If you want to become a professional NBA player, you need to dedicate yourself to your athletic career and you should be willing to put in the work. Staying in shape is the most important thing when it comes to playing in the National Basketball Association and there are plenty of ways you can improve.

The goal is to sharpen your skills on the court and hit the gym with techniques and workouts that will boost basketball performance.

The best way to learn about how to improve is to look for advice coming from NBA legends. Professional NBA players have strict fitness routines, workout schedules, and diets that helped them reach this far. Check out this fitness page from NBA itself.

So, if it is good enough for them, it should be good enough for you. In today’s article, we will go through some of the fitness tips that will improve every segment of your game.

Jason Kidd

If you want to improve your passing, stamina, shooting, or something else, different incredibly useful exercises can improve each segment of the game.  Here we have advice from Jason Kidd, an NBA legend, which averaged out at least 13 points per game at his prime.

He said that the main thing that was in focus in the gym was its legs. This is a hard thing for most players and we all know that most beginners want to skip the leg day, but as an NBA legend would tell you, working on your legs is the most important thing that you can do as a professional athlete.

Jason Kid did a lot of leg work, such as step-ups with 30-pound dumbbells, calves, and calf raises leg press, and setups in between each set. He also mentioned that stretching is very important before exercising, just because you can seriously injure yourself if you didn’t prepare your body for the workout.

Leandro Barbosa

On the other hand, we have Leandro Barbosa a former professional NBA player playing for the Golden State Warriors. During his prime, he worked out really hard, but his focus was on his upper body compared to Jason Kidd who was all-in on legs.

This doesn’t mean that you should forget about a leg day. Barbosa still managed to do leg presses, Romanian deadlifts, and lower body work every day.

He tried exercising while wearing a weighted shirt, which was very successful in sharpening his moves on the court, even though a lot of professional fitness coaches will tell you that added weight can be bad for your knees.

Kobe Bryant

This NBA legend doesn’t need any introduction, and it is the best source of advice you can get since he became one of the most successful players in NBA history. During the season, Kobe focused on a lot of weight training just to build up his strength as the season progresses.

Kobe’s main exercises were clean pulls, Romanian deadlifts, deadlifts, and back squats. During the off-season, Kobe focused on improving his agility and speed. This involves a lot of running, and of course, playing basketball on the court.

Kobe managed to shoot anywhere between 750 to 1,000 shots a day just to improve his accuracy.

Cuttino Mobley

Here we have another retired NBA star that had a successful career playing for the Houston Rockets, Sacramento Kings, Orlando Magic, and Los Angeles Clippers. He focused on pushups, pullups, and dips.

Cuttino could have his name in the list of the oldest players in the NBA, but unfortunately, he was diagnosed with a heart condition and had to retire early. If you are curious here are the 10 oldest players in NBA history.

There are different sections in the game that are directly connected to different muscles. For example, if you want to improve your jump shot, you should work on your triceps and your wrist strength.

Since the ball doesn’t weigh a lot, you don’t have to lift a lot of weights to improve your shot, it is much better to work on your accuracy than on your arm muscle power.

Final Words

These are some of the ways NBA legends managed to reach their prime form and become successful NBA players. The main thing is to focus on different parts of the body. You should also improve your diet and eat a lot of protein-based food with low carbs.

With that said, becoming an NBA star requires a lot of physical and mental strength, and if you want it to become true you have to be ready to put in the work.