WHOOP Podcast - How to Train Like an NBA Champion with Felipe Eichenberger

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

On this week’s episode, WHOOP Founder and CEO Will Ahmed is joined by NBA Champion Felipe Eichenberger. Fresh off his championship-winning season as the Denver Nuggets Director of Performance and Head Strength and Conditioning Coach, Felipe is here to talk about how he helped some of the best players on the planet, including the league’s MVP, stay healthy throughout a grueling NBA title run. Will and Felipe will discuss how Felipe developed a passion for health and fitness (3:00), the power of consistency within the Nuggets’ organization (4:45), training Nikola Jokic (6:05), his role within the team (8:40), using WHOOP to train players (11:23), how Felipe uses WHOOP in his own life (13:50), players going out during the season (16:20), rehabbing injuries (19:44), meditation, visualization and breathing (22:32), recovery modalities (28:35), training at altitude in Denver (32:57), keeping players active and involved (36:28), Felipe’s impression of the Miami Heat (39:48), and his personal fitness motivation (42:40).Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

Hello folks, welcome back to the WOOP podcast. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of Woop, and we're on a mission to unlock human performance. Now, are you ready to tip off the NBA season? Good news. This week's episode, I'm joined by NBA champion Felipe Eichenberger. Fresh off his championship-winning season is the Denver Nuggets director. of performance and head strength and conditioning coach.

Felipe's here to talk about how he helped some of the best players on the planet, including the league's MVP, stay healthy throughout a grueling NBA title run. Felipe has been working inside the Nuggets organization since 2011. He received his master's degree in kineshesiology and exercise science from AT Still University after receiving a degree in health and sports science from Northwestern Oklahoma State University.

Felipe and I discuss how he developed his past passion for health and fitness, getting his start with the Nuggets. We touched on his rise through the organization since joining back in 2011, how the team used whoop during COVID and how they continued to use it today, using data to help players recover from injury, dealing with the grind of the NBA season. We talk travel, recovery, dealing with nightlife on the road, the mindset of staying ready, how he works with different members of the team and their roles within the rotation, and some of Felipe's Woop data during the Nuggets run to an NBA championship, we touch on his

stress and strain throughout the playoffs, as well as recovery scores from the day after clinching the title. Spoiler alert, they were low. Are you thinking about joining Woop? You can visit our website, Woop.com. Sign up for a free 30 days on Woop. Includes everything from the full membership experience, and you get 30 days to decide whether you want to be a WOOP member. If you have a question what's the answer to on the whoop podcast email us podcast at whoop.com call us 508 443 4952 here's my conversation with NBA champion Felipe Eichenberger Felipe welcome to the whoop podcast thank you thank you happy to be here well first of all congratulations NBA champion that's a pretty big deal it is I mean it's been a long ride you know I've been to

the team for 13 years and be able to win at all. It's pretty special. So we're still kind of like celebrating. So, you know, it's, it was, it was an amazing feeling. Well, you guys looked like the best team for most of the year and you ended up winning. So it feels incredibly well deserved. Why don't you take me back to the start of your career and how you got into, you know, really a life of performance. and conditioning and health and fitness. Yeah.

I mean, it's pretty interesting because I was born and raised in Brazil, came to United States to play basketball and play college basketball as, you know, like a small school in Oklahoma. And as any basketball player, they wanted you play in the NBA. And I figured out pretty quickly that, I don't know, the NBA is a pretty hard place you play at, you know, And so I wanted to be involved regardless. And that's where my passion for strength conditioning started.

We didn't have a strength coach back in college. So I was doing my own training. I was like, you know, trying to do different things. And became a passion. And I realized that just using my degree as a health and sport science, I know and I start doing some research and it's like I can do a strength conditioning coach in the NBA. then that's kind of like how the dream came through. And right after college, I did some

internships. And luckily enough, been here for 13 years, like I said. And being part of it, being part of a team, be part of, you know, one of my other passions, which is basketball. And you've been with the nuggets for over a decade. So a lot of continuity there. It's like, you know, but I think a lot of sports teams suffer from having this like revolving door. of coaches and administrators and trainers. But for you, there's been a lot of continuity in being able to be with this organization for so long. Was that something that you were intentionally looking for?

Was that something that the team intentionally has been driving towards? Like, how did that happen? Yeah. I mean, I got here. I was the assistant strength coach. And then the head strength coach, Steve has. He was here for 21 years, I believe,

20 or 21 years. So there is history there, you know, and I, you know, when I took over six years ago, I had some job offers, but staying here and just staying consistent, I think is the main thing the organization likes to do, you know, and it's just like they don't really, they give you the opportunity, they let you grow, and it's, it's pretty cool to see, not just with the staff, but also with the players, you know, so we got a player that, I mean, you know, probably going to ask about him, but he could, he come in and couldn't do a 30-second plank, and all of a sudden become a back-to-back MVP, you know, so just like, they trust you, they trust you in your job if you were hired here. You probably have some special skills,

and, you know, I'm lucky enough to be around and, you know, and I want to continue, so. Well, so you mentioned that not being able to do a 30-second plank. Talk a little bit about Jokic. Obviously, he's won the MVP twice and arguably could have wanted again this past year and now he's an NBA champion. Talk a little bit about what it's been like training him. Yeah. It's been great. He's been, I mean, he's such a great person. Like what you see on TV, it's who he is. You know, he's so human and, you know, like I became one of his closest friends. and I start you know you asked me about training him but I I answer like I believe in training you have to create a relationship with athlete or for anyone before you start the training right

that trust is really important and I think from day one when he walked in he couldn't really hold a plank for that long and just being like all right but I want to get better can you make me better and it was from you know every single thing little thing that it's not even training that's kind of like what training is for him right so it's just like getting his you know stronger get him faster get him more athletic you know and it it's a very it's a very long road and you know i think that's just um it was one of the greatest experience that that i ever had training an athlete and training a team and he's also capable of like bringing all the guys together not just by being a vocal leader but just being a natural leader that he is it's just like

he's really good what he does but he will never skip one step you know and uh it's pretty you know it's pretty interesting that like during covid that's where we started using the woof a lot more uh just because i could see him training on my phone you know you guys have the that seems the software you can see it but you know he would be like oh my train i i i man the workout was really hard and i'm looking like yeah but you didn't really push yourself that hard it's like what you mean i i'm sore like well here your matrix you know and then um that's kind of like where everything like started with like the technology and wearables but going back training him you know it's a blasting uh for the person he used and how hard he works

well i love i love that you all have been using whoop and i want to come back to that i think first it'd be helpful for our audience like maybe explain a week of training let's use jokic but like what is your role look like you know what is a director of performance mean in the nba yeah i mean we have you know the off season and preseason the off season the off is one of the most important part for us, like for the, you know, the strength conditioning to make sure they're ready for the season. Because during the season, I mean, the schedule is pretty rough. You know, it's like we play, sometimes we play like three games in five nights. You know, we play like a back-to-back. We travel, you know, across the country to play a game,

like time zones and sleep and all those things are very challenging. So starting like in the off-season, we have a plan for each player. what can we do to make them better and durable during the season, you know? So that's kind of like, you know, picking and choosing your buckets where each player goes. That's kind of like the off season, you know, like pretty much general fitness, make them stronger, make them durable. And then during the season, it's, you know, like not a lot of people realize this, but during the season for six months, depends how far you go. It's a Sunday through Sunday job, right? So we'll come in, a daily routine is we'll meet as a medical team, and we'll have a plan for each player, you know, like, what does this player do it, what does this player doing?

And it's kind of like how the plan goes for each individual guy. Is he playing more? Is he playing less? What are the rookies going to do? What are the, you know, reserves that don't play that amount of minutes? What are they going to do to supply what they need to be ready to play the game? so that's kind of like how it goes day to day but you know for us in strength conditioning the main thing is the off season that's where to get better and during the off season what kind

of a cadence of working out will you have these guys on like how many hours a day or over the course of a week are you trying to put them through some kind of strenuous work yeah so you know usually in the morning like we go for like in the way room for like an hour an hour 15 then we have them on the court for another now an hour 15 and then they play so it's like a three hour kind of thing and some of the younger guys they come back at night and shoot so it's a pretty like you know it's a it's a job right so like it's like a shorter job if you want to say but like for like off season it's like a six hours of work versus during the season could be a lot of shorter but it's a lot more like every single day more consistent you know yeah that makes a lot of

sense now you mentioned uh using whoop along the way uh would have been some ways that you've used whoop with your players yeah i mean mainly like when like i said when i started using 2020 uh during the covid it was just to see like the heart rate zones like where did you train where were you you know it's it's funny that you know you also compete against each other where he just like he would work out and then he's like first place and I'd be like all right so next morning I'll make sure that I work out a night pass him and he will wake up and you know those guys are so competitive that they're just like now I want to be first place so you can see that he push himself more the next day but some players use for like a lot of sleep so like even

2020 all the sleep the sleep score and things like that help us a lot you know so we have a couple players here and there that they start using but the main thing the NBA's consistency right so if we can we can collect the data but can you be consistent all the way through so we can like really look at your data but we look at the sleep score you know we look at HRV we look at some some some betas that can help us to find what the player needs to make sure they're ready to play if that makes sense it definitely does and would you occasionally see a player maybe in the red that you otherwise thought would be okay and maybe you said hey let's dial it back a little day we're going to do more stretching than weightlifting today you know would you use it like that

so for the decision-making stuff we try but it's also like our job to pass the information along to our head coach right so that's that's kind of like we get a little bit complicated because we do our best to be like hey his counter movement jump it's that lower the day before you know his lip score is a little bit lower i don't know if you can go You know, I don't know if you can practice. And then the coach is going to look at you. It's like, what do you mean? He's a basketball player.

You know, so we try. We give all the information to the head coaches. We give on information to offer management. And it's kind of like up to them to make the call. But we definitely like alert them for the red flags that we have and the decisions that we make. How have you used WOOP personally? I know you're a long time where yourself. What are certain aspects that you've gravitated to?

mainly sleep i can see you know my sleep score um and it's very interesting that it pretty much matches how you feel until you win a championship for example because um you know if you look at my data like the day that we won a championship my sleep score was like i don't even know like low like nine percent or i don't even know i actually have this here so that you you shared your data with us, which we appreciate. You had a recovery score of 9%. This is the day after. You had a resting heart rate of 61 beats per minute, which is the second highest it's ever been. So I imagine you're in the 40s otherwise. You had 4.2 hours of sleep. You had a sleep consistency of 15, which is the lowest it's been. So hopefully it was a good celebration.

Well, but that's my thing, right? So we go with the wearable. Like I say, that's why you say it's pretty much matches how you feel until you have something like that happening. You know, because it's funny enough that talk about the job, we won a championship. Next day at noon, we had a pre-draft workout. So I went to bed at like 5.30 a.m., slept for four hours, woke up. up and just went straight to this workout, and there's, you know, there's literally like six rookies trying to make the NBA the next day. The locker room smells like champagne and

it's so crazy, right? But that's the best I felt for a long time. You know, and I'm like, it's in my head, I'm like, this doesn't match how I feel. This doesn't match how I feel. But, you know, so it's like kind of cool to see they are, you know, like you're going to vary from how you feel sometimes and sometimes you have to push, you know, like just to make sure that you do your job, you know? But the way that I use is just to look like a score. You look at sleep score, mainly when we go east and we lose sleep and your recovery score just like sucks. And it's just like to make a decision for yourself, what should I do now? Should I really push the workout that I was planning? Or should I just like, you know, pull back, sleep a little bit more

and then try to go to the next day, try to go even harder, if that makes sense. What are your secrets for bouncing back from a hangover? A lot of water. You know, I mean, a lot of water. Because we also have to deal those things with the player. You know, like, you know, it's like a lot of waters. I mean, we do, our dietitian does a really good job

on like having like a recovery packs for them. I mean, we have. When they show up like clearly they had gone out the night before kind of thing. Well, yeah, yeah. We know that just, you know, like we in Denver, Denver is a great city. But then when you go to L.A., you go to New York, you go to Miami. It's a little bit different, right? So, and then you go, usually you have like two days in between.

So it's just like how can we get those guys hydrated? And I mean, we look so many different ways by having like Peterlight on the plane, by having, you know, a lot of liquids and educating them why they should be doing that. But if they do, how they can bounce back, you know, quickly. Do you feel like there's a culture amongst players, which is, you know, almost like a work hard, play hard, hey, if we're winning, if my stats are good, so what if I went out in Miami or so what if I went out in New York? Or do you feel like there's sort of like a higher elevated level of consciousness now, which is no matter how great you're doing, you can always be better. And if you're going out, you know, the night before game or two nights before game, you're setting yourself back to your potential. So I think the veteran players understand a lot more than the younger players, how effective they can be. if they go out, you know, two outs before the game, you know, just because they, I mean,

they're also veterans, you know, a lot of them, they might have kids and they understand how he goes, but we have some younger players that are just like, I don't know, I might play five minutes or more, so I'm going to go and have fun. But it's a really hard, it's a hard job because you know like you make you the league but the main thing is like how do we stay in the league right so it's just like you want to you want to always go above average right so it's like the average in the NBA as believe like three and a half years as from your way you're drafted but now how can you make four five six seven eight nine ten you know I mean from three and a half years to five and a half years could be a difference between 10 to 20 million dollars and then you

tell the athlete that and be like just be conscious you know it's just like it's the sport but There's also could be like the difference between $20 million, for example. And it's a significant amount of money and, you know, potential that they would be like, all right, you're right. Maybe I should look into those things and like be more educated. If I do go out, those are the things that I want to follow up with. That makes a lot of sense. If you think about some of the players you had to rehab this year, I mean,

Jamal Murray famously came back from injury this. year what is the psychology on working with an injured player and what are some of the techniques you like to use i make you know i think the psychology is it's hard just because those guys are so skilled uh it's it's unbelievable how good they are in the sport and you know when you watch a guy like Jamal that he can go there at the beginning of his rehab but he cannot do what he used to and that has like the mental block it's pretty like you become you know you go from being the strength coach to being the supporter to like I don't even know you take you start like just doing whatever you can to make sure that you you know you support him you're there for him and he's

going to be able to do that but you have to keep working you know because that can be pretty challenging for players, like I said, you know, like when they come in and they're just like, man, I don't even know if it can step, you know, do a step up, you know, and then you're just like, yeah, you can. And, you know, he'd look at you, be like, I don't know if you can. And now all of a sudden, you're just like, half just takes your different places where you've got to make that player believe that they can do that. In the case of Jamal, what made him successful to come back from an ACL injury? His mindset was one of them. I mean, he's a guy that comes in. I mean, I tried to put a whip on him just to see, you know, his mindset. Just he meditates every game. You know, he's the kind of guy that's pretty much like, you know, like he was trained like by his dad with like Bruce Lee, like doing pushups of this snow.

You know, and I think that that was what helped him a lot, you know, his mindset. And, you know, he's a hard worker. So he will work hard. He will, you know, like, can he be more consistent? Yes. But if he tells you, like, hey, I'm going to do this, he'll get it done. He'll got done it the proper way. And he wants to do more.

But I think the biggest thing was his mindset, you know. And we kind of forget, you know, but like his rookie year, his second year, I don't remember now. But he had a double hernia where he played. and every single game, he pretty much have to be carried out, you know, the court. He was just like so much pain, but he played through everything. So I feel like what saves him and make who is special and how great he is, is his mindset.

You mentioned that he's a meditator or meditates before games, and I'm curious how many players on the team have some process like that, visualization, meditation, you know, to sort of the honing the mental side of the craft. Yeah. So we like, it's funny that last year, two years ago, we start doing a lot more breeding with the guys. We found that like our players,

they really don't know how to breed, right? So it's just like, you know, you always try to be like, what is that 1%? What can we do better? 1% more. And then we start realizing that just like, players don't really know how to breathe, you know? Let's take back.

and it's just like you can see that they go like they go so hard on the court during the game and then there's a timeout and then they come should you know like we are a C level which should help us but the guys come back and sit down the chair and just like like you know what I mean like that two minutes three minutes that they have feels like they don't recover enough to go back and play the same level that they were so we start doing a lot of breeding with the guys well that's an amazing i just i just want to hone in on that for a second that's an amazing you know point that you just made that here you are with NBA champions i mean you know these star star athletes and you're saying they don't know how to breathe and think about the general

public not knowing how to breathe in comparison to professional athletes so what what are the one or two insights that you could recommend for improving your breathing you know we use a lot of the box kind of like the you know technique you know five you know so i do think it's just like with breeding it's more like a consistency thing well it's like everything else but like more like a consistency thing than anything um and it's like breathing through your nose like it's going to be challenging like you know you're going to get your places that like sometimes it's not comfortable but that's kind of like what you need you know that's what we tell our guys it's just like, hey, just try to relax, you know?

I mean, even during the finals, I'm telling the guys behind the bench, it's just like, hey, two minutes left in the timeout, you know, like one minute, like don't stand up right away, make sure you breathe. And those little cues, I feel like they get to your brain. And just like, you're like, all right, well, yeah, I'm not breathing through my nose. I'm breathing through my mouth. So those are the little things that we try to use. So right when a guy comes to a timeout, you want them to start breathing through their nose.

versus like hyperventilating through their mouth? Yes, yes. And would you have them go into a box breathing there where it's five in, hold, five out, hold, or would you just have them breathe normally but through their nose? So depends on the player and how long we've been doing that with each player.

So we try the box, but at the same time, at first we just like, hey, we're comfortable, we know, put our hands on their shoulders or their legs. You know, my assistant, it's pretty good with that. And then he's just like, let's try to breathe. And at first it's just like, just breathe through your nose regardless.

And then as they get more comfortable, we try to go like, hey, let's go to a three second. And then let's go to a five second, you know. So it's pretty much like a progression that we do. And then like that's kind of like how we have success with our guys. And when you say three second or five second, is it just three in, three out? Or is it three in hold three? three out hold three three in hold uh hold three and then you know whatever they're comfortable so it's pretty much like following the box three hold three follow the box yes for folks listening to

this it's it's it's a box because you're going up and then you're holding so you inhale three hold over exhale three down hold over so you can picture this being essentially a box that you're drawing uh between in and out i do a lot of different breathing things. So I'm always interested in and how professional athletes are being coached on it. But I think that's a really powerful insight, this idea that your team didn't know how to breathe. Yeah. Yeah. Or I mean, it takes some humility to say that too. For sure. And I mean, you can also like, or you can, you know, download the Woop app and then breeding exercise there. That's right. They're pretty legit though, you know, like they, you know, I was the, you know, I was

I always love Dr. Haberman, but like, it's pretty, it's pretty cool. You mean the meditation and different breathing techniques that we have inside the Woupap? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, we put those in because we wanted people to be able to control their stress levels. You know, we came out with the stress monitor, and we realized that it's not just a question of whether your stress is high or low in a given moment, it's also giving people this ability to control it. autonomic control and this idea that maybe I'm in a you know a low stress state but actually I need

I need to kind of snap into it like I need to get activated okay I can do something that's that's a more invigorated breathing exercise on the flip side if my body's under a lot of stress hey what can I do to get back to a baseline or to a more balanced state okay longer exhales things like that. So I'm glad that you've gotten you've gotten some value out of that. Yeah, yeah. I think, I mean, it's the easiest thing to follow. Like, you know, and it's pretty cool.

It's pretty cool. Like, it's really easy and like slow progression. It's pretty cool. I'm glad you guys put that in. Let's talk for a second about recovery and recovery modalities. I mean, a lot of people have different opinions on cryo and ice. Bath and Norma Tech and Hyperice and massage therapy and cuck-bing and all these things. Like are there a few things that you find you're often recommending to players or you're

seeing more success with when it comes to recovery? Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, like we keep simple and we give the players a lot of options, right? So if a player doesn't like, like, say, the cold tub for 15. minutes that you know okay so let's go and try to do the the chamber for three minutes so you know we have we we're capable of cry of chamber i imagine cry a chamber yes the cry of chamber for three minutes so we have all those things but we like we keep simple like you know like ice bath has been done for how long you know like we're not going to go away from it um so it's just like we kind

try to explain educate each player what the benefits are uh but we have have, I mean, you name it, every single thing that you imagine in the market, we have it. So, you know, we always have normal attacks. We have game readies. We have all those things to really make sure that the players are ready to play. You know, so it's just, there are a lot of stuff that sounds to go by feel. Like if a player feel like this is going to help me to play and we believe in it, we're also going to do it. So, like, a lot of people ask, like, what's your job?

And my job is make the player feel good, right? My job is to make, like, you know, a player is going to come in, you know, perfect example is, hey, I want to stretch. And, I mean, there's all this research and, like, static stretching. And, you know, like, it's good, not good, right in between, how to do it. And a lot of people would disagree, like, why are we stretching the player right before the game? and my answer to them is like do they feel good did they make them perform better so i'll do it you know like i will activate i'll do something else after but if he wants me to stretch and he's telling me like that's going to make me feel better and maybe we can win a game just like i'm going to stretch the guy

you know so um you know like all those things like you say like norm attack and uh we have we have it all. And, you know, we try to do a lot of the evidence-based. We do a lot of BFR with the guys and, like, all those things. I mean, we don't try to do a lot. We do a lot of stuff to evidence-based, but at the same time, we listen to the players how much better they feel after we do certain things. Is there anything new that you've seen in the last 12 months that you find players are saying, yeah, that made me feel good? I think the red light therapy, yeah that has been popping up yeah and you know like another thing is we had a couple players here and there it's been you know for a long time but going back to oxygen right going back to

breeding but some players they got a hyperbaric chamber and sure yeah they start taking naps on it and they feel like they're superman it's pretty interesting but you know my point goes now is it because the hyperbaric chamber is making that much difference or it's because you're taking a nap you know because you know imagine he's scheduling the NBA so you go from like you know you have a shoot around in the morning you know it's like an hour two hours like right in the morning so it's like at 10 a.m so you leave the arena by new and you have to be back by you know like 5.30 so right in between, they take their naps, you know, they relax and they prepare for the game. A lot, you know, like a couple of those players, they're sleeping in the hyperbaric chamber.

Like, they have nowhere to go and they like, oh, do you fall asleep? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, so it's just like I feel the combination of like oxygen plus the sleep is helping them a lot, you know, to get where, where they want to be. Well, now that you mentioned, you know, oxygen, let's talk about just Denver as a home base. I would think that that's a huge advantage. I mean, you tell me. but essentially all your guys for half the year are training at altitude and then you've got visitors

coming in and they're not used to it like i don't know talk talk to me about that yeah that was a big thing during the finals where you know i did uh i mean ESPN and i you know all those channels they were talking about the altitude and i mean do we use you know with our advantage yeah but that's a natural environment that we have like that's not like something that we made it up sure but i you know like i i think that just like it helps us but sometimes it's also like it doesn't help us you know so it's just like for example we go on the east coast road trip or something so we've gone for like 10 days and usually take like two or three games when we come back for the players be like oh i feel good but then you're traveling again so it's just like you know you always try to catch up

with the altitude so do we use it yes i mean that's a natural you know component that we have should put it in but it can help us a good amount because by the third quarter like some players that come in they just feels like you know like i can't breathe but it also has to have to happen with our players. You know, so it's kind of like go both ways, if that makes sense. Yeah, it does. I guess, you know, it occurs to me if you take 10 days away from the altitude and come back to it, maybe you're also going through the same thing the visiting team is.

Do you feel like it's got that short of a shelf life? It's not short. I mean, we will adapt to altitude a little bit faster than other teams come in. but it's still, you know, it goes player by player, you know, it's just like, it's just goes player by player. Some players just play through it, you know, some players affect their mindset more than anything else, you know, because going back to the breeding, you know, some players haven't played for three or four games, and all of a sudden they go in, they're like, oh, shoot, this is real. Like, you know, there's, now there's 20,000 people watching me.

Now the altitude is high. Now they wouldn't expect me to do all those things. and it's just like, wow, this is, this is, you know, this is real, but is it an altitude or is that like, do you think you don't have enough air or you don't know how to breathe? So you've talked a little bit about players coming off the bench or, you know, not knowing how much game time they're going to get. You talked earlier about, you know, the difference with being in the NBA for three years versus five or six and how that's tens of millions of dollars, potentially. What do you find are the trends working?

with a player who, you know, is maybe eighth or ninth on the, on the, you know, org design versus a Jokic, you know, is it, is there a phenomenon of the rich or always getting richer in a sense? Because, hey, Jokic knows he's got to play every game. He knows he needs to be super focused. So therefore, he's always focused. And you've got another guy where it's like, oh, I don't know if I'm going to play tomorrow. maybe I'm going to go out in Manhattan tonight and then all of a sudden they're starting to slip a little bit

they're not playing games so they're not getting those reps in I don't know I can see it both ways on the flip side it's like if you told me all I have to do is work out and be in great shape and really focused and that was the key to my success I feel like I would get so deeply committed to that we have we kind of divide the you know

we kind of divide the team in three groups groups, right? So the starters, we all know that's who their starters are. They stay ready that we call, and then the development group, right? The hardest, the hardest group to train is the stay ready group, right? Because they don't know if you're going to go in, right? In the middle, yes. So they don't know if they're going to go in. And if they go in, are they going to play or going to play 10 minutes or 20 minutes? So we always emphasize how important is you stay ready. So it is, it is. challenging to train that group because you know you're here for the fun and what's the fun is the games you know but a lot of times it's just like if you really look historically um like last year it was like a part of the year that i don't remember when right now but like we had we didn't practice as a team like you know 17 players go we're going to practice we're going to do warm up and do all those things we didn't practice for like three or four weeks you know so it's just like Game, rast, game, development day, game.

So it's just like we have a lot of individual works. But like as a team, we have in practice. So like you don't even know if the coach is looking at you. You don't even know if you're just like, am I going to have a chance? And, you know, in the NBA, it's kind of like, it's sad. It's not sad. It's just like it sucks because like sometimes the only time that you're going to have a chance if somebody in front of you got injured, right?

Which shouldn't be that way. So it should be like, I can't fight for that position. every single day at practice, but that's not like how realistic it is because if we play last night at 8.30, today we're not going to have practice. We're going to have a come in, you know, like do a recovery. You know, the young guys are going to get developed. But that's kind of like that group in the middle. That's the biggest challenge that we have. We have a lot of small side of game, but it's not the same as, you know, like a regular game. But we try to keep everybody pretty much in shape and stay ready to play.

Yeah, you make a great point about how does a player even get noticed who's in the development area or in the stay ready area because, you know, you never want teammates rooting for each other. They get injured and stuff. But I imagine a lot of people in those buckets, their breakthrough moment has been when someone else got injured. 100%. 100%. Even going back to when, you know, Nicola starts. to playing. I also believe he would be who he is just because he's that talent, he's that good. But it could be delayed because he, you know, he was a reserve. He was, he came off the bench.

And the guy that was the starter, he got injured. He got a knee and he had like a six weeks recovery or something like that. And at that point, like we had no options. Like, all right, well, we got to, you know, throw this guy in and safe his sticks. And I mean, that was his opportunity right there. to where, you know, he showed the coaching and the organization that he was ready for that moment, and they made the moves that they made. But that's kind of like how everything started. What was your impression of the Miami Heat this year? You know, I think they have a really good culture. Every year they are, you know, I know I'm really close with their strength coaches there.

They do a great job on like, you know, like they, you know, the culture happens to do what they to do and you know doing the things that I also believe in which is I feel like a lot of people are using a lot of technology which is great but they are also forgetting to train right so I feel like they do a really good job balancing before between like technology and training so I feel like they're in a really good shape you know I feel like they're really competitive. I mean, they were where they were for a reason. And I think that's just like, I mean, it could be a couple of shots, man. Like, that's kind of how closed NBA is, that the series could be a lot different. But, you know, they were well prepared. I think

they were prepared conditioning. And yeah, I mean, we came out and we know winning, but it could be the other way, too. Yeah, I thought they were one of the most like resilient or gritty teams i'd seen in i don't know how long but it's just so unusual to have an eight seat in the finals in the NBA playoffs and it wasn't like they were beating teams too that had a bunch of injuries or something it was like a true just upset after upset and they always looked the most resilient and i watched or went to a number of the celtics games and it was like i don't know i just never felt like the Celtics had it over them. They just seemed grittier. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a lot going to, you know, like winning a championship, winning a games in the playoffs.

You know, I like us. Like not a lot of people believe that we could win a championship. But, I mean, we kind of, you know, prove where we were. Like, we were number one seat in the West. You know, like, and then we went to the playoffs. I mean, we were 16 and 4. Kind of shows. like how to work and like it's the word the players put in you know and like uh kind of like the system that belief that we had and then i mean we start the season well we stayed at the top and you know we end up winning at all so it's just uh it's just one thing that can go wrong and everything just flips but for us kind of worked out the whole way well congratulations again well deserved and uh really happy for you guys let's close by talking a little bit just about

your personal health and fitness, what are things that you find help keep you fit? I mean, I imagine there's a lot of days you're tired. You've been around the gym all day helping other people, and now you've got to do your own work. I don't know. What keeps you going, motivated? My kids, first of all, like, I want to be able to be here when I'm like 115 years old and playing my kids. You know, I think that's like one of my goals.

but you know just like stay active i think you know a lot of people just forget how important your life is and how fun you know it is if you're healthier uh if you can do things you know if you get a phone call from your buddy from like college and they're like hey let's go play basketball and you're just like oh shoot can i play can i play that thought should be like yeah let's lace up and let's go you know i think i think those are the things that personally help me You know, I start doing a lot more. I try a lot of stuff myself before I do anything with the players. So, you know, like from types of training, from, you know, recovery, from, you know, like,

ice bats from like whatever. Like I really want to feel how they feel and how can I improve. But I think the main goal is just, you know, stay healthy as long as I can. I like that goal of 115 in playing with the little care. kids. What about on the supplement side? Are there any supplements you're taking or you recommend? I mean, we do, you know, with the team, with everybody else, we do like a blood test that we find out what each player, each person needs. But I, we stick with the, you know, the big five with the multivitamin, vitamin D, fish oil, the conjoint chain. And what am I

missing? I forgot. I forgot now. But like, because we called the big five. And, and Magnesia, maybe, iron. Yes, magnesium. Yes, magnesium. A lot of this stuff got changed, you know, a couple last years because of the dietitian. But, you know, each player have an individual package. So, you know, we were going to give them the big five, but like, is it more or less? And can we add this, this and this?

So, you know, we created, like, each player have like a little picture of themselves, their names and what they're taking. but those are the ones that we stick with. And vitamin D3 is the biggest one now. Okay, so I got to ask you, your second lowest recovery was after winning an NBA championship. What was your first number one lowest recovery, and what were you up to? It was, I think it was after having my first child.

It was just like, you know, I think it was just like I was there, but I wasn't there. But it was like, you know, a mix of emotions and you didn't know what you do. And all of a sudden you have a child, like, oh, shoot, okay. Yeah, right. So that was like one of the biggest, you know, stress. You know, stress can be many different ways. But that was probably my lowest one, my second lowest one.

Wow, that's a good answer. All right, man. Well, this has been a pleasure. I really appreciate you come. on the podcast. Definitely appreciate you and the team using WOOP and we're proud of all your success. Thank you. Thank you for having us and all the support you guys gave it. Thank you to Felipe for joining me today to discuss his training methods and the journey to winning an NBA title. Best of luck to him and the Nuggets this season. If you enjoyed this

episode of the WOOP podcast, please leave a rating or review. Please subscribe to the WOOP podcast. You can check us out on social at Woop. Will Ahmed. If you have a question, you want to see answered on the podcast, email us, podcast at whoop.com. Call us 508-443-49-2. And we'll answer your questions on a future episode. If you're thinking about joining Whoop, you can visit our website, sign up for a 30-day free trial membership and take the first step to unlocking your own best performance today. New members can use the code Will, W-I-L, to get a $60 credit on Whoop accessories. And that's a wrap. Thank you all for listening. We'll catch you next week on the WOOP podcast. As always, stay healthy and stay

in the green.