A question almost every player wants to know to gain a leg up on there competition, how often should I train for basketball. For any player really looking to get better and improve there game, I would recommend at least 10-15 hours per week. But the answer is not that simple.
This could depend on a lot of things, how much time you have, what you want to do in basketball, and how much you love the game. In this article I will be trying to answer that question and give you a better idea of how often you should train for your own needs
Note: In this article I will be giving you training frequency and answering how often you should be training not necessarily, how you should be training.
What Are Your Goals
To really know how often you should train for basketball you need to know your goals first. If you want to make the NBA your going to need to train a lot. If you just want to have fun in pick up games with your friends, than training frequently and often might not be that important or vital for your goals.
To put it into perspective Kobe used to wake up at 4 in the morning and train more than 6-7 hours a day. It just all depends on you and your basketball goals. You might be a really good athlete who just wants to make your high school team, well under those circumstances your training frequency is going to depend on that as well. Its all up to you your the artist of your destiny time to start painting.
How Often Should You Train As A beginner?
Now as a beginner hooper I believe that training between 12-15 hours a week should be a good starting place for you if you are really looking to become a better player. You could break this down in a variety of ways.
Pro tip: Training can be a lot different and mean different things for everybody. Training can also be as simple as watching great players and trying to learn from them. Film is a great thing to add to your training repreture, so in a sense you could be training more than 20-25 hours a week if you count film as a training session.
Example 1 each day skills or weight training is about 1 hour- to two hours I recommend as a beginner to do a full body workout 3 times a week focusing on a variety of basketball related workouts
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
skills weights Skills weights Skills weights Off
Example 2
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Skills/ Off Skills/ Skills weights Skills off
Weights weights
I want to emphasize this by saying that training as a beginner all comes down to what your needs and skills are as a player. A big reason I do not say to work out 20-30 hours a week is because most of the time as a beginner, I want you to get used to more in game type of workouts, where you have higher intensity and harder practices.
Being a beginner at this sport your not going to be used to shooting the ball at higher speeds where a expert might. But by practicing harder and with higher speeds your naturally going to have less practice time due to the strains on your body.
How Often Should I Train In The Off Season?
Now, if your a player who wants to make really big changes in the off season, and become a better player than working out more than 25 hours a week might be needed. But you can break this down in a variety of ways to not seem so daunting to get to.
It could easily look like this 6 hours of the week is dedicated to the weight room or gym. Usually full body workouts.
12 hours a week of skill based practicing, this can include basketball drills by yourself or even local games at your gym.
Just watching basketball and film could be a great part of your training regime. Even watching an NBA game and really focusing on the fundamentals and the way players do what they do can account for another 8-10 hours a week.
You could also include another 6 hours a week to basic conditioning and plyometrics for basketball. There are many ways to add up the training time that does not involve just playing basketball.
How Often Should I Weight Train For Basketball
Weight training for basketball seems like the age old debate, but there is no doubt this should be in your training regimen often and consistently.
I would say just to get your base weight training for basketball training at least 6-12 hours a week is a good place to start.
Weight training for basketball can be very different with frequencies and styles depending on your playing style. For example, a big man who needs more strength and muscles should probably be in the weight room up to 12 hours a week where a player who is just known for his spot up shooting maybe only 6 hours a week.
Another thing that goes into weight room training frequency for basketball, is other exercises besides weights. Like conditioning and pylometrics. This should be a big staple in your training workouts and you should be training these important skills no matter what style of play you have at least 4 hours a week. Conditioning can be trained less on its own because you usually get enough conditioning training in your skills workouts. But pylometrics should be apart of everyones training frequency at least 4 hours a week.
How Often Should I Be training My Basketball Skills
Now for almost every player, this needs to be the staple of your training frequency as a basketball player. All the other stuff is great building blocks, but at the end of the day you are a basketball player and your training should reflect that. So like I said for just a basketball skills workout per week I would recommend at least 6-7 hours to see improvements and closer to 20 hours a week for the more serious hoopers looking to really improve and make it farther in basketball.
Again Break It down day by day, some days you can train hard for only 1 hour, some other days you can really focus on the fundamentals and train for 2-3 hours if not more. Again its important to mix up these styles to your training frequency.
Other Frequently asked questions about how often I should train in basketball.
How often Should I train In A Basketball Season
That all depends on you and what your body tells you. I always think its a good idea to practice a little even after your teams practice. I recommend not going to hard and just focusing on your skills, with slower paced shooting drills or dribbling drills to really get your techniques and fundamentals down.
This also depends on your teams practice and weight lifting system, if your not getting enough weight lifting or plyometrics , then you should incorporate that into your schedule. Again this all depends on the program your playing in and how they are operating the team as a whole.
How Often Should I Practice The Things I Am Already Good At Vs Bad at
Again this is up to you but I always recommend basketball players train their strengths just as much if not more than there weaknesses, just because certain skill sets in basketball are so valuable that being great at that can take you very far. For example if your a knock down shooter then your training should have a big focus on shooting. So if you train 20 hours a week on your basketball skills a good portion of that should be focused on shooting. But again if your teams needs you to be better at something else adjust your training time to that skill accordingly.
How Often Should I Train As A Youth Player
I almost always always always recommend playing as much as you want to play especially at this age. So many parents seem to push there kid at this age and the reality of it is that if your kid doesn't love it he or she is going to get burned out. If a player really loves the game then them just practicing a few hours after school with there friend or local team will be a good amount for them to get better and still have fun.
But again it is hard to say at this age so many things can change, so whatever style or way your kid likes to practice or play let them do that. When they get older and know this is something they really want to peruse, you can up the frequency. But at this age it is really up to the kid.
How Often Should I Practice To Make The NBA
If this is your main goal in life and you want to dedicate yourself to this game then honestly you should be trying to improve your game and training almost every second you possibly can.
This means getting perfect sleep, shooting often, dribbling everywhere, watching film, and eating healthy. Again when I say train every second that does not mean sweating and being in a gym every second, what I mean by this is almost everything you do should be going towards being the best basketball player that you can be.
So if I had to give a linear straight forward answer to how often you should practice to make the NBA it would at least 30-40 hours a week. It really becomes a full time job at that point. And everything outside of the actual training should be going towards your goals to be an NBA player.
For more tips on how to make the NBA check out the article below
Thank you for reading, as you can see your training frequency in basketball can depend on many factors. I hope I could give you a better Idea on how often you should be training for basketball. Let me know how often you train for basketball and what you found to be the ideal training length for you as a player.
As always thank you and keep hooping my friends.