Game-Specific Basketball Conditioning

Suicides, running miles, sand workouts – we all know them as basketball conditioning drills. Our coaches love to throw them in during pre-season, and everyone preaches that if we just do them with full intensity, we will never get tired during the game.

But, what if I told you that they have no actual impact on your "in-game" conditioning?

I remember trying out for a team that played on a way higher level than I did before.

It was in the off-season, but instead of letting us run suicides, the coach simply separated us into teams of 4 and let us play for an hour.

Usually, I rarely get tired during the games, and most of the time I'm the best when it comes to common conditioning drills. But this time I already felt exhausted after 30 minutes.

What happened? We were just playing basketball, it shouldn't be THAT hard. What happened is that I was faced with playing against players older, stronger, and more athletic than me.

I was able to keep up with my skill level, but it still strikes me how tired I felt after the session.

It also showed that the traditional conditioning drills, don't prepare you for what's ACTUALLY coming.

Sure, they are great when it comes to punishment or developing mental toughness, but they don't prepare you for the real games.

So let me show you what you can do instead, so you can dominate the game and feel fresh in the 4th quarter against a top team while everyone else collapses in exhaustion.