Warming up before training or playing a game is an important physical habit we want to develop with our players.

In our Academy we’ve decided to teach a club-wide warm-up to our teams.

All of our players know the movements from the variety of athletic development sessions we organize throughout the year.

The difficulty is in getting them to actually warmup consistently before every practice and game.

We can give you them the tools and know-how on how to build the foundations for this habit but in the end, keeping their body healthy and elastic by actually doing these simple exercises is their own responsibility.

To increase the chances of players doing it, we choose an “Athletic Development Captain” per team to organize the warmup. We want players to keep each other accountable as a team to avoid developing the negative habit of ‘skipping it’.

It’s often when players get injured that they start to become interested in mobility and dynamic coordination practices. Our aim however is to do what is necessary to reduce the chances of injury.

Injury cannot always be prevented but we can do frequent check-ups to get to know our own body better and with that lower the chance of getting injured.

Through these simple movements we get an insight in where our “future injuries” might be and to shift our training before it’s too late.

ACADEMY PRE-GAME WARMUP

 

By repeating these simple mobility and coordination exercises players will:

• lower chances of ankle, knee & lower back injury
• develop effortless explosiveness
• feel prepared to step on the court

The worst thing about basketball is when you can’t play it because of injury.

Not every injury can be avoided but much can be prevented by investing into the habit of warming up every day.

“The warmup IS the workout!”