Preseason conditioning that buys you something

Look up preseason conditioning and you'll find the same three things. Lines and 17s with set rest times. A running calendar for the weeks before practice. A weight room program. All of it gets players fitter. Fitness is the only thing most of it gets you.

That's the problem. Preseason practice time is the scarcest thing you have. Every minute your team spends running a line on the baseline is a minute they aren't learning your defense, your break, or how to talk to each other. You don't have to choose between getting them in shape and getting them ready to play. The best conditioning you can do is basketball, played hard enough to get tired.

We made this point on the first day of practice, and again at tryouts. This is the long version.

One note on scope. Strength work, lifting and injury prevention programs belong with your strength coach or athletic trainer if you have one. This is about the conditioning you control, which is what happens in your gym.

What did that minute buy you?

Here's the question to ask of every conditioning block you run. Besides fitness, what did it buy?

There are five things a conditioning minute can buy you:

• Fitness. Every option gets you this one.
• Reps. Touches, passes, finishes, close-outs. Basketball actions you'd want more of anyway.
• Decisions when tired. Reading the floor when legs are gone is a skill, and it only gets practiced when they're tired.
• A habit. Sprinting back after a miss. Talking on every screen. Getting to the corner on the break.
• Something to correct. If you can see what went wrong, you can coach it.

Run a set of lines and you get the first one. Run a conversion drill where the defense has to sprint back and match up after every make, and you get all five. Same minutes, same tired players. Four more things to show for it.

That doesn't mean every drill has to score five out of five. It means you should know which ones are scoring one, and have a reason for running them.

What it sounds like: "We're not running lines today. We're running the conversion drill until somebody jogs, and then we're running it again."

Before practice starts

The weeks before official practice are the ones the running calendars are written for. What you can do here depends on your state association's rules on out of season contact, so check them before you plan anything. They vary a lot, and some of what's normal in one state isn't allowed in the next.

If you're allowed to have players in the gym, use it to play. Open gym with a few rules beats a running program. Full court only. Make it, take it off. Teams of three or four so nobody hides. They get fit, they get touches, and you get an early look at who's been working.

If you can't have them, send them a plan with a ball in it. Full court finishing at game speed. Ball handling on the move. Shooting off the sprint, not standing still. A player who does that for a few weeks shows up fitter and more skilled than one who ran the same minutes on a track.

What it sounds like: "I don't care if you run a mile. I want you full court, at game speed, with a ball, a few days a week until we start."

The day one test is a baseline

Plenty of coaches open the season with a conditioning test. A three minute Nash run, a beep test, a set of 17s. That's fine, as long as you know what it is. A test tells you who came in prepared. That's all it tells you.

If a player can't pass it on day one, you've learned something about how they spent the offseason. You haven't learned whether they can play, what role they'll fill, or who'll still be competing in February. And the test isn't the program. Passing it isn't the goal. It's the starting line.

If you're still picking the team, tryouts built around roles covers what a test can and can't do for you there.

What it sounds like: "You all ran it. Now I know where everybody's starting. That's the last time we talk about it."

Basketball conditioning drills that teach something

Seven drills that get players tired and teach basketball at the same time. None of them are new. What makes them conditioning is the pace you hold them to and how long you let them run.

Conversion with a sprint standard

Play five on five. On every make, miss or turnover, the team that just had the ball sprints back and matches up. No jogging, no exceptions. Anyone who jogs, the possession restarts.

What it buys: fitness, transition defense, communication on the way back, and a sprint habit that carries into games.

What it sounds like: "First three back, call it out. Ball, basket, shooter. I want to hear it before half court."

Continuous three on two, two on one

Three attack two. When the possession ends, the two defenders and the player who shot or turned it over go the other way, two on one against the player who's waiting. Keep it moving for as long as you want them working.

What it buys: fitness, decisions with numbers on your side and against you, finishing at speed, and defenders learning to stop the ball outnumbered.

What it sounds like: "Two on one, the ball handler goes all the way unless somebody stops them. Make the defender pick."

Transition defense at a disadvantage

Start even. Four on four or five on five, full court. When the offense gets the ball, one defender has to take themselves out of the play first. Touch the baseline, touch the sideline at half court, whatever you choose. Then they sprint back into it. Until they get there, the defense is a player down.

You can call the defender by name, by number, or make it whoever took the last shot. Change it every trip so nobody gets to rest on the far side of the floor.

Defending at a disadvantage is harder work than defending even. The defense has to stop the ball, talk, protect the basket and cover more ground than the offense, and the player coming back has to find someone to guard on the way. It's conditioning that looks exactly like the worst moment of a real game.

What it buys: fitness, most of all for the recovering defender. Stopping the ball outnumbered, talking through a scramble, matching up on the fly, and a habit of sprinting back into a play instead of giving up on it.

What it sounds like: "You shot it, you touch the baseline. Everybody else, hold them off until they're back. Sprint, find somebody, talk."

Live possessions on a short shot clock

Five on five in the half court, with a shot clock shorter than the game one. Get the ball across, get into your offense, get a shot up. When the possession ends, the next one starts right away from the other end.

What it buys: fitness, offense under time pressure, defense that has to sit down and guard, and the end of game feel you'll want in January.

What it sounds like: "Short clock, no resets. If you're tired, get a good shot early. That's the point."

Shell into transition

Run your shell drill as normal. On a defensive stop or a rebound, the defense outlets and goes the other way against the offense, who have to sprint back and stop it.

What it buys: fitness, your shell rules under fatigue, the outlet and the first three steps of the break, and transition defense from a bad position. A shell drill that ends in a sprint teaches players that a stop isn't the end of the possession.

What it sounds like: "Get the stop, then go. Offense, you just gave up a rebound. Get back."

Full court small sided games

Three on three or four on four, full court, with a rule that matches what you want. Every catch must be followed by a pass or a drive within a couple of seconds. Points only count in transition. The defense has to pick up full court. Fewer players means more touches and more running for everyone.

What it buys: fitness, a lot of touches per player, decisions in space, and a constraint that teaches what you choose. This is where conditioning and what you want your team to be meet.

What it sounds like: "Four on four, full court. You only score if you get it in before the defense gets set. Get after it."

When in doubt, one on one and two on two

If you're not sure what to run, make it one on one or two on two, continuous. Nobody can hide. Every player is guarding or being guarded on every possession, and there's no teammate to stand behind.

Keep it controlled. Start each possession from the same spot. Limit the dribbles, or keep it inside a lane line, or give the offense a few seconds to score. When the possession ends, the defense becomes the offense and goes right away, against the next player or pair waiting. Nobody stands around long enough to recover.

It works both ways. The offense has to beat someone without help. The defense has to guard without it.

What it buys: fitness, a lot of one on one reps on both ends, and an honest look at who'll compete when there's nowhere to hide.

What it sounds like: "Two on two, inside the lane lines, three dribbles max. Get stopped, you're on defense. Go."

A preseason practice with the conditioning shown

Here's a two hour practice from the second or third week of the preseason, with a column for where the conditioning actually is. There's no conditioning block in it, and nobody leaves fresh.

Time	Segment	Where the conditioning is
0:00-0:10	Dynamic warm up	Light. Sets the pace for the rest of practice.
0:10-0:25	Full court finishing, both hands	Medium. Game speed or it doesn't count.
0:25-0:40	Shell into transition	Medium to hard. Every stop becomes a sprint.
0:40-0:50	Water, teach the next segment	Rest, on purpose.
0:50-1:05	Continuous three on two, two on one	Hard. Runs until you stop it.
1:05-1:20	Half court offense, install	Light. This is where they get their legs back.
1:20-1:30	Water, free throws	Rest. Shooting tired is part of it.
1:30-1:50	Live possessions on a short clock, then conversion	Hard. The real conditioning of the day.
1:50-2:00	Close	What you saw. What tomorrow is.

Two things about how it's built. The hard segments alternate with lighter teaching segments, so players recover while they learn something instead of while they stand on the baseline. And the hardest segment comes late, when players are already tired, because that's when the decisions matter in a game.

Your version depends on what you want to be known for. If your identity is pressure defense, the hard segments should be pressure segments. If it's half court execution, put the short clock possessions in the freshest part of practice and let transition carry the load later.

What it sounds like: "We don't run at the end. If you're tired at the end, it's because the last twenty minutes were live."

Ramp it up over the first weeks

Not everyone comes in fit, and trying to get them there in the first week is how kids get hurt. Build it up instead.

• Make the live segments longer. A conversion drill that runs a few minutes in week one runs a lot longer by week three.
• Cut the stoppages. Early on you'll stop play to teach. As they learn it, let it run.
• Shorten the rest. Water breaks get quicker, and the light segments between the hard ones get a bit shorter.

Watch for the difference between tired and hurt. Tired is fine. Tired is the point. A player who's limping, holding something, or not right is done for the day, and if you have an athletic trainer they make that call, not you.

What it sounds like: "You're tired, that's fine, finish the possession. If something hurts, that's different. Come tell me."

When running for its own sake is fine

There are days you want a hard finish just because. After a flat practice. Before a tough stretch of the schedule. When the team needs to know they can push through something together. Nothing wrong with that. It just shouldn't be the default, because then it's practice time spent on the one thing that teaches no basketball.

Running as punishment

Running as a consequence is a different question, and it's worth thinking about what it teaches.

Every time you make a team run because something went wrong, you're telling them what running is. It's the bad thing that happens after a mistake. Do that enough and they'll believe you. Running becomes something to avoid, something to dread, something they do because they have to.

Then you ask the same players to sprint the floor on every possession because that's who you are. To get back on defense when nobody's watching. To fill the lanes when they're tired. You've spent the preseason teaching them that running is a punishment, and now you want them to choose it.

If running is part of your identity, it should feel like part of your identity. Something the team is proud of. Something that wins them games. Not the price of a missed free throw.

That doesn't mean it can never happen. In small doses it works. One down and back for a missed front end, then straight back to the line. Short, tied to the thing that went wrong, and over before anyone's thinking about it. But even then, it costs practice time, and it still sends the message. The more of it you do, the louder that message gets.

If you want a consequence, there are others. The losing group picks up the balls. The drill starts over. The next possession starts with them a player down. Most of those teach something too.

What it sounds like: "We don't run because we messed up. We run because that's how we beat people."

How you know it's working

Don't retest. You ran the test once to see where everyone started, and running it again only tells you who got better at the test. Watch the last fifteen minutes of practice instead.

• Are they still talking? Communication is the first thing to go when players get tired.
• Are they still sprinting back? Or has it turned into a jog when they think you aren't looking?
• Is the shot quality holding? Tired teams settle for the first shot they see.
• Who's still making good decisions? And who's making the same ones they'd make in minute one?

If the last fifteen minutes look like the first fifteen, they're getting there. If they fall apart, you know what needs work, and it's probably not more lines.

What it sounds like: "Last week we stopped talking with ten minutes to go. Tonight we talked all the way through. That's the conditioning working."

What not to do

Don't bolt it onto the end as a tax. If players know the last twenty minutes are lines, they'll save something for them, and you lose the effort you wanted in the live work.

Don't let the test become the program. It's a starting line. Training players to pass a test makes them good at the test.

Don't try to get it all done in week one. You'll lose players to soreness and injury and you'll gain nothing you couldn't have had in week three.

Don't run a conditioning drill you couldn't coach. If nobody's watching for anything but the clock, it's lines with a ball.

Don't assume the fit kids are the ones who'll help you. Being in shape gets a player on the floor. It doesn't tell you what they'll do once they're there.

---

Planning a preseason around how you want to play, and getting that plan into your players' hands before the first practice, is what BenchOS basketball is built for. How hard to push and how often is still your call. The practice that gets your team ready should come from what you know about them, not from us.