He also mentioned that he should look into Yoga and Pilates. Lots of athletes have adopted these techniques to stay healthy. GO should as well.
He said it twice. Big deal. Walton is finally pain-free, and he's enthusiastic about life in general.
Oden worked the hell out of his legs. One of the reasons he broke his patella was that his quads were so strong. The problem is he needs to back off of his upper body workout and lose some body fat. Like yuyuza reminded me, he needs to work on flexibility and add some strength to weight ratio exercises. Think of how a soccer player is built. Huge legs, less defined in terms of an upper body. It's an extreme example, but it would fit GO. Sure he needs some upper body strength, but he had plenty coming into the league. Building muscle in the lower body not only helps you stabilize your joints, but helps with your leaping ability and getting position in the low post.
I don't think they were widely publicized, but look at how many games he missed each of the last few seasons. Yes Shaq has missed games due to knee and ankle injuries. I agree he is very durable for how big he is, but he hasn't avoided the injury bug either. Hell he has jumped more this year than I have seen him jump the last 2 seasons.
That is essentially how Yao is built...massive base, not very massive upper body. All his power is in his legs. Ultimately, that hasn't helped him avoid injury. I'm not sure if that's just bad luck for Yao, or an indication that being built that big is a strain on the body (feet, knees, back) and the specific weight distribution only matters in the margins (assuming one isn't literally out of shape, as none of these guys are...at most, Oden was not in optimal shape for an NBA player).
FWIW Yao was much more of a string bean coming into the league and his game totals for his first three seasons were 82, 82, and 80. Of course he was playing NBA seasons as well as playing for the Chinese national team every year so thats a big factor.
He has no doubt suffered from injuries....but no serious injuries that I can recall. A lot of the games he's missed over the last decade have been as much about motivation as they've been about injuries imo. I don't think anyone has ever accused Shaq of working too hard.
