I am excited, honored, and thankful to be a part of Elite Hoops Basketball and look forward to contributing my blog each week. The goal of my blog is simple; to inspire, to motivate, to influence and to help anyone who is passionate about basketball (and training).

I have been a professional basketball strength & conditioning coach for past 10 years and have been fortunate enough to work with some of the best players and coaches in the world. Every week I will share these experiences, along with my thoughts, in this blog.
By definition, my job is to get players of all ages and levels faster, stronger, quicker, more explosive, and in great basketball shape. This will reduce the occurrence of injury and improve performance on the court thus allowing you to be the best player you can be.

Whether you are a college player, a high school coach, or a caring parent, I am confident my blog will be of value. If you like what you read, please check back at the beginning of each week as well as share my blog with anyone you think would benefit from it.
In addition to normal updates, tidbits, and quality behind the scenes insight into the practices, workouts and game plans of the nation’s top players and coaches and teams (like Montrose Christian, currently ranked in the Top 10 in the nation), I plan on really sinking my teeth into deeper topics like leadership, communication, toughness, and competitiveness.

I very much welcome any thoughts, ideas, or questions you have regarding my weekly blog, especially if you have an applicable topic you want to see covered in the future. Just drop me an email at Alan@StrongerTeam.com and I will do my best to integrate in.

Train hard. Train smart.

Alan Stein
www.StrongerTeam.com
www.Twitter.com/AlanStein

Alan Stein is the owner of Stronger Team and the Head Strength & Conditioning coach for the nationally renowned, Nike Elite Montrose Christian Mustangs boy’s basketball program. Alan brings a wealth of valuable experience to his training arsenal after years of extensive work with elite high school, college, and NBA players.
His passion, enthusiasm, and innovative training techniques make him one of the nation’s leading experts on productive training for basketball players. Alan is a performance consultant for Nike Basketball as well heavily involved with Nike SPARQ Basketball. He is the head conditioning coach for the annual McDonald’s All American game, the Jordan Brand All American Classic, and the Nike Summer Skills Academies. Alan is a Camp Coach at the prestigious NBA Player’s Association’s Top 100 Camp as well as the Chris Paul CP3 Elite Backcourt Camp. Alan has filmed over a dozen DVD’s on improving performance and is a sought after lecturer at basketball camps and clinics across the world. He has been featured in Winning Hoops, Time Out, Dime, SI.com, SLAMonline.com, American Basketball Quarterly, Stack, Men’s Health, HOOP, and FIBA Assist Magazine.

The Belmont Abbey College men’s basketball program is a week away from opening our season with an exhibition game versus the defending national champion UNC Tarheels. What a tremendous opportunity! Our student-athletes relish and enjoy difficult challenges such as this one – playing on the road against top-notch competition, in this case the best in the land. Not only will this contest provide an opportunity to strive to achieve competitive greatness – to be at our best when our best is needed. Playing in a game like this against an opponent who can expose our weaknesses also will help us prepare for the upcoming season – and especially for play in the Conference Carolinas. We are excited to represent Belmont Abbey College and to bring wider attention to our men’s basketball program as well.

Steve Miss, Head Coach-Belmont Abbey College

Elite Hoops announced today that their North Carolina Fall Basketball Skills Clinic will be held at Olympic High School in Charlotte. The clinic will be held on Saturday November 7, 2009. Boys and girls in grades 3-8 are invited to register as there a limited number of spots available. The clinic will run from 9:00am-12:00pm. Players will work on many of the same training drills that are taught at the NIKE Skills Academy Camps such as ballhandling, passing, perimeter moves, and shooting form. This will be a great way to prepare for upcoming basketball teams and leagues. All Elite Hoops clinics, camps and training events maintain a 8:1 player to coach ratio. This clinic will be staffed with Elite Hoops coaches as well as local coaches from the Savannah metro area. The cost of the clinic is $50. For more information, visit www.EliteHoopsBasketball.com or call 678-468-4169. To see the full press release click HERE

2009-2010 NCAA Men's Basketball has begun! Friday at 5pm was our first practice. Its been a long summer and preseason. The Italy trip being the highlight! Through all the weight lifting, individual workouts with the coaches and conditioning tests, I think I have improved my game. I'm in the best preseason shape that Ive been in since I started college. I'm ready to get this season started. Its going to be a big season for Butler Basketball. We have a tough schedule and we will be highly exposed this year. We are in the preseason top 25 and we possibly have the most talented team in Butler history. Two of our players were nominated for the Naismith award. This weekend we have our Blue and White intrasquad scrimmage and in two weeks we have our first exhibition game. The season will be here very soon.

I'm anxious to see what role I will be playing this year on the team. I would like to play more of the power forward position so that I can face up more and shoot from the outside more. We have an incoming freshman that is six foot eleven inches and we of course have our starting center Matt Howard, so hopefully they will take the center position and I can play more power forward. This season will be very tough because we will have a "target on our back" the whole season. Because we are ranked and so highly exposed, every team we play will want to beat us even more. I look forward to the challenge!