Arron Afflalo

Before the draft you began a pretty serious workout regimen, talk about that.

I went up to San Francisco to train with a personal trainer.  He had a lot of good stuff for me and helped change my diet a little bit.  Actually, I got leaned up a little bit but also managed to gain some muscle.  I just did a lot of training in all types of weather; most of my training was outdoors on the beaches, a lot of core and conditioning. 

Can you talk about any exercises that particularly helped you improve?

All of my workouts helped, really.  In the month and a half that I trained up there I might have done the same exercise maybe once or twice a week.  There wasn’t a whole lot of repetition in what I did but a lot of the exercises worked the same muscles.  I would run up sand hills with weights or dumbbells or a weight vest on.  I would run along the beach since the sand is soft and is really good for your legs and conditioning.  I did a lot of pull-ups, a lot of push-ups.  Shoulder work with medicine balls.  A lot of sprinting, especially up hills.  I didn’t really lift a whole lot of weights but everything I did made me more powerful and explosive

Do you feel that the workouts have carried over to your game?

Yeah, I think the major thing was the recovery time to my wind.  Not that I was out of shape – I’ve always worked hard – but it was a different type of conditioning that prepared my body in a different way. My recovery time became pretty good as far as when I would get tired and bounce back and be able to get my second and third wind.  That was probably the most beneficial and I think that had a lot to do with my diet and having more muscle and the fact that I was doing a lot of running.  The heart is a muscle as well so I did a lot of cardio.  

What sort of changes did you make to your diet?

I just got away from a college student diet; I learned how to read the ingredients and find the good and bad in food and drinks.  The diet was pretty strict and I tried not to have any lapses even if it meant not eating a peppermint.  I tried to utilize the entire time and not have any setbacks.  I just ate a lot of salad, a lot of fish, chicken and turkey.  No red meat or artificial sugars.  I just ate only things that are good for you.

Do you have any fitness goals for the upcoming year?

I pretty much touched on everything as a whole.  I’m actually going back to my trainer in the middle of August, and once I head out to Detroit, Richard Hamilton – who’s known for being one of the most in-shape guys in the NBA will be there – so he’ll be a good guy to work out with and learn form.