It’s a cool 80 degrees outside, the players are all gathered around at the base of a grassy hill, there is a cone with a picture of each mascot from our upcoming seasons schedule, “ok this is what we have, you’re going to lunge to the first cone, bear crawl to the second cone, soldier crawl to the third cone, crab crawl to the fourth cone, then get up and sprint out the rest of the hill. This is a race, first team to 10 reps of the hill wins, time to get after it!”
Spring is in the air which means it’s time to hit the reset button on your basketball players training routines. You do this by:
- Increasing volume
- Limiting rest periods
- Emphasizing communication
For the majority of your players coming out of season, their lifting sessions comprised of 30-40 minutes, 2-3x a week, in which the main goal was to stay strong, promote recovery, with an overall focus of peak performance down the stretch of the season. These workouts tend to be more individualized for specific players needs, which is completely opposite of fall and spring team lifts.
After the season you are basically turning their lifting routines upside down, adding new exercises, new stimulus, new expectations, and a whole lot of energy with the goal to gain the team environment in the weight room again. Spring workouts for my teams usually comprised of 4-5x a week sessions running around 60-70 minutes.
This spring I decided to change up our training and incorporate more team building drills with an emphasis on handling adversity individually and collectively. One of our main goals this off-season is to become a tougher team and when you talk about toughness in basketball you’re specifically talking about doing all the little things, such as not giving in mental or physical fatigue when adversity hits. I believe energy is extremely contagious and you will often hear me talk to my players about superior body language. No matter what I throw at my players during a training session, they have to exhibit confidence by urging their teammates on, having superior body language themselves, and extra credit is even thrown their way if they talk a little trash to me (as long as they are backing it up with effort).
The workout we used in spring is an oldie but goodie and after making a few modifications to fit my group it worked its magic in our weight room. I first was put through this workout by Hank Behrens while I was coaching at Cal, and I named after “Hank the Tank” who’s an amazing strength coach that put me through this brutal circuit that I loved and hated for 3 weeks. The circuit is broken down in a Leg, Push, Pull manner, working from big movements to smaller movements and since it is a full body workout, it is done only 2x a week, specifically following a day-off.
Players will perform 3 sets of an exercise before moving on to the next exercise. All sets are done at 65% of their max, the first two sets are to 10 reps, the third set is done to failure. If a player hits 20 reps on their failure set then the following week you can either bump their weight up or make sure they hit more than 20 on their last set.
The “Tank Circuit”
All exercises at 65% of 1RM
- Back Squat: 10,10,FAIL
- Military Press: 10,10,FAIL
- Bent Row: 10,10,FAIL
- Front Squat: 10,10,FAIL
- Flat Bench: 10,10,FAIL
- Pull-ups or (Lat Pull-Down): 10,10,FAIL
- RDL: 10,10,FAIL
- Incline Bench: 10,10,FAIL
- Landmine Row: 10,10,FAIL
Weekly Schedule for Serious Off-Season Fitness
Monday-Tank Workout
Tuesday-Tough Tuesday (Hill)
Wednesday-Off
Thursday-Tank Workout
Friday-Friday Fun-day Circuit
Saturday-Off
Sunday-Off
The Adversity Factor
What makes this workout even more brutal than performing 10 reps at 65% of your max is that you are on a timer and you’re paired up with a teammate that is either stronger than you, weaker than you, taller, or shorter than you. I intentionally pair up players with each other that wouldn’t make sense to partner up. I do this to force communication, the groups are put on a timer and have a minute to not only complete their individual set, but to also add or take away weight, adjust bar height, and make sure their teammate also completes their set in the given time.
If for any reason the players aren’t communicating with each other, not hustling from set to set, and don’t finish their set on time, a “turnover” will be awarded and the whole team will have to go back and redo their last set. This little penalty can really show how well your team handles adversity. On the other hand if the groups are working great together, helping each other out, communicating, and they get through all set of an exercise without a turnover, then I’ll award a “double bang” (in hoops a double bang is a stop and a score and is pivotal in extending leads or coming back from deficits). The goal for the team as a whole is to get as many double bangs in the bank as possible so if there is a turnover they won’t have to go back a set, and I will just subtract a double bang from the “bank”.
Tough Tuesday
Due to the nature and physical demand of the Tank workout it is only performed 2x a week following a day off. This opens up your training days and allows you to get the basketball players outside, away from a basketball court, and train in environments that they aren’t as comfortable in. There is a large hill off campus and every Tuesday we would meet at the hill for a workout.
Exercises like soldier crawls, bear crawls, and crab crawls would be done with a 20 lb. weight vest (courtesy of Harbinger Fitness), everything is timed, and a competition, to see who could finish fastest. Every week we would increase the reps on the hill and then finish with a “call out” session, in which you challenged anyone on the team and would race them to the top of the hill (with No weight vest on). We also increased the amount of race reps as the weeks progressed.
Friday Fun-day
Is a circuit done outside on the track, there are multiple stations set around the track, incorporating sled pulls, sled pushes, 200 meter runs, medicine ball slams, hurdle hops, and heavy ropes. This circuit is timed and players are partnered up, and are at each station for 35 seconds, on the “rotate” call, players must hustle to the next station and be ready to work. The rest time is minimal and players are forced to fight through fatigue, work together, thriving in adversity, and beating the circuit.
As much as players can frustrate coaches at times, I truly believe that players want to improve and want to make you proud as a coach. If you’re preaching the importance of toughness, handling adversity, and teamwork they will improve on these traits.  As coaches we can accelerate this process by spotlighting behavior that optimizes what we want to see during our workouts. At the end of each workout I like to highlight the good, what we need to still work on, and how far we’ve come from previous workouts.
Create a great day and Go Cougs!
About Scott Thom
Scott Thom is the head strength coach for men’s basketball at Washington State University. Previously, he was the strength coach for University of California-Berkeley men’s basketball team and the head basketball coach for Vintage High School (Napa, Calif.) He has over 10 years of experience working with athletes at the high school, collegiate and professional level. You can check out his website at ScottThom.com
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