bill starr vs nba

[msingh]

Was reading the latest bill starr article over several days on the train, enjoying the insights of a man who has much wisdom to share. He mentions how sports coaches and experts have athletes doing watered down strength programs and how this is disadvantageous to performance. that the weights room should be the hardest thing in the training of the athlete. Very interesting.

So i went and looked up some typical nba workouts and this is what i saw

http://www.nba.com/features/workout_clippers.html
http://www.nba.com/features/workout_kings.html

basically they do 3 sets of 10 per exercise, and avoid using the barbell. machines are encouraged and that's how the fittest most capable athletes in the world strength train.

now i know all you chucklely mark rippetoe fans will find this funny and say, why not just do squats, etc, but can someone seriously explain how this situation came about and why it persists, if as bill says, that there has been a return to proper barbell based strength training among athletes.

[msingh]

"We use less weight and more repetitions to keep him from getting too bulky. If you want to get him bigger, then you go on heavier weights, lower reps."

Interesting, so there might be design to the madness after all. I was reading how kobe bryant dropped 9kg (most of it muscle) for performance reasons in 2007.

[Mr.City]

Holy fucking shit. Form check on a leg press? Less weight to keep the players from getting bulky? Jesus, do any of them even know how the human body responds to resistance training?

For the record, Msingh, this is the norm for athletic training. Find me a basketball team that squats and has lost to these guys.

[msingh]

ha, mrcity, those quotes are gold. i wonder if this is how they train in europe too? can't imagine russians putting down the barbell to do some lat pulldowns? but i'm probably wrong..


"In the post, your success is obviously dependent on your legs. If you don't maintain and build strength in your lower body and core (abdominal area), it makes life in the paint much more difficult."

[stronger]

as bill says, that there has been a return to proper barbell based strength training among athletes.

Has he said this? I read the article as saying there ought to be a return to barbell based programs. Perhaps it is occurring in some sports and by some teams, but the two examples you posted are evidence that it is indeed not ubiquitous.

And the idea that preforming a 160lb bench press 3x10 is better than a 275x5x5
because it somehow does not make you bulky (bbers use higher reps) is interesting.

Plus, you don't magically become bulky.

[msingh]

Has he said this? I read the article as saying there ought to be a return to barbell based programs. Perhaps it is occurring in some sports and by some teams, but the two examples you posted are evidence that it is indeed not ubiquitous.

And the idea that preforming a 160lb bench press 3x10 is better than a 275x5x5
because it somehow does not make you bulky (bbers use higher reps) is interesting.

Well what he said was machines came and displaced the barbell, then people realised the machines don't work so they went back to barbell based training, then a new set of machines came about, etc, but that everyone who knows anything about strength training knows you have to train with free weights. Btw where are the powercleans?


Plus, you don't magically become bulky.
You and I have to work our asses off to gain a tiny bit of muscle, but we're talking about guys with amazing genes who probably put on muscle easily, so maybe they're right, who knows?

[Mr.City]

Did a heavy set of 5 on the bench, now my chesticles look like two great big balloons. Squat have caused my ass to outrageously jut from my body. I can't scratch my back anymore because I'm too bulky, and kids laugh at my big, blocky ass. I cannot catch them because I'm too bulky and move slowly.

Moral of the story: I lifted heavy and now I'm too big and my life is ruint. The end.

[msingh]

This workout is designed for a professional basketball player. Please consult your physician before embarking upon any fitness regimen.

be careful guys..

[Tiburon]

Wouldn't you love to see Dwight Howard after 3 months on the novice progression? If that dude did deadlifts and squats think how nasty he would be. . .

[msingh]

Wouldn't you love to see Dwight Howard after 3 months on the novice progression? If that dude did deadlifts and squats think how nasty he would be. . .

scroll 3/4 of the way down and you acn see what he does currently ...
http://magazine.stack.com/TheIssue/Article/5078/strength_training_with_dwight_howard.aspx

a video of him working out. he seems to like the dumbellls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1HIQpeyqTo

another video of him training with his strength coach
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emI9g8gp9p

[msingh]

nba off season training video series (3 parts)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOmfvpOw62U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQPS8UtQanE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IqwxsXUd4c

nba suns strength coach walks through the entire workout
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWjqhN3ktPU

[Mr.City]

This thread is going to cause me to have a stroke.

Edit: OH SHIT, experimenting with protein shakes? I guess that's how they get the extreme muscle gains.

[msingh]

why dont these jokers hire Bill Starr?


"I'm feeling a burn"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBxoRfhALUA
dwayne wade's training video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-snTyu7Nd5g
allen iverson squats!

i think the only reason these guys can get away with such training is because they're already naturally strong

[stronger]

The Phoenix Suns trainer is an absolute joke.

[knkavo]

ha, mrcity, those quotes are gold. i wonder if this is how they train in europe too? can't imagine russians putting down the barbell to do some lat pulldowns? but i'm probably wrong..

Yep, you're wrong. Greece has one of the best basketball tournaments outside the USA. We have one of the few national teams to have beaten the USA. The club I support (Panathinaikos) is probably the best in Europe over all.

A good friend of mine, who is on the PT squad for Panathinaikos (and who is also my PT), was describing the workout that the team does, and it is the same awful shit that has been described above. I don't think that things are any better at any other teams or in other countries.

However, basketball isn't considered a strength sport (though it probably should be). I think it is more shocking how few rugby/American Football players and wrestlers/judokas/boxers train properly for strength and power with weights.

[ZKP]

nba off season training video series (3 parts)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOmfvpOw62U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQPS8UtQanE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IqwxsXUd4c

nba suns strength coach walks through the entire workout
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWjqhN3ktPU

For the love of God......people get paid for this shit

[Paul Sousa]

The NBA, and therefore basketball in the US, has been systematically pushed towards being a faster, less physical, higher scoring game over the past decade. You started to see less players like back to the basket post players and more forwards and centers that faced up and could handle the ball. At first this started to result in NBA players being skinny and the true big men seemed to be gone. But take a look now at players like LeBron and Dwight Howard. These are some seriously strong, big, and still athletic guys. LeBron is practically the size of an NFL defensive end and he dominates the game. He is proof that if you take a player with excellent technical ability and make him bigger and stronger he will be better than weaker, smaller opponents.

[Tiburon]

But take a look now at players like LeBron and Dwight Howard. These are some seriously strong, big, and still athletic guys.

LeBron I agree with. But is Dwight Howard "Strong Enough?"

[Paul Sousa]

LeBron I agree with. But is Dwight Howard "Strong Enough?"

I think he is strong enough to dominate in the league as is. I don't think there are many players that can match his power. It looked like he was benching over 300 for reps in that video linked earlier. That is very strong for an NBA player. Look at the difference in his muscle mass between his rookie season and now.

[BryanM]

They can't even figure out that traveling makes the game not basketball anymore. How the fuck could they hope to figure anything else out?

[JCavin]

I know they are world-class athletes, and, thus, their recovery ability is probably exceptional. But, I wonder if the amount of inherent HIIT that is involved with basketball training has some bearing on the way they train for strength?

I mean, it seems like it would be REALLY hard to get REALLY strong while playing basketball nearly every day for 6+ hours.

[Platus]

I can't comment on professional sports, but, as a teacher, it drives me nuts when I see teenagers one the calf-raise machine at the Y, trying to "work on my vertical." I couldn't do my job without imparting meaningful and correct information to my students, yet it seems like plenty of school coaches are copying and pasting their workouts out of FLEX.

[msingh]

They can't even figure out that traveling makes the game not basketball anymore. How the fuck could they hope to figure anything else out?

it is ridiculous isn't it?

[simonsky]

can anyone post proof that strength training (through doing the big lifts with linear progression stuff etc.) will hinder athleticism. coz i believe that some of their coaches know that their athletes would be strong though they fear that they would lose athleticism. is this true? or plain ol bullshite?

and can anyone post NFL workouts? do they do the same shit we ripdevotees do? Their physique is what i dream about, no offense to kirk karwoski's body, though i believe that they combine their mammoth physique with athleticism while still being strong.

[nisora33]

can anyone post proof that strength training (through doing the big lifts with linear progression stuff etc.) will hinder athleticism. coz i believe that some of their coaches know that their athletes would be strong though they fear that they would lose athleticism. is this true? or plain ol bullshite?

and can anyone post NFL workouts? do they do the same shit we ripdevotees do? Their physique is what i dream about, no offense to kirk karwoski's body, though i believe that they combine their mammoth physique with athleticism while still being strong.

I had this same conversation with my ignorant fuck of a father-in-law over the holiday. Mind you, he's not even a coach, has nothing to do with sports or athletics, but knows a few coaches in his area who say, basically, what these jackoff NBA do about their trainees--"We don't want them to lift heavy because they'll get bulky, blah, blah, blah, [insult other ignorant bullshit here]..."

I said, "It's simple: you don't overfeed them." I told him that there's such a thing as neural adaptation to heavy loads, and that you could gain strength in the absence of meaningful lean mass gain, but he couldn't get it. Shit like that makes me so angry I could shoot laser beams from my eyes incinerating entire city blocks. These "coaches" don't understand that lean mass isn't just built from nothing and that you have to provide the raw stuff for your body to manufacture that bulk they're so worried about--i.e. by overfeeding them in the presence of progressive overload.

Just bullshit. To answer your question a little more directly, if you don't overfeed them, or only overfeed them a little, plus have them perform linear progression with the big lifts prior to their season, THEN start their skill and agility type training as the season nears, there should be no drop in athleticism because they won't have gotten too bulky, their agility and skills training will have taken care of their quickness and overall conditioning leading up to their in-season performance. But hell, a small amount of weight gain shouldn't hurt their performance a great deal anyway, because as Rip is fond of saying "A bigger engine won't slow your car down, will it?"

In short, a competent strength and conditioning coach should be able to find the right balance between bulk and athleticism, and having them train heavy shouldn't have fuck-all to do with diminished athleticism in and of itself.

-Stacey

[Mr.City]

Well put, Stacey. I saw two fools doing quarter squats with 225 and after a shitty set with lots of primal rage screams, one buddy to said the other "Boy, we're training like the pros." After seeing these videos, I knew they weren't too far off. Where did the silly bullshit begin with all this bulky nonsense?

[FatButWeak]

Dude - Everybody is waaay overthinking it here.

First off, unless you want to get "big and bulky" and try to very hard, with the express purpose of becoming "big and bulky" and you take anabolic drugs to get "big and bulky" and you do not play, stretch, practice your sport during this period, noone will ever get "big and bulky." Period. Some people get fat, and try to play it off as "oops, I got too big and bulky!" but that is fat, not muscle, and we are all about building strnegth and muscle mass. To say someone got "big and bulky" and now they suck at their sport is a cop-out. People get too fat all the time. Heck, I'm too fat right now. People get de-conditioned, out of shape, lose their mojo, whatever. But nobody gets too "big and bulky" for their sport (except for, maybe, wrestlers and fighters where their added muscle bumps them up into the next fight class and while their added muscle gives them more strnegth, it's not enough to keep pace with the larger athletes at the top end of their new weight class). For athletes like basketball players where a more muscle will give them more power (remember, power is speed X strength), it just won't hurt them.

Big and bulky is a lie thought up by people who view the world throu cartoonish lenses - like a child. Let me explain: cartoons depict muscular characters as "big and bulky", slow, dim witted, untalented, etc. (think of the big fighters in the old Bugs Bunny cartoons especially - strong, slow and dull witted). The little, wiry guy is fast, agile, quick, smart. Cartoons do this to make big points quickly ("Hulk smash!") If you, as an adult, continue to see the world that way, then there is no hope for you. Even with anabolic drug takers, muscle performs a function: it is either stronger, more powerful or has greater endurance (or some combination thereof) But added muscle can never slow down an athlete. In the real world, bigger and more muscular means stronger and faster. I suppose that its possible that a signifcantly larger body mass might mean that a 2 foot wide hole in the defensive line is now too small for a newly "big and blocky" running back to make it through, but I'll bet the added mass and strnegth makes up for it.

I also suppose that if an elite mile runner, weigihing 120 pounds (or a similar endurance/elegance athlete), went on an off season (say, eight months) eating, strnegth and anabolic drug binge, he might be able to increase his body weight so much that his performance would suffer but how likely is this? That would have to be a perfect strom of unique individuals purosely trying to damage themselves and their athletic performance. That's not what were talking about here.

Finally, nobody on this board or any other strnegth training board should ever utter the expression "big and bulky" in an pejorative manner. There is no such thing as too much muscular bodyweight (unless anabolic drugs enter the picture). Beleiving that it is possible to put on too much muscle or gain too much strnegth is a great way to limit your strnegth gains.

[nisora33]

I hate it when people don't read the entire thread before they post.

-S.

[FatButWeak]

Nisora, I DID read the whole post thus far, My comment was directed at you, although I think I am agreeing with you, for the most part.

You said, "there should be no drop in athleticism because they won't have gotten too bulky,"

I don't mean to pick nits, but I want us all to stay anyway from the term bulky. It's not useful, feeds into the stereotypes and pre-conceptions of fools like your father in law, and fails to educate. Its almost as bad a word as tone, toned or toning.

What does bulky mean, anyway? Too fat? If so, why are talking about obtaining said bulk through lifting weights? Lifting weights does not make you fat. Does bulky mean too muscular? As we both agree (and prolly most of us on this site) more muscle means a bigger engine means a faster car. So what does "bulky" mean? Fat plus muscle? Okay, an easy fix and one that has nothing to do with whether an athelete should strnegth train or not: it has to do with their kitchen activities, which I think you pointed out earlier.

We need to think about these terms so we can educate others. A good family friend of mine recently declined my offer of the book, Starting Strnegth, saying it would slow him down for FENCING!! FFS, he's only 15 but he already has that foolish "muscle is bad" mindset. We need to learn rhetorical skills from each other so we can disarm people of their foolish and harmful notions.

[Mr.City]

But, but...what if I get too jacked? How will I face my friends and family?

[nisora33]

Nisora, I DID read the whole post thus far, My comment was directed at you, although I think I am agreeing with you, for the most part.

You said, "there should be no drop in athleticism because they won't have gotten too bulky,"

I don't mean to pick nits, but I want us all to stay anyway from the term bulky. It's not useful, feeds into the stereotypes and pre-conceptions of fools like your father in law, and fails to educate. Its almost as bad a word as tone, toned or toning.

What does bulky mean, anyway? Too fat? If so, why are talking about obtaining said bulk through lifting weights? Lifting weights does not make you fat. Does bulky mean too muscular? As we both agree (and prolly most of us on this site) more muscle means a bigger engine means a faster car. So what does "bulky" mean? Fat plus muscle? Okay, an easy fix and one that has nothing to do with whether an athelete should strnegth train or not: it has to do with their kitchen activities, which I think you pointed out earlier.

We need to think about these terms so we can educate others. A good family friend of mine recently declined my offer of the book, Starting Strnegth, saying it would slow him down for FENCING!! FFS, he's only 15 but he already has that foolish "muscle is bad" mindset. We need to learn rhetorical skills from each other so we can disarm people of their foolish and harmful notions.

Oh, you read it. Read better then, I guess.

Thanks for disabusing me of my foolish word choice. But I think everyone else here understood the point that I was making just fine, and I don't need you to make my fucking points for me, mmkay? Also, you can stop being a preachy condescending prick with your "We need to think about these terms so we can educate others" and other rhetorical bullshit because I'm doing just fine at educating people in my corner of the universe down here, you fuck. This isn't Sparta and you're not Leonidas, so save the rallying cry for you and your World of Warcraft buddies.

My advice to you would be to expend your energy better, like arguing with people who DON'T agree with you rather than the people who do.

-Stacey

[Patrick]

Professional athletes are genetic freaks and will benefit from whatever garbage training you throw at them. I played all the sports in the rolodex during high school but the fact is I don't have the genes to get paid for games. I don't have the genes to be smart either, but work ethic makes up for it in the academic world. You can't fake genes and great genes can't be stopped.

The fuckers are all 6'6" and coordinated... that's proof enough that they're more robot than man.

[WatsupHannity]

Professional athletes are genetic freaks and will benefit from whatever garbage training you throw at them.

I remember seeing docu-style footage of a couple NBA players on the road and they were eating doritos and chocolate bars every day. Shocked me a bit, considering they're elite professionals. I remember a couple guys in high school, natural athletes with gifted physiques who were jacked, ripped despite having never been in a weightroom. When they did start tossing around some weights for a couple months they just piled on muscle without barely trying. How this works I'll never know, but I'm operating under the assumption that NBA players are like this times ten, since those guys never came close to pro sports.

Just brainstorming here, but perhaps physical burnout is a consideration in why these elite athletes don't barbell-train. These guys do spend a tremendous amount of time in a given week practicing, scrimmaging, doing drills, or working on plyometrics, cardio endurance and the like... maybe adding in heavy squats or deadlifts would be too taxing on the CNS and recovery systems, and it doesn't add enough value relative to its CNS drain when compared with other forms of training.

[simonsky]

Just brainstorming here, but perhaps physical burnout is a consideration in why these elite athletes don't barbell-train. These guys do spend a tremendous amount of time in a given week practicing, scrimmaging, doing drills, or working on plyometrics, cardio endurance and the like... maybe adding in heavy squats or deadlifts would be too taxing on the CNS and recovery systems, and it doesn't add enough value relative to its CNS drain when compared with other forms of training.


i dont wanna look like a smartass but if done in the off season, burnout wouldnt be much of a factor coz from seeing some NBA training footage that they "bulk" so to speak in the off season.