Fall Update

Training for basketball with the Destroyers is a year long commitment. The point of the Destroyers program is to build an elite team of basketball players by the time our current 6th graders reach high school. One elite well trained nationally competing team in four more years is my goal. That is it. To that end FADS is doing skills and drills YEAR round.

Our players need to make the same commitment anything less is not fair to the team. We will focus on organized individual skill development for each girl, not on playing a ton of games.

FADS will charge just enough to cover insurance, equipment, gym rentals as needed and such. League and tournament fees will always be split evenly between whomever is playing.

The fall is pre-season, which will encompass approximately 10 weeks of training now until the start of formal Travel practices. Our pre-season training this year starts next week on August 20 and will continue twice a week (most Tuesdays and Thursdays) until the middle of November.

I understand that most of our players do multiple sports. That is a good thing. Please make at least one session of basketball per week. You are my core group.

Your daughters will be with me until they quit the Destroyers or graduate high school. I can only consider girls who are willing to work on basketball year round.

The objectives for the pre season program are:
• Prepare the team for full court player to player defense with help and trapping
• Improve everyone's understanding of the Read and React Offense.
• Improve everyone's shooting percentage.
• Improve sport specific conditioning.
• Improve sport specific speed, agility and strength.
• Improve core body strength.
• Improve team chemistry.

Defense will be stressed, taught, drilled and practiced while I am expanding and sharpening our understanding of the offense.

We will teach and or refresh everyone's understand of the Hoover Pro Shot System. Shooting game shots from game spots at game speed will be part of every workout. I am working on getting a Hoover shooting coach back on Thursday 9/5 to do more advance stuff with the girls. Before then all our girls will be introduced to The System and should be ready for the next level from Hoover.

We will add jumping rope and homework to our conditioning using the Tabata principle. A Tabata workout consists of 20 seconds of maximum intensity exercise, followed by 10 seconds of rest, repeated without pause 8 times for a total of four minutes.

Every one can find 4 minutes a day to condition. The Tabata workouts, designed by Dr. Izumi Tabata and a team of researchers from the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo, are specific to basketball. Basketball is an interval based sport with quick bursts of sprints and stops.

When I am doing equal playing time, the game is broken down into approximately 8 4-minute segments. The conditioning goal is for the players to be able to go all out for their entire 4 minute shift.

A third of every workout will include sport specific speed, agility, core strength and total body strength using the girls body weight to build functional basketball power. Our girls have to get stronger. We spent much time getting pushed around this summer. The girls will have daily strength homework along with the conditioning home work.

To build team chemistry we will do things together away from the basketball court. I am looking for ideas for fun outings, fund raising and community service. I would like to do more things such as the Summer Bash where the girls ran wild on the Tot Lot, played pick up soccer and got to know each other. The 3 on 3 tournament was also a useful team builder for the kids as well as the parents.

It does not look like the Boston Warriors will let us into their boys league. We will do a tournament or two in late October or early November. I will also set up scrimmages with boys and other teams.

Robin