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TLDR: A guy who can run aerobically for 20-40 minutes at game pace (not including fast breaks and the like) is fitter than someone who can't and has to go quickly into and stay in an aerobic state during a game.

I agree with you that specialising in running a great mile might not do much for a basketball player. But i'm more interested in finding a good test for aerobic fitness for a basketball player.

The simple answer to your question is no.  A couple things you should get:

1) A basketball game is NOT sustained.  The average nba games last about two and half hours.  If an NBA runs on average 5 miles per game, then for the entire course of the game he is averaging 32 minutes per mile.  This includes timeouts, commercials, half time, free throws, out of bounds, substitutions for rest, etc, etc.  While running a basketball game is much more challenging than covering 5 miles at a 32min pace, the point is it's not an easy distribution to simulate with some running drill.  That's why intervals are better but still not great at building/predicting basketball specific fitness.  Consider that when an NBA returns from sustained time off, even if not injured his minutes are limited and ramped up slowly so he can build up his basketball specific fitness base.  Despite NBA players having some of the greatest training there is, there is just not a great substitute for the fitness required to play basketball and virtually all players have to "play there way into shape" to some degree. 


2) Second, you are not understanding the differences and overlaps between energy systems.  Great aerobic shape does not allow you to keep the "OFF" switch on the anerobic energy system.  At the beginning of a middle distance race (ie. 400m, 800m, etc) your body begins by using the quickest energy system possible.  The body doesn't say "Oh I'm running an 800m let me leave this free ATP in the cell and go start using my aerobic capacity".  At the beginning of activity the body will begin to use free ATP, creatine phosphate and other quick energy pathways.  After these are used up the body will start to get energy from aerobic respiration and glycolysis.  If a lot of energy is needed glycolysis will dominate and the body will produce lactate which will cause the athlete to "hit the wall or tighten up".  If a lot of energy is not needed the body will primarily be using aerobic pathways which produce much much more ATP and will last a lot longer.  If you ever sprint the knowledge of these pathways is very important, they are why you run the 400m in the following way:

First 5-7 seconds: 95-100 effort because free energy is burned no matter what
Back stretch and most of turn: 90 percent effort (anything over would put you in glycolysis and cause u to fail)
Last 80-150m: Full effort (might as well go into glycolysis because you are almost done)

Understand that these are not huge differences in effort, but they make a huge difference in a race.  These slight differences in effort are what make a good 400m runner vs a bad one.  For example, I am currently a sub 11 100m runner but a very poor 400m runner.  A training partner I have is a decent 400m runner but a poor 100 m runner (11.6).  He can beat me in the 400m because he can stay aerobic at about 91% effort while I have to run closer to 88%.  It's a small difference. 

But on a repeatable event like 400m around a circular track he wins everytime.  Unfortunately a basketball game isn't repeatable.   You don't know how much to save or know how much you will need or when the lulls and breaks will come. Additionally, during the "easy" parts of the game, being at 80% is probably good enough, and everyone can do this.  The advantage goes to the guy who can jump higher and move faster when it's called upon.  That's demonstrated in this study:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18545206

But the average player runs 5 miles during a game?

Don't know about that statistic but even if it's true, the average basketball player doesn't run 5 miles a game he MOVES five miles a game.  He does that jogging, running, sprinting down a 25 meter court, walking, standing around during free throws, etc.  Because of this the energy systems used are completely different than those used in a mile run, so the comparison isn't useful. 

Intervals would be a more useful measure of fitness for basketball, but still wouldn't be great honestly.  Still something like run 50 meters, 30 second walkback to the line and run 60 meters the other way, repeat 5 times and calculate total running time would be a lot better.

Ridiculous, especially when you consider what a poor start he has (had in that race).  Incredible top end, not teachable!

if anyone cares i've switched over to the conventional deadlift. currently my bests are 330x7 and 340x6. I will be attempting 350x5 next week.

I also do back extensions twice a week. On one day, I do 3x8 with heavier weight, and on the other day, 4x15 with lighter weight.

RDL is a great assistance exercise but it's not measurable which it seems you a realizing is a major weakness.  Deadlifting may not be as specific for jumping and may be dangerous (if performed stupidly IMHO) but it's actually one of the most measurable exercises there is.  In fact, it's the first test of strength our old strength coach used when evaluating athletes because it's there are no depth issues like in the squat and even with poor form is a decent indicator of whole body strength.

My only advice would be not to treat deadlifting like squat (ie with rep/set/ranges).  While you can train your recovery abilities to the point where you can squat daily.... that's really asking for trouble with the deadlift.  I increased my deadlift from 405 to 540 in about 6 months using heavy singles sparingly (every one to two weeks) and back off sets of RDL/Stiff legged deadlifts.   Good luck.

DL 550
Squat 424

Wow. I'm almost identical.  545, 415.

Seems like no matter whether I focus on squat, front squat, bandsquats or deadlift.... my deadlift is about 70 pounds over parallel squat, which is 70 pounds over my squat, which is about 70 pounds over my front squat, which is about 70 pounds over my bench and powerclean.   I'm literally +/- 10 pounds from 550/480/410/340/270.  And I had really similar ratios even when squatting 315... 

Haven't tried just benching though to see if that brings everything else up....

Quote from: T0ddday on May 01, 2012, 12:39:43 am

^Not exactly. I'm working with a client to develop an app so that payment information is loaded into a QR code.

Basically phone 1 makes the QR code, phone 2 takes a picture and money is transferred.
The OCR thing is another functionallity they want for those who don't download the app.

I haven't tried OCRopus.
I have downloaded and played with tesseract and a million other libraries and they all sorta break on some of the cards.
Tomorrow I will give OCRopus a try.... If that doesn't work I am gonna have to convert to Pgm and do this by hand (really don't want to!).

So we will see....

sounds fun.. just wondering, how long do you have, to deliver that solution? sounds ilke an intense project, given the variety of card's.

maybe OCRopus will save the day.. g'luq.

I had about a week.  Project shelved right now because we have a bug in our gateway system so working on that for now... much MORE boring. 

http://www.adarq.org/forum/lets-nerd-the-f-out/random-nerdout-programs-written-by-adarq-org-members/msg70003/

got alot done today, so tired..

Your really diving in head-first into programming!  You know anything about OCR?  I have to write a OCR credit card reader for a client! Make that your next project!

Wouldn't it be logical to focus strictly on sprints, plyo's, and core strength (squats, deadlift, lunge, back, a lil abs, etc) maybe calf raises and not do any upper body exercises like bench, shoulder, curls, flys, rows, etc?

BTW are there any upper body exercises that are essential to explosiveness/vertical/speed training?

I agree with Steven.  Additionally, remember that specifically when considering sprinting speed that one's upperbody strength is directly related to their block position and block clearance.  Notice how an athlete like Asafa Powell is able to start with his left block barely behind the line and his upper body over the line thanks to massive upper body strength.  Sprinters (especially women) can drastically improve their block clearance with the addition of upper body strength.