Hey Coach,
I am going to start my 14yo son on the weights as soon as this basketball season is over. What would you suggest in regards to a setup for initial exposure to weight training with an emphasis on BBall. He currently does so plyo stuff here at home but that has been about it. I have a full gym in the garage so I can do most things at home. Thanks in advance!
Bodyweight exercises>Weights
[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
Bodyweight exercises>Weights[/quote]
This, be sure he can master his bodyweight first.
Pushups, lunges, squats, inverted rows on smith machine, planks, etc
I’d suggest looking at Brian Grasso’s work as has a whole company dedicated to youth athletes
[quote]Mateus wrote:
Hey Coach,
I am going to start my 14yo son on the weights as soon as this basketball season is over. What would you suggest in regards to a setup for initial exposure to weight training with an emphasis on BBall. He currently does so plyo stuff here at home but that has been about it. I have a full gym in the garage so I can do most things at home. Thanks in advance!
[/quote]
I’m obviously not Coach Thibaudeau, but I can make some suggestions since I played basketball in high school. It’s good that you have your son doing plyometrics at home; that will help him become more explosive when playing BBall. In regards to weights, it is best to use full body workouts for the younger population (ages 5-15yo). Make sure the lower body is emphasized in the beginning of each workout too (work from the bottom up). This will complement the plyometrics (whether they are box jumps, depth jumps, one-leg (unilateral) drills, jump squats). This will also allow your son to get some lower body strength necessary for just about any sport or activity.
For initialy exposure to weights, you might also want to keep the reps a little higher too (8-12 reps or 65-80% of one rep max range with occasional 5 or 6 reps). You might also want to replace a regular basketball with a medicine ball when shooting layups.
By far, expolisiveness, agility, and speed are what you should try to strive for when training sport athletes. I don’t know if you have seen CT’s thread on explosiveness, but you should check that out as well. Scroll down to Feb. 23:
Hope this helps!
[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
Bodyweight exercises>Weights[/quote]
Not sure what you meant here, but see if your son can do any of the following properly:
-Alternating leg (layup style (opposite leg pushing off, pposite arm extending, exploding into air with push off from 15-20" platform/object)
-Lunges
-Pull-Ups
-Push-Ups
-Dips (bench or parallel bars)
Actually Eric, it is NOT good that he is doing plyo at home. Not during the season at least. In fact, I wrote an article a while ago about my pet peeves and mention that in-season plyos for a jumping sport athlete is one of the dumbbest mistake on can make.
Plyo do improve power output, but they only work for 3-4 weeks. After that they lose their efficacy.
During the season the athlete is already doing hundreds if not thousands of jumps per week (in his BB practices and games). So any plyo he is doing on top of that will be like a drop of water in the ocean as far as results are concerned (i.e. they wont do crap) BUT the risk of injury is increased.
You want to do plyos when they will give you the most bang for your buck and not cause a possible injury.
To take a page out of coach Poliquin’s book of quotes: ‘‘In-season plyo are for morons’’.
I would agree with Jehovafitness that in his case ‘‘resistance movements’’ should start with body weight exercises. He needs to be able to perform those with textbook form and with acceleration. Then move on to the basic movement pattern exercises:
Using a moderate resistance and focusing on acceleration NOT load.
Thanks for the correction Thibs. No wonder our basketball team was so drained with practices and training . . .
[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Actually Eric, it is NOT good that he is doing plyo at home. Not during the season at least. In fact, I wrote an article a while ago about my pet peeves and mention that in-season plyos for a jumping sport athlete is one of the dumbbest mistake on can make.
Plyo do improve power output, but they only work for 3-4 weeks. After that they lose their efficacy.
During the season the athlete is already doing hundreds if not thousands of jumps per week (in his BB practices and games). So any plyo he is doing on top of that will be like a drop of water in the ocean as far as results are concerned (i.e. they wont do crap) BUT the risk of injury is increased.
You want to do plyos when they will give you the most bang for your buck and not cause a possible injury.
To take a page out of coach Poliquin’s book of quotes: ‘‘In-season plyo are for morons’’.
I would agree with Jehovafitness that in his case ‘‘resistance movements’’ should start with body weight exercises. He needs to be able to perform those with textbook form and with acceleration. Then move on to the basic movement pattern exercises:
Using a moderate resistance and focusing on acceleration NOT load. [/quote]
[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Actually Eric, it is NOT good that he is doing plyo at home. Not during the season at least. In fact, I wrote an article a while ago about my pet peeves and mention that in-season plyos for a jumping sport athlete is one of the dumbbest mistake on can make.
Plyo do improve power output, but they only work for 3-4 weeks. After that they lose their efficacy.
During the season the athlete is already doing hundreds if not thousands of jumps per week (in his BB practices and games). So any plyo he is doing on top of that will be like a drop of water in the ocean as far as results are concerned (i.e. they wont do crap) BUT the risk of injury is increased.
You want to do plyos when they will give you the most bang for your buck and not cause a possible injury.
To take a page out of coach Poliquin’s book of quotes: ‘‘In-season plyo are for morons’’.
I would agree with Jehovafitness that in his case ‘‘resistance movements’’ should start with body weight exercises. He needs to be able to perform those with textbook form and with acceleration. Then move on to the basic movement pattern exercises:
Using a moderate resistance and focusing on acceleration NOT load. [/quote]
Thanks for all the replies. Funny how you don’t realize some of the more obvious things i.e plyo during season, until they are brought to your attention. Will save that for some off season work.
As far as the body weight exercises go, are you referring to pullups, pushups, etc? Or mimic the compound movements with out any resistance to perfect form first. Probably both I would assume. We are working on the push/pull body weight stuff now and he is making gains. More so on the push ups rather than the pullups. He can do 2 pullups at 157 lbs, 5’7. He has stalled there though. Thinking of focusing on the positive and negative independently to help with his strength. Good idea???
I figure by the time this AAU season is over (June) he will be ready for the weighted movements with acceleration. Again, I will assume that this should be a weight that he can do for reps with proper form in the 12-15 rep range?? I know, or least have been told, not to get to any failure points or fool with singles, doubles, etc. So I am just curious on the rep ranges for the movements you mentioned.
Thanks again for the insight…
Im only 14 and I am trying to put on size and gain strenghth I am six two and weigh 165 when I started lifting about six months ago I weighed 150. Im doing a 5/3/1 workout with the basic lifts being sqat bench dead lift and military press. throughout the day I take in a lot of proteing and calories eating lots of egs sandwiches and whatever is for dinner. I drink about a gallon of milk a day and am on the amplified mass xxx weight gainer by GNC is there any thing more you would suggest to put on more size and muscle.
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