Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Shaq changes his workouts to extend his career

Posted recently about Derek Fisher and Stephon Marbury's workout routines. Today, I see a note about how Shaq has changed his fitness regimen.

Before a recent game, "he did 200 sit-ups and 200 push-ups in a concrete corner, an area more suited for 200 crates."

That does not even count the times the Suns center bench-pressed strength-and-conditioning coach Erik Phillips in the locker room before scoring 26 points in a 154-130 win at Golden State.

According to this article, "O'Neal is doing more off and on the court than expected of the NBA's fifth-oldest player. He comes to US Airways Center on off-nights for workouts or free-throw practice and has joined Jared Dudley on 'the (Steve) Nash diet - no meat, no sugar, no starch, no soda, no nothing.'"

"The biggest misnomer is the fact that everybody says we can't play [uptempo] with Shaq," Suns coach Alvin Gentry said. "We can play that way with Shaq because he allows us to run and take quick shots. But when there are dead-ball situations, we're able to throw the ball inside. We have the best of both worlds. We can be an up-tempo team and have the most-dominant big guy to ever play the game."

O'Neal says PHX trainers found that "a posterior muscle... was not 'firing.'"

"I thought I was done (last season) because those doctors didn't know what was going on," O'Neal said. "When I got here, it wasn't even a hip problem. Those guys, Nellie and Mike Clark, they saved me."