The legendary, probably the best basketball player of all time, Michael Jordan, once again managed to make the whole basketball world talk about him, even though he retired back in 2003.
For a good part of the planet that loves and follows sports, the quarantine days caused by the coronavirus pandemic were relieved by releasing of the 10-part documentary The Last Dance, dedicated to the famous Michael Jordan and his equally famous Chicago Bulls from the 1990s.
Now, to put aside all the analysis of the documentary itself, what we knew and didn’t know in regard to the MJ and the Bulls prior to its releasing, we’ll focus a bit on the physical and mental preparedness as factors that significantly influenced on winning 6 NBA championship in 8 years.
Factors That Count for Match Fitness
Regardless of a sport, coaches agree that both factors, physical and mental fitness count for an athlete to be 100% ready to make great results. They even include one more factor.
“I consider it a tripod of performance – physical, mental and emotional,” says Dan Garner in a recent Betway interview, who has coached UFC champions Ronda Rousey and Michael Bisping, as well as three Super Bowl winners and an Olympic gold medallist, and is now the head coach of the Hockey Training program, based in Ontario.
“What happens if one leg of a tripod is knocked out? It collapses. In order to determine whether someone is actually ready, they would need to be mentally, emotionally, and physically ready.”
Despite his great body constitution, Jordan was never a fanatic in lifting weights because he didn’t want to mess up his shot.
When Did MJ Discovered the Benefits of Working in the Gym?
However, no professional athlete can perform on a high level, can’t be match fit without spending hours and hours in a gym on a weekly basis. Actually, the MJs inability to properly respond to the physical, strong play of the Detroit Pistons in their battles in the Eastern Conference playoffs, in the second half of the 1980s, made him devote himself more to working with weights.
The player himself admitted it on numerous occasions during the Bulls’ domination over the NBA and repeating it in The Last Dance: “I was getting brutally beaten up and I wanted to administer pain. I wanted to start fighting back.”
A guy named Tim Grover, a 25-year-old personal trainer with no prior experience in working with pro athletes, saw an article describing how Michael Jordan was mentally frustrated with the Pistons’ physical play and decided to contact Bulls’ management in 1989. They set up a meeting between the player and Grover. Jordan said he’ll try out the trainer’s methods for 30 days and if there are no results, he’ll be sacked.
The one-month trial period turned into a 15-year collaboration. In a short time, Grover managed to add strength in Jordan’s upper body, core, and legs which led to MJs superb match fitness that helped the Bulls conquer six championships from 1991 to 1998.
The training program Jordan underwent was designed to test his entire body and was broken down into phases, consisting of weeks and days. The goal wasn’t only pure physical benefits, such as leaner physique and increased muscle mass. No. The improved explosiveness is what MJ got as an ultimate result. The importance of being explosive repeatedly and in multiple directions, both vertically and laterally, is huge because responding to various game situations will then be proper. So, it was.
The Importance of Mindset
But, what about the mindset of “His Airness”? He had a mindset for which many say you simply have to be born with – the narrowly-focused, ruthless mindset perfectly shaped to win titles. This can be placed in one word – confidence.
“Confidence is closely related to being match fit,” says cricketer Kevin Pietersen, who played 275 internationals and is England’s third-highest run-scorer of all time across all formats.
“No player is free of niggles or little injuries, but I never ever went into an England match without being confident that I had put in the perfect preparation for it. Perfection in my practice was the reason for my consistent performances.”
MJ’s only goal was to always outmatch and outsmart other great players, which was as equally important as to achieve wins. He once said: “My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength.”
Jordan’s mindset is the one that almost every successful athlete, who has had long-term success, possesses
