How One Trainer Got KG Back In Shape

Slam Online has a great read about Joe Abunassar and how he got Kevin Garnett in shape after the knee surgery:

According to Abunassar, his body had shown the effects of the time spent away from the court since the Boston Celtics shut him down in March. His spindly frame had put on some weight. His legs – known for its explosiveness and speed – were not firing properly. His right calf suffered significant atrophy. For a player whose game relied on unrelenting speed, Garnett had to approach the last two months of his summer slowly retracing his steps...

They knew how to rebuild Garnett’s legs. They spent considerable time on his legs, guiding him through a series of repetitive exercises with dumbells mini-bands and physio balls. He did calf raises, deadlifts with dumbbells, an assortment of crunches with a medicine ball. They attacked his core from all angles, knowing the stronger Garnett’s core was, the less weight there would be on his legs. “We were probably way more detailed in our approach to preparing him this year than we have ever been,” says Abunassar.

Nearly every day Rudy Gay and Memphis Grizzlies teammate Kyle Lowry sluggishly entered the Impact gym at 11 a.m., they saw Garnett sitting in the weight room, catching his breath and staring around the gym. “You don’t even see him work out,” says Gay during a practice session at Impact earlier in September. “But then you talk to Joe and he says, ‘yeah, I’ve been here since 7 a.m., working out KG’… that gives you something to learn from.”