Ethan Khoza runs a ball-handling workout to loosen up your dribbling and add hip rotation so you can be shifty off the dribble. The session uses a ball-knee string cue to train hip rotation, lane switches, and crawl-start progressions that chain moves together at speed.
Chapters
If you can't move well with the ball in your hand, then you're not going to be a good ball handler, you're not going to be a good scorer. It's going to be very difficult for you to do anything with the ball. What your hands do is only a small part of being a ball handler or being an offensive player in general. It's really important that you can move well. A lot of players are really stiff with the ball. They're not able to be shifty at all. So in this workout, we're going to go through some ways. You can become less stiff with the ball in your hands. You can move better and become shiftier so that you can be more effective creating for yourself off the dribble. Let's get into it. So we're going to start up here with a relaxed freestyle. A big problem a lot of players have who play too stiff is that they can't handle the ball when they're relaxed. And then they get to a game and not everything's 100% and they struggle to be able to move at all. So right here, you're just going to start baseline. We'll go forward with it. You're just nice and relaxed. About 20% can go north, south, east, west, but we're just relaxed with the ball in our hands right here. Getting comfortable playing at this pace when we need to. Now we're going to get into a backwards freestyle. I'm just going from baseline back, going backwards the entire time here again, I want to mix up my pace. So sometimes I'm relaxed, sometimes I'm super explosive. Getting north, south, getting east, west. I can change up my direction with everything as well. Here, here we're going to get to our shiftiness series. A big part of being able to move is being able to rotate your hips internally. This is where a lot of players struggle and why a lot of players play super stiff. So being able to get to angles where I can get myself there require that internal rotation of that hip. So that's what we're going to focus on to start here. So first thing we're going to do is get nice and wide. I'm going to have the ball start just on the ground here, and I'm kind of rolling it back and forth. So I'm getting myself there. It's getting right across with it. And I'm focusing on really getting that knee in there because I'm turning that hip and sinking down into that there. It's back and forth, flipping those hips, getting that Rotation right there. As I reach across to get that ball, we're going to continue to work on being able to rotate that hip internally. You're going to imagine right here like this ball and your knee are attached with a string. So you're going to start off with this ball dribbling with that right when you go between that ball is pulling your knee into that internal rotation position. We're working on going across there and we're able to get that little bit of that rotation there. Now you're going to mix it up. So same idea. That ball is attached to that knee, but now you can go with any sort of change of hand move. So I can be here and now I've got that there my chain get again to that between if I want it, can get to that behind if I want it. But I'm mixing up exactly what I'm doing with that chain. And now we're just gonna get to that hip flip freestyle. So I can do whatever I want with the ball, but I'm really focusing on flipping those hips and really sinking into that rot wherever. And now we're gonna go the full shift he this freestyle. So I can be up mixing it up, whatever, but thinking about getting myself to those shifty change of hands, really feeling that translate from that stationary. So right here we're going with our lane switch double freestyle here. All that I'm doing is at a lane line getting myself some sort of double. That's going to shift me that way, but then pull me across that opposite lane line. So I'm starting myself here. I may get there with it, kind of relax myself, get myself across. So now we're going to work on our ability to string moves together, especially at a high speed. This is where a lot of times where players struggle if they lack the ability to move with the ball or if they're really stiff. So how we're going to start this is in a crawl start, which basically just means I'm going to be down like this with the ball. For now, I'm just going to go to half court. I have my initial dribble when I get out of my crawl and then I only get moves going forward, so I only get any sort of change of hand. So crossover between behind or spin move. But I'm trying to string that all together and I'm thinking about getting from baseline to half court as fast as possible, but going the same speed the whole time. So I'm trying to go 100% speed, but I don't want any sort of breaks in that. So starting with my crawl here, I want to kind of fall forward into it as an initial dribble. And when you push yourself with this, you're going to lose the ball a lot. That's an important part of getting better. So starting myself low now we're going to go same thing. But I don't get that initial dribble. I have to go right to between the legs out of my crawl start. So I'm starting here. My first dribble is going to be between the legs and then it's all moves to half court. Like I said, handling the ball is not just about what your hands do, but it's equally or even more important that you can move and the rest of your body is in sync with what your hands are doing. And when you can do that, you become way harder to guard and you have true freedom on the court. If you guys enjoyed this workout, make sure you click the top link in the description below. Let's get my free Leap from a Score workout that'll help get you guys right with all this stuff and help take your game to the next level. If you enjoy, make sure you drop a like. And if you're new, subscribe. Talk to you guys soon. Peace.
