10 Best Weight Lifting Exercises for Basketball: Dominate the Court

As a parent of a young basketball player, you are likely always searching for ways to give your child an edge. You may wonder if weight training is a good approach, especially to improve things like vertical leap, explosiveness, and overall body strength. Integrating the 10 best weight-lifting exercises for basketball into a training program is a smart strategy for competitive parents of rising youth basketball stars.

These exercises can significantly influence sports performance on the court. But is it safe?

You don't want your child getting hurt. These concerns are completely rational. We'll show you how to safely add weight training for your youth athlete.

• Building a Foundation of Strength for Basketball
  • Why Strength is Crucial for Basketball Players
• 10 Best Weight Lifting Exercises for Basketball
  • 1. Trap Bar Deadlift
  • 2. Romanian Deadlift (RDL)
  • 3. Single-Leg Squats
  • 4. Goblet Squat
  • 5. Lateral Lunge
  • 6. Glute Bridge
  • 7. Bench Press
  • 8. Pullups
  • 9. Medicine Ball Squat to Press
  • 10. Box Jumps
• Designing a Basketball Weight Training Program
  • Sample Basketball Weight Training Weekly Schedule
• Preventing Injuries in Basketball
  • Focusing on Correct Technique
• FAQs about 10 best weight lifting exercises for basketball
  • What weight training is best for basketball?
  • How to lift weights as a basketball player?
  • What is the best type of training for basketball?
  • How to get stronger at basketball?
• Conclusion 

Strength training is important for basketball players. It's not just about lifting heavy weights; it's a way for a basketball player to improve their speed, and power, and improve balance.

For young basketball players, strength training can lead to big improvements on the court. Basketball strength training helps to develop total body strength and helps in preventing injuries.

Developing strength, proper form, and balance gives any player a much bigger chance for improvement. For younger players, this starts to help take things to the next level.

Improving strength is so important to basketball performance. Imagine your child driving to the basket.

Strong legs will give them the explosive power to make a more successful attempt. Hopefully, this play is a scoring success for their team.

Strength training does more than just help on offense; it will help them become a force of defense, as well. Building their upper body strength, helps your young basketball star to block shots and not be dominated. More total body strength helps players develop explosive movements as well.

Picking the right strength exercises is key to seeing results on the court. Integrating total body workouts can make a basketball player stronger. Each of the exercises below helps different muscle groups used most in basketball.

These lifts help basketball players get an edge. The exercises, while familiar, include a basketball-specific focus.

The trap bar deadlift builds lower body strength. This is also great for improving your jump.

This exercise has your youth basketball star improve their chances of dominating inside the paint. This will increase the chance of securing the basketball rebound for the team.

This lift reduces the chance of a strain on the lower back. Make sure the weight is correct when doing this movement and never do a lift that does not feel correct.

The Romanian Deadlift helps build explosive strength. RDL's improve hamstring, glute, and lower back strength for players. This is a great posterior chain exercise to improve jump height and speed on the court.

Proper form helps build this part of the body for players. Make sure to keep your back straight during this exercise.

You'll stand with feet shoulder-width apart, and shift hips back to then lower the dumbbells. Being in a comfortable position to develop this movement pattern helps lead to success in competition.

Single-leg squats improve balance. The focus is on improving overall stability for each leg independently.

This training helps prevent injuries and promotes good muscle balance. It also improves strength to prevent injury on the court.

As you think through this movement maintain the proper form and stability throughout. Players work each leg, making sure they can move correctly to prevent bad patterns. This also addresses potential imbalances they already might have that have gone unnoticed.

The goblet squat strengthens the lower body and core strength. Players develop strength in their legs.

This is needed for basketball-related things such as a dribbling drive or jump higher. Basketball strength training can give an edge, especially during late games when your competition is more tiring.

During this squat make sure the player's weight stays centered during the exercise. Keeping the weight on their heels without lifting their toes improves their basketball game.

Lateral lunges copy the defensive position. Lateral movement will greatly help your rising athlete to do better in competition.

This makes this exercise a good fit for basketball players trying to improve. When doing this exercise make sure that your youth player stays low to make this effective.

Step to the side, then squat on one leg while keeping the other leg straight. Focusing on maintaining the proper basketball form lets players be more agile and play strong.

Glute bridges develop strength, specifically for movements when they jump. When they strengthen muscle groups, like the glute and hamstrings, the basketball player improves jumping ability.

Stronger basketball players will improve at the jump and grab those loose basketballs. The focus needs to be holding a bridge position with a neutral core and aligned pelvis.

This is something that many coaches teach younger basketball athletes. Lie face-up on the floor with bent knees, bridge your hips upwards, and then hold for a few seconds, squeezing your glutes and the posterior chain.

The bench press builds the upper body. Having strength helps for rebounds, shots, or battling with stronger players in a tough game situation.

It helps to strengthen the chest, shoulders, and triceps. Basketball weight training also addresses upper body strength, especially if your young player wants to compete.

Using proper weight and being watched by an adult during the barbell bench makes sure your athlete builds a better basketball body. You'll build up both confidence and a better frame to help a basketball player as they compete at a high level.

Pullups will help improve basketball shots. The all-around movement makes this very helpful.

Pullups also develop the back and arms when getting into this routine for development. A strong and effective jump shot develops when doing proper pull-up movements.

Basketball weight training uses all the muscle groups during gameplay. Grip strength is something else that this can address and improve, too.

Using a medicine ball when training gives a player a way to prepare in a way similar to their movement during play. Improving vertical jump height as well as lower body strength using a medicine ball.

Squat with the medicine ball, then launch up as high as you can. Doing this specific exercise is practical to improve things a basketball player will do.

Throw the medicine ball in the air during the lift to mimic gameplay. This will help increase that burst on offense or even grabbing rebounds on defense.

Box jumps will improve explosive power for jumping and court movements. You improve explosiveness using plyometric exercises like this.

Basketball players work to improve and increase their jump height by using training and exercises like box jumps. Players will jump onto a box, and step down, landing softly.

This exercise makes for a good part of a total basketball strength training workout plan. You develop and work all parts of the muscle chain for this explosiveness.

Creating the proper training program makes sure young players use training and see it result in actual improvements in a basketball game. An effective training program uses the age and experience of a young player to improve basketball strength training.

Adjust exercises based on that information about a player to be certain their body develops the right way for sports success. Weight training helps, but adequate rest is just as important.

Balance with games and training needs time for rest as well to improve performance on game day. Training programs do have scheduled rest time for proper muscle recovery.

A well-thought plan keeps a player from overdoing the training. Look to incorporate balance lunge into the total basketball weight training schedule, also.

The weight work plan below improves both the upper body and lower body. Plus there is adequate rest.

This sample workout is from Major Hoops and incorporates the needed exercises to have a balanced plan to succeed on the court.

Keep an eye on the time required for basketball as they compete in the actual game or team workouts. Being a college athlete could require more than 40 hours a week just from playing the basketball sport.

Having a regular day and schedule to get sleep can improve training. This will allow the athlete to become a much stronger basketball player.

Proper lifting is necessary for a weight program. Safety is the biggest priority for a rising young player. Watch to be certain the younger players don't lift weights too heavy as they mature into an adults.

Weight lifting exercises do come with some chance for problems if you're not aware. Injuries come, even when doing your best.

Training safely helps in the long term. Always have supervision by a trained and certified strength trainer coach as they work and weight train.

Warm up fully before jumping into heavier lifts. You want the body warm to work more on power and endurance as it's getting stretched out, with feet flat on the ground. Warming up well can help decrease injury.

Doing exercises safely also makes it easier to improve as you prepare for competition. Using bad form risks your health.

Start with lighter weight to have the best result and maintain proper control. Learning movements safely while growing, means bigger success in gameplay. You also can use some of the 10 best weight loss apps of 2024 to monitor overall progress.

Focus on overall fitness outside of strength training to stay motivated. Also, focus on proper diet. Proper fuel helps performance like what Demar Derozan did with 5:30 AM training and discipline with focus on his body.

The best approach is a mixture that develops lower and upper body muscles. This will lead to improved vertical leaps, balance on the court, lateral quickness, and stronger defense.

Make sure exercises also emphasize power and endurance, as well. The basketball sport requires explosive movements to be at your best.

This includes core stability exercises like planks.

As a basketball player, form comes first and is even more critical when lifting lighter weights at first. Do core lifts such as squats and deadlifts.

Be sure a trainer or a professional coach provides guidance so they don't have bad habits or form to have bigger problems as time goes along. Building a strong core helps with core stability, which translates to the court.

You also should perform exercises to improve your balance, like a balance lunge. The left leg should be just as strong as the right leg.

The most effective routine involves a variety of training. Weight training, body exercises, and basketball-specific drills make a complete total-body workout plan.

Having a custom training routine from a coach that you see at practice means they understand you and know what your specific improvements will be. Also, you can make things more efficient for yourself by choosing to learn about things like website development.

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Work a custom program around strength, power, and conditioning, combined with a focus on skill, drills, and actual game basketball. All of that makes a basketball player develop better.

Proper form, coaching, a safe place to work out and learn, plus focusing on fuel and diet is so crucial to maximize long-term success, too. These specific exercises are meant to develop strength.

So adding resistance will be crucial as players develop over time. Maintain balance while adding more challenges to your body.

Basketball training helps to prepare the total body. Doing weight work builds and supports actual play on the court, also.

These 10 best weight-lifting exercises for basketball provide more than just a game plan to win, though. Working hard at weights, and being disciplined at the exercises that build the entire frame, also helps shape and create more self-confidence in other parts of your game.

Having power, improving quickness, and developing endurance are something all coaches admire. Using this training helps to get on the court to be competitive and play in the games that really matter.