Optimum Performance Training: Basketball: Play Like a Pro with the Ultimate Custom Workout Used by NBA Players and Teams
208
Optimum Performance Training: Basketball: Play Like a Pro with the Ultimate Custom Workout Used by NBA Players and Teams
208Paperback
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Overview
Micheal Clark virtually wrote the book that personal trainers all over the country use to gain their certification in the field. As creator of the Optimum Performance Training system, he took personal training to a whole new level by introducing a program that could be fully customized for any sport. In this book, Clark will enable readers through his “self-assessment and design fitness system” to effectively pinpoint the weaknesses in their basketball skills and tailor a workout program that will improve on all the flaws in their game. By taking advantage of skill-specific tests, readers will be able to focus their workout time on the area they most need and will see quick results.
This user-friendly guide begins with a simple five-step assessment to help you realize what your game lacks. Whether you want explosiveness off the first step like Lebron James, the iron-man endurance of Steve Nash, the coordination and flexibility of Kevin Garnett, the vertical leap of Vince Carter, or the muscle strength of Amare Stoudemire, you’ll pinpoint your deficiencies and benefit from the exact same workout that Clark uses for the NBA’s biggest stars.
Clark’s revolutionary approach to fitness and conditioning personalizes the workouts not only by sport, but also by performance skills, and will help you become the best basketball player you can be. With customizable workouts, sets, and reps, everyone from basketball fanatics to weekend warriors can find the program just right for them, and get the extra skills to crash the boards, run the court, and power their way down the lane for all four quarters.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780060852238 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 12/27/2005 |
| Pages: | 208 |
| Product dimensions: | 7.38(w) x 9.12(h) x 0.57(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Optimum Performance Training: Basketball
Play Like a Pro with the Ultimate Custom Workout Used by NBA Players and TeamsBy Micheal Clark
HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2005 Micheal ClarkAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0060852232
Chapter One
What Is Optimum
Performance Training (OPT)?
If you want to be a great basketball player, you have to train your body the way it moves on the court. You're probably thinking cardio, strength, and power training, to be stronger, faster, more explosive, and agile. All true. But there is one component of basketball fitness that has often been overlooked: Stability Training.
What is so important about Stability Training? Imagine a car that can go 150 mph; but the brakes only stop up to 50 mph. How fast would you drive the car? Probably not even 50 mph. On the court, your body is like the car. If you have strong muscles and the ability to move fast but you don't have good brakes, you will always perform less than your best. The stabilizing muscles are your brakes.
The OPT System has yielded phenomenal results with top NBA athletes because it trains both the brakes and high performance capabilities of the athlete. Some players have increased their speed by over 30 percent, while ankle, knee, and back injuries have dropped by more than 55 percent! Just this past season the Phoenix Suns had only forty-one games missed due to injury while the NBA average was over one hundred games missed! The Suns credit a large part of this success to their players' improved ability to stabilize, decelerate, and accelerate in all directions as a result of the OPT system.
This book will unveil the training system used by many NBA teams, players, and sports medicine professionals so that you can enjoy the same phenomenal improvements in your game. You will do exercises that you have never seen or even imagined before, but don't let that intimidate you. This book will guide you step-by-step through these exercises with a complete, easy to use training system that will condition you for your personal best on the court.
First, you need to understand a few basic principles about your body. Your body has three different types of muscles:
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Stability Muscles: the small, deep muscles that support your joints and muscles so you can balance and perform strength and power movements on the court. The deep muscles that connect and support the pelvis and spine are examples of stability muscles.
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Strength Muscles: the large, superficial muscles like the chest, back, shoulder, and butt muscles that enable you to be as strong as possible in defense and rebound positions.
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Power Muscles: the muscles you recruit at the right time to execute the exact amount of force and speed needed to perform explosive moves like a lay-up or dunk. These movements are made using a combination of stability and strength muscles.
As you see in the illustration below, stability muscles are the foundation of the OPT program because they are the foundation of your muscular system. Without strong stability muscles, you cannot have optimum strength or power. That's because your body uses stability muscles in conjunction with strength muscles to execute strength movements. Similarly, your body uses a combination of stability, strength, and power muscles to perform a power movement. OPT progressively conditions for stability, strength, and power in three phases of training:
Strength Training (4 weeks)
Stability Training (4 weeks)
The Opt System
Stability Training: How to Shut Down the Post-up, and Think Inside the Box
As the foundation of OPT, Stability Training conditions some of the most fundamental muscles of your body -- your stability muscles. These muscles are key to preventing injuries and maximizing strength and power moves on the court. If Amare Stoudemire didn't train his stability muscles, you'd never see him boxing out guys in the paint, because he just wouldn't have the capability to move laterally the way he does.
In basketball, your ankle, knee, and back joints take the brunt of forceful movements like jumping and landing. Your stability muscles support these joints and protect them from injury. They also provide the foundation from which your strength and power muscles produce force.
The deep supporting muscles give you endurance to hold your body in a particular position for an extended period of time. On the court, they allow you to maintain a squatlike position while you are playing defense by engaging the muscles of your hips and spine. When Amare Stoudemire trolls around under the basket, he's constantly hunkered down, ready to move in any direction. If your stability muscles are weak, you will fatigue quickly and lose your defensive edge.
Surprisingly, most basketball conditioning programs mistakenly skip Stability Training and jump straight into Strength Training. This frequently leads to injury because the joints and stability muscles have not been conditioned for strength movements. The OPT System, however, attributes its success in great part to dedicating as much time and effort to Stability Training as it does to Strength and Power Training. In fact, adding Stability Training into his workouts is one of the key reasons Stephon Marbury has not missed a game in 4 years!
So you will begin your OPT program in this phase by using light weight, high repetitions, and unstable exercises like the Single-Leg Squat (illustrated below) to stimulate and condition the stability muscles.
There's a bonus to training in this phase, by the way. You burn more calories than in Strength and Power Training because you recruit a lot of muscles with this type of conditioning. That means you will also get leaner by knocking off excess body fat, making you appear more muscular.
Your Stability Training program will be detailed in Chapter 7. After four weeks of training in this phase, you will progress to Strength Training.
Strength Training: How to Stay in the Paint and Defend against the Pick Like Shaq
The second phase of training is Strength Training. The goal of this phase is to make your major muscles like the chest, back, shoulders, and thighs stronger and bigger.
On the court, strength is important with movements like . . .
Continues...
Excerpted from Optimum Performance Training: Basketball by Micheal Clark Copyright © 2005 by Micheal Clark. Excerpted by permission.
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