Strength training for basketball players: what the trials in basketball players measured, the lifts, and a week around practice

Strength training for basketball means lifting and jumping alongside practice, not instead of it. In the trials below, it's what players added to their normal basketball training. It's built for the game's demands: a 2018 systematic review of 25 studies found that in live playing time across 40-minute matches, men and women covered 5 to 6 km at average intensities above the lactate threshold and 85% of maximal heart rate, and that guards tended to spend more of it sprinting and shuffling at high intensity than forwards and centers.¹ Short sprints, cuts and jumps, over and over.

The clearest test of lifting itself: 45 male players, averaging 22 years old, were split into two strength-training groups and a control group. Both training groups lifted twice a week for eight weeks, with programs fitted to each player, and both showed large improvements in jumping and speed; the control group didn't change. Each group improved most in the direction its program aimed at, vertical or horizontal.² It's a page about what players can add, not a promise about your next game.

What strength, jump and combined training did

Jumps first. A 2022 meta-analysis of 32 studies and 818 basketball players of any age, including players under 18, found plyometric jump training improved jump height, sprint times, change-of-direction times, balance and maximal strength against control groups; some gains were larger in the older players.³ The jump question has its own page: how to jump higher.

Lifting and jumping together. Complex training combines strength exercises and jumps in the same session. A 2025 meta-analysis of seven randomized trials in basketball players aged 8 to 30, about a quarter of them adolescents, found it improved change-of-direction speed and vertical jump against active controls.⁴ In 20 national-level male players doing it twice a week for eight weeks in the off-season, putting the jumps before or after the lifts made no consistent difference to jumping, sprinting or cutting.⁵

One trial set lifting against jumping directly. In 30 elite female players, eight weeks (16 sessions) of plyometric training improved jump height, jump power and sprint time more than resistance training did, and both improved reactive strength against a control group doing standard basketball training.⁶ One trial isn't a rule, so the week below keeps both.

One leg or two. A 2026 meta-analysis of nine randomized trials in 163 male players aged 13 to 21, five of the trials in adolescents, found single-leg training improved single-leg jump height and a cutting test more than two-leg training, while the two did about the same for two-leg jumps, reactive strength and sprints over 5 and 20 m.⁷ Practical reading: do some of each.

The lifts for basketball players

The picks are practical; the cited cells are what the trials tested.

New to the barbell? How to get stronger covers building up to heavy sets, and how much weight to lift covers picking the load.

A week around practice

A practical layout, not a protocol from a trial. Two lifting days match the twice-a-week programs in the strength and complex training trials.^2,5

Keep the heavy legs away from the day before a game. In season, a practical cut is to keep both days but drop a set from each. Cardio and lifting covers the order and the gap between sessions, and the sprint workout covers short sprints off the court.

Basketball strength training at home

Without heavy weights you keep the jump half, the half the 2022 meta-analysis tested.³ A practical home version: split squats and single-leg Romanian deadlifts made harder with a backpack, step-ups on a sturdy chair, calf raises on a step, and jumps, hops and bounds outside. The bodyweight workout lays out a full session, and the home gym workout plan shows what a pair of dumbbells adds.

Common questions

Will lifting slow me down or cost me my jump?

Not in the trials here: the strength-training groups jumped higher and ran faster after eight weeks,² and the complex training meta-analysis found better jumps against active controls.⁴ None of these trials measured shooting.

How many days a week should basketball players lift?

Two: the strength and complex training trials both ran twice a week for eight weeks.^2,5 The 2022 meta-analysis found that how often and how long players trained didn't predict the size of the jump-training effect, though more than two jump sessions a week brought a larger gain in the long jump.³

Lifting or jumping: which matters more?

Do both. Jumps alone improved jumping and sprinting in the 2022 meta-analysis,³ lifting improved jumping and speed in its own trial,² and the two together improved jumping and cutting against active controls.⁴ In the one trial that set them against each other, in elite women, jumping did more for jump height and sprint time than lifting.⁶

Is a basketball workout different from a normal leg day?

The lifts are the same; the extras are jumps and single-leg work, and the timing follows your practice and game days instead of a fixed split.

If you'd rather have the week planned

Two lifting days only help when they land on the right days of a basketball week, and that's a scheduling problem as much as a training one. Coaching here is general strength and fitness coaching, not basketball coaching: your workouts are built around the days you actually have, and a weekly call looks at the week you just had and rebuilds the next one around what's coming. How coaching works explains it, and apply is the first step. Otherwise: add the Monday session to next week, and keep it there for eight weeks.