You’re not the only coach who has struggled to fill the daily practice plan with content. There are many philosophies for creating a practice plan template, but we won’t delve into all of them. Instead, we’ll go over five tips to help you create an effective and positive practice plan.
We’ll show you what a 60-minute practice plan will look like put together using the 5 tips. You can find these drills inside the system and you can create your own practice plan inside FastBreak PlayBook.
Click the image to check out our “Basketball Coach Starter Package”.
Stretching / Warm-Up
This is a simple yet often overlooked objective. Stretching and warming up is critical for preventing injuries and helping your athletes start practicing with the right mindset. We suggest beginning with a drill that the team enjoys, which helps set a positive atmosphere and tone for the practice. Keep them short, around 3-5 min, and even add multiple drills, but don’t spend 30 minutes hammering out the same drills every day.
Post / Guard BreakDown
As a former coach, I’ve always enjoyed this section of practice. Even if you run a 5-out/motion style, there are always guards and posts within that system. Break into two groups and then focus on the offense tailored to those specific roles. For example, guards can work on coming off the wing ball screens, while the bigs can work on setting screens, waiting for the guard, and timing the roll.
The image below shows a Ball Screen Progression Shooting Drill taken from the FastBreak PlayBook coaching tool “Drill” section. It’s a great post/guard breakdown drill. Once you’ve worked on both sides, you can bring them together.
Practice Gamelike Reps
Game-like reps are the closest thing to a real game that you can replicate. They allow your players to get comfortable being challenged on a daily basis.
Live Scrimmages
Similar to game-like reps, this involves putting your drills, post/guard breakdowns and sets together. It doesn’t mean you have to play for an hour, but you should integrate these reps into live play. This builds repetitions along with conditioning. Make it fun and competitive by playing for a reason. There are plenty of 3v3, 4v4, and 5v5 games to mix into your basketball practice plan routines
Free Throws
So many games come down to making free throws. The best practice method for free throws is to shoot them after drills or live play while your players are physically and mentally tired. This is often when they are shot during competition. The worst thing you can do is rush a player during this time, so be cautious about how you incorporate your free throws.
60-Minute Practice Plan Template
Check out the 60-minute Practice Plan Template we’ve created using the above tips. This was created inside the FastBreak PlayBook practice schedule tool and all plays are found inside the “Find A Play” section.
