The Steve Nash bodyweight workout routine is great for improving basketball skills. It’ll challenge your balance and mobility. And you can do it at home, too.
Man, in his prime, Steve Nash was the most athletic player in the NBA. He was constantly exploding past his defenders and dunking on everyone.
Okay, I’m clearly just joking. But Nash was one of the most agile and dexterous players.
When he had the ball in his hands, he moved quickly and skillfully to get open or to find an open teammate and hit him with a pass. But a lot of the time, he had to maneuver (and contort) in high traffic.
His basketball workout definitely helped him do these movements. It built his basketball skills and stamina.
But the thing he did to improve his balance, mobility, and stability was this bodyweight workout (or something similar to it).
It’s a sequence of movements that puts your body in odd positions and forces you to balance yourself.
There are also agility exercises, such as high knees, but with added body twists and such to work out your balance.
It’s a little hard to explain with words, but there’ll be a video below that you can watch.
This bodyweight workout routine was meant for professional soccer players. During the 2020 quarantine, Nash was asked to lead a workout for the Vancouver Whitecaps FC.
They published it online for all of us to follow along.
The Steve Nash Bodyweight Workout
So, here it is:
(Watch the video above to learn the workout.)
Key Notes:
- Watch or skim through the video without doing the workout first. Learn the movements
- Pay attention to Nash and follow his instructions when doing the workout
- Do the exercises slowly and make sure your form is correct
- Pay attention to how your body feels and don’t force anything
- Remember to focus on your balance
- If you get too tired, just pause the video and take a break
- It’s okay to pause it often to learn the correct technique
- If it gets too difficult, just do half of the workout plan
This workout is great for improving your stamina, balance, and stability. I’ve talked about the importance of this before, so if you want, you can click here to read about it.
But as I was saying, this workout will challenge all your stability muscles and your equilibrium.
It’s as much of a physical workout as it is a mental one.
I really like these types of workouts because I find them to be more fun.
Doing the generic bodybuilding exercises is fun too, but bodyweight flows like this are more engaging.
When I do it, it reminds me of what playing sports feels like. You’re constantly moving your body and you have to keep focus at all times too (or else you’ll topple over).
Additionally, there are a lot of benefits to doing bodyweight exercises, which you can read more about here.
Speaking of playing sports, flows like the Steve Nash bodyweight workout are better for improving your basketball skills.
The reason why is because you have to move your body in various ways and in multiple directions. You also have to keep balance while doing so.
When you do generic bodybuilding exercises, you are only moving your body in linear directions (up, down, forward, back).
This is good for strength building, but not necessarily for basketball development.
In addition to that, this workout can be done at home or in a small space. If you watched the video, Nash barely took up any room while doing it. And he was jumping around, moving laterally, and stretching in different poses.
I really believe you can do his entire workout on a single yoga mat (okay, maybe two mats just to be safe).
Final Thoughts
The Steve Nash bodyweight workout will make you move in weird ways.
But it is great for developing your mobility, improving your balance, and increasing your agility –everything you need for moving more efficiently so that you can play basketball better.
So, if you want to be mobile and agile like the legend, start doing this workout.
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P.S. If you’re struggling to improve in basketball, you may be training wrong.
This is why you need to check out my Old Man Game Activity Guide. It’s a convenient training system that will help you work on your fundamentals and conditioning.
Click here to learn more about it.
