How long should my basketball workouts last?

🕐 4 minute read 

Dedicated athletes try to find as much time as possible to improve their skills when they are not with their teammates and coaches. But how much is too much, and how little isn’t enough?

Oscar Wilde once said “everything in moderation, including moderation”. As an athlete you need to find a balance that suits what you are looking to work on. Keep in mind the specific number of minutes and hours will vary. There are however, a fairly accurate minimum and maximum you should not exceed when it comes to basketball. These should not be measured in quantity, rather quality is what will get you the results you are looking for.

If you are in the gym for three hours, you are wasting time in the gym. We don’t mean “wasting time” in terms of those hours not counting. We mean “wasting time” in that, by definition there are long periods of time that you are in the gym and you must not be doing anything productive. If the amount of time you spend actually working on your craft during a workout exceeds the length of a game from start to finish, you may be doing something wrong.

Look yourself in the mirror and say “What was the quality level of my workout?”

Players will often brag about the amount of time they spend in the gym. “I was in the gym yesterday at 5:00 am until 8:00 am. Then I went back from 7:00 pm to 9:30 pm”. We would be willing to guess that in a 5.5 hour window one of two things happened. Most of what you actually accomplished took place in 90 minutes. Or, you were just very busy tweeting about how hard you worked!

We teach our athletes that the most important piece to training is efficiency. Look yourself in the mirror and say “What was the quality level of my workout?” If you get in the gym and shoot 1000 mid range jumpers in 2 hours, but half of them are out of rhythm with no follow through and improper footwork, what did you accomplish? On the contrary, if you get in the gym and make 100 mid range shots in 20 minutes working on repeating the same footwork, release and follow through you have efficiently improved that aspect of your game.

Sometimes all it takes is a bit of honesty with yourself to find out the value of your work. Did you accomplish something in the gym today?