Speed and Agility Drills and Training for Basketball – Acceleration and Deceleration

Speed and agility training is the most overlooked part in basketball training these days.  Everyone wants to increase their vertical leap, but if you can stop and start better than any other player on the court you have a huge advantage throughout the course of a game.  Jumping ability is important too, but only really matters in a select few situations.  Since basketball is played on such “a point a to point b” basis being able to get to those spots on the floor faster than your defender is a huge advantage in many ways.

CHANGE DIRECTION DRILL

If you take a look at the first drill you will see that this drill is very game specific.  Just imagine if you can train hard on this drill and can get through it in less time with a ball.  This drill gives you the ability to take a defender in one direction and then leave him when you change directions due to that fact that you can do it faster than him.

SQUARE DRILL

In this agility drill you will need 4 markers.  If you are in the gym or on any basketball court then you can use the key.  Just like in the previous drill you need to make sure that you focus on getting up to full speed and then using small choppy steps you need to change directions as quickly as possible.  This drill also simulates defensive situations that occur in the game.