If the standard court dimensions are 94ft by 50ft, and in 1 mile, there are 5,280 ft. In finding out the number of laps you need to make a mile, the first thing you should be aware of is the entire basketball court’s perimeter. How many laps do you need to run around the entire basketball court to reach a mile?
Now, prepare to do the math as you read further since this article will let you know how many laps you should do to make a mile in different types of court: High School, College, NBA, FIBA/Olympic.
As we all learn in the early years in High School or Secondary level, the perimeter is the total length/distance of a shape. In a basketball court, the form is rectangular in shape. You might probably recall your High school professors telling you that the formula to compute for a rectangle’s perimeter is Length + Width.
So the moment you already know the exact measurement of both sides, the computation goes as follows.
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The Computaion for Laps Per Mile
Perimeter = 2 x Length + 2 x Width (since there are four sides of rectangle, two lengths and two widths).
You can also write the formula as P = 2L +2W
What unit of measurement we need in this context is in feet, so the next step is to convert 1 mile into feet. So:
1 Mile = 5280 feet.
To finally know how many laps you need to make a mile around the court, you divide the 1 mile (5280 feet for that matter) by the perimeter of the rectangle.
Combining our first and second step, the equation will now be:
Laps per mile = 5280/P, or simply put 5280/(2L+2W)
Since we already arrived at our equation, let’s compute how many laps you should do. The standard High School court has a length of 84 feet and 50 feet. We know it is to substitute the given values to the existing equation. It goes like this:
Laps per mile = 5280/(2L+2W)
Laps per mile = 5280/(2×84 + 2×50)
5280/(168+100)
5280/268
= 19.7 laps
Therefore, you need to have 19.7 laps around the court to say that you already ran a mile.
Since the court’s standard dimensions vary, different laps are made depending on how wide the court is. Now, let’s calculate and apply the previous equation to each of the different court types.
Note: US college and NBA courts have the same dimensions.
The Court Dimensions with their Laps Per Mile
There is a standard set of measurements used in basketball courts, depending on the league. Here are the laps per mile computation for a High School, Junior High School, College/NBA, and FIBA/Olympic basketball courts.
Laps Per Mile Around a High School Basketball Court
Length = 84 ft.
Width = 50 ft.
Laps per mile = 5280/(2×84 + 2×50) = 19.7
Laps Per Mile Around a Junior High School Basketball Court
Length = 74 ft.
Width = 42 ft.
Laps per mile = 5280/(2×74 + 2×42) = 23.2
Laps Per Mile Around a College/NBA Basketball Court
Length = 94 ft.
Width = 50 ft.
Laps per mile = 5280/(2×94 + 2×50) = 18.33
Laps Per Mile Around a FIBA/Olympic Basketball Court
Length = 91.9 ft.
Width = 49.2 ft.
Laps per mile = 5280/(2×91.9 + 2×49.2) = 18.6
Conclusion
With prior knowledge of basic Math, you can easily compute the number of laps it will take to run a mile just by using a basketball court. If by any chance an indoor basketball court is installed in your house, just measure the dimensions of the rectangle and follow the steps illustrated above. Knowing how many laps you should do in a court helps determine the accurate number of runs or jogs (or even walk!), which you probably can use as a warm-up routine.
