by Alan Lambert
One of the most misleading phrases I have heard made over the years is what great shape basketball players are in. There is some partial truth to that statement but what I have observed more often than not, as a coach and player, is that players are in some shape but could be better conditioned if they knew how to condition. Modern science tells us that we need some combinations of aerobic and anaerobic physical exertion if we are to be in the best shape possible, and that the conditioning programs we undertake must be balanced in accordance with those aerobic/anaerobic demands. For basketball players, you need both. Players who argue they don't need to run, swim or bike long distances fail to realize that the aerobic baseline you create by doing these types of activities is what helps you maintain physical endurance and stamina late into a long season. It is not something you can do on occasion for with any lasting positive effect.
Just as important to a basketball player is having a conditioning/athletic development program that inclu 15215q168p des elements such as Plyometrics, jumping, running technique, and strength training which facilitate your body's ability to quickly convert energy resources into quick, powerful, explosive burst so critical to dynamic play in basketball. You notice your anaerobic capacity most when you have to sprint the court 3 or 4 times quickly in succession, changing directions several times on a change of ball possession during a game. If you become exhausted from this court experience and it takes you more than a time out, a couple of free throws, or a quarter break to recover your power, you need to work on increasing your anaerobic threshold.
The reason I bring up the subject of conditioning is that summer is upon us. It is a great time to change your workout habits to incorporate tools that will improve your basketball conditioning over the course of your basketball career. Playing a lot will help, but it will not tax your system enough to stretch your conditioning threshold the way that additional training specific exercises can. Be sure when you begin a new workout regimen that you consult a certified athletic trainer, or sport physician so that you have a proper physical examination, and have their professional expertise prior to starting strenuous changes to your current workout programs.
I discovered one effective method for improving both aspects of your physical condition (aerobic and anaerobic) in an innocent way many years ago as a young player. A basketball teammate of mine (who eventually became a major league baseball player, and a pretty good one at that) use to come into the gym and warm-up with the ROPE each day prior to practice. He would challenge others to jump with him. I though I was in pretty good shape, being able to chase up and down the court in a pressing style team for several hours a day. The truth was that I lacked balanced conditioning, of which I became painfully revealed aware when my body completely gave out after jumping continuously at about the 10 minute mark. My WELL conditioned teammate could jump for 45 minutes straight. Now I am in no way telling you to go out and begin with 45 minutes. I just mention it as a comparison between being well conditioned and WELL CONDITIONED.
Rope jumping is a simple conditioning method, doesn't cost a lot, and you can do it almost anywhere at any time. In my experience it is probably one of, if not the most effective method for determining your physical fitness as well as having almost unlimited capacity to assist you in improving on your current state of condition for playing basketball. For the cost of a movie date you can purchase a high quality jump rope and take it with you to your individual workouts, use it to warm-up prior to playing, and travel with it wherever you go. Today's Playground Pointer is written to introduce you the basics of rope jumping and learn more about a tool that can get you into and keep you in shape throughout the season. My question to you young players today is a rhetorical but important one, ARE YOU PHYSICALLY ON THE ROPES? If not you should be.
Rope jumping will improve your aerobic and anaerobic power and capacity. It will also help with body coordination, balance, agility and foot speed. It increases upper body strength and improves foot and hand quickness. You will also benefit from increased explosiveness in your basketball skills and will see some weight loss which will improve your mass to power ratio. The most positive benefit of rope jumping is improved cardiovascular fitness. Your heart is the muscle that drives the car. A strong heart, let's you compete at the peak performance levels you desire. When combined with improved skill and technique, championship players have not only skill but the strength and stamina to compete well into the fourth quarter and overtimes if necessary to overcome a stiff challenge from a worthy opponent. Dr. Kenneth Cooper, the father of modern exercise physiology, notes that 10 minutes of continuous rope jumping has the same cardiovascular impact of bicycling over 2 miles in 6 minutes, swimming for 12 minutes, playing two sets of tennis, running a mile in 12 minutes, or jogging for 30 minutes. It would seem in our time crunched world where our minutes are precious, that taking your rope along for 10 minutes of warm-up prior to beginning practice each day would be a most productive way to get yourself into better playing shape.
Here are my suggestions for getting started with jumping rope for conditioning:
1. Purchase a good jump rope with ball-bearing swivel hinges that do not bind up Many people jump with plastic ropes which are okay but personally I like a slightly weighted rope (leather is sturdy and long lasting). Friction-less ball bearing hinges let the rope work freely without binding allowing you to challenge the upper end of the number of speed repetitions you can achieve during your jump rope workout. Rope that knot themselves or get constantly tangled should be tossed out.
2. Jump with good shoes with adequate padding near the balls of your feet, and on softer surfaces when possible. Wooden basketball courts, rubberized surfaces, level dirt, and indoor/outdoor carpeted surfaces work well. Avoid concrete or extremely hard surfaces if you wish to avoid over use injuries to your lower body as you increase your work load.
3. Jump slowly to begin warming up your body. Muscle fibers need blood flow to get into a more elastic pliable state which are more easily stretched, and protected from injury. I would highly recommend jumping easily for about 5 minutes, then stretching some without the rope before beginning your 10 minute rope conditioning program.
4. When you are first learning different rope jumps, focus on proper technique in hand position, rope position, and body position. The hands should be held about waist high and the wrists do the work of turning the rope, not your arms. Your arms should remain virtually motionless through the jumping exercises. When you jump keep your hands held slightly away from the body. The rope should clear your head by a few inches and should be long enough to clear your feet without too much effort. The best method for determining the proper length of a rope is to fold your jump rope in half and hold one end at or near your armpit or shoulder. The handles should just touch the floor. If the rope is too long you will unnecessarily cause yourself more work in jumping and have trouble executing the more difficult double and triple jumps. If the rope is too short, you will find yourself constantly tripping over the rope and also unable to execute the variety of jumps properly.
5. When you first begin start with basic footwork (bounce steps, alternating footwork, straddle hops, lateral hops) up to about 5 minutes a day. Stop and rest when you are tired and you should jump with a 1:2 work to rest ratio. Meaning if you do a jump 30 seconds, then rest for 60. By the second week of jumping you should be able to increase your workload to a 1:1 work to rest ratio and increase the total number of jumps you do to a couple hundred. A third week of jumping should begin to bring you to the point of being able to jump 5 minutes continuously at 120 turns per minute, jumping 3 to 5 times per week. Again proceed at your own pace, if you need to stop and rest do so. A good rhythm as you build your jump rope conditioning skills is to plan on getting in about 5-10 different jump routines into your 10 minutes and alternating either 1 minute of standing rest in-between them or a active rest meaning you slow your rope down to a very low work rate in-between the high energy demand skills.
6. When you jump, most professional rope jumpers will tell you to let the rope slightly contact the jumping surface on each rope rotation. As a basketball player and coach, I always encouraged my players to not let the rope hit the floor at all. This makes you hold the rope up slightly, improving the muscular workout for the upper body, and will allow slightly more speed as you do the speed jump drills. Another added trick I used with my players is to have them keep jumping even as they foul a rope or jump when possible. This keeps their heart beat up and does not permit jump misses to break the continuous jumping rhythm. Early on it may be necessary to stop to un-foul the rope, but as your jump rope skill level improves, don't stop, except to rest.
7. Set goals for your jumping by either increasing the time of a jump, and/or hopefully increase the rate of rope jumping. Use the same foot contact to count one repetition when alternating feet, or when jumping off both feet each time they contact the court. When doing more complex combinations you might want to count more like the Frappier drills where one full sequence counts as one repetition.
8. Use music if it helps to motivate you. Get your boom box out and put on a little high tempo music if you need some rhythm to stimulate your jumping. Of course don't irritate the neighbors in the process.
Now that you have a basic idea how to get started let me introduce you to a number of different jump roping drills you can practice. You might note that some of the footwork I will introduce to you is very similar to those in last month's Playground Pointer on Frappier Footwork Drills, which is no coincidence. Rope Jumping however adds the element of hand/eye/foot coordination not required with Frappier drills alone.
Here are some of the most common jumps you can use with a rope:
1. Bounce Step- Jump just high enough to clear the rope and land on the balls of your feet as the rope rotates forward.
2. Backwards- Same as the bounce step but the rope rotates from front to back over your head opposite a normal rope jump rotation.
3. Alternating Feet- Some people call this the jogging step, simply keep the rope turning as you alternate feet.
4. High Knees- This is an extension of the alternating feet, but involves bringing your knees up toward your chest as far as possible.
5. Lateral Hops- Keep both feet together on the rope rotation and jump slightly from one side of a mid-line dissecting your body into left and right halves. As you become more skills and coordinated with this jump, stretch the lateral distance you are jumping.
6. The Lone Ranger- Also called the straddle hop. Start with one foot forward and on each rope rotation alternate your right and left feet from front to back positions. A variation of this might be to leave your right foot forward for 2 or 3 rotations, then switch to left foot forward, or any combination or variations.
7. Half Twister- Jump off both feet and while in the air on the rope rotation, rotate only the lower portion of your body slightly to the right, then slightly to the left on the next rope rotation.
8. Full Twister- This is similar to the Half Twister only this time you allow the full body to turn completely to the right, and then completely to the left. The rope remains relatively motionless while the body continues to twist and turn.
9. Criss-Cross- While you are jumping on both feet you cross both arms at waist level as you pull your hands out wide to create a big loop to jump through as the rope crosses. On the second rotation, you uncross the rope, and so forth.
10. Horse Taps- In this one-foot touch jump you alternate right and left foot crossing over the midline of the body (see lateral hops) beginning with the right foot crossing over the mid-line to the left side of the body on the first rotation, followed by the left foot crossing over to the right side of the body and so forth on each successive rotation.
11. Bounders- This jump is similar to alternating feet but instead of seeing how fast you can jump you turn the rope more slowly and you bound down the "track" alternating feet. This is a drill used in teaching better running technique and in this example you just add the rope to the bounders. The object is to make your legs work power wise, minimizing the amount of contact time on the court, while still coordinating the rope jump.
12. Kick-Outs- This drill alternates feet but instead of a normal bounce you kick your feet out in front of you as far as you can without loosing your balance.
13. Hip-Hop- In this drill you land on both feet but you jump as far forward as you can on one rope rotation, and follow with with a jump as far back as you can on the next rotation, continuing to alternate forward and back hops.
14. Double/Triple Jumps- Here you use one of the basic footwork jump patterns, most commonly bounces and make the rope turn 2 or 3 rotations on each jump. It requires both power, coordination, timing, and great conditioning to turn sets of double or triples over a given period of time.
15. X Out's- Here you cross your right and left legs back and forth over one another on each rotation of the rope.
Keep in mind that the best jump rope routines are continuous in nature, keep proper rope jumping technique in mind, and alternate between periods of high and low intensity to allow your body to recover. You can increase or decrease the intensity by changing between the types of jumps, (for example bounces-low intensity, low reps to doubles- high intensity-high reps, to horse taps-low intensity-low reps, etc). Experience, and your legs providing you discomfort feedback will give you an idea of which drills are more demanding on you than others. When a drill becomes relatively simply then work in increasing the number of reps in the same amount of time by increase the speed of rope rotation.
There are many ways you can condition yourself as a basketball player, but few will both challenge you and provide greater benefit than picking up the rope and doing a daily workout. Are you physically on the ropes? If not, maybe you have better get started.
Check back next month for another Playground Pointers courtesy of The
Basketball Highway®.
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