Proprioception training in basketball

[Bak2ThaBasix]

I’ve recently started assisting the strength and conditioning coach of a local college basketball team, mostly because it’s a completely new area for me. I was reading a paper about proprioception training and it’s impact of sprains in basketball players (link below) and recalled the PNF information that was discussed in the “mobility” blog.

Would it be pointless to implement some proprioception drills into a strength and conditioning routine for off season? I’m not seeing a 2nd tier specificity here but it’s the closest thing to basketball scenarios we can do in the gym. In the paper it specifically mentions strengthening of the peroneal muscle in the foot “adding protective potential during flight”

The conclusion suggests that it has a benefit of reducing injury risk, stability improvements and movement control. So am I giving into silly BS? Seems like a reasonable modality to me.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4750505/

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

If you're asking about incorporating skills practice into the athletes strength and conditioning, then no, I wouldn't advocate for that specifically. I think your role is to improve their strength and conditioning specific to their sport, whereas drills/skills/practice is likely the responsibility of the basketball coaching staff.

As far as the study goes, there were no controls and this is correlating injury rates from new players to more experienced players. We would expect newer individuals to have a higher injury risk than those with more experience with the total work load. While the correlational data is interesting, it doesn't mean much to me in this context.