Most Intense Workout Regimens in NBA

Being a professional athlete requires an unerring dedication to one's craft in particular and physical fitness in general, supported by an intrepid battalion of personal trainers, nutritionists, physical therapists and recovery experts. Then add to that the burning competitive spirit of a player like Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant (and his intensity of a thousand suns), and some truly extreme workout regimens are the results.

While a few NBA power forwards appear to have the unmistakable beginnings of guts developing around their midsections, these workout fiends stay trim and toned. And it's not just big stars who distinguish themselves from their peers through the rigor of their routines and unwavering commitment to personal excellence. 

A few of these gym rats and fitness freaks stand as the best players of their generation, rising above the rest through an abundance of natural talent and impressive dedication to improve even further. But the NBA's exercise addicts also include role players and marginal talents who went undrafted. For some of them, a dedicated fitness regimen could mean the difference between earning the NBA minimum and auditioning for the Turkish Basketball League.

Here are eight of the league's proudest workoutaholics, ranging from LeBron James to C.J. McCollum.

C.J. McCollum

C.J. McCollum knows how hard it is to earn an NBA job, and he works tirelessly to keep it. 

Unlike C.J., who warranted the 10th overall pick by the Portland Trail Blazers in the 2013 draft out of Lehigh University, his older brother Errick McCollum went undrafted in 2010 despite being the all-time leading scorer at D-II Goshen College and throwing down this dunk as a senior.

Errick's career has sent him to Israel, Greece and China to pursue his goal of being a professional basketball player, and he showed his impressive skill set in January by setting a new Chinese Basketball Association scoring record with an 82-point game for the Zhejiang Golden Bulls. Eat your heart out, Kobe.

The McCollums posted this video of their offseason training, which appears to be a liberal mix of football-style sled drills and jumping in place while holding kettle bells. If you thought that doing a few burpees was tough, this workout looks downright nausea-inducing.

And it must be great training for Errick, competing with his little brother, who—while not a primary contributor for the Blazers—has cemented himself as a valuable regular in the rotation for an NBA playoff team.

Phil Pressey

Phil Pressey may have made first-team All-SEC in 2013 and led the conference in assists, but he went undrafted out of Missouri following his junior season.

Suddenly, a yawning chasm opened before Pressey, casting his pro basketball career into doubt. Perhaps he'd have to sojourn to China or Greece or some other burgeoning backwater on the planet that serves as a professional minor league for the NBA.

Or maybe he'd just need to impress during that year's NBA Summer League. His strong performance there helped him catch on with the Boston Celtics, but earning that job was merely the culmination of his tireless efforts to hone and maximize his talent.

With only a few hundred NBA roster spots in existence, Pressey's intense regimen of drills helped demonstrate his dedication as well as his skill. That smack-on-the-dribbling-shoulder drill, in particular, showcases impressive strength and concentration.

Kenneth Faried

Kenneth Faried has earned the nickname "Manimal," partly because he's distinguished himself with high-energy play and partly because he thrashes around with as much zeal and flying hair as Animal drumming with Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem on The Muppet Show.

What fuels his relentless play is not just grit and determination but also a physical fitness honed through rigorous work and daily effort. As part of the NBA Fit campaign, Denver Nuggets head strength and conditioning coach Steve Hess shared a day in the workout life of Faried with Men's Fitness.

His "non-impacting interval training and push workout" begins with "at least 10 minutes of active preparation done with co-contractions" and increasing weight to match the reps. Then come 20 minutes of interval training on an arc trainer, with four rotations of four minutes on medium intensity followed by one minute on high intensity. That's just to warm up.

Then come three sets of each of the following: twist press, squat press, dumbbell press, plyo press, cable flyes, dumbbell push press, lateral front raise, power-squat rope slams, power-lunge rope slams and a low medicine-ball twist toss.

Just imagine Hess yelling abuse and encouragement at you while you cycle through 10 different grueling exercises, as if the feeling that you're starring in a workout video directed by Neill Blomkamp weren't sufficiently unsettling.

Brandon Jennings

Brandon Jennings was so talented in high school that he skipped right over college, spent a year in Italy and declared for the 2009 NBA draft at the age of 19. He made the All-Rookie first team with the Milwaukee Bucks, and his agility and athleticism make him a nightmare for opposing defenders to guard.

Because Jennings is a 6'1" point guard, the workout routine that he keeps is necessarily different from that of a larger player who would try to cultivate more bulk. Instead, Jennings focuses on lean muscle—doing a high volume of reps with lower weight—as well as core strength, endurance and resistance training.

As if having a personal trainer kick your butt with an incessant series of exercises weren't hard enough, sometimes you even have to listen to "Sandstorm" by Darude, which is usually known as "aversion therapy." But Jennings remains dedicated to his craft.

Now a member of the Detroit Pistons, Jennings must refine his game in terms of effectiveness and efficiency, as head coach and team president Stan Van Gundy does not take any guff (at least not anymore). Unfortunately, an Achilles injury in January cut Jennings' season short.

Andre Iguodala

At 31 years old, Golden State Warriors utility belt Andre Iguodala remains one of the most athletic players in the league. Whether through his energetic defense, quickness in transition or flying-squirrel leaping ability, he offers a versatile skill set few players can match.

Iguodala's fitness and conditioning have not only garnered him an All-Star appearance and an All-Defensive first-team nod, but they've also helped him sustain a career for more than 10 seasons.

As Iguodala told Alan Stein of StrongerTeam.com, per USA Basketball's website, he starts his mid-morning workouts during the offseason by practicing ball-handling and concentrating on his off-hand dribbling. Then he does a "comprehensive stretching series," followed by 90 minutes of "intense game-like" shooting practice requiring at least 500 made shots.

Then it's off to the weight room! He lifts heavy weights four or five times a week, alternately focusing on the legs and core or the upper body on different days. Iguodala is keenly aware of the importance of exercising your core, not only for better balance and strength but also to protect against injury.

And if he's hitting the weights, he's probably in the boxing gym working the speed bag or sparring, which he says helps his defense on the court. You wish you were a baller like Iguodala.

Dwyane Wade

Aside from posting inspirational messages and shoe selfies, the Miami Heat's Dwyane Wade is keen to remind his 4 million Instagram followers that he's constantly striving to be at the top of his game, whether it be in terms of practice, nutrition or exercise.

For example, when his teammate at the time Norris Cole turned 26, Wade gave him a very Wade-like birthday present—he took him to work out early in the morning. Um, thanks?

In addition to penning books on parenting, Wade brings a sober dedication to his professional endeavors. To work hard is to live well and set a good example for others. That has helped keep the 33-year-old Wade at the top of his game over many years, regardless of whether he shares the court with Shaquille O'Neal, LeBron James or Hassan Whiteside.

The dynamic guard continues pushing himself to get better, applying a similar dedication to any task. For example, when he began doing depth box jumps, he doubled the height in just a couple of months, because that's the "Way of Wade."

LeBron James

For the best basketball player in the solar system, sometimes conventional workouts with weights and designated exercise equipment just won't suffice. That's why you might run into LeBron James walking down the street carrying a giant tractor tire. (Don't ask him for an autograph or even what time it is.)

Between James' unique physique and his relentless training, he's strong enough to overpower opponents at multiple positions while also being quick enough to beat speedy guards in transition or driving in a half-court set.

Even when he's having a mediocre game, LeBron's a sleeping giant. He often calls upon a reserve of energy to take over the second half and carry his team to victory.

As the Cleveland Cavaliers superstar reminded fans in a video of his one-hour workout (which also promotes an energy-drink additive), "There are no shortcuts to greatness." It's a long road, indeed, but while some of us don't even have a method of transportation to greatness, LeBron is zooming past everyone in whatever the top-of-the-line Kia sedan is called.

The road to greatness is apparently paved with a solid hour of jump rope, resistance-band exercises, hundreds of practice shots and then flexibility training. Doing that won't get you four NBA MVP awards like LeBron has, but you might school those wannabes on your local court.

Kobe Bryant

After Kobe Bryant tore his Achilles in April 2013 while trying to single-handedly lead the Los Angeles Lakers to the playoffs, some thought his career could be over. Instead, the all-time great seemed to develop a high-tech version of a standard walking boot, which he shared on Instagram, calling it the "#KOBESYSTEM DOMINATE ACHILLES."

He captioned the photo: "Dominate the boot. Dominate tendons. Dominate the cast. Dominate rehab. Dominate dominating demure dominants domination." Well, OK then, Mr. Mamba. It seems like "dominants" should be a plural possessive, but you get the point—Kobe wants to dominate his own physical body with a Nietzsche-esque will to power.

And it worked. As he told NBA.com's Jonathan Hartzell four months after the injury, "The normal timetable for recovery from an Achilles, we’ve shattered that. Three-and-a-half months, I can already walk just fine, I’m lifting weights with the Achilles just fine and that’s different."

At 36, Bryant is what the Italians would call "palestrato"—one who works out so often. It verges on an obsession with personal fitness. When he's healthy, he's making himself even stronger, and when he's not healthy, he's running on an anti-gravity treadmill to get to full health so he can make himself even stronger.

As the Lakers' mult-multi-million-dollar man, he has a good reason for training with psychotic focus, and he routinely exhibits all the signs of having a singular determination to be the best player in the game. In the parlance of the old sports cliche, Kobe "wants it more," and that fact is hard to deny when you observe his competitive will on the court.

In the gym, Bryant shows a similar dedication to improvement. When asked by Men's Fitness in 2007 about how long he spends training per day, he replied, "During the season, it's probably about four hours or so a day, with practice and extra work." So Kobe spends one-sixth of each day working out and training, and that's with an 82-game schedule in progress—because resting is for wimps.

As ESPN.com's Rick Reilly relayed about Kobe's workout routine in a 2009 article, "Among a dozen other drills, Bryant does suicide push-ups. At the top of the push-up, he launches himself off the mat so hard that both his feet come off the ground and his hands slap his pecs. He does three sets of seven of these. This makes me turn away and whimper softly."

Even with Bryant's body betraying him, it would be facile to write off one of the greatest players in the history of the game. His sterling work ethic and disciplined training mean his stellar career is not done yet.