Benefits of Weight Training for Basketball Players
Triple Threat Academy provides a wide range of basketball training opportunities 
for High School, Middle School and Grade School kids. While basketball drills, shooting practice, and running are all essential parts of basketball training, incorporating weight training for basketball into a fitness routine is also an excellent idea for serious athletes at the high school level.
Basketball is a great sport, and one that encourages and promotes multiple skills like endurance, strength, communication and teamwork with others. Weight training for basketball, when done properly, can provide a real boost to your basketball game by improving your strength, flexibility, and even endurance.
Basketball players can achieve a number of benefits from a properly structured and supervised weight training program. Here is a quick list of some of the benefits:
- Protection from injuries
- Enhance Speed and Quickness
- Lean muscle development
- Improved athletic skills
- Feeling Great
Read on for more insights on how weight training can take a basketball player’s game to another level.
Protect Your Body
If you want to reduce your chances of sustaining an injury while out on the court,
the strength you’ll build from weight training can help. Not only will strength training help to improve your flexibility, allowing your body to move in ways that help you avoid injury, but basketball weight training will also build up muscles around your joints, helping to protect them from injuries.
In addition, exercises such as running, especially for long distances, put a lot of impact and stress on the body and knees. This stress can lead to an injury. By reducing the amount of high-impact cardio you do and replacing it with strength training instead, you’ll be reducing your risk of injury both on and off of the court. Oh, and weight training helps to strengthen your bones, too.
Be Quick
Basketball is a fast paced sport, and athletes who are a little slower than they’d like sometimes struggle to improve their game. If you want to improve your speed, weight training will help. By accumulating more muscle on your body, you’ll have an increased power output, which will thereby equate to an increased speed output.
Build More Lean Muscle, Less Fat
Even if you’re thin, your body may have a lot of stored fat relative to your muscle. While you do need some fat on your body, muscle will make you stronger, make you quicker, make you leaner, and make your metabolism work harder.
Weight training has been shown to promote lean muscle building and a healthy body mass index. It is also linked to lower levels of cholesterol, having more energy and endurance, a healthier blood pressure, and a healthy weight, especially when the habit of weight training is formed early.
Gain Skills
Weight training will provide you with a whole new skill set that running and drills alone just can’t. Through proper weight training, you’ll be able to increase your balance and coordination, agility, and flexibility all while also becoming more physically powerful.
Feel Great
One of the biggest benefits that you’ll get from weight training for basketball is the fact that you’ll feel better. Not only will you likely have higher levels of energy, but after a few weeks of weight training, you’ll notice new muscles on your body that weren’t as obvious before.
Your new, toned and defined body will give you a burst of self-confidence, which will help you both in life and on the basketball court. By knowing that you’re strong physically, you’ll have a psychological advantage over your opponents during a tough game.
Weight Training for Basketball Players – A Real Boost
While weight training is a great addition to a basketball player’s training routine, be careful not to overdo it. Limit your strength training and weight lifting sessions to two or three times a week, or as recommended by a coach or physician.
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