Planning a 45-minute Domestic Training Session
Searching for a training plan template that you could follow every week to keep your team engaged and improving? Look no further, we’ve got you covered!
Planning a training session can be a challenging task for the volunteer coach. You want a range of activities that will keep kids active and engaged whilst giving you the ability to teach them the necessary skills and concepts they need for game day.
How many activities do I need?
For a 45-minute training session I’m using five activities. Why? The ideal activity length is 7-8 minutes, and I’m allowing up to 1 minute for a water break between activities. This helps me maintain high energy levels within the training session: if activities drag out any longer without being refreshed or changed, it’ll typically result in players becoming bored and mischievous.
Which activities should I use?
I’ve put together a session plan that you could use every week with your team, making basic changes to each activity for each practice. The plan can be used with U10s through to U18s, and with Division 1 athletes through to beginners. Simply choose the skills that are developmentally-appropriate for your team, and voila!
The Session Plan
0-9 MIN: SHOOTING (“7 SPOT SHOOTING”)
I like this game because it’s an ‘energiser’ to start the training: it’s fun, competitive, and players get high volumes of skill repetition. Make sure to:
Have a maximum of 3 players in each team to minimise standing time.
Give players individual shooting technique feedback without stopping the game (“coach on the go”)
Choose the spots according to your team and the types of shots you take in games.
10-18 MIN: SKILL DEVELOPMENT (“SCORING DUOS”)
I’m using this game in every training, as a way to teach both individual offensive skills and team offence principles. There’s no defence yet, so the focus is on maintaining great technique whilst trying to win the game.
You can use this game to teach an infinite range of skills and actions, here’s a few to get started with:
Footwork: Catching ‘on the hop’, using jab steps, rips, throw-downs, and forward/reverse pivots in both directions,
Team Offence: Basket cuts, back cuts, slice cuts, blast cuts, movement on a drive, kick outs and re-penetration, ball screens, away screens, hand-offs
Finishes: One-foot lay-ups, two-foot lay-ups, floaters, step-throughs, jump shots from different locations
Passes: Push passes, bounce passes, overhead passes, pass fakes (all with both hands).
PRO TIP: Use these games to practice segments of your team’s offence. For example if your offence uses a hand-off on the wing, use this game to practice 3-4 different scoring options that two players can have using a wing hand-off.
18-27 MIN: SMALL-SIDED GAME (“2V2 HALF COURT”)
You could play this as 2v2 or 3v3 depending on your numbers: the important thing is that we are taking the skills/actions from the previous activity and adding defenders.
Have players start the game by performing the ‘action of the day’ (could be a type of cut, screen, hand-off or drive), and have them play until the offence scores or the defence gets the ball (“score or stop” - adds a rebounding element to the game).
PRO TIP: Rather than having “offence drills” and “defence drills”, get more bang for your buck by two-way teaching and teach both sides of the game in the same activity.
27-36 MIN: TRANSITION PLAY (“ONE UP”)
The majority of domestic basketball, particularly U14 and below, is played ‘in transition’. The offence is pushing the ball up the court and not all the defenders are positioned properly - there’s chaos on both sides, So there’s a huge upside to coaches developing their team’s ability to manage these situations on offence and defence.
Use “One Up” to develop this phase, also commonly called “4v3 into 4v4” because it starts with a temporary advantage to the offensive team.
It’s a simple and great way to teach…
How defenders re-organise themselves to defend the ball and basket as priorities.
How the offence can space the floor, drive, pass and cut to exploit their advantage and find a great shot.
36-45 MIN: SCRIMMAGE (“CHAMPIONS VS CHALLENGERS”)
We never scrimmage for the sake of it, and simply chat to parents while the kids play uncoached. Always give your scrimmages purpose through the following ways:
Keep the length short. Play a series of 2-3 minute games interspersed with 30-second feedback and 30-second ‘team huddles’.
Incentivise the key skills of the day. For example, require players to use a certain cut before they can score, or award bonus points for use of a particular dribble/pass/shot.
Call the fouls. The easiest way for a game to descend into chaos, is when the coach lets a silly foul go unchecked.
One scrimmage option that I like in the half-court is “Champions and Challengers”. I like it because it’s often hard to make children value defence and ‘getting stops’, but this game flips the script on its head by making defence the only means of victory.
So there you have it! A 45-minute training session full of skill development and game play, which you can tailor to your specific team’s needs.