For years, James Harden has been teased on social media as being fat and out of shape as seen below with numerous of tweets.
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Those days are long gone.
On Friday, the Houston Rockets shooting guard showed just how much he had been training while in Phoenix during the NBA hiatus. He looks to have shed a bunch of pounds as well as muscles.
The former MVP says he’s been doing a lot of cardio, balance, stability and body control drills.
Kelly Iko of The Athletic details Harden’s regime here:
“I’ve been doing a lot of cardio,” James Harden said. “I’ve got treadmills in my houses, weights, and all that good stuff. It really hasn’t affected me like it’s affected a lot of other players.”
Harden’s main points of emphasis in the weight room are balance, stability and body control. Different sets of weights are used, but the goal is maintaining a center of gravity. To aid his quest for achieving balance, Harden participates in yoga and pool workouts.
Afterward, Harden will do “contrast work” in the field, starting with drills in the sand. The point of the sand is to build some sort of resistance, making Harden have to exert force to make moves he would do with ease on a smooth surface. Once the sand workout is done, Allen will bring him to the field. Here, Allen will bring his football knowledge into play, putting Harden through a series of running back drills. For running backs, the important things are reaction time and fast-twitch actions into further reactions. To give Harden the NBA familiarity, Allen will introduce “three or four defenders in front of him,” where Harden will have to act as if he’s in the half court and get to the desired spot on the floor, for game-like finishes.”
When, or if, the season does return, Harden’s Rockets will be in the postseason mix. The team is 40-24 and sixth in the Western Conference.
Harden was averaging 34.4 points, 7.4 assists, 6.4 rebounds and 1.7 steals per game.
