Basketball asks for repeated short sprints with very little recovery, not long steady running. Most kids under about thirteen get all the conditioning they need from playing and training. From fourteen it's worth doing deliberately, with body weight strength and change of direction work, and with enough rest that a growing body isn't quietly being ground down.
Written by Cameron James, founder and head coach at Liddicoat Basketball. Over a decade coaching junior basketball in Melbourne, including at Big V level, and rep teams from Under 12s through to Under 18s.
Last updated September 2026.
Watch a junior game closely and count how long any single effort lasts. Three seconds, maybe four. A sprint back on defence, a slide, a jump, then a walk while the ball goes out. Basketball is a stop and start game, and the thing that separates a fit junior from an unfit one isn't how far they can run, it's how quickly they recover before the next effort.
That matters because the default fitness answer people reach for is a long run. Long slow running does very little for a sport built on repeated short bursts, and it eats time that could be spent on skills. If a family only has three hours a week, I wouldn't spend any of it jogging.
The other half of the demand is direction. A junior changes direction constantly, often off one leg, often while tired and off balance. That's where the real conditioning value sits, and it's also where most of the avoidable injuries come from at this age.
For most kids under about thirteen, playing is the conditioning. A training session, a game and a bit of unstructured running around is plenty of load for a body that's still growing. Adding sessions on top rarely produces a fitter player and quite often produces a tired one.
If a younger child does look off the pace in games, check the obvious things before you build a program. Are they getting enough sleep in Term 4 when it's light until late. Are they playing three sports in the same season. Is the issue actually fitness at all, or are they walking back on defence because nobody has told them not to. That last one is very common and it's a habit problem, not a fitness problem.
From around fourteen, when kids start growing quickly and the game gets more physical, deliberate conditioning starts earning its place. Keep it short and keep it specific. Shuttle runs the length of the key, the painted rectangle in front of the ring, line runs done properly rather than jogged, defensive slides for thirty seconds at a time with equal rest.
Two short sessions a week on top of training is enough. Ten to fifteen minutes each. The aim is a player who is still moving their feet in the last quarter, not a player who can run a long way in a straight line. If a session leaves them too sore to train properly two days later, it was too much and it cost more than it gave.
Parents ask constantly whether weights are safe for teenagers. The strength coaches I've worked with treat sensible resistance training under proper supervision as fine for adolescents, but I'm a coach rather than a strength professional, and if you want a program written for your child that's a conversation for someone who does it for a living.
What I will say is that most juniors have plenty of room to improve before anyone touches a barbell. Push ups, squats, lunges, planks, calf raises and single leg balance work cover almost everything a fourteen year old needs, cost nothing and can be done on a lounge room floor. Landing on one leg without the knee falling inwards is worth more to a junior than anything they'll do on a machine.
The two complaints I hear most from junior players are sore knees just below the kneecap and sore heels. In my experience both turn up most often around the age kids are growing quickly, and both tend to get worse when a kid is playing several sports in the same term with no easy weeks. I'm not a physio and I don't diagnose anything, so anything painful goes to a physio rather than to me.
What I can tell you as a coach is that pain that a child plays through quietly usually turns into weeks off later. Kids hide it because they're worried about losing their spot. Ask directly, and make it clear that saying something early is the thing that keeps them on the court rather than the thing that takes them off it.
The most under rated conditioning tool in junior basketball is a week off. Bodies adapt during recovery, not during the session, and a Victorian junior playing domestic on Saturday, rep during the week and school sport on top of both is getting no recovery at all for months at a time.
Build the season with some air in it. A lighter week every month, a proper break between seasons, and at least one day a week with nothing. A kid who is fresh in September is worth more than one who was fitter in March and is now flat and not enjoying it.
Usually not as a separate thing. At that age playing and training is enough load, and extra sessions tend to produce a tired player rather than a fitter one.
Not really. The game is repeated short efforts with quick recovery, so shuttles, slides and change of direction work transfer far better than steady jogging.
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There are no outside sources on this page. It is written from Cameron's own coaching, from over a decade of junior basketball in Melbourne including rep teams from Under 12s through to Under 18s. Coaching is a matter of judgement, so treat this as one experienced opinion rather than the only way to do it.
This page was last updated September 2026. Think I have this wrong? Tell me.
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