Q: What Do You Do in Basketball Conditioning?

Basketball conditioning can include aerobic exercise , court sprints, defensive slides, change-of-direction drills, shuttle runs, 17s, suicides, small-sided games, and basketball skills performed after controlled intervals. The exact selection should reflect the player’s current fitness, schedule, position, and training phase.

Question 1

What Do You Do in Basketball Conditioning?

Accepted Answer

Basketball conditioning can include aerobic exercise, court sprints, defensive slides, change-of-direction drills, shuttle runs, 17s, suicides, small-sided games, and basketball skills performed after controlled intervals. The exact selection should reflect the player’s current fitness, schedule, position, and training phase.

Question 2

How Often Should Basketball Players Do Conditioning?

Accepted Answer

Most players need two or three meaningful conditioning exposures per week, but practices, scrimmages, and games count toward that total. A player competing several times per week may need little additional running.

Question 3

How Long Does It Take to Improve Basketball Conditioning?

Accepted Answer

Many players notice meaningful improvements after four to eight weeks of consistent training. The timeline depends on starting fitness, training quality, sleep, nutrition, health, and whether the player can train without repeated interruptions.

Basketball-specific HIIT programs lasting approximately five weeks have improved aerobic fitness in basketball players, although individual responses vary (Aschendorf et al., 2019).

Question 4

Is Running a Mile Good for Basketball Conditioning?

Accepted Answer

Running a mile can provide a basic measure of aerobic fitness, but it is not a complete basketball conditioning test. It does not measure repeated sprinting, deceleration, lateral movement, jumping, or skill execution under fatigue.

Question 5

Are Suicides Good for Basketball Conditioning?

Accepted Answer

Suicides can be useful because they combine running, stopping, and changing direction. Their value depends on appropriate volume, preparation, technique, and how they fit within the broader program.

Question 6

Can You Improve Basketball Conditioning Without a Court?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Cycling intervals, hill sprints, shuttle runs, jump rope, strength training, and tempo running can develop important physical qualities when court access is unavailable.

However, court work should eventually be included because basketball requires specific distances, surfaces, turns, footwork patterns, and skill execution.

Question 7

Should Basketball Conditioning Include the Ball?

Accepted Answer

Some sessions should include the ball, especially as the season approaches. Ball-based intervals and small-sided games help connect fitness with dribbling, passing, shooting, and decision-making.

Other sessions can omit the ball when the goal is to measure sprint speed, control work-to-rest ratios, or focus completely on running mechanics.

Question 8

What Are 17s in Basketball Conditioning?

Accepted Answer

A 17 is a common basketball conditioning drill in which a player runs from sideline to sideline 17 times. One crossing counts each time you reach the opposite sideline, although coaches may use slightly different counting methods.

A common standard is to finish in approximately 60 to 70 seconds, followed by one to three minutes of recovery. Guards, wings, centers, younger players, and professional athletes should not automatically be held to an identical time standard.

Most teams perform two or three rounds, but the appropriate volume depends on what else is included in practice. The drill becomes much more demanding when it follows lifting, live basketball, or another conditioning circuit.

Seventeens develop the ability to repeatedly accelerate, brake, turn, and run across the width of the court. Their main limitation is predictability: they do not include reading the game, reacting to opponents, jumping, or performing skills.

Use 17s as a measurable conditioning tool, not as the entire conditioning program.

Question 9

What Are 20-20s in Basketball Conditioning?

Accepted Answer

The 20-20s drill consists of completing 20 full-court suicides in 20 minutes. A new repetition begins every minute, so the time remaining after each suicide becomes your recovery period.

In the version I completed at The Winchendon School and Marist College, every suicide had to be finished in under 40 seconds. If you finished in 36 seconds, you received 24 seconds of rest before the next minute began.

John Calipari has described using 20-20s with Marcus Camby at UMass, and the drill later appeared in his Kentucky program (Calipari, 2017). Standards have varied by team and position, with faster requirements sometimes assigned to guards than centers.

The drill is exceptionally difficult because every suicide contains multiple accelerations, stops, direction changes, and increasingly short recoveries. It challenges physical conditioning, pacing, turning efficiency, and the willingness to keep producing effort under severe fatigue.

However, 20-20s are an advanced conditioning test rather than an appropriate starting workout. Attempting them without adequate preparation can create excessive soreness and expose the calves, shins, knees, and Achilles tendons to a sudden increase in running and deceleration volume.

Build toward 20-20s through lower-volume suicides, repeat-sprint training, aerobic development, and progressive change-of-direction work. A drill can be valuable and memorable without needing to appear in every week of your program.

Question 10

Should You Use Suicide Drills for Basketball Conditioning?

Accepted Answer

Suicides can improve court-specific work capacity because they combine acceleration, deceleration, and repeated changes of direction. They are also easy to organize and measure with a team.

However, suicides are frequently overused because they produce obvious exhaustion. More repetitions do not automatically create better basketball conditioning, particularly when players are moving slowly and turning with poor mechanics.

The volume must also be counted honestly. One suicide includes several accelerations and hard direction changes, so 10 suicides create considerably more mechanical stress than 10 straight-line sprints.

Suicides are most useful when they have a defined standard, controlled volume, and clear place within the week. They should not be used repeatedly as punishment for mistakes, because punishment-based conditioning makes workload unpredictable and encourages coaches to value suffering over adaptation.

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