A revised and expanded guide to the celebrity training program outlines the author's three-phase, twelve-week program and incorporates the latest information on nutrition, longevity, and injury prevention.

8220;Grover’s empire caters to NBA royalty.”

Autorentext

Tim S. Grover is the CEO of Attack Athletics, Inc., which he founded in 1989, and author of the international bestseller Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable. World-renowned for his work with Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, and thousands of athletes and business professionals, he appears around the world as a keynote speaker and consultant to business leaders, athletes, and elite achievers in every field. He is based in Chicago.

Klappentext

Legendary trainer Tim Grover’s internationally acclaimed training program used by the pros, including Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant—now completely revised, updated, and expanded, with 100 new photos.

Since 1989 when Tim Grover began training Michael Jordan, hundreds of elite competitors have turned to Grover to become stronger, faster, and more powerful, both physically and mentally. From Jordan to Kobe Bryant to Dwyane Wade and countless other superstars, Grover’s revolutionary methods have made the best even better, year after year.

In Jump Attack, Grover shares the revolutionary program he uses to train the pros. A fitness bible for athletes around the world, this three-phase, twelve-week program has been completely updated with new exercises and workouts as well as cutting-edge information on training, nutrition, longevity, injury prevention, and more. Devised for explosive power, quickness, endurance, and agility, this intensely challenging workout pushes athletes out of their comfort zones, tests their capacity to go harder, and turns “I can’t” into “Just try and stop me.”

You don’t have to be an elite athlete to benefit from Grover’s program—but you can attain the mindset of a champion through the physical program outlined in this complete plan. Says Grover: “This is how my pros do it. If you want to become more explosive, stronger, and faster, if you want to jump higher and improve your overall athletic performance in any sport, this is exactly how we do it today: This program is the difference between jumping and taking flight.”

Leseprobe
Jump Attack

CHAPTER 1

TAKING FLIGHT

Near the end of Michael Jordan’s career with the Bulls, he agreed to allow a camera crew to follow him around for a documentary on his last season in Chicago.

Early one morning—it was still dark outside and Michael’s kids were still asleep—the crew came to his house for a rare glimpse into his private gym where I trained him.

The complete video has never been released, but I can tell you how it began:

The cameraman noticed a poster on the wall, a classic shot of MJ soaring through the air, with the caption “HOW DOES MICHAEL FLY?” He zoomed in on the poster, then turned the camera to Michael and asked him:

“How do you fly?”

Michael just laughed, shook his head, pointed across the gym at me, and said in that deep, commanding voice, “Ask him.”

Good question.

No doubt Michael’s genetics gave him a physical advantage; he has those huge hands and long limbs and predominantly fast-twitch muscles that allow him to do extraordinary things. But contrary to popular legend, he is not a freak of nature. I know people mean it as a compliment when they talk about Michael as if he’s superhuman. But I see it as an insult, because it suggests he didn’t have to work for his success, and believe me, no one ever worked harder.

In fact, there are plenty of athletes who share his physical abilities, and in some cases even exceed them. But Michael had the mental toughness to exceed anyone else’s physical abilities, along with the drive and commitment to work relentlessly on his skills, and that toughness is ultimately what separates merely great athletes from iconic superstars. That’s why Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade, in their thirties, can outplay guys who are much younger; like Michael, they have the mentality and focus and work ethic to maximize their skills, push beyond injuries, and never stop driving to improve.

So there are undoubtedly a lot of factors that allowed Michael to fly. But when he pointed at me in his gym that morning, this is what he meant: We trained in a way that maximized his abilities and gifts and genetics, so he could reach his ultimate potential in every way, and still keep improving. We tweaked the standard training principles, because there was nothing standard about Michael’s game. While everyone else was still obsessed with vertical jumps, we focused instead on overall explosiveness. Not just one jump straight into the air, but multiple jumps in all directions, forward, backward, laterally, and maintaining that explosiveness throughout the entire game, from one end of the court to the other.

Everyone loves the showstopper dunk, but what happens right after that dunk? The game doesn’t stop; neither did he. We trained for longevity and overall athleticism that would allow him to stay healthy and powerful from the opening game of the season until he held the championship trophy in June, season after season.

And that training—the “secret” to Michael’s explosiveness and his ability to take flight—became the basis for Jump Attack.

The first version of this book was created in 1990, when Michael was doing a lot of camps and clinics and everyone kept asking him, “How do you jump so high? How do you dunk like that? What can I do to increase my vertical jump?” Everyone wanted to “be like Mike,” so he asked me to put together something he could give to everyone who attended, a program they could do on their own that reflected the hard work he put into his own body, so everyone could see he didn’t just show up and look good—he worked relentlessly to be that good.

I developed the original Jump Attack program based on the workout I created for him, which was completely different from the way anyone else was training. At that time, no one else was doing resistance training for the legs during the season; the common belief was that playing basketball and running up and down the court were enough. In fact, it was just the opposite; playing a sport actually breaks down the muscle. So we went the other way and worked on building up the muscles that have a tendency to break down over the course of a long season.

We also began sequencing his exercises to get the most out of every muscle, every time. We focused on preexhausting the targeted muscle, loosening the joints, combining exercises to teach the muscles how to fire correctly, stretching the muscles and joints immediately after so they’d be ready for the next set.

While most programs were targeting the major muscle groups, we were also emphasizing the smaller muscles, the neutralizers and stabilizers, so everything was working together.

And we definitely got people talking when they heard MJ was lifting on game days, which was basically unheard of at that time but made perfect sense to us. Look at the schedule: If you take off every game day, that’s a whole lot of days you’re not working those muscles properly. For us, not acceptable. So we stayed with our workout schedule regardless of the game schedule. It became part of his game preparation; just like you eat a certain way on game day, you train a certain way on game day.

Bottom line: You can’t get extraordinary results from an ordinary workout.

And if you’re thinking, “Sure, it worked for MJ, how har…