Tips for Improving Practices for Youth Basketball Clubs

Coaching youth basketball clubs is a lot of hard work and at times can be super stressful. It is not easy to take a group of young kids and teach them the many technical skills that are involved in the sport of basketball, especially when you only have an hour to do it in! Your practice time is precious and it is important to make sure that you effectively use up every single second of it so that players get equipped with the skills they need to compete with the other teams in the league.

One of the most important things you can do to ensure that your basketball clubs have productive practice sessions is to make sure that you plan your practices out before the season starts. Coaches can make the lives of players and parents, as well as their own, much easier by having a predetermined plan made out of each practice. Decide what days to schedule practice and what types of drills, conditioning exercises, and skill each session is to focus on. This helps players know what to expect on practice days and also helps you systematically prepare your team for each game of the season. Look at your schedule to see who you are playing and what their team strengths are so that you can plan your training around developing skills to help you beat that team.

A mistake that many coaches of basketball clubs make is that they use very technical drills. Some of these drills are so difficult and advanced that the coach cannot even perform what he is asking the players to do. This should be avoided all together. You should use simple drills that help hone skills and that you yourself are capable of performing so that you can demonstrate the proper way to perform the drill.

When the drills you usually do are completely mastered by the players in your basketball clubs, it is time to up the difficulty level. While you still need to keep them fairly simple, the skills that you teach them can grow in difficulty. This helps the children to develop better and to be able to compete at a higher level than they were able to previously.

Remember that participating in basketball clubs is also supposed to be a lot of fun for the kids involved. This means that you do your best to avoid running the kids ragged while still teaching them the skills they need to compete.