Top 10 Types of Basketball Training Equipment
Basketball is an extremely technical game. Playing a game of basketball not only requires brute athleticism but a mastery of fine motor skills – shooting, passing, dribbling, much more.
To get these aspects of the game down pat, the pros spend hundreds of hours in the gym, doing thousands of reps of different exercises to nail down their form and technique.
Steph Curry – perhaps the best shooter to ever live – shoots 2,000 jumpers a week to master his form. The result is a smooth-as-silk shot that can score from 40 feet away from the basket.
If you want to be as good as Steph, you’ve got to be similarly dedicated, and you’re going to need some basketball training equipment to aid your progress.
The 10 Best Pieces of Basketball Training Equipment
Below are the 10 tools you need in your arsenal to get the most out of your basketball training.
1. Wilson X Connected Smart Basketball
Wilson utilized state-of-the-art technology when designing this basketball. With built-in software, this ball connects to your phone and tracks various statistics during your shooting practice.
The ball can track your field goal percentage and what areas of the court you’re most accurate from. It can also track minute details like the angles of your shots and the rotation of the ball.
You’ll never have to log your shots in a notebook ever again.
2. Dribbling Goggles
A common crutch, especially among new players, is looking down at the ball while you’re dribbling. The mind-ball connection just isn’t there yet.
It’s important to be able to keep your eye off the ball, though, as it frees you up to make passes and shoot the ball more accurately.
These dribbling goggles force the issue by blacking out the bottom half of the goggles, making it impossible for you to look down at the ball.
3. Ball Hog Gloves
Basketball training is all about giving yourself handicaps so that the real thing becomes easier. Like with the goggles, these Ball Hog gloves will make dribbling harder.
These gloves are weighted, with an anti-friction grip, making the ball slippier your hands heavier.
4. Baden SkilCoach Heavy Trainer Basketball
If you struggle to summon the strength to hit those deep three-point shots, this ball is for you.
It’s weighted like a medicine ball to give every muscle involved in your jump shot a workout. Your fingers, wrists forearms, biceps, and legs will all get stronger if you use this ball enough. It’ll make the real thing feel like shooting a tennis ball.
5. Agility Ladder
You need fast footwork to get by defenders in basketball, and an agility ladder is the best tool out there for increasing your foot speed.
There is an unlimited number of exercises you can do with these things, and if you commit enough time to them, you’ll blow by your competition.
6. Speed Vest
A speed vest is somewhat ironically named considering the fact it’ll do nothing but slow you down while you’re wearing it.
The goal of wearing a weighted vest while training is to increase your explosiveness and speed when you take it off by forcing your body to push harder than it’s used to.
If you can run across the court in 10 seconds in a weighted vest, you’ll be able to do it without the west in 5.
7. Training Mask
Increasing your cardiovascular strength and your lung capacity is vital to your basketball performance. If you don’t have the stamina for a full-length game, you’re not going to be of much use.
A training mask aims to improve these areas of your fitness by restricting your airflow, making it harder to breathe, thus increasing your lungs’ and cardiovascular system’s strength.
It’s perfect to wear for any training situation, whether you’re running and going through shooting drills.
Spend enough time with a training mask and you’ll never get winded running a 10-second offense again.
8. SKLZ Kick-Out Ball Returner
Let’s face it, the average person doesn’t have the benefit of running shooting drills with an aid to pass you the ball after a shot. And every second spent chasing down your ball is time you could’ve spent shooting instead.
This SKLZ Ball Return system aims to remedy this problem by creating a funnel you can attach to the bottom of the net that will roll the ball back out to you after a made shot.
It’s adjustable, so you can move the funnel around to any angle so you can take shots from anywhere on the floor. Of course, it doesn’t help with missed shots, but maybe that’ll give you more incentive to make your jumpers.
9. SKLZ D-Man
In a real basketball game, you rarely get a clean look at the basket. This is a hard thing to simulate when practicing alone, but SKLZ comes through again with their D-Man.
It’s simply a mannequin with its hands up that you can use to practice contested layups and jumpers with. This’ll help you make shots with a hand in your face and an obstructed view of the hoop.
The D-Man has adjustable heights so you can perfect the arc on your shot no matter how tall your opponent is.
10. Solo Assist
Certain drills are tough to run on your own without a passer – particularly catch & shoot drills on the three-point line. That’s where the Solo Assist comes in.
It’ essentially a trampoline built specifically for your basketball. All you have to do is set the Assist down, bounce your ball off of it, catch, and shoot.
You can run stationary shooting drills or simulate catching a pass while cutting.
Go Hard In The Gym
You need thousands of hours in the gym to perfect your game.
With some or all of this basketball training equipment, you’ll have no excuse to skip out on a session on the gym. So get in there and go hard. You’ve got no time to waste if you want to catch up with Steph Curry.
If you’d like more tips on how to improve your game check out the training 101 section of our website.