Just thought you would be interested to see what my basketball lads are up to in the gym at the moment. Leeds Force are a professional team who play in the British basketball league (BBL) which is the top basketball league here in the UK. The team is made up of some home grown talent and some foreign players from the USA, Spain and even Croatia. They’re a good group of lads, committed to their training and it’s always good banter when they are in the gym!
As well as keeping them away from the netball girls it is my job to make them jump higher and move around the court quicker. I also need to get them strong and robust enough to cope with the physicality in the supposedly non-contact sport of basketball (which it really isn’t in the BBL as they have to contend with 7ft tall opposition trying to push them around the court!)
It’s getting towards the end of a long, tough and busy season but we’re still going strong in the gym and touch wood everyone’s bodies are holding up – apart from one of the players Will who was born with a back made of chocolate, but he’s ok now 🙂
In-season, I do 2 sessions per week in the gym with them and they train on-court 5 days per week sometimes twice per day. They play most weekends, often having more than one game.
Our Tuesday session in the gym has a strength emphasis and we do a lighter more dynamic power emphasis session on a Thursday as this is nearer to game day. The Thursday session is therefore lower volume, will produce less muscular damage, soreness and fatigue than the Tuesday session and acts as a bit of a primer for game day.
Check out a quick snippet of their gym training in the video below:
If you haven’t seen a game of professional basketball before I’d really recommend going to one, it’s a superb evening out! Elite basketball is a super fast paced, dynamic game, full of skill. It’s generally very high scoring as teams battle back and forth over 4 quarters. Huge leaps, slam dunks and lightening like interceptions makes it a really exciting spectacle. Just seeing how tall some of the players are is a spectacle in itself, the tallest Force player was over 7ft tall!
Check out some highlights below of what was a great game for Leeds Force, beating London Lions earlier this season:
The Force boys have got 2 games left this season, one at home in Leeds. If you can get to one you’ll really enjoy it but if not be sure to look out for them next season in which they will be an even stronger Force in the BBL!
Hope you enjoyed meeting the players, check out their website here or follow them on Twitter for regular updates. Also, please feel free to leave a comment or get in touch if you have any questions or would like to know or see more.
Dane
All Things Movement 