The Conditioning Connection

Performance & Practice Design

“Train the way you play—and you’ll play the way you train.”

Smarter Conditioning Starts with Smarter Practice

I’m a big believer in long-term success—as a coach, an athlete, and a person.

But the challenge isn’t always about building capacity for the long haul. Sometimes, it’s about maximizing performance right now.

One of the most effective ways to do that?
Blending conditioning with skill development.

When done right, this approach sharpens technical ability and improves fitness—so athletes fatigue less, recover faster, and execute better, longer.

The Research Meets Real-World Coaching

Former Iceland National Basketball Team Coach Helgi Gudfinnsson has done extensive research on this exact concept.
He’s one of the best at bridging science and coaching—finding ways to integrate conditioning into practice, instead of separating the two.

The result?
Athletes build sport-specific capacity without sacrificing skill or movement quality.

In our conversation, Coach Helgi shared the key questions every coach should ask when designing training sessions:

• What do different positions or roles require?

• How much general conditioning vs. sport-specific work is needed?

• What are the most common movement patterns in your sport—acceleration, deceleration, change of direction, or multi-planar transitions?

• How long should drills last? What should work-to-rest ratios look like?

The Key Insight: Explosiveness Over Endurance

Across nearly every sport, the research says the same thing:

Success relies on repeated explosive efforts—not steady-state conditioning.

Think about it—

• A forward sprinting onto a pass.

• A guard exploding out of a cut.

• A midfielder recovering after covering ground.

None of these happen at a jog.
They’re short, reactive, and frequent.

That’s how the game is played—so that’s how conditioning should be trained.

How to Apply It

In-Season:
Focus on sport-specific movement drills that mimic competitive demands—short bursts, directional changes, and reactive decisions.

Off-Season:
Blend energy system work with technical skill, position-specific movement, and recovery development.

This layered approach builds not just fitness, but decision-making under fatigue—arguably the biggest factor in consistent, late-game performance.

Final Thought

If maximizing your athletes’ game-readiness is your goal, start here.

Rethink your conditioning.
Integrate it into practice.
And focus on the moments that matter most—when fatigue sets in, and decisions decide outcomes.

Train smarter.
Build better athletes.
Own the moments that matter.

— Coach Shelby and The Shelby Trained Team