The recently published book “100 žaidimų krepšinio treniruotėms” (“100 Games for Basketball Training”) presents a new and unique set of exercises that will help basketball coaches to make training sessions more interesting.
The book was written by renowned basketball specialists and members of the Lithuanian Sports University (LSU) community.
Ramūnas Butautas, Director of the LSU Centre of Basketball Studies and Research, Rasa Kreivytė, Associate Professor and Basketball Coach of LSU, and Lina Brazdeikytė and Rolandas Radvila, LSU alumni, unanimously agree that the idea to develop a methodological tool for basketball specialists was born because there is lack of such publications.
“There is little material on games as an educational tool. As far as I remember, a book by Stanislovas Stonkus and Vytautas Kuklis “Parengiamieji krepšinio žaidimai” (“Preparatory Basketball Games”) was published in 2001, and it has been used for two decades,” said Rasa Kreivytė, winner of the 1997 European Basketball Championship.
“The book is useful for both beginners and advanced coaches,” she continued. “These games can be used not only in the training of children but also in the training of elite athletes. We try to promote games that develop a common understanding, coordination and orientation in basketball.”
“100 žaidimų krepšinio treniruotėms” consists of 132 pages of classified methodological material on body control games, combination games of various basketball techniques, games for physical fitness training, mental games, and ball control games.
The latter area is the most abundant and is divided into sub-sections, which include games to improve ball passing and catching, dribbling and basketball shots.
Lina Brazdeikytė, 1997 European Champion and member of the FIBA Europe Women’s Commission, has pointed out that the modern generation of young talents is losing their enjoyment of playing basketball.
“While travelling around Lithuania and watching young Lithuanian basketball players, we noticed that children do not enjoy basketball, as every exercise or task for them is as work that needs to be done. As a result, we get hard-working young basketball players in Lithuanian national teams, but they no longer feel the pleasure of playing basketball,” said the Project Manager at Lithuanian Basketball Federation (LKF).
The head coach of the LKF youth teams Rolandas Radvila, who was conferred a master’s degree at Lithuanian Sports University, agrees with his colleague. He says he has been feeling the lack of methodological material for a long time.
“After graduating from university, I lacked teaching material on how to get children interested in agility games. There were practically no resources on this, so we had an idea to present these games to coaches in one publication. It is important to note that these are not just games for basketball players, they can be adapted and used by coaches of all sports,” said R. Radvila.
Ramūnas Butautas, Director of the LSU Centre of Basketball Studies and Research, was pleased with the material presented in the book and emphasized that each coach will be able to adapt the basketball games to their needs, which in turn will encourage their creativity.
“I think that this publication will be useful not only for beginner girls’ and boys’ coaches but also for professional team strategists, who will be able to supplement their training sessions with more than one exercise,” said one of the book’s authors. “This is a set of exercises designed to develop the physical, intellectual and technical characteristics of basketball players. This publication will give trainers an impetus to create their own exercises and use them in their coaching practices.”
The book “100 žaidimų krepšinio treniruotėms” can be purchased at the LSU library (Sporto 6, Kaunas). Although the number of copies is now limited, more copies of the book should appear shortly.
