keep the court fresh and fun.

Here’s a sample schedule for a productive practice day for your two training units:
Hour One
0-5 minutes: stretch
5-10 minutes: jump rope
10-20 minutes: 1 mile run
20-30 minutes: lay-up practice
30-40 minutes: ball handling drills (check out our e-book for some great ball handling drills)
40-45 minutes: free throws
45-60 minutes: defensive drills

Hour Two:
0-5 minutes: water and stretching break
5-35 minutes: play review and practice
35-45 minutes: defensive drills
45-55 minutes: full court scrimmage
55-60 minutes: sprint drills

Now, if you have to train your two or three units at once in the same two-hour block of time, it will be important to rely on assistant coaches or team captains to run the drills and schedule for each group. In a large part, you’ll probably find that your teams will be self-sufficient and will not need to be watched like a hawk in order to ensure that they complete all of their practice items well. It's okay to assign leadership roles to team members in order to have someone guiding the small group practices along. Plus, assigning leadership roles to players helps the players invest in the team.

Carrie Belt
Editor - BreakthroughBasketball.com

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Stephan says:
7/12/2007 at 7:39:35 AM

Hey Carrie,


thanks a lot for the information. Acutally I do have a week planner, so I had the right idea before.

It's really great having a coaches community where there is fast help. As soon as I have another problem, I'll post it if it's wished.

Regards from Germany
Stephan

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Jim says:
8/14/2007 at 9:12:45 AM

How important do you think sports psychology is for younger basketball players? I'm thinking particularly about imagery and visualisation as younger minds tend to be more vivid.

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Jeff says:
8/14/2007 at 3:50:55 PM

Hi Jim,

It depends, how old are the players that you had in mind?

Jeff

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Jim says:
8/15/2007 at 3:08:12 AM

13 to 17 year old players are the ones I am working with at the moment.

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Jeff says:
8/17/2007 at 7:51:31 AM

Jim,

Experienced players of that age can certainly benefit from some of the mental aspects you mentioned.

In fact, I think the mental aspects are VERY important and neglected by most coaches. I believe this is because most coaches don't understand the mental aspects or how to teach them.

I suggest that you teach things like:

- Visualizing what you want to happen (and many times it will happen!)

- Thinking positive.

- Believing and KNOWING that you can do something. It helps to clear the mind and don't yourself that you can do it. Don't let those little demons sneak in the back of your mind. don't think about excuses.

- Mental compression. This simply means that you imagine doing something under extreme conditions. For example, if you're running a 1 mile race. Imagine that you have to run the race with a 100 pound back pack strapped to you and it's raining and you have a broken leg. Then imagine winning under those conditions!! Once you actually run the race it will seem easy and you'll run faster than ever. Mental compression works!

- Tell yourself that you have to succeed no matter what. Imagine that a bear was chasing you and your life would end if you did not run the 400 in under 55 seconds but you've never run it under 60 seconds. You would just get focused and do it not matter what, wouldn't you? So get focuses and tell yourself you have to succeed no matter what!

- Practice. Confidence will be improved just by practicing.

- Teach your players how to CLEAR their mind and get focused before games and practices. This can be done various ways like meditation and breathing, yoga, and various mental exercises.

These are just a couple ideas. There are lots of mental exercises that help sports. Find and learn those mental exercises and teach them.

If you find some good ones, come back and share.

Good luck!

Jeff Haefner

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BITTU SAINI says:
8/28/2007 at 4:22:55 AM

fundamental and skill of shoting.

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tom ellis says:
10/25/2007 at 12:53:35 PM

like to get some ideas on 1hour and 15 min middle school practice

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Don Kelbick says:
10/25/2007 at 6:16:13 PM

Tom

This is a battle that all coaches fight. If left to my own devices, my practices would have been 17 hours long. One of the things I learned is that you can't coach everything every day.

I think you might be looking at your situation backwards. I think first you should decide what it is you want to accomplish in that practice, then decide how much time you need to spend on each aspect.

This is helped by sitting down before your season and devloping a master plan. Decide what you want to do for the season, decide by when you want to have each aspect completed and plan accordingly.

In middle school, I would run a skill heavy practice, a lot of dribbling, passing and shooting. I wouldn't worry too much about plays but I would teach some team fundamentals such as spacing and screening. You can develop an offense by using drills to practice things like screening and cutting. By multi-tasking your teaching drills you can maximize your time in practice.

I hope this helps you.

If I can help you further, feel free to contact me.

Don Kelbick
Contributing Editor Breakthrough Basketball
www.DonKelbickBasketball.com

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Scott LIndberg says:
11/13/2007 at 12:46:54 PM

I am a first year coach for a 6th grade boys in-house league. I played before, and know there is a big difference between the two. The Kids are not basketball junkies (well most of them) and have limited skills and abilities. I have 1 hour of gym time maybe twice a week, with our first game set for december. My question is what do I work on and how do get them ready to play? I want them to have fun, but to be competative also. Is this to much? thanks Scott Lindberg

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