"Fourth Quarter Legs"

There's 2 minutes to go in the fourth quarter and your opponent is tired and grabbing his shorts while trying to play defense and you recognize it. So you decided to pull a "double move" sending him right while you go left and explode past him heading straight for the rim and finish with a nice dunk.

That is the scenario that some dream of and others actually pull off. The one's that can do it have what I like to call "fourth quarter legs" which simply means that they have the leg endurance to still be able to perform late in the game when the others are tired and trying to hang on to the end and hopefully win.

As a basketball trainer, I am constantly preaching to my players that they must have the ability to have legs that will stay strong for the entire game. They have heard me use the expression "he who has legs at the end wins" and it is true. Just take the example from this year's NBA finals. It was clear that as the series dragged on that the Cavs had lost their legs and were dragging themselves into each game. The only guy on the team with legs left was LeBron, whereas it seemed that the entire Warriors squad had legs for days. At the end, the team that had legs ended up winning it all. Now I bring this up simply because it illustrates how conditioning, especially legs plays a big part in sports especially basketball.

I wrote an article titled "Legs: The Secret Sauce" (Click here to read) and there I outlined the importance of focusing on leg strength and endurance. For me, I had two ACL surgeries so I had to focus on developing endurance and strength in order to keep playing the game I love and some may say obsessed with (guilty as charged and loving it). I am turning 44 soon and I'm still keeping up with the teenagers and twenty something's. In the video above, one of my young twenty something ballers and I just finished a1v1 workout (yea we ran a couple of the infamous 100pt 1v1's, click here to read what that is is). The interesting side effect from focusing on legs is the ability to play these endurance games and still be able to dunk a basketball. I know it's not normal for someone of my age, but hey, as long as I can, I will. The reason I even bring this up is that if I can keep this up, imagine what can happen for those of you who are trying to realize your hoop dreams and are young enough to actually do something about it.

So stop sitting here and reading this article and get yourself in that gym and put in some work. If you need help on how to get started drop me a line or just read some of my previous articles for helpful tools to get you on the road to having "fourth quarter legs".

Stay Forever Strong