It has felt like an accepted truth around the NBA over the past decade that the Miami Heat conditioning program is on another level. It isn’t fancy, it isn’t based on futuristic machines or wild advanced stats. Instead, it goes back to the basics, but at a level that most NBA teams would never think of pushing themselves to.
In a piece earlier this postseason, with the Heat making a run to the finals, ESPN NBA senior writer Brian Windhorst gave us an inside glimpse at the drill that has made Miami’s conditioning as notorious as it is:
“In his first moment in the spotlight as a member of the Miami Heat last fall, Jimmy Butler failed.
It was the rigorous conditioning test the Heat put players through before training camp that is legend within the league. Some athletic trainers claim it’s the most demanding such test in all of the NBA or NFL. To be admitted to training camp, a player has to run the length of the court 10 times in under a minute. Then two minutes recovery. Then again. Two minutes recovery. Then again. And again. And again.”
Even Jimmy Butler, arguably the fiercest competitor in the league could not handle the infamous sprints. So, what did Greg Gard and Wisconsin basketball want to do in order to get ready for an unprecedented season? Learn from the best in the game, and take their conditioning to a whole new Miami-approved level.
Yesterday in Wednesday’s press conference, senior forward Micah Potter noted the different level of preseason conditioning that Wisconsin has been doing this season. One of the toughest drills came straight from the Miami Heat playbook.
Potter said they had been participating in the “Miami Drill,” the same court sprints within a minute that the Heat do every year at the beginning of training camp as an entrance exam. “It’s a dog,” said Potter. “It’s tough.”
Wisconsin is trying to be the best conditioned team in the country, and turning towards arguably the toughest conditioning program in all of sports as their inspiration.
