Yao's Rehabs and Training Update

Not sure this is posted, not even sure if there is any copyright to this, but here is some exciting news on Yao's rehab. Love the talk about his shooting practice, particularly his hook shots.

Credit: This was translated by Pryuen on YMM.com

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http://rockets.basketball.titan24.com/08-05-19/68571.html

Titan Sports Reporter Wang Meng reports from Houston

As far as Yao Ming was concerned, this (past week) had been a lengthy and unbearable period of time. His heart and mind had been preoccupied by matters that happened across the Pacific Ocean back in his home country: 2008 Olympic Games, the earthquake catastrophe (in Sichuan), the national Olympics torch relay, the closed door training of his national team… A lot of things were happening back in China. These had all made him so impatient that he hoped he could go back to China as soon as possible, such that he could take things onto his own and contribute to the motherland. But at this moment, Yao Ming could only remain in Houston for his rehabilitation, because he had just begun to jog, and there is still a long way to go before he could retrieve his competitive form and conditions.

Therefore, Yao Ming had to control his emotions and mood to continue with his busy rehabilitation and life in Houston day after day.

Every morning, Yao Ming would get out of bed before 9:00 am. And around 09:30 am, he would leave home and go to Toyota Centre for his rehabilitation training. His training would persist from Monday to Friday. Compared with his training 2 weeks ago, both the contents, quantity and intensity of the training had increased gradually. And from the soreness of his muscle and the feeling from his body after each training session, Yao Ming could feel he had made progresses slowly but surely.

With his drinking bottle of boiling-hot green tea, Yao Ming sneaked into his big SUV. Throughout these few months, green tea had almost been his only drink. He would bring his own drinking bottle of green tea to the gymnasium for his strength and conditioning training, as well as to the training court for his shoot-around practice. And while going out to lunch or dinner with his friends at restaurants, he would ask waiters (or waitresses) to refill his bottle of green tea with hot water. Yao Ming said: “Right after my injury, some doctors suggested that I should start drinking green tea as it could help controlling my body weight. I had not been able to do any oxygen training yet, and I just started jogging; therefore, I will go after any means that could help to control my body weight. If I can do more now to control my body weight, I think I can shorten the time required for my full rehabilitation.”

So sipping the bitter green tea (from his drinking bottle), Yao Ming drove his SUV directly to Toyota Center. Carrying that bottle of green tea with him, he entered the gymnasium, and his personal trainer, Anthony Falsone was already there, setting up all kind of training apparatus for him: heavy iron bar slices hung on both side of the barbell, and a pair of 110-pound dumb bells (waiting for him) on the two sides of the training chair.

With the passage of time, Yao Ming’s left foot had been making slow but favorable progress, and the doctors had also relaxed his training limits step by step. Only 2 weeks ago, Yao Ming was only allowed to do very slight strength and conditioning training limited mostly to his upper limbs, but strength and conditioning training particularly on his lower limbs were strictly controlled by the doctors. And it was only 2 weeks ago, that his injured left leg/ankle could only sustain about 30 pounds of weights, and compared with the muscle on his right calf, his left calf muscle was very obviously slacked and loosened. At that time, the focus of his rehabilitation was on his upper limbs, the abdomen and the waist area. Anthony Falsone had designed many training routines for his abdomen and waist with a fitness (medicine) ball. Yao Ming was seen leaning on the medicine ball, with slices of 45-pound barbell add-ons on his hands, trying to lift up his upper body. Every of his strength and conditioning routines were focused primarily on reinforcing the muscle endurance, and the weight of either the barbell and dumbbells were purposely reduced, but yet, in each routine, Yao Ming was asked to do at least 10-peats.

Now Anthony Falsone had stepped up the intensity and quantity of Yao Ming’s training. With doctors’ permission, Falsone had changed the original 70-pound dumbbells with 110-pound dumbbells, but the number of repetition of each routine had reduced from 10-peat to 3- or 5-peat. The proportion on the strength and conditioning for his lower limbs had also been increased. In the Rockets’ gymnasium, there was this training apparatus (relying on powerful spring), specialized for training the lower limbs. Falsone had added 5 spiral of springs onto the machine, and Yao Ming was asked to put his leg on the pedal and stretch it straight backward; then he was asked to retrieve his leg slowly and before the spring completely slacked, he had to stretch out his leg again straight in a backward position. He was required to do 15-peat for each of his legs for this routine. And every time after 10-peat for each leg, (you could see) Yao Ming's facial expression already distorted; with his eye-brows twisted, he grinned, gasped loudly for his breath, and heaved from his throat so as to garner his strength. After each session Anthony Falsone only let Yao Ming take rest for several seconds, and then pointed at piles of iron plates and dumbbells of various sizes, and said: “Come on…..let’s continue.”

Actually, every time prior to Yao Ming entering the gymnasium, Anthony Falsone would have prepared separately a spare training jersey for him. That was because very often, only half way through his training, Yao Ming would have completely soaked with perspiration. Anthony Falsone would throw him the fresh jersey and said: “Hurry up to change (the jersey). We still have a lot to cover.” During one of his abdomen/waist training routines, Yao Ming was so tired and exhausted that he could no longer persist. Falsone originally requested him to push up his body and remained stationary for 30 seconds with his 2 elbows pivoting on the mattress, and then repeat the pose but with only single elbow. But the completely exhausted Yao Ming just laid down flat onto the mattress, and said with a totally collapsed expression on his face: “I knew what the next routine is, and that is I need to lay down with my back firmly on the mattress and persist for 10 minutes.” Falsone looked at the completely exhausted Yao Ming, laughed and then shouted: “No more non-sense. Just turn around and continue.”

After finishing his strength and conditioning training, Yao Ming would take Anthony Falsone and his assistant trainer, Kenny to the training court to start practicing his shooting. Yao Ming had to make at least 500 shots in his shoot-around. The shoot-around would start from 1 step within the 3-pointer line, and there would be 5 different spots to shoot from. And for each spot, Yao Ming had to make 20 shots before he was allowed to move on to another spot. After practicing his long range shots, Yao Ming would move forward to another spot 1 step away from the free throw line; again 5 different spots and 20 made shots before moving on to the free throw line. Yao Ming said: “I need to practice and make more my long range and mid range jumpers such that our current offense systems can become better.” Yao Ming would not just practice his long range and mid range jumpers, and relaxed on his low post basket skills. He would then start practicing his hook shots around the basket with both his right and left hand, again in 5 different spots within the paint. Two years ago, Yao Ming could hardly score with his left hand, but right now, under no contest, Yao Ming could guarantee making 80% of his hook shots with his left hand.

The last stop in his shoot-around practice was practicing his free throws. Unlike the 20-shots free throw practice routine of the regular season, Yao Ming was required to shoot 100 free throws consecutively at one go. Yao Ming said: “To practice shooting 100 free throws consecutively is not only about your shooting touch and feel. It is more about patience and persistence. This is particularly true that towards the end of the routine, when your physical strength had all but exhausted, you still need to maintain the rhythm, and the correct shooting posture.” From the charity stripe, Yao Ming is always outstanding in his free throws. For the majority of his free throws practice, he is making 95 out of 100, and in one particular shoot-around, he made 81 consecutive free throws.

After finishing his shoot-around practice, Yao Ming would have to start his jogging exercise on a treadmill. In his first week of jogging, he could only do it on the treadmill, because the treadmill’s conveyor belt could absorb the pressure on his ankle area. Now, Yao Ming could jog on the treadmill continuously for over 20 minutes. And as the daily jogging exercise was over, Yao Ming could feel the soreness on both his legs. The doctors had already hinted very soon Yao Ming will be allowed to start practicing running, which means by that time, he will be allowed to practice running on the open track.

Those will then be more painful and tough time (for Big Yao); currently the blazing sun in Houston is very sinister, and daytime's temperature already surpassed 30 degrees Centigrade. In such weather, it means Yao Ming will have to run under the hot and blazing sun.

But Yao Ming is already getting excited about this immediate prospect of him allowed to start practicing running. He said: “It is only after I can start running, then we can seriously discuss about a genuine rehabilitation and reconditioning, and talk about when I can start playing contact basketball. I hope I can start playing some slight contact basketball by end June. And by that time (when I can play contact basketball), it should not be far away from the day that I can return to China and rejoin the national team.”