This guy is 6’7” 290 pounds moving like this.

[Kblaze8855]

Swiss shotput champ from the 80s. I could show you a lot of weight training stuff as well, but it just looks like what you would expect. Lifting huge weight and barely seeming to try. Or just ****ing around like







What the human body is capable of through specialized training really is crazy. We hear about todays improved physical training but I get the feeling it’s a tremendous amount of core Work and the focus on flexibility not insane shit like that. There used to be so many stories about what People left their own devices. Had to figure out to get better. Charles Barkley, jumping fences back-and-forth. You can look up some crazy stories about Clyde Drexler developing his hops. Steve Francis has some of those stories as well but far more modern. These days I’m sure it’s more organized and safe but there’s something to be said for going all Rocky montage and seeing what can be done through sheer punishment

[Real Men Wear Green]

Shotput feels like a waste of a great athlete. I know there's no way a European of his day is thinking about the NFL but I wonder if he could have been made a defensive end?

[Kblaze8855]

I remember a couple years ago, Jordan’s trainer Tim Grover complaining that players wouldn’t lift weights anymore or do any kind of heavy workout. It all shifted to flexibility training trying to reduce injury. He was talking about how some of those crazy looking old workouts kept people stronger overall using muscles for more stability during them.

When Kobe came to him He had him doing unusual weight training focusing on the slow downward motion of the bench press(instead of the lift after the bottom) and holding shit at odd angles. Free weight stuff.

He claimed a lot of strength training and explosiveness training was done with rubber bands, and some team facilities didn’t even have free weights.

I have absolutely no evidence to support it but I feel like one of those old style types on some rocky/drago shit






Just wouldn’t break down so easily.

[Kblaze8855]

Shotput feels like a waste of a great athlete. I know there's no way a European of his day is thinking about the NFL but I wonder if he could have been made a defensive end?

i’m sure he could have been something. I don’t know who’s gonna keep him from a rebound either. His second jump would be ****ing ridiculous. But guess what his second sport was….




















Bobsled. He was on the Swiss bobsled team. I don’t know if you remember the movie cool runnings, but they were the team the Jamaicans were trying to emulate. That monster threw rocks and pushed the bobsled for his entire prime.

[Real Men Wear Green]

There have been too many Isaiah Thomas stories. It's not that players of the past were more resistant to injury, it's that they didn't appreciate the fact that when they play the whole season in a sore knee all that praise for being a tough guy won't get them a dime at the negotiating table where they're just damaged goods. Then you factor in how little people care about regular season games and guys won't tough it out anymore. If you had a son in the NBA about to be a free agent with a sore knee ligament but he can still run, would you tell him to play?

[Xiao Yao You]

I remember a couple years ago, Jordan’s trainer Tim Grover complaining that players wouldn’t lift weights anymore or do any kind of heavy workout. It all shifted to flexibility training trying to reduce injury. He was talking about how some of those crazy looking old workouts kept people stronger overall using muscles for more stability during them.

When Kobe came to him He had him doing unusual weight training focusing on the slow downward motion of the bench press(instead of the lift after the bottom) and holding shit at odd angles. Free weight stuff.

He claimed a lot of strength training and explosiveness training was done with rubber bands, and some team facilities didn’t even have free weights.

I have absolutely no evidence to support it but I feel like one of those old style types on some rocky/drago shit






Just wouldn’t break down so easily.

I believe flexibility training is what Gobert did after his early knee sprains. Never happened again. Supposedly he gained two inches on his reach with it too! That's why it would be hard to project him in an earlier era where it would have been all about putting weight on him not strength and flexibility

[Real Men Wear Green]

I believe flexibility training is what Gobert did after his early knee sprains. Never happened again. Supposedly he gained two inches on his reach with it too! That's why it would be hard to project him in an earlier era where it would have been all about putting weight on him not strength and flexibility

Actually it's pretty easy, he would be Mutombo. And world benefit from an eta where it's normal for buffs to have no shooting skill in both ends of the floor, no one would talk about his lack of shooting range and no one would force him to leave the paint.

[Kblaze8855]

I don’t mean toughness as in playing through injury. I mean toughness as in not getting hurt to begin with. Once you hurt, the smarter thing is definitely to be selfish even if we as fans don’t understand. I hate seeing people miss games, but I sure wish somebody listened to Penny when he said his knee hurt and they couldn’t figure out why. Same for Grant Hill. They couldn’t find anything structurally wrong enough and acted like it was just a pain tolerance issue. Next thing you know he nearly dies on the operating table.

It’s not really worth it to play through injury. If it is something you can make worse.

[Xiao Yao You]

Actually it's pretty easy, he would be Mutombo. And world benefit from an eta where it's normal for buffs to have no shooting skill in both ends of the floor, no one would talk about his lack of shooting range and no one would force him to leave the paint.

Maybe. They would have been trying to put weight on him and he would have had knee problems which he sprained at least 4 times early on

[Kblaze8855]

I believe flexibility training is what Gobert did after his early knee sprains. Never happened again. Supposedly he gained two inches on his reach with it too! That's why it would be hard to project him in an earlier era where it would have been all about putting weight on him not strength and flexibility

I’m not against it. Yoga and flexibility training combined with core work was overlooked for decades. No reason you can’t do it all.

[FKAri]

Too big for soccer or tennis. What other options to make money in sports was there in Europe in the 80s? If he was growing up today could earn millions with that body(pause).

[Axe]

Zion could never.

[Xiao Yao You]

Too big for soccer or tennis. What other options to make money in sports was there in Europe in the 80s? If he was growing up today could earn millions with that body(pause).

you make money in track

[FultzNationRISE]

Exclusive photo of his knees today:

[Im Still Ballin]

I think the athletes and strength and conditioning programs were better 20+ years ago. A lot of bullshit has crept in due to social media; trainers have guys doing stupid shit while neglecting the basics. The meat and potatoes of improving an athlete have always been about getting them stronger and then more powerful. High force (maximal strength) and high velocity (power).

- Squats, deadlifts, pullups, presses, and rows in that low rep range with heavy weights to get stronger
- Olympic lifts and plyometrics to develop power production and rate of force development

Basketball is full of pervasive myths about lifting weights. That it will slow them down, stiffen them up, and lead to injury. This just isn't true. If you do strength and conditioning incorrectly, then yeah, it can. But that's the athlete or trainer's fault, not the practice of lifting weights.

I keep hearing about how it'll affect a player's shot. I can't believe we're still hearing this in the 2020s. There have been way too many examples of this not happening.

Karl Malone became a better shooter despite getting bigger as he got older. Dirk got bigger and stronger to become more of a post-up player and his mid-range shot peaked. Embiid is like 60 pounds heavier than he was coming into the league and he's shooting it better than ever. Curry got bigger and stronger; shot largely the same.

I could go on and on. Obviously, it's hard to divorce the lifting of weights from continued experience and shooting as one gets older. However, getting bigger and stronger certainly didn't hurt them. Karl Malone when asked about it said he felt lifting weights made him a better shooter.

Here's a 1987 SI article on the topic:

https://vault.si.com/vault/1987/11/0...der-the-basket

Two seasons ago the Lakers' main force was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who at 39 seemed finally to show his age in L.A.'s 4-1 playoff loss to Houston. He had lost 18 pounds during the season, and yet his body-fat count had reached 11%. Abdul-Jabbar had always believed in conditioning, usually doing yoga exercises for 90 minutes five days a week during the off-season. Kareem frequents the tony Yoga College of India, Beverly Hills branch, under the direction of Bikram Choudhury, the so-called guru to the stars. In the summer of '86 Abdul-Jabbar lifted free weights for the first time, regained 21 pounds, reduced his body fat to 8% and was strong enough last June to handle McHale and Robert Parish.

Choudhury doesn't work in the NBA yet, but Rich Dalatri does—as the strength and conditioning coach of the New Jersey Nets, who were 24-58 last year and played like 97-pound weaklings most of the time. Dalatri was the strength coach at Mississippi before he was hired last June by the Nets. He has developed a six-point program for them that involves weightlifting; flexibility, agility, and jumping drills; anaerobic and aerobic conditioning; and restorative measures, including whirlpools and saunas. "In football," he says, "the emphasis is on maximum strength. In basketball, it's on functional strength. The whole game comes through your legs. We train the neuromuscular system to make the muscles fire more quickly and explosively. Football players know they have to do weightlifting. Basketball players are such great athletes that they have been able to get by just on natural ability...but now players are getting so big and strong—like Barkley and Oakley—that they realize they have to get stronger in order to compete."

"I don't know why it didn't happen before," says Nets center Mike Gminski. "I've always felt that the East Europeans and Soviets were so ahead of us as far as training athletes is concerned. The NBA owners invest so much in us, it seems stupid not to hire a strength coach and trainer to work with us."

Denver center Wayne Cooper backs that theory. "I'm in the best condition of my career," he says. Part of the reason is Dr. Marvin Clein, who was hired last spring by the Nuggets as training and conditioning coordinator. Clein set up voluntary programs for the Nuggets, and Cooper participated because his rebounding and shot-blocking averages dropped last season, partly, he felt, because he wasn't in the best condition.

Denver's program is similar to the Nets' and includes weight training and agility and speed drills. The Nuggets also brought in a diet specialist to advise the players. "I feel stronger, I have so much more life and explosiveness in my legs," says the 6'10" Cooper, whose weight has dropped from 256 pounds to 222 since April.

Clein says he will test players during the season to see if their conditioning has slipped, even though he has had some success already: He says he has seen a 50% increase in strength in some of the Nuggets; all the veterans were in his program.

A lot of basketball coaches used to be squeamish about weightlifting, fearing it would hurt a player's shooting touch. But the results of some strength tests conducted about a decade ago have greatly eliminated these fears. The tests revealed that some NBA players lost as much as one third of their power during a season. "That old taboo [about weight training] is out the window," says Ramsay. "I think everybody understands now that stronger is better."