How to get ups in basketball

USA Basketball - 5 Exercises to Improve Power

If I could show you five exercises that will noticeably improve your total body power and performance on the basketball court, these would be it. These exercises are great because they can be done on your own, are quick, effective and produce great results.

Power is important on the court, so let’s make you a force to reckon with when the games start.

Basketball Plyo Push Ups

This exercise will help basketball players learn how to give and absorb force effectively and efficiently. Mastery of this exercise will translate into quicker, more explosive hands and a powerful upper body ready to dominate the hardwood.

How to Perform It:

1. Place yourself in a push-up position, straddling the basketball with both of your hands.
2. Lower yourself down halfway to the ground.
3. Violently explode off the floor and catch and stabilize yourself on your basketball and hold for a one count.
4. Toss yourself off and land softly on the floor.
5. Repeat for desired repetitions.

Medicine Ball Wall Throws

This drill is great for hand-eye coordination, and the nature of the motions will dramatically improve your ability to pass, catch and control the basketball. That will drastically transfer to more precise passing and catching abilities on the court along with your new greater sense of power.

How to Perform It:

1. Face a wall with a medicine ball in your hands around chest height.
2. Violently fire the medicine ball at a predetermined target at the wall.
3. Have your hands out in front of you ready to absorb the rebound of the ball off the wall.
4. Catch the ball.
5. Fire it back at the wall for desired repetitions or time.

Medicine Ball Rotational Side Wall Throws

This drill is another great power exercise that every basketball player should learn to perform. I love it because just like all the previous exercises, it improves your hand-eye coordination, which is vital to becoming a successful basketball player. It also dramatically improves your body core strength, and ability to explosively change direction. Talk about a bang-for-your-buck exercise.

How to Perform It:

1. Stand in an athletic stance with your feet shoulder-width apart facing the wall sideways.
2. Hold the medicine ball with both hands and arms only slightly bent on the side of your hip farthest away from the wall.
3. Swing ball over to your hip and violently toss the ball underhand and forward against the wall.
4. Have your hands up and ready to receive the rebound of the ball back to you.
5. Catch ball on the bounce from your wall and make sure that you repeat it again and again.
6. Make sure you work on the drills with both sides of your body.

Medicine Ball Slams

Medicine ball slams are a tremendous upper-body strength and power builder for basketball player. This exercise is great because it can be done in a relative small area of space, it improves your sports performance, and players really enjoy doing it.

How to Perform It:

1. Stand in an athletic stance with your feet shoulder-width apart and the medicine ball tucked behind your head.
2. Explosively and forcefully slam the medicine ball into the ground as hard as you can.
3. Squat down and pick up the medicine ball and repeat for desired repetitions.

Medicine Ball Squat Throws

Of all the great basketball explosion exercises, squat throws is by far my favorite exercise. I like this exercise because it teaches you how to transfer the energy from the ground and explosively release it through your hands. Many players have trouble mastering this concept, but after regularly performing this exercise, they become much more explosive from head to toe.

How to Perform It:

1. Stand in an athletic stance with your feet shoulder-width apart while you are holding a medicine ball and chest level.
2. Quickly squat down to parallel
3. Explosively jump straight up and explode the medicine ball above your head as high as you can.
4. Let the medicine ball drop to the ground, pick it up and repeat steps 1-3 for desired reps.

7 Exercises to Improve Jump and Agility

In basketball, having a strong vertical jump and flash-like agility isn’t an option, it’s a requirement. If you are having trouble with your vertical jump or agility,  just practicing lay-ups and running laps around the court doesn’t mean you will get any better.  When you want to jump higher and have insane side-to-side agility reflexes, you need to base your basketball skills training on the best and most proven exercises. Here is a basketball skills training program that must be in your weekly workouts for explosiveness.  

7 Basketball Skills Training 

This upgraded version of the traditional fitness exercise is sure to skyrocket your vertical jump. What’s more, it develops explosive power that will easily come in handy with your agility on the court. It activates the fast-twitch fibers of several major muscle groups in the lower body including the quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, hip flexors, and calves. If you want to jump higher, these are a must.

How to Perform: Stand tall with your feet at shoulder-width distance. Keep your chest up as you bend at the knees and sit back as if you’re about to sit in a chair. Once your thighs reach parallel, push through your heels in an explosive jump straight up in the air. Land softly and immediately go into your next jump squat.

Ability Focus:

• Vertical Jump
• Explosive Power

Another great way to increase your explosive power, tuck knee jumps aren’t just a way for you to jump higher. They also demand lower body control to bring the knees up, touch the chest, and return before you land. This exercise will increase coordination, fast-twitch fiber control, and, of course, all-out power.

How to Perform: Stand tall with your chest up and feet at shoulder-width apart. Similar to the jump squat, you’ll start by bending slightly at the knees and driving your hips back only a little bit. From here, jump straight up into the air. Simultaneously flex your pelvis and bring your knees up towards your chest. Reverse the motion and land softly. Take a pause to correct any posture issues then perform the next repetition.

Focus:

• Vertical Jump
• Explosive Power
• Lower body control

Consider this the next level of the jump squat. It will combine the explosive upward motion of the jump squat with a standard overhead reach that is all too common in your sport. You might find that you can jump higher with this variation of the exercise from the momentum of the overhead reach itself. We don’t need to tell you how important a strong overhead reach is for defense and catching passes.

How to Perform: Stand tall with your chest up and feet at shoulder-width apart. Similar to the two exercises above, you’ll start by bending slightly at the knees and driving your hips back only a little bit. From here, jump straight up into the air. The big difference is that as you jump, you’ll simultaneously launch your hands skyward. As you descend, bring your hands into a defensive position close to the chest. Land soft, readjust your posture, and begin again.

Focus:

· Vertical Jump

· Explosive Power

· Reaching ability

Training your body, regardless of the athletic goal, requires a balance of multi-joint and isolation movements. When you isolate a muscle group, you are strengthening its ability to perform a specific movement, which in turn will support the larger muscle group movements. In this case of improving your jumping ability and agility, you’ll want to perform single-legged cross jumps.

How to Perform: You will make the shape of a cross with thisjumping drill. Start on the left leg with the right leg tucked behind. With your chest up and core tight, leap forward with your left leg. While still facing forward, leap on your left leg to the left side and down. Now leap directly to the right, and finally back to the starting position. Switch legs and begin again.

Focus:

• Vertical Jump
• Explosive Power
• Agility

Let’s focus more on the agility side of things, although explosive power will continue to be developed and improve your vertical jump. A classic athletic drill, wall touches or cone taps are great for developing those quick reflexes that will show in your improved agility.

How to Perform: Set up two cones a good distance apart from one another. Begin in the middle of the cones. If you’re using walls, stand between two walls. An indoor racquet ball court works best. Sprint to your right as fast as you can, tap the cone or wall, then immediately change direction and do the same on the other side. You can vary the distances for each set that you do. If you’re using cones, you can also add a second or third pair in a ladder-like arrangement, where you’ll have to sprint in a zig-zag fashion from side to side.

Focus:

• Agility
• Explosive Power

Everyone performs box jumps, even the Average Joes at the gym. For basketball players, box jumps are going to be incredibly important but there’s a twist: you’ll be jumping in a lateral fashion. Lateral box jumps will strengthen your hip flexors, which will benefit your side-to-side agility with an emphasis on sudden stop-and-go.

How to Perform: Arrange a steady box on the ground. Stand next to it with your left side facing the box. Keep your chest up and core tight as you slightly bend your knees. Explosively leap from the ground and completely on the box. You can choose to step down or lightly jump back into the starting position. Once you finish your prescribed repetitions, switch sides. Make sure you vary the height of the boxes during the workout, challenging yourself to increase the height.

Focus:

• Explosive Power
• Agility
• Jumping Ability

Our final workout is a classic that is used by athletes in every sport, but uphill sprints have a unique place in the basketball player’s workout. Uphill sprints dramatically improve your endurance levels, but more importantly for performance, they skyrocket your explosive power and lower body strength.

How to Perform: Begin with a warm-up before tackling sprints. Starting from the bottom of a hill, give yourself about 10 to 20 feet to work up your speed. Run for those 10 to 20 feet then once you hit the hill, go all out. Run as fast as you can until you reach the top of the hill, walk back down, rest for a few moments, and do it again. Do not sprint down the hill.

Focus:

• Explosive Power
• Lower Body Strength

Get More Training Drills

The first steps of basketball. How Alekseevians learned the basics of the American ball game

Looking at the photos from the family album, my gaze lingered on one of the pictures. It depicts the Stroitel basketball team, which in the mid- of the 1980s was practically the Alekseevka team.

Looking at the faces of the players, I remembered my youth and my first steps in basketball. This game immediately captured me, and interest in it has not subsided so far! It all started at 1965 , at the Alekseevskaya eight-year school No. 5. It was there that I first picked up a basketball, not yet knowing all the rules of a new game for me. Before that, my friends and I played football, hockey, chess, bast shoes, ran cross-country, jumped long and high, went skiing. But little has been heard about basketball. This sport was not cultivated in schools. Gyms were "adapted" and often located in basements. There were no basketball backboards at all, and hoops hung only here and there. In addition, they were attached at an arbitrary height, and not at a standard one ( 3.05 m from site).

School No. 5 compares favorably with others. Built in 1959 , a typical three-story building was built for secondary school No. 1, in 1963 received the status of an eight-year school, and then - school No. 5. It stood out from the rest. Of course, the main attraction for us was the gym. In the early of the 1960s, was the largest closed area in Alekseevka. And we boys, like a magnet, were drawn there after school. Even on Sunday, when the school was closed, we came and tearfully asked to be allowed into the hall.

The first basketball games can be called "lessons of courage": they played almost without rules, running after the ball in a crowd. If someone received the ball, they immediately forgot about the existence of partners on the court and rushed headlong towards the coveted ring. This game was more like rugby. But any work bears fruit. Gradually, we began to understand the essence of the game, the first notes of team interaction began to appear. To strengthen our skills, we were constantly looking for sparring partners from other schools.

Photo: Yury Afanasyev's family archive

But the real test for our team was the first trip to regional basketball competitions. It was then that we saw a spacious hall, plastic backboards, players' equipment, and the basketballs themselves were not like ours. However, most of all we were struck by the game of the Belgorod guys. Later we tried to copy it when preparing for other tournaments. And this has borne fruit.

Over time, our team played without jitters at the large Belgorod venues: Dynamo and Burevestnik, had its own uniform and new balls. Most importantly, we gained tactical knowledge. But each time at the regional competitions, they discovered something new. The people of Belgorod never ceased to amaze us. Coached George Sahakyan ( trained 19 Masters of Sports ) she showed amazing basketball. He, like a commander, led his team forward, took timeouts on time, during which we could easily change the entire starting five. They always had wonderful "snipers", and even then the centers scored the ball into the ring from above. It was amazing!

The Belgorod coach immediately appreciated the game of our team and gave fatherly advice. But at the regional tournaments, we also had our own mentor - Ivan Lomakin . A front-line soldier, a person with a subtle sense of humor, who understands the guys well. Ivan Sergeevich also learned the basics of basketball. He taught me how not to jog, avoid double dribbles, get out of the three-second zone on time, and run into a gap. Training, competitions, team building - all this was included in our basketball textbook. The first awards and prizes appeared. All of them found a place in the school museum.

Much has changed already in 1968 in connection with the commissioning of a new building of secondary school No. 1 on the street. F. Engels (now - Craftsmen). Here was the largest gym with standard dimensions. And on January 1974 for the first time regional basketball competitions among rural areas of the Belgorod region were held here. These matches were served by eminent referees from the regional center, as well as a young teacher Alexander Chirkov and I, who was then the Komsomol organizer of the school. Basketball has conquered many. It began to be introduced into school programs in physical education, to develop in secondary specialized institutions. Sections were opened, teams appeared, tournaments were held at the local level.

Historically, the strongest basketball teams were in city schools No. 1, 3 and 6, as well as in SPTU-24 (now an agricultural technical school) and an agricultural college (now Alekseevsky College). The guys from there formed the backbone of the city's team at regional competitions in Belgorod and Stary Oskol and often made a "rustle" there.

They began to play basketball not only in the halls, but also at the stadium, where an open area appeared. In August 1987 , it was there that a meeting took place between the Alekseevsky "Builder" and the construction detachments from Moscow (students who helped build the foundation of the Palace of Culture in Alekseevka). This match can be called international, because among the visitors, the guys from Cuba stood out with their game, who basically helped the guests win. And although Stroitel lost, the game brought a lot of positive emotions to numerous viewers. Later, in the "nineties", matches were held on this site more than once, but I remember more than others the bright confrontations between the teams "Center" and "Nikolaevka".

Basketball in Alekseevka continues to develop. New playgrounds have appeared and old playgrounds have been renovated. In 2004, , a basketball department was opened in the Youth Sports School, where experienced mentors work with boys and girls. I would especially like to highlight the work of coaches Valery Burkov and Vyacheslav Batluk , whose pupils have many victories.

...When I see the basketball successes of our teams, I always mentally return to the already distant 1965 year . I immediately remember my first steps in the best ball game.

The Benefits of Playing Basketball

Doctors and sports coaches have long unanimously argued that in order to maintain good physical shape, immunity and good feeling, it is not physical activity in itself that is important, but only those that bring genuine pleasure. That is why recently game and team sports have become very popular. Communication with like-minded people charges you with a good mood, makes it possible to make new friends, and the game itself develops the necessary physical qualities.

Basketball has received a new surge in popularity. It can be played both by large companies and by two people: in this case, one player acts as an attacker, and the other as a defender. If you couldn’t find a partner to play, then you can throw the ball into the basketball net alone - this is a great chance to work on the throw.

You can change roles from time to time. Specially equipped playgrounds can already be found in almost every yard and arrange a friendly competition there, and if suddenly there is no basketball hoop with a net yet, then they can be easily purchased at a bargain price from the SportStandard company.

Favorable exercise

According to numerous studies, cardio training is one of the most beneficial types of physical activity. Moderate stress on the heart helps build stamina, prolongs vascular health, and lowers blood levels of cortisol, the stress hormone that interferes with a good mood. After some time of regular moderate basketball training, you may notice that it becomes easier to get to the desired floor without an elevator, your legs get tired more slowly when walking, and there is enough energy for all the planned activities.

Moreover, it has long been proven that physical activity has a beneficial effect on mental abilities. “The best rest is a change of activity” is not really about the fact that if you have been sitting at the computer all day at work, then you need to lie on the couch to relax. The point is to alternate mental and physical activity, so rest will really bring the greatest benefit. Playing basketball with friends or just a few minutes of trying to hit a basketball hoop with a net is a great moderate cardio workout that your body will thank you for.

Benefits for men

• Power

Men quite often value the development of muscle strength in sports training, and basketball can help them with this. Although you don't need to lift weights while playing, the length and intensity of your workout increases muscle strength.

• Joint mobility

According to statistics, most often it is men who have joint diseases. Playing basketball regularly can help improve joint mobility, thereby prolonging joint health and reducing the risk of accidental injury.

• Jerk speed increase

For those who do strength training regularly, basketball can be especially beneficial. During the game, the speed of jerks develops, useful in any other sports.

Virtues for women

• Flexibility

If sports training that is considered classic for developing flexibility (Pilates, yoga, ballet) does not suit you for some reason, you should pay attention to basketball. The game requires a certain flexibility from the participants and helps to develop it in the shortest possible time.

• Reaction boost

The success of a basketball game depends on the speed of the player's reactions. This is an inevitable consequence of regular team training. A high reaction rate can be useful in everyday life and career.

• Reduce stress in the body

The need to live and build a career in a big city can have a negative impact on the psyche. Failure to manage stress in an environmentally friendly manner often results in unpleasant physical symptoms such as migraines, insomnia, nausea, and weakness.

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