Quick Tips for Training in the Heat

If we’re choosing to teach over beach on a hot day, here are 6 principles to follow when training your basketball team:

QUALITY OVER QUANTITY

Increase the amount of rest between reps and activities: better to play 5 possessions @ 90% than 10 possessions @ 20%. This “rest” can be used for team huddles or to pull information from players about their decisions through questions.

READ YOUR GROUP & PLAY IT SAFE

If your players are over-exerted, make changes to your plan to reduce injury risk. Light headedness, nausea and impaired movement/skill are symptoms of heat stress and that your session has over-exerted players.

WATER BREAKS

Provide water breaks after every activity (i.e. every 8-10 minutes), ensuring players use them to rest and re-hydrate, and have ability to re-fill their bottles as needed.

PRIORITISE SKILL DEVELOPMENT

The downtime involved with 1v0 / 1v1 activities is more acceptable in the heat. Spend lots of time on practicing the 3 Fs of Shooting Form (Feet, Focus, Follow-through), and challenge them with different ball-handling, passing and shooting challenges.

TEACH BEFORE THEY’RE TIRED

Place any teaching of new skills or tactics in the first 20 minutes of your training, as attention spans will drop across the session.

HALF-COURT FOCUS

Prioritise half-court gameplay, saving transition concepts for a cooler day. Scrimmage intervals should be kept to 2-3 minutes maximum, and limited to the half-court where possible.