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I can definitely believe all that. BBall fitness is underrated. For me, the hardest sessions in terms of RPE in my life have been: speed endurance sprinting>full-court bball scrimmage with good players>XC running>pretty much everything else.

On a related note, a lot of ex-NBA players (usually bigs) have had heart issues. Some of it might be lifestyle, but still interesting.

fast pace, lots of change of direction, lots of time in a semi-squat position, lots of explosive movement. the equivalent for me in terms of effort is indoor ultimate, which is exhausting.

This explains why I felt like dying the other day 😂

Agree with Andrew though thoroughly in regards to aerobic distance running having a negative correlation to the start>stop>start environment of a competitive game. I was told (incorrectly) to run cross country to help build a better stamina base for basketball at the end of my freshman year. I got really good at running steady for a 5k. And sucked ass in spring practice. It took the entire summer to get my explosive tendency back and, this is unquantifiable data, I felt LESS tired in the 4th quarter than when I was running distance. I bro science it towards wiring my body to explode consistently vs training it in slow, steady states. Just my uneducated pennies

I was going to make a thread on conditioning for basketball and found out i already made one 6 months ago  .

lol.

Literally have never been fit in my whole life and i was seduced by the idea that just playing basketball was enough to 'build endurance' for basketball. Or running some intervals lol.

i think it is for sure.. but not half court. intense full court should get you fit. adding stuff in will only help (line drills, gassers etc).

but ya, i wouldn't expect half court to get you anywhere fit for full.

playing lots of basketball increases your risk of (contact) injury though so..

Probably never played that much full court basketball in any case but even when i did regularly albeit infrequently (1-2x week) i would always redline very quickly into a competive game. I'm talking about seconds into the game, probably because my adrenaline gets jacked way up and my HR maxes out almost immediately.  Never figured it out but the demands on conditioning are pretty high and i don't think just 'playing ball' is a good way to train for that conditioning. Which means to me, somehow, people who do play basketball regularly and do so in good condition for the sport must have developed the fitness in a way I missed out. Maybe it was high school training which probably involved a steady diet of suicides or long steady jogs etc etc which i never did because i didn't play basketball in school.

Which brings me to the question of how do you build (basketball) fitness in someone who doesn't have it? From what ive read in studies, there are non-responders to exercise out there which turns out means only that these people need to train more (harder and longer and more often) than responders. If i consider i am a non-responder then my current approach has been (and nothing planned about it, just happened lol) to run around 5km every day. I vary it up, sometimes i go for speed, breaking it up into 1km blocks, other times i go for time and so on. There isn't any rhyme or reason but i have read the average basketball player covers about 5km during a game. So if i can run an easy 5-6km at a good pace my hope is that is enough of a conditioning surplus to play what will probably be bench minutes at my age of 35.

it'll definitely help. bball is start/stop tho. if you want to really improve your ability in game, without playing games, you need to mimic that a few times per week at least. could be part of your 5k run, just mixing it up fartlek style (sprint/jog/sprint/jog) random stuff etc. additionally, basketball is start/stop using all kinds of forward/backward/lateral movements, so - very different than linear running (which is alot easier). changing direction is rough and takes alot more energy.

but still, 5k every day is much better than nothing. it'll surely help considerably.

pc!

Quote from: adarqui on December 02, 2018, 05:33:30 pm

i think it is for sure.. but not half court. intense full court should get you fit. adding stuff in will only help (line drills, gassers etc). but ya, i wouldn't expect half court to get you anywhere fit for full.

Perhaps it ought to work for the average player but i must be a non-responder. i find a full court competitive game to be more of a 'test' and just doing that test doesn't actually get my body to adapt to becoming fitter for the sport. It's just too strenuous to be considered training. Training should be something that gives steady improvements with time. A test doesn't always do that.  I know that from my experience with the sport and i understand it runs counter to what ppl think. For me it would be like doing heavy squat 1rm attempts and thinking it will make me stronger - it works, kinda, for a bit but it's not the best way to train to achieve the goal of getting stronger steadily over time. Same principle might be at work for basketball fitness. I need a way to build the fitness - a game is too much of a test than a builder.

how is playing full court, frequently, a test?

it's just full court..

playing a real game in a league is a test.

i don't get your analogy.. you're using half court training and it's lack of training effect on full court basketball, to consider yourself a non-responder. that makes no sense to me IMHO.

it's just a full court pickup game. i wouldn't overthink it.

when i hooped, i played like 3-5 games of full court games per day.. i never had a problem with basketball fitness. nor did any of the regulars who came out there to play, every day. if you win a game, you stay on. if you lose, you wait for the next one while working on mechanics or something etc. works out very well at building basketball specific fitness.

some 70+ year old guy used to call next and play games with us occasionally. we had very intense games, but this guy would get into games and try to play. we kinda dreaded it sometimes, he was a liability.. but every1 respected him, he could go up and down the court. he even scored on people a few times. park would go nuts if he did.

in my opinion: if you played full court nearly every day for months and didn't make any conditioning/fitness gains + basketball specific fitness improvements, then you could label yourself a non-responder.

on the other hand, if you want to avoid full court or basketball in general, due to injury risk etc, then what you're looking to do makes more sense. ie, if you want to cross train & somehow have it prepare you for actual basketball, then yea you'll need to do what you're doing. but full court pickup games aren't tests, they are just full court games. you play them and you gain basketball specific fitness.

it'll definitely help. bball is start/stop tho. if you want to really improve your ability in game, without playing games, you need to mimic that a few times per week at least. could be part of your 5k run, just mixing it up fartlek style (sprint/jog/sprint/jog) random stuff etc. additionally, basketball is start/stop using all kinds of forward/backward/lateral movements, so - very different than linear running (which is alot easier). changing direction is rough and takes alot more energy. but still, 5k every day is much better than nothing. it'll surely help considerably.

Good points, i'll try that and see how it goes. I did my first long run yesterday (7km over 60 minutes). And today i'll go the other way and aim for 5km in 20 minutes in repeats of 400-500m at around 4 min/km pace. If i alternate between these two workouts every day, how does that sound? When i can eat more food (soon) i'll add in a sprint session as well but right now im at the edge of recovery between daily running + squatting.
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sounds like it'll work at building endurance for a while. just throw in very light runs (or rest) when you feel too run down to hit those workouts.

pc!

Ohhhhhh i see the source of confusion!  Australia doesn't have a full court pickup culture. I played a full court pickup game in teh US when i visited in 2016 and it was super fun but we don't have anyting like tha here.  I could prob count the number of full court pickup games ive played on one hand, maybe one or two lol. We have played scratch matches but that's rare too (hard to get enough ppl to come down at a given time). That would be super valuable though to be able to play full court simulation at a relaxed pace for training. We only have half court pickup games here and they're next to useless for training. So that's why when i refer to full court competitive games - i mean exactly that, in a league with off-season macho AFL players with too much aggression and very little beauty to their game. It's either full on competitive, im going to play aggressive and physical or half hearted pickup with zero defence - nothing in between. I'm actually giving very little attention to basketball from a training perspective, save the odd shoot around to keep the skills fresh.

wow that's nuts LMFAO.

ok ya that makes more sense.. hah.

in the US, it's full court pickup pretty much everywhere you go (at any decent park/gym). around here, you rarely see hype half court games. half court games are usually for groups of people who stay in their own "clique" (ie like 15 people who come to the park to just play half court games with each other), or just people who are less in basketball shape.

fulls however, are very competitive, with people going to different courts & such to get good games. at any good park, they start around ~6:00-6:30 PM and go until ~8:30-9:00 PM. it usually starts with a modified game of "21" with like 20-30 people all playing, trying to get to 5. "first to 5" etc. first two people to 5 get to pick the initial squads (for the 5 on 5 full court). Then everyone scrambles to get "next" or get on a team. Some people just call next right away, before the "first to 5" starts. The best players (obviously) get picked first, and sometimes those squads win the first 2-3 games (versus various teams). It's rare that a squad runs the table all night. Even though people might look fresh, fatigue sets in and they get beat by the sharper players coming in. If you lose the first game, you might have to wait 45-60 minutes before you play again, because "next" can go like 3-4 games deep. But, you may also get picked up by a guy who is leaving his team "open" to snatch a good player from the first set of games etc.. People hate that shit though, other than the person being picked up. LMFAO.

most fulls are played to 11, with 1's (2 pointers) and 2's (3 pointers).

sometimes the first game goes to 15, rest of the games go to 11. that's just some odd shit that sticks around because I guess the "best players" just kind of made that the norm, so they can get in more work during the first game.. and it spread.

the worst part of any full court game is the "standoff", between two teams who disagree on a call. basically someone makes a call, the opposing team doesn't honor it, then they both just go to their separate ends of the court and hold up the entire court until someone gives in. if no one gives in, sometimes half court games start ON THE SAME COURT as the full court, while both sides figure it out. eventually someone gives in, or they shoot for it etc. that's the worst part about streetball pickup games IMHO. I absolutely hated that shit. I'd go practice my left or something until it was worked out. Most people (involved in the game) just sit down on the court to make it evident they don't plan on giving in. If it lasts for a very long time, sometimes people literally get pissed and leave/go home. That scenario happens a few times per week lol.

hah.

yall need that #culture.

if AU had that culture, you wouldn't think as much of developing fitness outside of full court games etc.

pc!

Ohhhhhh i see the source of confusion!  Australia doesn't have a full court pickup culture. I played a full court pickup game in teh US when i visited in 2016 and it was super fun but we don't have anyting like tha here.  I could prob count the number of full court pickup games ive played on one hand, maybe one or two lol. We have played scratch matches but that's rare too (hard to get enough ppl to come down at a given time). That would be super valuable though to be able to play full court simulation at a relaxed pace for training. We only have half court pickup games here and they're next to useless for training. So that's why when i refer to full court competitive games - i mean exactly that, in a league with off-season macho AFL players with too much aggression and very little beauty to their game. It's either full on competitive, im going to play aggressive and physical or half hearted pickup with zero defence - nothing in between. I'm actually giving very little attention to basketball from a training perspective, save the odd shoot around to keep the skills fresh.

It's the same in Adelaide and Sydney. Most decent players only play club or social exclusively. The pick up games we play are filled with international students, a few Africans, off season guys like me, and ex-basketball players, and they are usually always 3 on 3 to the 3 point line or 4 on 4 to half court. Whenever we play full court it just turns into a lay up fest. Overall the standard is very poor as there's such a diversity of skill levels. Some players are very good but there are others who play like they have never played an official game in their life. The atmosphere is variable as well depending on the personalities. Usually it's very relaxed and casual but other times there's threats and physical altercations. I'm in a facebook group where we have 50 members and we always post each week where we are going to play. I actually haven't played at all since last year / beginning of this year.

Going to the US is a dream of mine not to play basketball just to travel but it would be cool to see what pick up is like over there.