As you can see, Russell Westbrook has one of the most ripped physiques in all of basketball.

Russell Westbrook’s workout and training routine builds explosive speed and athleticism that is rarely seen in other basketball players.

Dwight Daub, director of athletic performance for the Oklahoma City Thunder, created a routine for Westbrook that is built on instability training to maximize balance and stabilization. Since Westbrook plays a very aggressive and explosive style, he has higher injury risks than many other players. It’s extremely taxing on his muscles, tendons and ligaments to play at such a high level like that all the time. It could be easy for him to lose his balance and coordination with the wrong move; therefore, instability training can help prevent this.

“We’re dealing with some of the greatest athletes in the world. Placing them in an environment [in training] where their central nervous system must react can help them stay out of an injury later,” Daub told Stack Magazine.

Here are some of Westbrook’s preferred workouts:

Physioball TRX Row (3-4 sets x 6-10 reps) – This exercise works the stabilizer muscles since your feet are on the medicine ball as your pulling yourself upwards while holding the TRX bands. You will mainly target the back, shoulders and biceps.

Single-Leg DB Curl-to-Press (3 sets x 8 reps each leg)- This is a great workout to improve your balance and stabilization on one leg. Since you’re on one leg and curling and then pressing the weight above your shoulders, you put tremendous focus on the muscles of the legs, biceps and shoulders.

Walking DB Push-Up to Row (2-4 sets x 8 reps each side)- This is truly a total body workout since you’re holding dumbbells and moving in a plank position while doing push-ups and rows.

The benefits of this routine works all the major muscles of the body but also put tremendous focus on the core. Whenever you are balancing when doing a particular exercise, you use your core to stabilize your body. All your power and explosion originates in the core. Westbrook’s strong core helps him maximize his skills.

He also applies resistance to his basketball training, attaching cords to his hips and body. By using such cords, you’re training your muscles to fire faster, making yourself quicker, stronger and ultimately more explosive in your moves. Everything will improve from a higher vertical jump to a faster first step off the dribble. This is why Westbrook has such amazing on-and-off-the-ball mobility.

In addition, he does high intensity sprints and lateral movements on sand hills, notably doing it with his close friend and teammate Kevin Durant. Working out on sand provides tremendous benefits when it comes to athlete training. Sand surfaces are harder to walk and run on than other surfaces because the feet slip and sink, which needs the leg muscles to stabilize the feet on the sand. Researchers have observed that the energy cost of walking on sand is 1.8–2.7 times that of walking on firm ground, while the energy cost of running on sand is 1.2–1.6 times that of running on firm ground. In other words, training on sand is a more vigorous workout that can improve strength and performance at a faster rate.

In terms of his pregame meal, Westbrook actually likes to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He believes the peanut butter is just what my body needs in terms of protein, and the carbs from the jelly give him the energy needed to play most of the game.

Source

http://www.stack.com/2014/04/01/russell-westbrook-speed-workout/

http://guycodeblog.mtv.com/2014/02/19/russell-westbrook-interview/