Simply Youth Basketball: Warm-Ups and Conditioning

Simply Youth Basketball considers the health and well being of a child, both mentally and physically, very seriously. While we have already covered much of the mental aspects in our section on Motivation, Encouragement, and Expectations , this page will deal solely with the physical aspects of the game.

First things first: You need to allow your team a few minutes prior to each practice to stretch and get loosened up. Be sure to make sure they are at least attempting to do it properly. This will usually work best if you have one kid on your team who is a natural leader. The rest will follow his lead.

With young kids is there any need to go through a fifteen minute calisthenics plan with them? Answer: No. A little good stretching should suffice. A young person’s muscles have a high elasticity, and as long as you give them time with stretching, and a few laps of jogging to get loose they will be just fine. If not, how do our children get up first thing in the morning and play full blast all day without falling apart? Because they aren’t old like us!

What about building muscle? Well you can……. within reason. The only type of muscle building exercise we would recommend in small kids would possibly in the form of sit-ups, push-ups, or leg lifts.

Why not weights? In 6-12 year olds? We don not recommend it.

You will do more harm to a young person than you will do them good. The negatives far outweigh the positives. I have known people in our youth football league who think it is beneficial to have 8-9 year old kids on a light weight lifting plan. I would say, “It better be very light!” In our opinion at Simply Youth Basketball, this is a waste of valuable practice time and energy. The loss in other areas will not be gained back in strength with this thinking. And it may cost you dearly!

And finally we come to the main course of basketball conditioning. It’s that awful two syllable word no player likes to hear…..Running!

It is not only important, but is absolutely mandatory if you hope to compete, and succeed. Youth basketball players must be able to run for long periods of time at a high rate. What else is there to say? If your team is not in good physical condition, then they had better be good enough to get a huge lead early over the teams they face. Otherwise chalk yourself up to a big mark in the loss column.

So Simply Youth Basketball says:

RUN THEM! IT’S NOT GOING TO KILL THEM! It’s good for the team, as well as for them individually. And what about that…. they might even get healthier in the process.

Thanks again,Coach Tim

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