As a personal trainer and coach for athletes, I have been shaking my head in disbelief for months as countless celebrity athletes have stated that Zion Williamson’s weight is far too high to play in the NBA.
From Paul Pierce:
to Tracy McGrady:
to Richard Jefferson:
Even in the comment section, these same beliefs are echoed.
Everyone’s viewpoint is the same: Zion Williamson needs to lose weight.
I believe the situation of Zion Williamson’s weight loss needs to be approached carefully and that simply losing weight will destroy Zion Williamson’s career.
The two biggest knocks that I hear against Zion Williamson are that:
- He needs to lose weight.
- He needs to improve his landing mechanics because they are placing too much stress on his knees.
I want to share with you why:
- Simply losing weight by eating less is not the answer for athletes
- Eating less leads to poor recovery
- Landing mechanics are mostly unimportant
- Instead, focus on developing a strong core and joint stiffness
- Zion really needs to train differently to have a long and healthy career that maximizes his athleticism
- Plyometric and stability-focused training is the key to a healthy career for naturally strong explosive athletes
Let’s break this down further!
Zion Williamson’s Weight Loss
Zion Williamson is a freak athlete in the best sense of the word. He weighs 260+ pounds and jumps 40+ inches using either 1 foot or two feet.
He’s as tenacious and hard-working as he is athletic, and to top all of that off, he showcases his fantastic dexterity by dunking with both his right and left hands with ease.
There’s a large possibility that he is the new face of the NBA over the next decade.
Zion’s Athletic Advantage: Force Production
The reason that Zion can do the athletic feats that he does is because he produces high amounts of force in short periods.
That leads to dunks like this:
Blocks like this:
And sadly, events like this:
It takes a lot of force for any elite athlete to move, but this magnified by an athlete of Zion Williamson’s weight and size.
For someone who produces high amounts of force like Zion, recovery is arguably one of the most critical factors.
(If you want to learn more about recovery, check out this article about LeBron James, where I talk about recovery as one of the most significant advantages that he has over other elite athletes.)
Stress on the Court
Every time he jumps, lands, or cuts, his body is placed under massive amounts of stress.
Stress makes diamonds, but stress also bursts pipes.
By this, I mean to say that stress is neither good nor bad. It’s all about the amount of stress and where it is placed.
After playing a basketball game, athletes like Zion need to use recovery techniques like massages and ice baths to stay injury-free and reduce the effects of the stress that was placed on their bodies.
The most common effects athletes face after games include soreness and fatigue.
Too much stress or games played without appropriate recovery increases risk for injury.
Check out this graph for an example of too much stress without recovery!
In this graph, Athlete A is playing 4 games in a week’s time. Note that after Game 1, he sleeps and uses a recovery technique (ice bath).
Doing this when used in combination with 3 days of rest between games leads to him feeling great for Game 2. However, poor habits after Game 2 and 3 lead to injury.
This a common story that happens for athletes that play often. Weight loss in-season isn’t a good option for Zion because it would reduce his ability to recover.
An athlete that can’t recover well will struggle in scenarios like this that happen often in the NBA.
Stress in the Weight Room
Too little stress with tons of time to recover will lead to mediocre athleticism.
Too much stress without adequate time to recover will lead to injury.
This is the fundamental truth behind every training program.
Coaches manipulate the stress that is placed on athletes to help athletes become stronger, faster, and/or more athletic.
They apply high amounts of stress by doing heavy weights with tons of reps and sets when an athlete feels good.
They apply low amounts of stress by doing lighter weights with fewer reps and sets when an athlete feels weak or tired.
I mention stress in the weight-room because we need to remember that athletes don’t just play games.
There are generally multiple practices and weight-room sessions that add stress to their bodies every week.
All of this stress makes Zion’s recovery between practices and games essential for his long-term success.
Reduced Recovery During Weight Loss
In addition to sleep and recovery modalities, the third factor that helps athletes maximize their recovery is eating.
Athletes ideally eat enough to replace all of the calories that they burn daily.
Healthy calories fuel recovery.
Weight loss diets, aka caloric restriction, reduce a person’s ability to recover from stressful events because athletes start to eat fewer calories than needed to recover.
And as I mentioned before, when an athlete is unable to recover from stressful events like practices and games, it can significantly increase their risk of injury.
That’s why athletes that regularly lose weight and stress their bodies, such as bodybuilders, regularly transform their workout routines when they are dieting to ensure that they remain injury-free.
They do this by reducing the workload that they undergo and/or increasing the time between workouts.
Zion doesn’t have this option.
He’s going to be playing 82 + game seasons hopefully for the next 10 plus years.
He can’t decide to take a game off (unless he starts to load manage like many other superstars are doing in the NBA) to improve his recovery and reduce the stress on his body.
The Best Time for Zion Williamson’s Weight Loss
This is why weight loss is best made during the off-season when athletes can better control the stress they are putting on athlete’s bodies.
Without the constant stressors of practices and games, Zion’s daily stress levels will be reduced, and he can focus his energy entirely on weight loss.
Are you starting to understand why the cries for Zion to lose weight in the middle of the season scare me?
Losing weight is hard enough to recover from and stay injury-free.
Losing weight during the season is even harder.
And Losing weight during the season while weighing 260+ pounds and avoiding injury may not even be possible.
Everyone needs to dial back the demands for weight loss and wait for the offseason.
There are supreme advantages to weight loss in the offseason.
During the offseason, a trainer can strategically decide to dial back an athlete’s workouts during a time where they are losing weight to reduce the stress on their body.
In the same manner that bodybuilders change their workouts, Zion can reduce the stress on his body while losing weight.
In fact, the quarantine period may have been an excellent opportunity for athletes like Zion to lose weight and remain injury-free.
I find it really encouraging that many have said that he has lost weight during the quarantine.
Hopefully, when the NBA restarts, his weight loss is apparent and this puts the cries for him to lose weight to rest (for now).
Why Landing Mechanics Are Unimportant
Next, I want to talk about the second knock I hear against Zion Williamson and many athletes: Athletes need to improve their landing mechanics because they are placing too much stress on their knees.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no correct way of landing in contact sports.
Obviously, we would prefer athletes don’t land with their knees like this.
The forces that are placed on knee ligaments, such as the MCL, are incredibly high with this type of landing.
However, asking athletes to be hyper-focused on their landing mechanics doesn’t allow them to maximize their athleticism.
Are you really jumping your highest if you’re thinking about landing perfectly rather than jumping high?
That’s like a boxer trying to focus on perfect fist alignment during a knockout punch rather than swinging his arm as hard as possible.
There’s always an element of danger with powerful collisions found in jumping, sprinting, or even punching another person.
Instead of focusing on landing mechanics, athletes need to increase their ability to absorb forces in various landing positions.
Building strong, stable ankles, knees, hips, and core muscles are crucial to ensuring safe landings in any position.
This leads me to my next topic.
What Zion Really Needs to Do
A properly progressed plyometric program is key to allowing Zion to have a long career by allowing him to develop his muscles and tendons to absorb the forces of his landings.
As I mentioned earlier, Zion is naturally a freak athlete. His athleticism wasn’t developed in a weight-room.
For naturally explosive athletes like this (The LeBron James’, Shawn Kemp’s, and Nick Briz’s of the world), the primary focus of their training program should be maintaining their athleticism, improving their weaknesses, and injury prevention.
They have all of the athleticism anyone can dream of, so they need to focus on staying healthy to give themselves the opportunity to display it, night after night.
While many people turn to plyometrics to increase athletic performance, one of the most significant benefits of plyometrics is actually injury prevention.
By using plyometrics, Zion can develop and display greater elasticity in his landings.
Two exercises that would be helpful would be:
Ankle jumps
- Exercises like this would help him to develop greater stiffness around his ankle joint
Credit for this amazing video demonstration goes to strength coach, Oleg Danilov!
Lunge jumps
- Exercises like this would help him to develop greater stiffness in the tendons around his knees such as the patellar tendon
Credit for this amazing video demonstration goes to former professional dunker, Chase Skinkis!
To complement his plyometrics program, a weight program that is built with a heavy focus on stability could be beneficial.
Programs like these that incorporate exercises that challenge stability such as split squats and lunges would help to ensure that Zion would build his hip stability.
By combining plyometric and stability based programs, Zion would develop the muscles surrounding his ankle, knee, and hip joints.
This would greatly help in maximizing the length of his career and reducing his risk of injury.
Why I Wrote This for You
I hope you understand now why I believe that weight loss and changing his landing mechanics may not necessarily help Zion Williamson have a long and healthy career.
I wrote this article because I wanted the everyday fan of Zion Williamson fan like myself to have a little bit of understanding as to why I believe some of the popular opinions about his weight are misguided.
This article shares with you why:
- Simply losing weight by eating less is not the answer for athletes
- Eating less leads to poor recovery
- Landing mechanics are mostly unimportant
- Instead, focus on developing a strong core and joint stiffness
- Zion really needs to train differently to have a long and healthy career that maximizes his athleticism
- Plyometric and stability-focused training is the key to a healthy career for naturally strong explosive athletes
As I mentioned earlier, there has been some speculation that Zion recently lost some weight.
I can’t wait to see him back on the court, and I hope that his expert-level training staff has had similar ideas in mind to mine as they prepared him for the remainder of the season.
The quarantine time would have presented the ultimate opportunity for him to lose weight healthily without placing much stress on his body.
Before I end this article, I want to give a shout to Paul Fabritz of PJF Performance.
He is a great coach and his video on Zion Williamson, posted below, inspired me to write this article.
Make sure to check it out for another viewpoint into the potential training of Zion Williamson!
Did you find this article helpful? I would love to hear/know your thoughts on Zion Williamson’s weight loss down below.
Do you think he can have a long and healthy career in the NBA? I certainly hope so!
Peace!
