This drill variation made a light bulb go off!

  I think you’re going to love this tip for drill variations…  This creates athletes who are faster, more explosive, and have better balance… while improving basketball skills at the same time!  And it’s great for all age levels… as you will see, youth athletes to professional track athletes use similar drills for improving their acceleration and speed.  Let’s show you how to incorporate this Athletic Development tip into any drill.  Let’s start with one of my favorite game-based drills…  This drill is called Break Attack. This is a drill that I learned from Don Kelbick that is a staple of my practices at all age levels.   Quite simply, you have a ball handler and a defensive player run around the cones. The offensive player is dribbling and tries to score. The defense tries to stop them.   You can do it in a variety of settings including 1v1, 2v1, 1v2, 2v2, 2v3, 3v2, and 3v3 settings.  Here’s what 2v2 would look like:  - This is great as it improves… - First step speed and explosiveness - Change of direction, quickness, and agility - Dribbling with speed - Change of direction moves - Attack mentality - Utilizing your body to finish at the basket - Different finishing moves based on the position of the defender - Fast break passing and decision making - The ability to play FAST!  The Light Bulb Moment - Here’s the Athletic Development variation that I think you will love!  I’ve always run this drill from a standing position. Players naturally start from a staggered racing stance.  However, a person on Facebook commented on a drill saying that you could start them from a sitting position.  With my athletic development background, a light bulb immediately went off…  You could vary their starting positions beyond just sitting down!  You could have them also start from… - Push up position - Laying on back - Kneeling on both knees - Kneeling on one leg  And you vary the direction they face - Backwards - Left - Right - Diagonal  So why are these different starting positions GREAT for athletic development?  1 - You do fall on the court or field. And the ability to quickly get up and sprint back into the play helps you score more points and stop the opponent from scoring.  2 - A lower starting position like laying down, sitting down, or kneeling improves acceleration speed.   That lower starting position puts you in an ideal position for leg drive. Your body is leaning forward, you drive that knee high from the hip, and you’re driving the leg down aggressively into the ground to produce force.  This is NOT a position that athletes naturally put themselves in or train from. However, it is great for athletic development.  3 - Being able to maintain balance, explode, and even change directions from this low position makes you a better athlete and more effective on the basketball court or field!  Here’s the 1v1 Break Attack video & Push up position video  We also posted this article on our website, so you can [watch the 1v1 Break Attack video here]( You do have to scroll down to see it.  The [second “push up position” video]( shows what the starting position for the push up looks like. It’s directly below the first video in the article.   You might want to adjust / exclude how you start the ball handler!  Note: Some of the starting positions might be difficult for the ball handler since they have a ball in their hands. So you can either…  - Exclude the ball handler from the different starting positions. You can have them start from the normal start position, but take a step or two back… - Start from a different position, but give the ball handler a head start since it’ll take them longer to get up from certain positions like a push up or laying on their back.  You would only make this adjustment to the ball handler. All of the other players without a ball can start from those positions.  This is something I used to do in my athletic development warm up… we’d start in different positions and have races to half court or 3/4 court.  But now, you can even be more efficient with your time and include this in some of your favorite basketball drills!  I’d love to hear your thoughts on this idea! Also, go try it, come back, and tell me how it goes! You [can comment on the article here]( at the bottom of the page.  Related Resources:  [Athletic Development for Ages 7 to 12 - Warm Ups and Workouts](  [Athletic Development Program Ages 12 and Up - Individual Workouts and Exercises](  [50+ Game-Based Drills with Nate Sanderson](  [The Attack and Counter Skill Development System with Don Kelbick](  All the best, - Joe Haefner Breakthrough Basketball  This email was sent to {EMAIL} because you indicated that you'd like to receive emails and updates from Breakthrough Basketball on 2016-12-16 05:42:39. 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