- PHYSICAL CONDITIONING – DEVELOPING STRENGTH AND STAMINA –
- DEVELOPING FLEXIBILITY - BASKETBALL CONDITIONING 

Basketball players frequently ask, "How do I get in shape for basketball?"  Superb physical conditioning and flexibility are the major deterrents to sports injuries!  STAY OUT OF THE WEIGHT ROOM  until you are playing college basketball with professional conditioning coaches and physical therapists assisting you with your basketball training, and even then be overly cautious with heavy weights.  There are plenty of strengthening programs and basketball workouts available that do not include weight training or heavy weight training.  Bo Jackson, never did any weight training, and Bo knows.

Ankles are the Achilles Heel of basketball players; it's the nature of the game.  ALL basketball players will benefit from the following excellent ankle exercise.  You need a resistance band, about 4 feet long, and 2 ankles.  Secure the band, at ankle level, to something stable.  Attach the other end around one of your ankles, raise that ankle 2" off the floor and pull the band sideways away from your planted foot a little more than shoulders width, slowly, 25 to 50 repetitions.  Turn to the right 90 degrees and pull the band forward 25 to 50 reps.  Turn right 90 degrees and pull the band sideways toward your planted foot 25 to 50 repetitions, slowly, always slowly.  Turn right 90 degrees and pull the band backwards 25 to 50 reps, extending your leg a little more than shoulders width during each of these movements.  Attach the band to your other ankle and perform the entire exercise again.  Do this everyday and you may never turn, or roll, your ankle.  This also works on ankles already prone to turning.  One can do this exercise everyday.  I guess I need to mention, the ankle getting strengthened during this exercise is the one planted on the floor. 

Properly trained male basketball players, 5 foot 8 inches tall and taller, should be able to slam-dunk at the junior varsity level of high school basketball.  Proper basketball training is strenuous but not injurious.  Developing basketball conditioning - flexibility, strength, and stamina is the most important thing an athlete can do for themselves and their team. 

Dave Lemanczyk, professional basketball strength trainer, says: “The most popular mistake an athlete makes is training with resistance before bodily leverages are optimized.  You need to develop optimal flexibility THEN add resistance to specific movement tasks.  Body building can be detrimental to a player since ballers are advanced movers.  Simply put, if an athlete trains with resistance before developing flexibility, he/she risks great injury.”
  
Cross-training is one of the finest basketball training aids and can help you achieve great flexibility, strength, and stamina.  Enroll in martial arts, consider especially karate.  Train with the swim team, train with the soccer team, train with the gymnastic team, train with the football team.  Train with the dance troupe, train with the cross country team and wrestling team.  The point is your coach should never need to pull you from a basketball game because you’re physically exhausted.  And by the way, it is completely unfair to your coach, and your team, to make the coach waste precious practice time building up your strength and endurance.  You must take responsibility for your own health and your own physical training.  If you report to your sport in shape, it allows the coach to teach, which gives you and your team the opportunity to more fully enjoy your sport.  When you’re healthy, flexible, and strong you are less prone to injury and also enhance your learning capacity.  Smarts ain’t never hurt nobody.  Study like a demon, no matter what your age. 
Something else to increase your smarts, your basketball workouts, your basketball conditioning - flexibility, strength, and endurance, your health, and even your personality, is sleep.  Sleep is magical.  All humans, especially athletes, need to recover and rejuvenate.  A body needs a minimum of seven hours of sleep every night, even you!  This is what's happening while you're sleeping; at the cellular level your body is a-huffin'-an-a-puffin', so you can wake up refreshed and renewed, as long as you’ve gotten your seven plus hours.

The following is from Outlook Magazine in an article written by Anne Lundblad, June 2008.
A recent study from the University of Chicago Medical School found that after only one week of sleep restriction, subjects metabolized glucose less efficiently and also had higher levels of cortisol.  What does this mean for athletes?  Less stored energy, reduced endurance, and a diminished ability to repair damaged tissue.  Over time these factors will prevent athletes from handling their training load, potentially leading to overtraining and poor performance.
Other effects of sleep deprivation include impaired motor function, delayed reaction time, and reduced cardiovascular performance----possibly by as much as 11%.
The body records every hour of sleep missed from a person’s nightly requirement (7.5 to 8 hours a night).  This means staying up an hour or two later each night for a couple of weeks can result in significant impairments in performance.
Extra sleep actually improves performance.  Members of Stanford’s Mens basketball team were tested before and after a two week period in which they obtained as much sleep as possible, observing significant improvements in their game.  They ran faster and made more free throws than they did with their typical sleep schedule and reported having increased energy, improved mood, and a decreased level of fatigue.
Dr. Mark Rosekind, a sleep specialist, states “Optimal sleep translates into optimal performance.”  He recommends 7.5 to 8 hours of sleep rep night.
By treating sleep as an important component in training, rather than something to do after finishing all the other responsibilities of the day, you could find yourselves not only better athletes, buy also more energetic and productive individuals. 

https://www.healthforums.com/library/1,1258,article~10530,00.html
Week-end Warrior Basketball Training Aids

http://www.rehabpub.com/features/32005/2.asp
Ankle rehab and strength training

http://www.cmcrossroads.com/bradapp/docs/rec/stretching/stretching_5.html#SEC57
All About Stretching

http://www.advocatehealth.com/gsam/info/library/ham/summer96/magsam1.html?fitness
Week-end Warrior Warm-up and Cool-down

http://www.med.miami.edu/communications/som_news/index.asp?id=412
Week-end Warrior Tips

http://www.chikii.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=7017&sid=108488aa42958caa53cf16c531fbc53e
Stretching vs. Warm-up

 http://www.bikramyoga.com/News/MensHealth-KareemJabber.htm

Basketball Handbook by Lee H. Rose
Jump Rope Training by Buddy Lee
Complete Conditioning For Basketball by Greg Brittenham
52 Week Basketball Training by Chip Sigmon