I’ve worked with teams where the coach has his players run long distances (1-4 miles) during the off-season workouts. I’ve worked with teams where the coach has his players do series of long sprints mixed with agilities.
This past season, I tried to combine a bit of both worlds. We did agilities (cones, boxes, ladders, etc.), with sprints 3 days a week... and ran distance the other 2 days of the week. We did include lifting weights as well.
So my question is... Which is better for girls’ basketball (or just basketball in general)? The long endurance or the short distance running? I pushed the longer distance because it would make us last longer through games. But would shorter runs (up and backs, suicides, etc.) help us as much as the endurance runs would for basketball?
Thank you
Mike Morton
Edmond, OK
Coach Morton
It sounds like you have a solid plan for your athletes!
To answer your question on long endurance versus short distance running being beneficial to basketball, one would tend to argue for both sides.
If you can run with your appointments then you are a clearly in the game.
If you can run just as fast as your appointments then you are clearly playing the game.
If you can run longer than and run faster than your opponents then you are clearly winning the game.
The combination of long distance and short distance fused with your agility drills is a solid plan for your athletes.
The goal now is to infuse all these different types of training into you’re basketball practice.