It always makes me go crazy when I hear that a sports coach, specifically for basketball or football, makes their players go on long runs of a mile or more. Most of the time it seems a coach just runs out of stuff to do, or actually believes that they are helping their athletes "get in shape".
I'm sure they mean well, but what they may not understand is that basketball falls in between an intermittent-sprint and transition sport, as defined by Vern Gambetta in his book, Athletic Development, which is a must read if you're a coach at any level. Gambetta defines basketball as, "a sport that requires a series of efforts of varied intensity that occur in random patterns, with recovery that allows for complete recovery, at times".
Gambetta goes on to say, "We need to get away from the idea that the endurance base is built by long, slow, steady aerobic work".
So now we know what basketball consists of. Now lets look at why jogging isn't the best answer for conditioning.
Jogging causes physiological changes that are detrimental to the transition and power athlete. Jogging targets type I muscle fibers, which are the aerobic fibers. These are great for marathon runners, but will not help you become a quicker, faster, more powerful athlete. Sprinting, jumping and strength training with relatively heavy weights and high speeds target the type II muscle fibers, which are the fast-twitch fibers we hear about when a plyometric jumping program pops up on your computer screen. A good comparison that is made a lot is posing the question, would you rather have a body of sprinters or marathon runners? My guess is most people concerned with performance, whether its on the court, field or just with physique development, would choose to look like a sprinter.
With this in mind, its important to train athletes for the most important aspects of their sport; sprinting, jumping, changing direction, side stepping, sliding, backpedaling and all the other movements players do throughout a contest. Also, its important to train athletes, especially basketball players, to produce power quickly so that they can get to a full speed sprint in as little time as possible. In high school its more important because the court is smaller, but even in college and the pro's, how long does it take them to sprint from one end to the other? Anywhere from 3-5 seconds, so if you can get to full speed faster than you're opponent, chances are you're getting to that loose ball or finishing the lay-up before getting fouled, and every coach and player knows that games can come down to 1 or 2 plays.
Does an athlete need to have the endurance to last an entire game? Of course they do, but they need to be able to sprint and produce maximum amounts of power at the end of the game. I think that's why so many coaches end practices with timed sprints, or place them at different times throughout a practice.
The question I always ask athletes and coaches is this: If you're consistently jogging during games, how many games do you think you'll win? A base of conditioning is necessary, but you would have to question your players commitment to becoming better if they are so out of shape at any time of year that they can't get up and down the court or field for a couple hours of pick up games.
In the next couple days I will post some drills to train first step quickness and speed that you can do as a seperate workout from strength training, or add in after a warm up and before strength training. Make sure not to forget that STRENGTH is a determining factor in speed and power. I'll touch on that again soon, as well.
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