Physical-motor indicators and specific skills of young basketball players after periodization training

abstract Basketball is a team sport with short, high intensity movement patterns and rapid and frequent changes of direction. Strength, agility and speed, in addition to specific technical skills, are essential for basketball athletes to achieve good performance. This study aims to verify the effect of a traditional periodization on physical-motor indicators and on specific technical skills in young basketball players. Nineteen young basketball players (15.4 ± 1.3 years), with at least 12 months of training experience, underwent a 5-month periodization. We assessed two physical-motor indicators (countermovement jump (CMJ) and anaerobic capacity (Line Drill)) and two specific technical skills (Dribbling and Shooting) at the PRE and POST training moments. Paired Student's t test was used to test the effect of training on physical-motor variables and technical skills. We calculated the 95% confidence interval of the average relative gain (Δ%) for each variable and analyzed the effect size through Cohen's d (p≤ 0.05). Significant differences were found between the PRE and POST moments in the CMJ (34.02 vs. 38.64 cm; p <0.001), in the Line-Drill (33.20 vs. 31.73 s; p <0.001), Dribbling (6.95 vs. 6.66 s; p <0.001), and Shooting (15.84 vs. 17.95 pts; p <0.001). Young school-level basketball players submitted to a 5-month training period were able to improve their physical-motor indicators and specific skills.