Thread: Training for explosiveness

Here is the deal... My son is 17, 6'3", 160-165. He asks me last night to put a training plan together for him to develop more explosiveness. He's a basketball player.

He's done some training, just not much. I'm thinking just a heavy (5/3/1 or 5X5) program would be best, as just developing over-all strength and adding more size will help his explosiveness. As you can see, he's a rail and very lean. I'm thinking just training like this will just add to his strength and size and in turn, his explosiveness will increase. Once he's gotten a base, some direct exposive training exercises can be added...

Thoughts?

Originally Posted by Gissurjon

ive played basketball for the greater part of my short life and was on the quest for explosiveness for the most part. i always did heavy weights, squats, bench... bla bla. it really wasnt until i stopped focusing on these lifts that my explosiveness really came. my advice, go olympic for weights. i noticed that the size(weight) i gained with the heavy compound movements slowed me down more than the explosive benefit of them. what helped me was, powercleaning, clean n jerk, split squat for strength/balance and then plyometric jumps and sprints. strong core does also play a big part. the b-ball player's mission should be as much strength/speed/quickness as possible with the least amount of weight gain

to be the most effective on the basketball court he should aim for a good power/endurance balance!

This is dead on, seeing as he's 17 and he's still competing in high school ball, there isnt an immediate need to put on a lot of size/strength, whats more important is what Gissurjon said. Using olympic movements in an explosive fashion is going to build him a 'base' anyway and add to his explosive power on the court. Doing a 5x5 program could work, but thats really based around strength as opposed to explosive power. Id say toss him into the 5x5, or a beginner program (2-3x a week, 8-12 reps, 2-3 sets, 8-10 exercises, <67% intensity, full body) and teach him to to move the weights explosively for the first 4 weeks, then progress into an olympic lifting style where explosive power is the most important factor. After all basketball is a good mix of explosiveness (driving to the basket, cutting, direction change, and jumping of course) and endurance. Higher sets with an olympic lifting protocol with speed/agility and plyos built in is where its at. The more explosive he can be per lb of bodyweight the better, so putting a bunch of weight on him isn't going to help him. My .02