Quickness is critical to being effective in basketball. Whether it is on offense or defense, being quicker than your opponent will always be helpful. Because basketball is already a very demanding sport physically, finding lower impact ways to improve your quickness is a hack that every basketball player and coach should be considering. This is why stairs are a powerful and very underrated training tool. In this guide you will learn how to use stairs to help elevate your quickness on the basketball court.

Why Quickness Is Essential in Basketball

Basketball consists of many accelerations and decelerations, which is why first step explosion is a critical component of basketball specific quickness and athleticism. Because the game of basketball does not only rely on straight line speed, the ability to change direction efficiently and effectively over the course of an entire game and across an entire season sets apart players that are elite from those that are not. Furthermore, on defense, lateral movement ability and quickness is key to defending at a high level and arguably one of the keys to becoming an elite level defender. In fact, if you are trying to step up your game and become a better player, improving your ability to guard any player on the court is a simple way to earn you more minutes.

Benefits of Stair Drills for Basketball Players

Stair drills are great for improving quickness because they improve explosive power in your legs. Although most drills on stairs are linear, this does not solely improve linear explosive power. It will also transfer to lateral movements. Stair drills also improve foot speed and coordination, while enhancing your conditioning and endurance, depending on how you do them. Last, but not least, stairs are great because they require no equipment and when done correctly they can provide a lower impact solution for improving quickness and explosive ability.

How to Safely Perform Stair Drills

It is critical that every training session begins with a proper warm up. A proper warm up, at the very least, should always include a few rounds of slower speed movements to increase the temperature of the muscles, tendons, and joints of the body. Additionally there should be a gradual progression from lower intensity exercises to higher intensity exercises and always have enough rest in between so as to not incur any unwanted fatigue. As with any exercise proper form and technique is also critical. In the case of stair drills it is important that you are focusing on being under control of your body with all repetitions and exercises, even when emphasizing power and covering distance with speed. This means focusing on pushing yourself on the way up the stairs and taking your time to come down the stairs as the descent should always be a walk to both recover and minimize risk of injury.

Common Mistakes of Stair Drills

Some of the common mistakes of stair drills is to focus on covering too many stairs at a time or not allowing for enough rest between sets. The quality here is explosiveness, and thus if you are slowing down within a set or over sets, you are likely trying to do too much too soon. When getting started be sure to take your time with each drill. Focus on the technique and control of your body rather than the speed. Only once you feel comfortable with the technique and landing on each stair that is required in the specific way the drill specifies should you increase your speed. You are likely to catch an edge at least once or twice, and if you are moving under control it will be easy to recover and you will not fall. If you are not moving under control you are creating a risky situation, so always prioritize control and technique over speed!

Top Stair Quickness Drills for Basketball

Below are five stair drills and progressions that will help you get started. Read the descriptions and instructions carefully and always refer to the video examples for the best results.

Drill #1: Single Step March with Pause

The Single Step March is the foundational drill of this series. It is great for all levels and especially for warmups. The focus of this drill is to improve acceleration mechanics by focusing on finding an acceleration shape, improving foot contact, shin angles, and the connection between your arms and legs. Do not rush through this drill. You should move from one step to the next with intent, speed and crisp movement, but you should not rush to the top of the staircase. The pause between each step helps ensure that you are finding a balanced position between each step before proceeding to the next step.

How to Perform the Single Step Acceleration with Pause

1. Start by standing balanced on your left leg in front of the staircase. Your right leg should be in the air with the foot of that leg about 6 inches above the next stair. Your left elbow should be in front of you and your right arm would be slightly behind you as seen in the video.
2. Drive your right foot down into the next step and use your right hip to drive your left knee up so that it is in the same position that your right leg was to start.
3. Emphasize contacting the stairs with the balls of your feet while your ankle is in a dorsiflexed position, which means your ankle and ball of the foot should be at approximately the same height on contact with the stair. This would be opposite to contacting the stairs on your toes where your heel is above the ball of your foot on contact.
4. Make sure that your arms are involved in the action and are helping to generate propulsion. Your hands should alternate between almost touching your chin and down behind your hip like you are throwing sand on the ground behind out. Make sure to feel how your arm movement is in rhythm with your legs.
5. Find balance on each step before advancing to the next step. If it helps, imagine being so still on each stair that you could be mistaken for a stone statue before moving to the next stair.
6. Repeat for about 10-20 stairs or when your technique breaks down or your balance decreases due to fatigue. Walk back down the stairs and repeat.

Single Step March Progression

The progression of the Single Step March with Pause would be to remove the pause at each stair or to only pause occasionally on every odd numbered stair. This could be on every 3rd, 5th or 7th stair. Pausing on an odd number stair ensures that you will pause on alternating legs and train both sides equally.

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Drill #2: Two Step March

The Two Step March is the same as the Single Step March except instead of contacting every stair you will skip a stair which will force you to increase your stride and require you to create more power and projection. This drill is especially useful for athletes that may move their feet quickly, but do not seem to cover as much distance as they should on each step when accelerating.

How to Perform the the Two Step March

l are the exact same as the Single Step March. This drill will just require a little more effort and intent to cover the distance necessary. Please see the How to Perform the Single Step March section above.

Drill #3: Single Step Ankling

The Single Step Ankling drill is meant to take the form and technique of the Single Step March and Two Step March and increase the speed. The Single Step March and Two Step March both have long ground contact times. Ground contact time is how long your foot is touching the ground and how long you have to produce force. The sport of basketball requires short ground contact times and the ability to produce force quickly. Thus, Single Step Ankling helps to improve ground contact time and rate of force development while maintaining the acceleration mechanics from the previous drills.

How to Perform the Single Step Ankling

1. As you did in the Single Step and Two Step March, focus on contacting each stair with the ball of your foot and use your arms to help generate propulsion.
2. Contact on foot on each stair as you drive yourself up the staircase.
3. Drive your ball of the foot down and back, attacking each step, which should lead to feeling your center of mass, or belly button, projecting vertically on each step.
4. Find a balance between minimizing the time your foot is in contact with each stair while also creating propulsion from your lower leg which in turn drives the opposite knee up. If you spend too little time on the stair and focus on getting to the top of the staircase as fast as possible this drill will not transfer as well you your first step quickness and acceleration ability. See the video of an example of finding a good balance between ground contact time on each stair, attacking the ground, and moving up the stairs with some speed, but not focusing on getting to the top as fast as possible.

Drill #4: Two Step Acceleration

The Two Step Acceleration takes everything you have been working on up until now and puts it all together. This drill is where you really begin to focus on moving your body faster up the staircase.

How to Perform the Two Step Acceleration

1. Using the technique and cues from the drills above contact each stair with the ball of your foot and use your arms to help you propel yourself up the stairs.
2. Let your arms and legs drive you to the top of the staircase.
3. Aim to get to the top of the staircase as possible
4. You should feel like you can maintain the same tempo, or step rate through the whole stair case. If you begin to slow down then you may be trying to cover too many stairs and are working more on endurance and less on quickness.

Multiple Step Acceleration Progression

The progression of the Two Step Acceleration would be to skip more than one stair between steps. This number of stairs you skip will depend on the width of each stair. If the stairs are shallow then you may be able to skip more than two stairs, but if the stairs are deeper then you might need to stick to skipping only one or two steps. This will also depend on how long your legs are or how tall you are. For the sake of this drill you should never feel like you are reaching for the next stair with your leading leg. This will increase the amount of time you are on the stair before you project to the next stair and will prevent you from being quicker. An easy way to make sure you are not slowing down is to time yourself when you skip one, two, or more stairs. Whichever amount of stairs being skipped turns out to be your best time is likely the ideal amount of stairs to skip to improve your quickness.

Drill #4: Single Step Lateral Drive

The Single Step Lateral Drive is very similar to the single step Acceleration, except that it is focused around a lateral vector and meant to improve your ability to accelerate quickly in a lateral direction. This specific drill has great application to defending and helps create first step lateral quickness and will help you move laterally to best defend or beat your opponent.

How to Perform the Single Step Lateral Drive

1. With your ankle, knees, and hips flexed, get into an athletic position. Make sure your shoulders are stacked on top of your knees and the balls of your feet.
2. Focus on feeling the whole base of each of your feet in contact with the ground with slightly more pressure on the balls of your feet.
3. Use the leg closest to the bottom of the staircase to drive your body up to the next stair.
4. Find the same balanced position on two legs as quickly as possible. Aim to look as still and balanced as a statue before advancing to the next stair.
5. Repeat the action
6. Walk back down the stairs and repeat

Multiple Step Lateral Drive Progression

The progression of the Single Step Lateral Drive would be to skip one or more stairs between steps. This number of stairs you skip will depend on the width of each stair. If the stairs are shallow then you may be able to skip more than two stairs, but if the stairs are deeper then you might need to stick to skipping only one or two steps.This will also depend on how long your legs are or how tall you are. You should never feel like you are reaching for the next stair with your leading leg. This will increase the amount of time you are on the stair before you project to the next stair and will prevent you from being quicker. An easy way to make sure you are not slowing down is to time yourself when you skip one, two, or more stairs. Whichever amount of stairs being skipped turns out to be your best time is likely the ideal amount of stairs to skip to improve your quickness.

Drill #5: Single Step Two Foot Hop

The Single Step Two Foot Hop is great for developing how quickly you can jump and it can especially enhance your second jump ability. However, it is also great for developing quickness because it is based around creating a lot of force quickly. This is critical to quickness because how quick you are is related directly to how fast you can create force to start, stop and change direction.

How to Perform the Single Step Two Foot Hop

1. This drill should be performed on two legs at all times and the focus of contact on each stair is still the balls of your feet.
2. Focus on finding a rhythm that allows you to spend a short amount of time on each stair while maximizing jump height as well. You should be spending more time in the air than on the stairs for this drill and you should aim to feel and look like a bouncy ball.
3. Keep your arms bent around 90 degrees and swing at your shoulder to help minimize the time you are on the ground and maximize the time you are in the air. Your arms should feel like they are helping you direct momentum from each landing into each following hop.
4. As with the other drills, focus on control of your body before increasing jump height or how fast you are covering the distance of the stairs.
5. Once you get the hang of this you should feel like you are able to use the momentum from each previous hop to help generate more quickness from the following hop, at least for the first 3-5 hops.

This drill has numerous explosive benefits. It not only helps improve the ability of your muscle to produce force to increase quickness, but it also helps improve your stretch shortening cycle efficiency. The stretch shortening cycle is how the body cycles between the lengthening of muscles and tendons into shortening of muscles and tendons, or in other words, the ability to use the momentum from landing to enhance the next jump.

As you become more comfortable with this drill you can advance to covering two or possibly even three stairs in each hop. Be sure to maintain control and don’t allow yourself to ever feel like you are getting stuck on a stair. This means that the drill has changed to a jump and is less effective at improving your quickness and second jump.

Tips to Maximize Your Quickness Gains

The most critical aspect of any drill is the consistency of its application. In order to get the most out of each of these drills, be consistent with implementing them in your training. It is also very important that you are constantly progressing each exercise appropriately. This doesn't mean you have to progress every time you do the drill. Just make sure that you are slowly progressing each week. A slow and steady progression over time is always better than forcing too much progression in a short period of time. In the case of most of these drills you can always focus on balance and control first. Ask yourself - are you under control, and could you stop at any moment of the drill if required to?  

Secondly, always be sure you rest between sets so that you can complete each of these drills with good technique. Remember these drills are for improving quickness and speed, not endurance. So you are not focused on getting your heart rate up or feeling like you are getting a good workout from sweating and breathing hard. Rather focus on tracking your improvement by using the time it takes to cover a set of stairs. If it takes longer than 15 seconds to cover any stairs with full intent (not while you are working on balance, control, and technique) then the staircase is likely too long.

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The Takeaway on Stair-Based Quickness Drills for Basketball

Stair drills are great supplementary drills for basketball players. Especially those who want to improve their quickness. They are also great because they are relatively lower impact as compared to basketball drills and other plyometric drills. Remember that it is only with consistent and quality practice that your quickness will improve. By focusing on technique, balance, and control before focusing on speed or power you are more likely to see the best improvements and last but not least always track your progress by measuring how long it takes to complete drills where applicable. If you are progressing, great, keep doing what you are doing. If not, try to see from the instruction below what you might be missing or it might be time to transition to new training drills.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Below are some frequently asked questions related to this post. If you have any questions be sure you ask and we will do our best to respond to commonly asked questions!

How often should I do stair drills for basketball?

Even just 1 or 2 sessions a week of stair drills can be useful. It should not be the main focus of your training, but it should be consistent even just for a part of your training year. For example, it would be great for early or late off-season training and doing them consistently 1-2 times per week for at least 4-6 weeks is a great place to start.