The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 600 - 10 Gap_4

Even when completely healthy, such a warm-up was still too taxing.

Professional players are human too, they get tired, muscles ache, and joints hurt.

Starting this season, the Trail Blazers not only needed to change their training venue, but also their training time scheme.

In the past, they had two sessions a day, two hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon, a total of four hours.

If you wanted to train extra, that was your own business, coaches and trainers would clock out on time.

Starting this season, Adelman and Beelman discussed and decided to have one practice a day.

Starting at nine in the morning, the practice would last around three hours, ending at noon, and if players wanted to train extra in the afternoon, that too was their own affair.

The reason for decreasing the frequency and increasing the duration of individual sessions was first to consider efficiency, as players would be more focused during a single three-hour training period.

Secondly, it was for health considerations, reducing one hour of training, increasing efficiency, and less wear and tear on the players.

Last postseason, many Trail Blazers players had injury problems, including Gan Guoyang, who suffered a calf strain.

Therefore, health management needed to be placed in a very important position.

Of course, it was impossible for Gan Guoyang to reduce his training time.

This guy had only one time plan when training: Keep going.

Petrović couldn’t hold on anymore, as he approached the end of the half-hour mark, he ran to the sideline and threw up.

Meanwhile, Guoyang was still lively, finishing a dunk.

It was only after seeing Petrović vomiting that he stopped warming up, waving his hand at Adelman, "Rick, clean that up."

Adelman rolled his eyes. So I’m a defector once, and I immediately turn into a janitor, right?

How many times has Beelman defected!

After throwing up, Petrović actually stood up, took the ball, and returned to the court, intending to finish the remaining warm-up.

Divac and Sabonis tried to persuade Petrović, but Petrović wouldn’t listen. Guoyang, however, didn’t stop him and continued running together for the last minute.

Half an hour of torment, and this was just warm-up training, truly hard to imagine.

Adelman cleaned up the vomit and said to Petrović, "This is just Ah Gan’s warm-up, he does two to three hours of additional training before practice every day, and another three to four hours after training ends, anyway... this isn’t the training volume of our team."

Petrović drank some water, his face very pale.

"He is my target, I will do the same as him," Petrović said.

"Rest is just as important as training."

"Doesn’t Ah Gan need to rest?"

"Ah Gan is different from normal people, he’s nothing like the average person, don’t follow his example."

At this moment, Guoyang was as normal, chatting and laughing with Sabonis and others on the sideline.

It has to be said, Guoyang’s stamina was like a bug, thanks to his physical model.

Some athletes just have extraordinary endurance, like the short-distance running champ Michael Johnson.

He was the 400m master, an event that has always been a nightmare for runners, a distance that lies between an endurance run and a sprint.

Even for world-class runners, a full-on 400m run is a challenge to their physical limits, and many champions are carried out of the stadium on a stretcher after the race.

But Michael Johnson, after winning the 400m, didn’t even seem out of breath, looking as usual, as if he hadn’t sweated at all.

Guoyang was this kind of stamina monster, 30 minutes of shuttle runs plus shooting, lay-ups was just a warm-up for him, getting his body into the best condition.

Petrović was in for a painful training session, as he insisted on participating.

But Guoyang was like the catfish in a sardine can, setting a very fast and intense training pace.

In fact, if Petrović had done a half-hour of shooting as a warm-up on his own, he wouldn’t have thrown up.

But with an indefatigable guy in front leading at a breakneck pace, he couldn’t keep up.

Three hours of training, one hour for skills, one hour for tactics, one hour for scrimmaging.

Adelman completely followed Gan Guoyang’s pace, which was unbearable for others, torturous to the point of near death.

Cliff-Robinson quit halfway through the training, saying he couldn’t take it anymore and needed a rest.

However, Sabonis and the other two managed to persevere with their tenacious will.

By noon, when the training ended, every member of the team was too exhausted to speak.

Divac, who had been able to joke around before training, was now hunchbacked with eyelids drooping heavily.

Fortunately, they had switched to training once a day; if it had been twice a day, with a break at noon and more training in the afternoon, the rookies definitely wouldn’t have been able to cope.

In the locker room, Gan Guoyang let out a sigh, "This group of rookies is the worst I’ve ever coached."

Of course, while Gan said this, he was actually very pleased with Petrović’s tenacious will, knowing that Petrović was still recovering and not in his best shape.

It was sheer determination that kept him going, refusing to fall, refusing to give in.

In contrast, Cliff-Robinson was very straightforward; if he couldn’t do it, he simply wouldn’t train.

Such players are destined to not play a key role on the big stage.

At noon Gan Guoyang invited everyone to eat together, then they returned to the training hall in the afternoon to continue training.

In the afternoon, Gan wanted to sculpt his muscles in the gym, and Petrović followed him there.

Gan said, "You are not fully recovered; don’t push yourself too hard."

Petrović replied, "Forcing me not to train would really be pushing me."

Gan laughed, didn’t say much more; training maniacs are all people who love basketball.

In the League, the only ones who could rival Gan Guoyang in terms of training volume were two people: Michael Jordan and Chris Mullin.

Mullin, however, had recently taken up the bad habit of heavy drinking in the past two seasons, which certainly affected the amount of training he could handle.

Another person who could come close to the training level of Gan and Jordan was Karl Malone, who Stockton said spent every day soaking in the gym.

Gan didn’t mind having another training maniac on his team so that he wouldn’t feel too lonely during his workouts.

In the gym, Gan coached Petrović in strength training.

He explained which muscles were important for basketball players, which were not as important, and which training methods could quickly improve combativeness.

In that era, both in Europe and in China, strength training was not very scientific; often, it was all about lifting heavy weights for many repetitions, lacking theoretical guidance and scientific planning.

In the summer, Gan would invite different trainers for systematic guidance, combining the strengths of many, to explore a set of fitness methods tailored for basketball players.

Petrović followed Gan for a while and found that this guy was simply like Superman.

Moreover, Gan’s training methods were especially varied; in addition to machines, he also used bodyweight exercises to enhance flexibility.

Gan had a whole set of diverse training methods to shape his abilities in every aspect, to adapt to the changes in the NBA.

"To play in the NBA is to row against the current, you either progress or fall behind!"

The two chatted while training; unlike Jerry West, Gan and Petrović only had one topic between them: basketball.

Gan started training from 1 PM and kept going until 6 PM, five hours in total, adding 300 mid-range shots towards the end.

Petrović truly couldn’t keep up after a while and could only sit on the sideline to observe; both his arms and legs trembled from fatigue.

Gan, during his shooting drills, finally showed signs of fatigue; his shooting percentage was not as high as before, and he needed a small break between shots.

This state of reaching the limit of exhaustion was exactly what Gan needed; only then could he improve his shooting percentage at critical moments—even by 1%.

Watching Gan’s determined gaze, his still standard movements, and tireless shooting, Petrović felt the enormous gap between them without even having to step onto the court and compete.

By the time they left Willamette University, it had already darkened.

Gan came in the dark and left in the dark, devoting all of daylight to basketball.

On the way back, Petrović couldn’t help but ask Ah Gan, "Ah Gan, how big is the gap between you and me?"

Gan drove the car, thought about it, and said, "Between you and me, there’s probably a Jordan’s worth of difference."

"Hey, put on your seatbelt; it’s dangerous not to."