By Jimmy Lamour

Photo Source:Flikr/Connade

A basketball season can be grueling with the large amounts of jumping that is performed. It is expected that many athletes have to play multiple games and sometimes during the same week. Let’s not even mention the amount of athletes that do not absorb force correctly or use improper movement patterns during activity. This often leads to trauma to the joints and nagging injuries. The last thing you should do is start playing another season with a more competitive league. Unfortunately, that is what occurs in the high school world. The better option is to perform a recovery phase working on the muscle imbalances that have been created, build relative body strength, and improve your ability to recover.

The best way to attack muscle imbalances during the off-season is to do an assessment to find out where one limb might be stronger than the other limb. We do not believe in spending a week to assess these weaknesses as our clients have a limited time to spend with us. Our test usually involve a squat with a PVC pipe to detect any ankle mobility issues, thoracic spine stiffness, and hip flexor tightness. Also, I like our push up test as it detects weakness in the core immediately. What we define as the “core” is the abdominals, hamstrings, glutes, and spinal erectors.

We address these imbalances individually by adding some foam rolling, mobility drills, stretching, and activation drills. This is where individualization is key as you do not want to stretch the hamstrings of an athlete that already has proper flexibility in his hamstrings. As sometimes, that might increase the athlete’s dysfunction and increase their chance of injury. For instance, many of our athletes have tight hip flexors that is most likely related to the amount of time that athletes sit or are in the hip flexion position. The best way to improve the flexibility of the hip is to do a hip flexor stretch. We advise our athletes to do this on our off days as well. The increased flexibility in this region makes a quick impact in the speed, movement efficiency, and back pain of our athletes.

Relative body strength is defined in my own words as being strong in relation to your weight. For instance, a person that weighs 170 lbs that can squat 340 lbs. That is twice the size of the athlete. This type of relative strength usually means the athlete can manipulate his body weight very easily. This base of strength builds a solid foundation for developing speed, quickness, and conditioning. The pull ups and the glute ham raise have been two great indicators in our program of relative body strength. The faster kids in our program can do glute ham raises and pull ups as easy as water flowing from a faucet.

The ability of being able to recover must be a priority in every basketball player’s program as well. The quicker you recover the more maximal speed efforts you will be able to repeat and less you will be beat up after a game. Some strategies we use is you guessed it, sleep. You must get at least 8 hours of sleep to give the body time to repair it self. Athletes that are unwilling to do that are just not mentally tough enough to deserve success. Also, eating for performance will speed up your recovery. The body functions properly when fed the right amount of carbs, fats, protein, vitamins, water, etc…I am in no way saying that you can never eat a burger and some fries. But you have to make eating healthy and wholesome meals as a normal part of your life and eating junk as a interruption in your routine. Also, I like using temp runs on your off days at low intensity to flush out the bad blood and nourish the body with nutrients for recovery.

Sample Workout Session:
Warm-Up- 10 Minutes
Foam Roll Upper Back
Foam Roll Pectorals
Foam Roll Hamstrings
Foam Roll Quadriceps
Foam Roll ITB Band
Foam Roll Groin
Foam Roll Calves
Foam Roll Shins
Jumping Jacks
Light Skip Forward
Light Side Skip
Light Backward Skip
Forward Leg Swing
Side Leg Swing
Push Up Plus
Band Upper Back & Shoulder Traction
Thoracic Mobility Drills
Hip Circuit
Glute Activation Drills
Ankle Mobility Drills
Lunge Matrix
Push Ups
Jump Rope

Strength Workout

Power Matrix
1A) Med Ball Forward Pass x 5
1B) Box Jump x 3

2A) Box Squat 3×5 75% Perceived Strength

3A)Inc DB Press 3 x 6
3B)Bulgarian Split Squat 3 x 5 ea leg

4A) Pull Ups 4×6
4B) Glute Ham Raise 3×8
5A) Ab Circuit Matrix

Speed Workout

Short Sprint- 10 yards x 5 linear with 1 minute rest between sprints
Short Sprints- 10 yards x 4 Lateral with 1 minute rest between sprints

Recovery Portion
Active Isolated Stretching with Band
Calves
Hamstrings
Abductors
Adductors
Glutes
Chest
Shoulders
Lats
Post Workout Drink- GI Nutrition Recovery/RSP Nutrition Glutamine, Arginine, H20 Pro
Post Workout Sauna- 20 Minutes/ Plenty of water

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For more information on conditioning and training for specific sports programs, visit Lamour Training Systems

By James Blackburn

Alan Stein is the owner of Stronger Team and the Head Strength & Conditioning coach for the nationally renowned, Nike Elite DeMatha Catholic High School boys basketball program. He spent 7 years serving a similar position with the Montrose Christian basketball program. Alan brings a wealth of valuable experience to his training arsenal after years of extensive work with elite high school, college, and NBA players.

1. Who are some of the NBA guys you will be working with this year or have worked with in the past? Are there any thing other camps or other ventures that you will be doing this year that you have not done in the past, that you would like our readers to know about, or any new clients?

It is too early to know what NBA players (or players preparing for this year’s draft) will be in DC this off-season. I have had the great fortune of working with several current NBA players when they were in high school and college – Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Tywon Lawson, Michael Beasley, and Greivis Vasquez to name a few. While I certainly enjoy working with pros, my main clientele are junior high and high school age players. I am in the process of finalizing my summer schedule, but am looking forward to being a part of several new camps – in Englad, Jordan, Canada, and maybe Italy! I will certainly continue my staple of events in the US – the NBPA Top 100 Camp, the Nike Skills Academies, and the Chris Paul Elite Backcourt Camp. But I am excited to use basketball as a vehicle to take me all over the world. I am overwhelming thankful to do what I do for a living.

2. How did you break into the business?

I have always loved the game of basketball and became fascinated with strength & conditioning in high school. I decided this was what I wanted to do for a living my junior year in college. Basketball specific strength & conditioning was almost non-existent then (late 1990’s) so I saw this line of work as a unique niche. I haven’t looked back since!

3. What is one of the main things players need to improve on/work on when they make the jump from HS to college or from college to the pros? What area do you think most players struggle to translate to that next level.

Every time you go up a level the players are stronger, faster, and more explosive. Those are the areas players need to improve to compete at the next level!

4. Do you ever turn players down that want to work out with you? If so, is it because of your schedule or players attitude, or a little of both? As long as I can accommodate schedule wise, and as long as the player has a great attitude and is committed to their own development – I don’t ever turn away players.

It doesn’t matter to me if a kid is trying to make his JV high school team or he is a McDonalds All-American – I want to work with them if they meet the aforementioned criteria.

5. Do most players that come to you for help come with an agenda of what they want to improve on?

Yes, most of the players come to me with set goals in mind…. Which is GREAT! And for 99% of basketball players they are the same goals – get stronger, gain weight, improve vertical jump, improve quickness!

6. How is your team doing at Dematha Catholic this season? Any player who is under the radar that we should keep an eye on?

I am so thankful to be at DeMatha and surrounded by such great kids and coaches. We have an outstanding team this year. We suffered our first loss of the season this past weekend but are confident that it will serve as a valuable learning experience. We are currently ranked #14 in the nation by ESPN and have upcoming games against St. Anthony’s (#3) and Norcom (#6) – in addition to our intense WCAC schedule. We are a fairly young team and have tons of potential talent. I say ‘potential’ because they need to stay focused and keep working if they want to be as good as they can be!

7. What is next for you and where do you see yourself and the business going next?

The next major things for me after our season is over is the McDonalds All-American game (Chicago) and the Jordan Brand All-American Classic (Charlotte)… both are always tremendous events. As for my business, I just want to keep being a resource for players and coaches of all ages… all over the world.

To learn more about Alan’s work, check out Stronger Team online and you can follow Alan on Twitter or Facebook.

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