Tim Grover thinks traditional weight training needs to come back.

[Im Still Ballin]

Dwight Howard
Blake Griffin
Shaquille O'Neal
Dwyane Wade

Off the top of my head...

Honestly I think players are just far heavier today which results in more injuries. There are, of course, exceptions...

I don't know. There seem to be far too many variable factors to be able to definitively narrow it down to 1 thing, I suppose.

Wrong.

NBA players are, statistically speaking, the shortest they've been since the 70's; and the lightest since the 2000-2001 season.

[Im Still Ballin]

NBA players peaked in weight 10 to 6 years ago -- 223 pounds on average.

[iamgine]

I remember Gary Payton or somebody talking about why there's so much injuries nowadays. He said players today fall down a lot and only go to the gym for a couple of hours while back then players would hit the gym for 5-6 hours.

[Jasper]

Kobe was in trouble. He was 30 years old, and his knees were done. Bryant called Michael Jordan and asked for help. MJ’s answer was simple. “Use my guy.” His guy was Tim Grover, and his diagnosis was simple – Kobe’s foundation was broken

“You build a foundation by lifting weights. The fastest, quickest way to get an athlete stronger is through moving metal.”
Tim Grover, GQ Sports

Every organization in the NBA is constantly trying to get an edge. Like in everyday life, there are trends and fashionable innovations that spread like wildfire. In the race to be first, teams incorporate all sorts of workout principles that aren’t 100% proven. We got to a place where players are doing yoga in rooms full of bees. All that resulted in forgetting fundamentals.

“How can you have a sport now where you have so much more technology, you have so much more resources, less contact – more injuries. It’s mind-boggling to me. It’s because everything is rubber band, everything is resistance, everything is cable. There are teams now in the NBA that don’t even have a weight room!”
Tim Grover, GQ Sports

Grover’s argument is simple. Moving iron is the single best injury prevention technique. You do a compound movement that can’t be duplicated by any other form of exercise. Sometimes things that have been around since ancient Greece stuck for a reason – and there are studies to prove Grover’s point.

“When you get hit, when you jump, when you land – there’s no pulleys, there’s no cables. Your bodyweight is the metal. You have to learn how to explode with it, and how to land with it, how to stop it.”
Tim Grover, GQ ⚾️

remember that skinny greek kid , that is now a NBA champ ??
It's called work inside and outside the court.

[ScottieQuitting]

I remember reading they didn't even lift weights in the 80's because they felt it was bad for you to be too heavy or bulky. Would take away from endurance and skill mechanics. The 90's usher'ed in a new era of goon ball though where you needed the muscle to survive. And then past that the game became a showcase for athleticism over skill, with most athletic being promoted and catered to.

Kareem, McHale, Magic, Thomas, 80's MJ, and Larry weren't jacked. They won with their heads... and general skill. In today's league it's all about who can run the hardest and jump the highest with role players spacing for them. So it's a more athleticism dependant league, and less skill based.

Explains why generation Z might see a white guy playing and they think milkmen. The brain and skillful type who can play intelligent team basketball (like the foreign teams) has been diluted from the game in favor exclusively for dumb athletes.

[bladefd]

AD needs to hire Tim Grover to help him change his training and work on his muscles. I wish he would drop 15 pounds of weight so he doesn't have to lug around so much weight.

[hiphopanonymous]

Bob Pettit and Wilt Chamberlain were the original weight trainers in the league and they were not injury prone. Bob Pettit explained that it helped him stay stronger throughout the duration of a game instead of fatiguing so quickly. I personally notice I'm less injury prone with some minor strength and conditioning implemented into my weekly routines i actually feel first hand that when you don't strength train and condition routinely your stabilizer muscles fatigue quicker and that is absolutely huge for both sport performance and injury prevention. If I don't do my routines the chance of an ankle roll and whatever goes up exponentially because my footwork will get sloppier jumping / running / landing / cutting etc. With proper strength and conditioning you can keep yourself composed better.

[90sgoat]

My guess is that steroid use combined with all the running is causing the spike in injuries.

90s ballers were roided out of their mind, but they didn't run around as much.

Roids put extra stress on ligaments.

[DoctorP]

Tim Grover singlehandedly turned Wade into a tank and killed his knees.

[FKAri]

Seems logical but even today there's a lot of guess work when it comes to how to prepare the body for peak performance.

[Artillery]

Tim Grover singlehandedly turned Wade into a tank and killed his knees.

Kawhi was also relatively healthy in SA until he hooked up with Tim Grover. Constant injuries needing load management ever since.

[DoctorP]

Kawhi was also relatively healthy in SA until he hooked up with Tim Grover. Constant injuries needing load management ever since.

hmm.....

[3ba11]

Maybe the injuries are due to the finesse game that the NBA has become - players aren't used to super-stressful motions and physical contact anymore - so the few times they experience it in today's game, they get hurt...

no one has a good theory as to why the injuries happen, so this theory is as good as any... .

Or it could be the spacing causing players to cover more ground defensively, while hands-off defense requires more legs..

[plowking]

Weight training is fantastic for bone density and health, etc.

In terms of injury prevention for muscles? Possibly.

Doing an exercise under load, for example 135lbs, then performing without load in a match is beneficial. Your body is accustomed to doing that motion with load, now when you perform, there is not that additional resistance. Likely to reduce injury.

Ask any physio, and they will tell you that injuries occur most frequently when introducing new exercises in a load bearing capacity to your schedule.

A mixture of weights and bands are fantastic.

The best area to focus on, and one of the main reasons I think Bron has been so bullet proof over his career, is that they focused on his core and hips early on in his career. Even in his hs days, he was doing core and hip mobility and strength.

[paksat]

I once trained with a trainer that had the 76'ers workouts word for word

i legit lol'd at that thing, dude had me jumping off a 3 foot high block to the ground and having me SLAM my feet into the ground. I asked him what the actual fck this was supposed to do and he compared it to karate and stated something about how it strengthens your legs like how karate people strengthen their fists etc. by punching boards etc.

I told him straight up, "i'm not doing this shit, what's next?"

dumbest shit ever, no wonder nba players joints are made of plastic.