Questions From Subscribers...

pls.......... tell me

Answer:
There are many jumping exercises that are excellent for athletes under the age of 14. One of my major concerns with young athletes is that their joints and bones will be damaged by hard exercise because they are not fully developed. However, as long as you have a gentle and balanced work-out with the U-14 athletes, you should be able to do a whole host of activities.

Be sure to have your youngsters stretch after every exercise, especially the jumping exercises. Hard pounding will take a toll on young muscles and joints, but as long as you stretch those legs out, your young athletes will stay healthy, their blood circulation will stay high in the legs, and the muscles will remain limber. Also, make sure that young athletes especially drink a lot of water in order to keep their growing muscles hydrated.

Now for the exercises we recommend:
Jump Rope
Jumping rope is always fine for young athletes. Have your players jump rope for up to 10 minutes, but no more. Be sure that when your players jump rope, they have good shoes with arches in them and that they always land on the balls of their feet in order to help absorb the shock. They should always jump with both feet together in order to get the maximum benefit from jump roping. Plus, jump roping will not only give the players a great cardiovascular workout, but it will also help them to build the reflexive muscles and muscle strength that they need to excel.

Wall Toss
Have your players stand facing a wall with a ball above their heads. They should pick an imaginary line about 2.5 feet above their heads that they have to touch with the ball. For the average player, this will make them jump about 3 inches off the ground. This jumping exercise not only builds the leg muscles and offers a cardiovascular treat, but it also helps your players build their arm muscles. As they jump, our players will be training their bodies to jump for rebounds, lay-ups and shots.

Stairs
Have your players line up along the bottom stairs of the bleachers, or, if your bleachers do not have a row of stairs, have them take turns on the bleacher staircase. For one minute at a time, have them jump to the stair, then jump back to the floor. This type of jumping will take more time per jump than jump roping, band your players will have to jump higher. Stair jumping will use your players glutes and quads – so make sure that they take each jump with their feet together and their hands either at the sides or over their heads.

The only thing you will likely want to avoid when training youngsters to jump is weights. Weights will pull on the joints in a way that strains them and forces them to carry more weight than their bodies can really handle at that age. There is even some debate about whether weights are harmful to older athletes even after their muscles have developed.

Carrie Belt
Editor - BreakthroughBasketball.com

I am currently training basketball 2 to 3 hours per day and we are also doing strength, conditioning and agility exercises 1 hour per day. Can I still do some jumping exercises once or twice a week?

Armando,

That depends...

Do you work out like this every day?
How old are you?

It also depends on what exactly you do during the work outs. That seems like quite a bit of work on your legs.

I would think that the strength and agility excercises you already do would be helping your jump and there's not need for more jumping. You can however switch up your agility excercises. Many times by changing excercises, number of repetitions, and load, you can improve your vertical jump. Because many times your body gets used to the same old excercises and it becomes stagnant.

You can try some jumping excercises and measure to see if they help. If you push too hard, your muscles don't have time to recover and grow. Excercise is a balance of overloading your muscles to stimulate growth, and providing rest so they have a chance to rebuild.

Jeff

Thank you for what you wrote. Maybe if I give you more details you can tell me what do you think is best for me.
I am 17 years old. I am working out from Monday to Saturday 2 hours of Basketball in the morning and like three times a week 1:30 hours in the afternoon of basketball. Also before basketball practice in the morning we do exercices in the weight room for 1 hour Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In Tuesday we do conditioning and in Thursday we do agility exercises.
The workouts are sometimes very tiring and sometimes not. Sometimes we run a lot and sometimes we just shoot and do things like that. I hope that this is more clear for you and is easier to answer.
I also have one more question. In the weight room we are told to be increasing weights constantly but I read that it is better to stay with the same weight and try to do the exercise in less time. I am not sure what should I do because some people say that if you use too much weight you build more muscle mass but get slower and jump lower. Sorry for asking too manny things. Thank you very much for your attention.