Increase performance with a dynamic basketball warm-up routine
Athletes want to be faster, more agile, more flexible, less prone to injury, and ultimately have a performance advantage over their opponent. One aspect of training that I think is often overlooked is the warm up routine. As a young athlete, I remember my coach making us do what I thought at the time was an obscene amount of warm-up exercises. Now I see the value of these exercises that I couldn’t see when I was a young athlete.
By following a short warm-up routine, you’ll improve your ability to outperform the competition. You can get faster and stronger with these few exercises. The warm-up routine I’ll recommend will allow your muscles to actively warm up and stretch, sometimes called a dynamic warm-up, dynamic stretch, or, if used as an exercise instead of a warm-up, blast. While stretching the muscle well, it also increases speed, flexibility, agility, and explosive power.
Most track athletes are used to this type of workout and warm-up routine. As a basketball player, you have more demands to be agile. Must be able to quickly change direction, turn, and stop. A track athlete is more concerned with reaching top speed as quickly as possible.
Here is my recommended basketball warm up routine. Start with a light jog for 10 minutes. I recommend running a slow mile to warm up your muscles and cardiovascular system. This should be done with warm-up clothes, a jacket and pants that are good for playing basketball. After this brief warm-up, you should perform your normal static stretching routine while wearing this same warm-up outfit to keep your muscles warm. Hold each muscle stretched for 30 seconds to achieve an optimal stretch. Now we can begin the regiment of active stretching and ballistic warm-up.
Each of these dynamic drills must be performed from one foul line to the opposite foul line and then back to the starting position. This entire routine should take less than 10 minutes.
Glute kicks: Kick yourself with your heels as fast as you can while moving at a slow pace. This is a great quad stretch.
High Knees – Raise your knees as high and fast as you can while slowly moving forward.
Gazelles: This is one of my favorites, you jump as high as you can and while in the air keep your thigh parallel to the ground. You should feel like you are a jumping gazelle.
Jumping: This is like jumping rope without a rope, forward progression should be slow and controlled.
High kick walk: As you walk forward, bring your knee up toward your chest, then stick your leg out pointing your toes toward the ceiling. This is a great hamstring stretch.
Ken/Barbie Doll Running: With locked knees, run across the court. The race is performed by moving only the hip and ankle joints.
It is important to remember that these warm-ups must be done with purpose and good technique. After doing this warm-up routine, you should feel slightly sweaty and more agile. If you consistently perform these simple exercises, you should become faster, more agile, and reduce the risk of injury.