Part II of this eye-opening interview with a muscle-building superstar.

Alex: We’ve been talking about building muscle, what mistakes people are making and what things they can do to fix that. Now, let’s talk really quickly about the benefits that basketball players are going to see from getting stronger and from adding some muscle mass. What is gong to happen as they gain some muscle?

Vince: Well, personally the biggest thing that happened to me is confidence. It’s amazing how much better you can perform just from seeing yourself as this different person and really, the way other people see you.

If they see you as a bigger guy, a stronger guy, it’s almost like you have an obligation to live up to that. And if they see that you look like a smaller guy, they’re going to take advantage of that. So just that factor is big.

And from a performance standpoint and a muscular standpoint, there is less chance of injury. Weight training is not just an opportunity to strengthen your muscles from different angles, but also a way to strengthen your tendons and ligaments so it can indirectly make you a better player.

And because there’s a lesser chance of getting injured, as well as now being able to recover quicker, you can practice harder and when you’re practicing harder, you can see some major improvements.

So I do believe that some size and strength from weight training will help basketball players more indirectly than directly, but obviously, at the same time, a more powerful player will be a better player, get better results and have a better long-term outlook.

Alex: You know, its no coincidence that all the best guys in the NBA are also the best athletes in the world. You look at a guy like Lebron James, he is pound for pound the strongest player in the NBA and not surprisingly, he might also be the best.

Plus, going back to what you were saying about the intimidation thing with opponents, you can literally see the fear in Lebron’s opponent’s eyes when they have to step up to guard him, just because he is so big and powerful looking. It can be a huge advantage.

Vince: You can psyche an opponent out before you even get on the court. It’s amazing.
I think a big thing, though, is not to compromise your size for performance, you want to make sure everything is functional, so that it complements your sport, not takes away from it.

Alex: Just to note to all the coaches and players out there, a great way to do that is just do not ever stop playing basketball. If you are in the off -season and you’re focusing on your lifting, that’s great, but don’t ever stop playing. Make sure you’re still playing at least 2-3 times a week. That will ensure that all your gains are complementing your performance and transferring to your game.

Now, a lot of basketball coaches out there seem to get a lot of their information from bodybuilding magazines. And they often take what they see in those magazines and try to apply those exact same workouts to their basketball players. What in your mind is the biggest issue with that? What would you say to coaches who do that?

Vince: I would have to see an entire program to judge it accurately. The reality is that in a preparation phase, maybe the first 3 or 4 weeks with a guy who has zero coordination whatsoever, maybe a barbell squat wouldn’t be appropriate. He may have no joint control around his knees; maybe a leg extension would be the right choice for the first few weeks.

Let’s assume the athlete has that anatomical adaptation phase out of the way, they’re familiar with their body, they’ve completed a good base of body weight training, once they’re getting into a an actual program I would get into focusing on training just the main movements of the body.

If you look at the upper body, the body has four different planes of movement, horizontall, push or pull and vertical, push or pull, so we want to have one of those movements every workout. So for horizontal pushing, we’d have some chest exercise, a barbell bench press or dumbbell bench press.

Then, for the horizontal row we’d look at some row, a bent over row or a one arm row, then some vertical pressing, like a shoulder press, and then for vertical pulling, some sort of pull up or pull down.

That takes care of the upper body. And, for all the other muscles, the forearms, biceps, triceps, if you’re focusing on compound movements, you’re not going to have to spend much time isolating and using energy, energy that could be used towards actually building muscle.

I think a big thing for basketball players, is not to just look at the front of the body, but the back of the body. Most weight training programs are quad dominant, so ball players are already pretty strong on the front of the legs but they have weak hamstrings, glutes and lower back so I would prioritize the muscle that they don’t really use out on the court.

Again, I would focus on compound movements that allow them to lift maximal amounts of weight and allow them to stimulate the most muscle mass so they don’t have to isolate muscle groups. That’s called time-economic training.

Alex: That’s definitely something you need to take into account when you’re training, not just basketball players, but all athletes from any sport, the need to delegate time as efficiently as possible. They have to focus on their sport, they have to focus on conditioning and then, they still have to focus on getting stronger at the same time.

Vince: I think a big thing athletes need to recognize is the 80/20 rule. It says that 80 percent of your results is gong to come from 20 percent of the exercises you do in the gym. If you take 5 or 6 chest exercises, 80-90 percent of your results are going to come from 20 percent of those exercises.

I’ll be specific here; lets just say you use a barbell bench press and dumbbell incline press. If you were to use just those, you would stimulate all of your muscle mass, anything more or anything else would just be overkill, and extend the amount of time its going to take for your muscles to recover, which is time you could be using to get in the gym again to stimulate more gains.

Alex: Going back to what you were talking about really quickly, glutes, hamstrings, lower back, making up the all-important posterior chain, what would be your top 2 or 3 exercises for basketball player in really hitting their backsides?

Vince: With basketball players doing so much side-to-side movement, it’s a sport that requires balance from limb to limb, I would focus on single leg exercises for the most part. Typically, to be successful in any sport, it’s really important just to make sure all your muscles are firing.

If you’re on the court and your glutes aren’t firing and your hamstrings aren’t up to par, you’re in trouble. So I would really focus a lot with basketball players on just making sure all their muscles are woken up and working right.

But the first one, I actually learned this from a buddy of mine. He actually used to be a pro basketball player. He saw a workout from my program and saw an exercise that he was really impressed with it. I didn’t put it out there for the reasons he was so impressed with it, but it’s the single leg back extension.

Believe it or not, it’s one of the best exercises to strengthen your lower back, hamstrings and glutes.

So the single leg back extension would be the first one, and if you’ve never done it before, just using body weight will burn the heck out of your entire posterior chain

I also like single-leg deadlifts, with just your body weight first.

That would be the second one and then the single-leg, stiff legged deadlift would be the third. They’re not just good for size and strength, they’re also great for balance.

And once you master those, then you can obviously move into all of those with weight and start using a barbells and training like somebody who trains for size and strength with the heavier stuff using 3 rep maxes or 5 rep maxes. I’m definitely not opposed to that for any basketball players, once they’re prepared for it after some of the balance and body weight stuff.

Alex: I fully agree, Vince. For the last 6 months or so, I’ve come to a similar conclusion in that I’ve gone completely away from the Barbell Squat and using the Bulgarian Split-Squat (single-leg movement) as our main exercise.

And you’re talking about activation stuff, we’ve been doing a lot of stuff where one day we’ll hit the Bulgarians heavy and then the second day well come back and do Bulgarians again, but this time with isometrics, holding it at the bottom of the movement for timed sets or something like that. It’s great because just holding it in that bottom position, they can really focus on firing their glutes and using that to teach “position”, plus the strength gains transfer throughout the full range of motion.

Anyways, Vince, I really want to thank you for stopping by. Tell us, what’s going in with you? Any news on the Delmonte front?

Vince: Well, sure, I think the biggest news from a fitness standpoint is, I finally put all of my muscle building workouts and all my 6-pack workouts onto a DVD kit, so it is a physical hard copy product you can actually mail to someone’s front door.

Previously, all of my stuff was only available digitally, so it was kind of a pain for a lot of people who like to watch stuff on their big screen. That launches April 7th at 12 pm eastern.

So I got that going, that’s pretty exiting, that’s literally 3 years of workouts.

I’m also giving away the exact five day program I followed last summer to enter a fitness physique show. I show you how and what I did, I’m pretty proud of that too.

Alex: That’s sounds terrific. I know anything you’re doing is going to be great, you are as well known as you are for a reason.