Basketball
training program
Jump higher, decelerate safely, and repeat explosive efforts up and down the floor.
Your first month is free, with nothing to pay today. Then A$24.99/month, cancel any time. On the App Store and Google Play.
Train Smart’s basketball program is a complete weekly strength and conditioning plan periodised to the Australian basketball season — pre-season August – September, competition October – March. It trains vertical jump, deceleration and landing control and single-leg power, builds the week around your team nights and game day, prescribes a weight in kilos for every working set, and retests you every four weeks on Bench press 1RM and Running vertical jump, plus the conditioning benchmark your running plan is built around.
Chasing selection? The basketball pathway in Australia — what each level tests, and what separates the athletes who move up.
Why this program exists
Everyone trains to jump higher. Almost nobody trains to land, which is why the knees go — and a jump program that ignores deceleration is a jump program that eventually stops you playing.
Vertical jump is the sport’s defining number, so the testing battery measures both the standing and the running vertical — and the gap between them is a coaching signal in its own right. The prehab loads the patellar tendon first, then the ankle and calf chain that has to survive doing it three hundred times a game.
A default basketball week
This is the sport’s own template — the starting point before it is fitted to your days, your equipment and your season. Team nights and game day are protected; everything else moves to the days you are free.
What basketball is won with
These are the qualities the program is built to develop, in priority order. They come from the sport, not from a generic template.
- Vertical jump
- Deceleration + landing control
- Single-leg power
- Repeat-sprint ability
| Session | Type | Duration | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lower Power + Plyo | Gym | 55–65 min | Vertical + landing mechanics |
| Court Conditioning | Conditioning | 30–40 min | Repeat sprints + deceleration |
| Upper + Trunk | Gym | 40–50 min | Contact strength + posture |
| Skills + Shooting | Skills | — | Sport practice |
The season changes the program
Summer domestic seasons. Winter is the block where a vertical jump actually moves.
- Pre-season
- August – September — set volume ×1.2. Build the engine and the strength base.
- In-season
- October – March — set volume ×0.7, prescribed weights hold. Maintain, don’t drain.
- Off-season
- April – July — baseline volume. Rebuild general strength and fix the niggles.
- Block structure
- Four-week blocks: three weeks accumulating, one week deload. The block’s character changes across the year rather than repeating.
- Game day
- Protected. The day before gets a 20-minute explosive primer with no running, no heavy legs and no prehab block bolted on.
The basketball testing battery
Five numbers, re-run every four weeks. Chosen to match what basketball programs actually measure — and the results re-price your training weights and reset your conditioning paces.
| Test | Measures | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery 1 | Repeat-effort capacity with recovery, which is how a game is actually played. | level |
| Bench press 1RM | Upper-body pressing strength: the fend, the tackle, holding a bigger body off. | kg |
| Max pull-ups | Relative pulling strength — the best upper-body number there is for a field athlete. | reps |
| Running vertical jump | What a marking or rebounding contest actually asks for. | cm |
| Standing vertical jump | Lower-body power in its purest form, and the cheapest fatigue check you own. | cm |
What is actually in a basketball program
Every movement below appears in the sessions above, with the coaching cues the app shows you, the sets and reps it is prescribed at, and ranked alternatives if you cannot do it. The weight is calculated from your own last top set.
| Movement | Appears in | Why it is there | Trains |
|---|---|---|---|
| Back Squat | Lower Power + Plyo | Base strength to win the collision | Quads · Glutes |
| Depth Drop → Stick | Lower Power + Plyo | Deceleration + ACL-safe landing | Quads · Glutes · Calves |
| Hang Power Snatch | Lower Power + Plyo | The fastest lift in the gym — trains rate of force development directly | Quads · Glutes · Hamstrings · Traps |
| Loaded Ankle Dorsiflexion Hold | Lower Power + Plyo | Ankle range decides whether the knee or the ankle absorbs a landing — and it is the first thing to stiffen after an ankle sprain | Calves |
| Romanian Deadlift | Lower Power + Plyo | Posterior chain for driving legs | Hamstrings · Glutes · Back |
| Slow Eccentric Step-Down | Lower Power + Plyo | Eccentric knee control on one leg — the quality that decides whether a landing or a deceleration is absorbed or survived | Quads · Glutes |
| Spanish Squat — long isometric | Lower Power + Plyo | A long knee-extensor isometric, the first-line loading for a sore patellar tendon and the cheapest jumper's-knee insurance there is | Quads · Glutes |
| Trap Bar Jump | Lower Power + Plyo | A loaded jump — peak power output with no barbell skill to learn first | Quads · Glutes · Calves |
| Barbell Row | Upper + Trunk | Mid-back strength — what holds posture together late in a game | Back · Biceps |
| Bench Press | Upper + Trunk | Pushing strength in contests | Chest · Triceps |
| Scapular Pull-Up — bottom hold | Upper + Trunk | Strength at the very bottom of the hang, which is where a shoulder is most exposed and where nothing else in the program loads it | Shoulders |
| Sleeper Stretch — loaded shoulder hold | Upper + Trunk | Internal rotation range in the back shoulder — the range a bowling, throwing or serving arm loses first, and the one that precedes the impingement | Shoulders |
| Weighted Dead Hang | Upper + Trunk | Decompresses the spine and loads the shoulder at full overhead range — the cheapest overhead flexibility work there is | Back · Biceps |
| Weighted Dip | Upper + Trunk | Heavy pressing that loads the triceps and lower chest together | Chest · Triceps |
| Weighted Pull-Up | Upper + Trunk | Wrestle + grip strength | Back · Biceps |
Staying available
The prehab block is matched to the region of the session it sits in and to the tissue this sport actually punishes — not a generic mobility flow bolted to the front.
Prehab only works if it happens, and the reason it usually does not is that it has nothing to do with the session it is attached to. Rotating a pool by session number puts shoulder work before a squat day and Copenhagen planks before a bench press. Technically covered; nobody does it.
In Train Smart each movement is classified by the region it protects and matched to the session, and the pool rotates across the week so you cover all of it rather than doing the same three moves three times.
More on prehab that people actually do →
What the free month covers, and what comes after
The first month is one complete four-week block — three building weeks and a deload. The first retest comes after that block, and it is the first time the program measures what your training did.
- Week 1
- Testing session on the basketball battery. Your starting weights and paces come from it.
- Weeks 1–3
- The first block builds. Hit your reps and the weight goes up on its own.
- Week 4
- Deload — the week the previous three become fitness.
- Week 5
- Retest. The results re-price your weights and reset your conditioning paces.
- Weeks 5–8
- Block two changes shape, priced from the top sets you just did and the numbers you just tested.
Basketball training questions
What does the Train Smart basketball program include?
When is basketball pre-season?
Can I follow this program if I only train twice a week?
What tests does the basketball program use?
Do I need a full gym?
Related
Prescribed weights
How every set gets a number in kilos, and why it climbs on its own.
OpenConditioning plans
Goal-driven running with a working pace recalculated every week.
OpenThe basketball pathway
How selection works in Australia, what gets tested, and what separates athletes who move up.
OpenGet your basketball program
Pick basketball, answer eight questions, and your week is built — around your team nights, your game and the days you can actually train.
Your first month is free, with nothing to pay today. Then A$24.99/month, cancel any time. On the App Store and Google Play.
- Install itFree to download on iPhone and Android.
- Tell it how you playYour sport, your season, the nights you train and the kit you have. No account needed.
- See your week, then start freeYour program is built before you pay anything. Start the free month to unlock it, and cancel any time in your store settings.