The objective of this study was to standardise Raholan Pyrkivä Ry’s youth basketball coaches’ way to perform warm-up before a practice or a game event and add coaches’ and players’ knowledge about the importance of warm-up. The objective of this study was to provide youth basketball coaches and players with a training guide which contains information about the importance of warm-up, as well as concrete warm-up exercises based on the latest research and literature. The training guide is designed for 12- to 18 -year-old girl and boy basketball players.

This thesis consists of two sections: the report designed by means of a literature review and a warm-up training guide. The report handles sport analysis on the game of basketball, information on different sections of warm-up and children’s physical development. The warm-up consists of five different categories which include coordination, mobility, balance, jump and strength exercises. The results suggest that performance can be enhanced and sports injuries reduced with regularly performed warm-up.

In the future it would be interesting to know how frequently the created warm-up training guide is utilised by Raholan Pyrkivä Ry’s coaches. Moreover, it would be useful to study what kind of effects the warm-up routine has on youth players’ performance and sports injuries.