Youth-Athlete's Sport Blog

Nervous about your upcoming tryout?  Worried about making a good first impression with the coaching staff?  How much is it worth to have someone show you how to prepare to make a strong impression at your next softball tryouts by preparing properly and to leave a strong impression on the coaching staff and show them what you're made off to triple your chances of being selected!  Former collegiate and Olympic softball coach Marc Dagenais has put together the Tryouts Peak Performance Kit to show you what the coaches are looking for and how to make a good and lasting impression. More...

In a previous post, I described a 3-on-2 and 2-on-1 fast break drill that I use at the beginning of practice.  After a dynamic warm up, the fastbreak drill is used to push players into a full paced sprint while simultaneously getting the minds focused on the fundamentals of basketball: rebounding, passing, defense, full speed dribbling, and quality decision making.  In that description of the drill, I wrote about key fundamentals the offense should follow to execute a fast break.  In this post, I want to follow up with the defensive side.  More...

A very common warm up drill in basketball is the fast break drill.  After a dynamic warm up, my teams always move into the fastbreak drill or other active movement shooting drill.  The goal is to take their warm muscles and push them to a full paced sprint while simultaneously getting the minds focused on the fundamentals of basketball: rebounding, passing, defense, full speed dribbling, and quality decision making.  In this post, I describe the 3-on-2 to 2-on-1 fast break drill. More...

One of the most exciting plays to watch in basketball is the above-the-rim roundhouse dunk.  This one activity requires a tremendous amount of pure athleticism.  Have your ever tried one, even on a shorter 8 or 9 foot hoop?  You will realize that it not only requires a good vertical leap, but also core strength and hand quickness.  Most resources that work on improving your vertical jump only focus on the leaping ability, but the Vertical Jump Development Bible pulls together a training program that works on ten different elements of athleticism that enable a player to pull off the roundhouse dunk by not only increasing your jumping ability but also your core strength, stability and control, and speed of movement. More...

Have you ever noticed that almost all ten and under (10U) youth basketball teams struggle running any type of offense because the players are "bunching" together instead of playing their proper positions and staying spread out on the floor.  This bunching up problem is solvable; in fact coaching colleague of mine cured the bunching problem with his daughter's second grade (7 and 8 year olds) basketball team.  Let explore why it happens and type of drills to help eliminate the "bunches." More...

The basketball offense by the numbers is a simple but effective offense that can be used against either a man-to-man defense or zone defense.  It is easy for players of all ages to remember and can be used by young teams as the primary offense or by older competitive teams as a special play to complement the primary offense.  The best part about this offense is that it can be very simple for use by a young team and become progressively more advanced for older teams. More...

A fundamental basketball skill that should be mastered at a young age is to dribble the basketball with their head up.  The two ball full court dribble is a simple drill to teach your players to dribble the basketball with their head up. More...

Last week I wrote about a basketball drill framework that I use in my practices and highlighted how it is used to develop the skills necessary for a two man pick-n-roll play.  This post will continue to expand on that framework by showing how it can be used to practice rebounding and box-out skills. This rebounding drill can be used with teams 4th grad and above. More...

Choosing the best type of conditioning program that will stimulate the muscle fiber type that will get you results is extremely important.  In the post Increasing Your Bat Speed, I briefly mentioned that your body consists of fast twitch and slow twitch muscles and that each muscle fiber type performs a different function.  This post will explore the twitch muscle fibers, when are they used, and how you can develop them in your training programs. More...

I subscribe to a Basketball newsletter that recently poised the question to its subscribers:  what is your favorite basketball drill?  The implication in this question is that you have one drill that you like more than the rest.  In reflecting on my practices, I realized that I use whatever drills I can think of to make our team stronger, but I usually run these drill out of a particular framework.  That framework is a 2-on-2 or 3-on-3 basketball type of scrimmage setting.  More...