How Victor Wembanyama, the NBA’s Most Intriguing Player, Trains for Greatness

VICTOR WEMBANYAMA, BASKETBALL’S latest wunderkind, is both a genetic and hoops anomaly. The 21-year-old was named Rookie of the Year last year, but that award was for more than just his status as the best player of his class—he finished second in voting for Defensive Player of the Year and was included in the All-NBA Defensive First Team, too. He was the youngest player ever to lead the NBA in blocks, and the first player in league history to score at least 1,5srcsrc points, block 25src shots, and make 1srcsrc 3-pointers last season. And get this: one of the 7’4” center’s favorite exercises is a cartwheel.

The Frenchman continued his dominance this year, leading the NBA with a 3.8 blocks per game average while also averaging 11 rebounds per game and 24.3 points per game for the Spurs before he was shut down for the season just after the All-Star break last month due to deep vein thrombosis in his shoulder.

Wembanyama is, to use the common adage, “built different,” and that means in part that he needs to train differently than most players too. He is a mass of long arms, long limbs, and a long torso. But unlike many seven-footers, Wembanyama isn’t slow and lumbering, according to trainer Melvin Sanders, who founded SandersFit in Dallas and has worked with Wembanyama in the offseason “He moves better than any point guard that I’ve ever trained, because he’s so mobile,” Sanders says. Studying his training can give us all insight, too, into how to maintain and improve mobility.

7-Footers (and You) Need to Use Full Range of Motion

Finding fitness examples to model his training has been difficult—mostly because they don’t exist. Historically, seven-foot NBA players stayed rarely stepped beyond the three-point line. The Spurs youngster loves shooting from outside, though, and he also piles up blocks beyond the perimeter. “There are very few bodies similar to mine to look up to,” Wembanyama says. “So it’s been a lot of experimenting… my philosophy all along has been to do things and to grow organically.”

Wembanyama grew up in the Paris suburbs and started lifting weights when he was 13. But instead of focusing on going heavy on every lift, Wembanyama was coached to focus on using a full range of motion. “I like to work on the whole length of my muscle,” he says. Working through that deep ROM may be an underrated reason for his flexibility today, too.

Sanders says taking a measured, comprehensive approach means working in the sagittal and transverse planes of motion, with moves like transverse lunges, RDLs, and isometric holds with kettlebells. Instead of back squats with a lot of weight, Sanders says, he’ll have Wembanyama do Keiser machine squats (which use pneumatic pressure for resistance) and lunges. “It doesn’t really make sense for a frame like his body,” Sanders says of back squats. “So we do a lot of front loaded stuff and the trap bar, lunges, and step ups—depth jumps to drops and things like that.”

Performance Over PRs

One of Wembanyama’s favorite exercises is the deadlift. He’ll move through eight reps with 12src kilograms (about 265 pounds) on a trap bar. And sure, most gym bros have deadlifted more than this, but taller athletes such as Wembanyama face unique challenges with the exercise. “It’s super important if you’re that tall to really, really focus on your mobility and flexibility, and then get your range of motion down,” Sanders says. “Then start loading–but don’t start loading too early.” Wembanyama has to pull the weight upwards for a greater distance, which, over time, can be fatiguing, especially since he’s using a full range of motion. Deadlifting just 3src pounds more than his bodyweight is enough.

Even with his long limbs, Wembanyama says he loves doing handstands and pullups. He says he maxes out at three or four reps of the pullups—which might sound unimpressive coming from a pro athlete, until you remember how much further he has to pull to lift his chin to the bar compared to most people. He also loves rolling an ab wheel to build core strength, which is key given his height.

Wembanyama says his exceptional height gives him more leverage and more torque. But he still couldn’t do a pushup until he was 16. “I mean, I was already a professional athlete by then,” Wemby says, laughing. “My height makes it a different challenge, a different adventure.” Like all athletes, he’s had to grow into his body.

Strong Mind, Strong Body

This past summer, one of Wembanyama’s priorities was to increase stamina to be able to perform throughout the length of an entire NBA game. “So it’s not only [adding] weight, it’s not only lifting, it’s not only being strong in the core–it’s also running, jumping, reacting,” Wemby says.

To achieve his goals, he thought outside the box for his training plan. Literally.

Wembanyama’s sessions alternated between the exercise bike, versa climber and an underwater treadmill for short cardio bursts. In between each cardio set, he’d play a game of chess against his strength coach, a teammate, or the analytics scientists from the Spurs. That wound up totaling two to four minutes of pure cardio work, then one minute for lightning rounds of chess for six total rounds.

“If you can transition from, say, playing chess, to training your body at a high level on a cardio burst, that makes basketball so much easier, and it makes the game so much slower to you,” Sanders says. “To be able to control your mental capacity with cardio training and going to the mental game of chess–it’s pretty impressive from any level.”

If that sounds unique, it is. “I’m not trying to be like everybody else,” Wembanyama says, smiling. His approach seems to work—before being shut down for what was more a medical condition than an on-court injury, Wembanyama started 46 games for the Spurs and averaged 33.1 minutes per game on the court.

The speed chess might be the most eyebrow-raising element of Wembanyama’s training plan, but the underwater treadmill conditioning might be the one he credits for making the biggest difference. He’ll have a one-minute session on, 3src seconds off, and he’ll work until exhaustion. Aquatic training really helps with endurance, Sanders says, and takes the load off of Wembanyama’s knees, ankles and body. He pointed out that former Spurs big man Tim Duncan (who is 6’11”) also utilized aquatic training, “so coming full circle with Victor is pretty cool,” Sanders says.

“In the water, there’s less pressure on the joints, and it allows me to run barefoot,” Wembanyama says. This is a smart method to help limit the amount of the pounding his joints take when he runs up and down the court—something all pro athletes are focused on. “As NBA players, injury prevention is what we do the most,” Wembanyama says. “It’s so simple because we need it, and there’s some simple exercises that can really help, like isometric holds, because they don’t put as much stress on the joints.”

Webanyama’s emphasis on smart training extends to recovery, which is a quality that Sanders recognizes as being a sure sign of maturity in such a young player. “He’s a kid, right, but he doesn’t act like a kid,” the coach says. “I’ve had athletes I’ve tried to get into recovery work for years. Victor is already really in tune with his recovery, from the Normatec compression, red light therapy, hyperbaric chamber, infrared sauna. He does all this stuff and it helps so much.”

Off-Court Strength

Wembanyama’s focus on optimization extends beyond the gym. “Taking care of your body and the way you treat your career off the court is pretty much as hard as what you do in the weight room and on the court,” he says. He didn’t discuss specifics about his diet, but much has been made about his weight. He’s reportedly been eating five meals a day per years, though he and his trainers aren’t focused packing on mass. Wembanyama also works with Barcode Performance Water (the brand is the Spurs’ performance water partner, too) to dial-in his hydration through what he calls a “custom” plan.

While Wembanyama has made himself into a pillar of the league in just his second season, he is still just 21—and some of his physical goals fit the profile of an enthusiastic kid. He does acknowledge that given his height, some mobility exercises are still out of reach for him—but he still wants to master a backflip, and he’s proud he learned how to do a cartwheel two years ago.

“One day I went into the back part of my gym and he’s in there doing cartwheels until, literally, he was in a full split,” Sanders says. “I’m like, ‘dude.’ This is insanely crazy, but cool at the same time.”

Given the sheer length of his arms and legs, Wembanyama emphasizes flexibility to his end ranges in training sessions. “The end ranges of my joints, whether it’s my shoulders or even my back. I’m trying to get my body used to going into those ranges, and it’s saved me [on the court] a couple of times,” he says.

He’s also a proponent of training barefoot, even outside the water. “It gets your feet stronger, and everything is more stable after that,” he says, doubtlessly making a Nike executive cringe. “Why would I wear shoes? How will I get stability if I never put myself through it?”

That’s a staple of Sanders’s training style. All of his athletes, including Derrick Henry, Dak Prescott, and Tyrese Maxey take on workouts barefoot in order to help “activate” the foot and ankle. This leads to increased strength in the extremities, Sanders says, which can lead to more total-body payoffs.

Overall, Wembanyama’s optimistic, creative, and dedicated outlook toward training has already helped to carry him to unprecedented heights. “With my body type, it’s really an adventure into the unknown sometimes,” he says. “We try a lot of things, and I’ve learned so much, and I keep learning every day about my own body.”