How a Strong Aerobic Exercise Regimen Can Benefit Your B-Ball Game

There are many ways your basketball game benefit from aerobic exercise.

You might have the best shots in the city – but you need to keep up with the fast pace of b-ball during games. This means that if you want your strongest game on the court, including aerobic exercise in your training regime is crucial.

Here’s how this type of exercise can take your game to the next level.

What Is Aerobic Exercise?

This term specifically refers to exercise you do while your body is able to undertake aerobic respiration. This can be of high or low intensity. It is also known as a ‘cardio’ workout.

This is where the body uses glucose and oxygen to produce energy. As the reaction takes place, it produces waste products – water and carbon dioxide.

Conversely, anaerobic respiration takes place where your body doesn’t have enough oxygen to perform aerobic respiration.

In this process, your body turns glucose into lactic acid and releases less energy. It is less efficient than aerobic respiration, and only takes place when you’re too out of breath to give your cells the oxygen they need.

Improve Endurance

As you perform more and more aerobic exercise, your body gets better at delivering the oxygen that your cells crave.

It improves your heart’s ability to drive oxygenated blood around your body, and your lung capacity too.

A stronger cardiovascular system leads to better endurance. This is the ability to stay focused and on-point even after lengthy activity. Which is just what you need to take advantage when your opponents are getting tired.

There’s plenty of other benefits for people of all ages. It even has the ability to reverse heart risk among middle-aged people.

A Great Workout for Your Heart

Your heart is the single most important muscle in your body. In order to give your heart a good workout, you need to get your pulse rate up and blood pumping.

You need to know what pulse to aim for. A good ‘working zone’ is between 70 and 85 percent of your maximum rate. This is the zone in which your heart will benefit most from your aerobic exercise.

To calculate your maximum rate, subtract your age from 220.

If you’re taking your pulse by checking at your wrist, always use two fingers. Don’t use your thumb, as this also has a pulse, and you’ll get confused.

Use a clock on the wall to count to ten, while counting your pulse. Then multiply that by 6 to get your pulse rate.

Build the Right Muscles

Choosing the right aerobic exercises will help to build up the right muscles at the same time.

For example, skipping and running will develop your calf and ankle muscles. This is crucial if you want to have powerful, defense-beating jumps during b-ball.

Using an elliptical machine in the gym can also be beneficial, as it targets the workout to your calves, biceps, and forearms – which are all normally worked very hard during a game.

Swimming is another low-impact activity, with a low risk of injury. It’s also a good workout for many of the major muscles in both your arms and legs.

It Keeps You Mentally Sharp

It’s been suggested by research that aerobic exercise can help to improve your mental, as well as physical, functions.

This means a healthy dose of exercise can keep you on the ball when learning new skills. That includes taking on board new things at work as well as on the court.

This will help your ability to think out situations during a game. If you’re sharp mentally as well as physically, you’ll respond better when under attack or looking to work past your opponents’ defense.

A Varied Workout

Having options keeps you interested in your training. You don’t want to fall prey to mental fatigue after repeating the same activities during each training session.

Because aerobic exercise simply requires that you must have enough oxygen in your system, there are loads of ways to do make the most of its benefits.

This means you won’t get bored doing the same thing every day. This is vital as, in an ideal world, you should be doing this type of exercise between 3 and 4 days a week.

If you repeat the same thing all the time, you can become bored and unmotivated. Or, you stop thinking about what you’re doing, which can result in a nasty injury.

Running, swimming, hiking, and taking part in aerobics classes can all benefit your health. This will ultimately improve your aerobic performance during basketball matches.

Just remember that you’ll need to apply the principle of overload to whatever activity you choose. This is where you make the sessions more challenging so that you make sure you’re always improving, and don’t get stuck in a rut.

Condition Your Body

One type of aerobic exercise is called ‘interval training’. This involves short bursts of working hard, with gaps for recovery in between.

This method of training is particularly effective for basketball players, as it replicates the demands of the court.

One good exercise routine to follow is a set of timed shuttle runs between the ends of your court, followed by a set of direct shots at the hoops, or lay-ups. The shooting section counts as the rest period, as it’s less intensive.

This drill helps to build up aerobic capability and develops your fundamentals at the same time.

Improve Your Game With the Best Gear

Improving your performance with aerobic exercise is important if you want to improve your game.

Don’t forget about strength training though – it does have its place in your holistic workout regime.

You’ll also need the best gear to stay on top. Even an athlete in peak physical condition benefits from having the right kit.

Check out all our reviews of the latest gear and take your game up a notch.