Basketball Coaching - Designing an Effective Practice

Here are 4 simple steps to creating an effective basketball practice. Follow them in the order provided and you'll have no difficulty designing and executing fun, creative practices that will build your player's skills and help your team become more effective on the court. Brainstorm Types of Practices It’s likely that you will have a few different types of practices. For instance, you might focus some practices on developing new skills. You might focus other practices on increasing endurance or conditioning. Still other practices might be spent in bringing the team together by turning basketball drills and skills into real plays they can use during a game. Brainstorm all the possible types of practices you see yourself using in the next month. Then group them by if they focus on strength, skills development, or game plays. These will become your skeletons. Create a Skeleton Plan Now comes the meat of the exercise – creating the practice plan. When developing your first plan, keep these suggestions in mind: 1. Schedule time for a warm up–It is essential that all practices start with a warm up that mimics the actions the athletes will perform during practice. If athletes will be running plays, have them begin by jogging. If they will be doing shooting drills, have them loosen up their arm, shoulder, and back muscles. 2. Schedule time for a cool down - A cool down period is also essential to help athletes come down from the practice, both mentally and physically. The cool down should be done with little or no talking, or with soothing music to help encourage athletes to come back to their normal state of being. A cool down is also essential to prevent sore muscles and promote muscle growth. 3. Allow time for rest and drink breaks – It’s easy to forget that athletes need some downtime in a practice in order to be effective for the whole thing. Give athletes some time to rehydrate (every 15 minutes is a good rule) as well as catch their breath. 4. Combine fun and learning – If your team has a favorite activity or game, build that into the practice plan. Mix fun and learning – remember, these athletes are at practice to learn more than just basketball skills. They also need to learn interpersonal skills, which often come from more casual, fun interactions. 5. Keep activities short – Young players have a remarkably short attention span, so underestimate when it comes to assigning time for activities. It is always better to have too many activities planned and cut something than be searching for something to do to fill the time. In the actual practice, play it by ear and let yourself change the time based on how the team is reacting. Fill in the Blanks Now that you’ve got a practice plan skeleton, continue the exercise by planning practices for a week. Choose specific drills, plays, and strength exercises and plug them into the open slots in your skeleton. Consider creating additional skeletons in order to mix things up. Athletes will quickly become bored with a basketball program where every practice is basically the same. With just two or three skeletons, you can keep everyone interested and engaged! Create a Schedule Pull out a calendar and mark all the days that you have practice. Mark game days as well. Assign out the practices, so that each one is dedicated to one of the focuses that you listed during the brainstorming session. Pay attention to the practices just before and after a game. Players probably should not be doing lots of strength exercises before a game, as it may cause them to be sore and unable to perform as well as they should. Additionally, you may want to reserve the practice following a game to focus on whatever part of the sport you think is most important, based on how they performed in the game. Follow these simple steps and you'll soon have a variety of effective practice plans to choose from, depending on what you would like your team to focus on at any point during the season.