Conditioning within Practice - Drills and Other Options

Every coach agrees on the importance of having a well-conditioned team. Most coaches will not agree on the methodology. Princeton Coach Pete Carril was not a believer in conditioning separately from skill development. I'm not going to discuss off season conditioning.

I've heard of coaches who do nothing but run players on the first day of practice. That's great if you're coaching track, but as a coach who values practice time for culture, teaching, skill development, and more...that's not even fool's gold. Invest practice time or spend it.

With limited practice time, I'm going to condition players within the context of drills, ideally teaching multiple principles at the same time. Although I prefer to get players' attention without wind sprints, occasionally players (as a team) go 'on the line'. I consider it reorientation. They probably call it something else.

3 on 3 Break - into 3 on 2 with chaser. After basket attack, offense goes to defense, defense sprints back to baseline, and next offense steps out.

Continuous 3 on 3

Shivek Drill (both ends)

X Drill - player 1 on right with ball takes one dribble and passes to coach, cuts first around coach. Opposite line player 2 cuts behind and gets drop pass from coach, no dribbles and passes to initial player for layup. Player 2 rebounds and attacks full court with the dribble and passes to Player 1 for the layup. Next player in each line immediately follows.

Transition defense

Ultimate 1 and 2 - Ultimate derives from Ultimate Frisbee. We play it with a variety of rules. Ultimate 1 is 5 on 5 (or 5 on 6 or 6 on 6) full court without dribbling. The goal of ultimate 1 is to advance the ball into the end zone by passing only. Passing and cutting are essential. If the ball is deflected, dropped, or dribbled, it is turned over immediately.

Ultimate 2 has conventional basketball scoring. Usually, we allow one dribble and bounce passing (not allowed in Ultimate 1). The same turnover rules apply. Both encourage fast and physical play.


                                            Argentina Passing. They say there are fistfights in Argentina about not owning the diagonals (longer running).

Kentucky layups. This is a timed drill (2:00 each rotation). Start with three groups of players and four balls. The end groups dribble to the middle of the court and hand off. At the start, each player in the middle attacks the basket. A coach or manager keeps track of how many baskets are scored at that end. The goal is to score as many layups in possible in two minutes. With sixth graders, we can sometimes get into the forties. I have heard that women's college teams can score 60-70.

Conditioning doesn't mean drudgery. Vary the drills, make it competitive, and bring attitude and these drills can energize the team.