The 3-Part Elite Shooting Workout That Will Help Take Your J to the Next Level

by Mikko Simon September 02, 2015

by POINT 3 Alpha Mark Adams

This is a breakdown of how I try to work with ballplayers on their shot. It will be broken into three separate blog posts so be sure to come back for the next parts!

ELITE SHOOTING WORKOUT PART 1 - WARM-UP

1. Warm Up with Ball Handing (5-10 Minutes)

Ball handling is a great way to warm up. It’s universal, and it’s always going to translate. And there’s always going to be an element of competition to my workouts. You’re either going to compete against somebody else or compete against yourself.

For example, we might do a couple timed drills with a player in ball handling and have them do that for every Sunday I see them.

The point is, whether I gave the player 90 seconds or two minutes, depending upon what that drill is, there will be a buzzer that goes off and a number that we know. We are going to count how many dribbles, how many pounds of the ball, and we are going to chart some of that data, which is really important.

The other element with ball handling is to be hands-on with the player. I will do a lot of "hit-resist-pull-hold-push" action, a lot of physical contact with the player. The goal is to make the player be able to handle the basketball with me hitting, bumping, holding and fouling him so that in-game feels like nothing but a little fly on him. I want players I work with to be able to play through contact and to be able to handle and do things with contact.

2. Warm Up with Attacking the Basket (10 Minutes)

To end the warm-up phase, we will work on attacking the basket and working on different types of finishes. My philosophy here is - especially if a player is struggling with their shot - is that we want to get them putting the ball in the basket over and over and over again. So before we even get into shooting jump shots, I want the player getting to the basket using their right hand, left hand, and all different ways.

We’ll use hesitation moves, quick feet moves, and combos as dribble moves. And we’ll work on finishing with off-foot lay-up finishes, under finishes, over finishes, reverses, different types of spin, using different types of contact and finishing through people.

But once again, the key is to put that ball in the basket to prepare us for the actual shooting drills.

From there we slow things down a bit and go into shooting mechanics.

Come back next week for Part 2 of Mark Adams' Elite Shooting Workout!