You play basketball, football, netball, or whatever sport it is. Maybe you just pop in to some pick up games, or maybe you’re a part of a league and practise or play in a game once or twice a week. Regardless, you find yourself not hitting your goals and needing a little extra push outside of your scheduled training sessions. Don’t have expensive training equipment or access to a fancy gym? No problem. Here are some quick easy tips to get you into gear and level up your performance, without even leaving your doorstep.
The best way to stay on your A game is being consistent with simple conditioning exercises. Most of your training sessions on the court or field probably involve more ball handling drills and offense and defense scenarios with your team.
Although it may be a least favourite ‘task’ of yours, you must keep up with your conditioning. It’s one of the most important factors that will help you optimise your performance when it comes to game time. Everything from basic push-ups and sit-ups to squats and jumping jacks will keep your endurance up, strengthen your key muscle groups and prevent the risk of injury. Aside from goals set by your coach, set some personal goals of your own and aim for 100 push-ups a day, for example.
The TeamSportz app is an easy way to keep you on track. It does all of the ‘thinking’ work for you, with its library of conditioning exercises already there for you to select from. You can choose an exercise on the app, set your phone down so it’s facing you, and back up until you fit inside the frame. The cool thing about TeamSportz is that the AI technology detects your body while you’re doing the exercise, so it’s able to capture how fast you’re going, how many reps you’re doing, and if you’re in the correct form. Then, you don’t have to manually input all of the work you just put in! The app saves your stats for you so you’re able to see how well you performed and the progress you make from there.
But remember, consistency is a big ingredient in all of this. Make sure you stay on top of your conditioning exercises. The good news is that TeamSportz has an activity log, so you’re able to check on your calendar and see when and how much you worked out on a given day.
There’s nothing like a little healthy competition with your teammate to keep you in check! Have one or two dedicated workout buddies on your team that will hold you accountable for the exercises you need to complete outside of practices and games. It’s only natural that if you know they are putting in the work and getting their workouts done, that you will too. Maybe it’s you wanting to out beat them or maybe it’s FOMO - I don’t know - but it works!
With TeamSportz, you can stay connected with your teammates, so you’re able to see their workout results. After you complete an exercise on the app, there’s a button enabling you to challenge a teammate. This way you can push yourself a little more and compete against a teammate. And not only that, but the rest of your team will be able to see who’s performing the best, with the app’s Leaderboard feature. There’s nothing quite like being #1 and having bragging rights that you were able to complete the most push-ups in 1 minute, example.
Challenging your teammates can be the most fun part about working out, and it’s great that you can do it right from your home!
We all aren’t the best at everything. Admittedly, maybe you aren’t the fastest player or maybe your upper body strength needs work. The best way to get better and improve in your weak areas is to workout in the comfort of your own home, by yourself, without the fear of judgement from others around you.
When you’re by yourself ready to complete an exercise, step out of your comfort zone and work on something you know you’re not necessarily good at. Start adding heavy weights to your jumping lunges or squats, and you’ll see over time (with consistency) that what was once not your comfort zone is now your new comfort zone -- and that’s where growth happens.
Something obvious but needs to be mentioned is: stretching. It’s a common nuisance and most of us just want to carry on with completing our workout and getting on with the rest of our day.
Dedicate 5 minutes to stretching before and after you workout to reduce muscle fatigue, soreness, and risk of injury.
Some of you may have the mindset of “why practise and go above and beyond if my coach isn’t seeing the work I put in?”. Your coach is there to guide you, see your effort and reward you for it (putting you in the starting line up, for example).
With TeamSportz, all of your training efforts and stats are automatically shared with your coach so he or she can see when and how frequently you’ve trained on your own time, as well as key performance indicators such as speed, accuracy, reaction time, and so on. Stay on top of your training at home with the TeamSportz app, and your hard work won’t go unnoticed by your coach.
