The Ultimate NBA Workout for Elite High School Athletes
Words. dimemag
As August came to a close, we hit up the Boost Mobile Elite 24 and all of the events that came with it during the week heading into the game (see all of our coverage HERE).
For the second consecutive year, the athletes competing in the Elite 24 event got to see, feel and experience just what it takes to make it to the next level when they went through a performance training workout and combine drills with Under Armour TNP Performance Training Council member (and strength and conditioning coach for the Denver Nuggets) Steve Hess at Sports Club L.A. on the Upper East Side of Manhattan the day before the Elite 24 game. The following breakdown, photos and video show exactly what kind of next-level workout Hess put high school basketball’s best athletes through in order to let them know how hard they would have to work to take their game to an elite level. It was the same type of conditioning work that Hess puts Carmelo Anthony and the rest of the Nuggets through on a daily basis.
The workout started with Hess and his team of trainers leading the athletes through an intense, dynamic warm-up designed to stretch and warm the muscles throughout the entire body. Once everyone was loose, it was time to hit the circuit.
Hess set up 24 stations, and each player went all-out for a minute on each one. Stations varied from agility work to power drills, with speed, endurance and will all necessary to get the most out of each station. Whether it was resistance cords hung from the rims, plyo box jumps at mid-court, agility hops down the sideline or whipping a massive rope anchored to the floor, Hess turned Sports Club L.A. into NYC’s epicenter of performance training for almost an hour.
In between stations, the athletes ran sprints, making this a true test of endurance. Every player in attendance that day has dreams of making it to the NBA, so each athlete knew they couldn’t give up on the drills, as this was the kind of work they’d need to put in on a daily basis in order to continuously improve. By the end of the workout, every player realized that in NBA, this kind of grueling workout is the norm.
Once the circuit was complete, Hess and his crew put the athletes through NBA combine drills, including the Standing Vertical Jump, Max Reach Vertical (three steps before jump), Lane Agility Drill, ¾ Court Sprint and Bench Press. The athletes were all about learning the drills, as many of them will soon go through them as they move up the ranks in their hoop careers.
Check out the exclusive video of the workout below:
I was there and this was crazy!
[...] NBA Training Workout Yesterday on HighSchoolHoop.com we posted our recap and video of the next-level performance training session that the Boost Mobile Elite 24 athletes went through the day before the Elite 24 game. The [...]
Good stuff. I had three of my players doing stuff like this through the off-season, at a much lesser clip than what these cats are doing here, and all three became so much stronger finishing, defensively, and just had a new confidence that really helped their game. That last part is something huge that most people don’t realize. If you bust your ass to be better, you always get to know that, and that understanding does as much for your game as the new strength and improved quickness. Because, if anything, hoops is a game of confidence.
[...] is Terrence Williams. Penciled in as New Jersey’s starting small forward from Day One, Williams been at the team’s practice facility more than the janitor this summer. “At the end of the day, it may be lonely, but you work from 10 (a.m.) to 12:30 with a lift, [...]