Draymond Green’s cardio workout is odder than yours.
Or maybe it was odder than yours. It’s not really clear whether this particular brand of weight management is still a present-day tendency of his.
Ethan Sherwood Strauss penned a terrific profile on the Golden State Warriors’ enigmatic, at times high maintenance, superstar. There is a lot to take away from it, most of it serious and profound. But Strauss relays an anecdote near the end about Green, stationary bikes and a sauna that you just have to read to believe it’s true:
THREE YEARS AGO, the Warriors had a mystery on their hands. Team trainers were noticing that the stationary bikes in their practice facility had become rather unstationary. More to the point, they were disappearing. Eventually, the mystery was solved. Green was dragging the stationary cycles to the sauna and leaving them there to soak.
It turned out that Green, who’s struggled with his weight since his days at Michigan State, had developed a theory: By riding the bikes in the sauna, he could more efficiently shed pounds. In the short term, biking in a sauna will do that, but much of what is lost is water weight and is soon gained back. Golden State trainers were aware that Green’s regimen was, at best, scientifically dubious. Also, the bikes were getting ruined. Says a former Golden State trainer: “He would come in and say, ‘The screen’s not working on the bike.’ And I’d be like, ‘Yeah, I wonder why.'”
Green is far from the first to associate better weight loss with extreme heat. Though he may be the first person to ever bike in a sauna, people work out/run/bike/walk in extra layers all the time, the thought process being that the more you sweat, the more weight you’ll lose. This is true, though as Strauss pointed out, the weight you’re losing is mostly water weight.
Still, to each their own, right?
Besides, this wouldn’t be such a big deal if Green would just drag the stationary bikes back out of the sauna after he was done. They might still go on the fritz from time to time, but they wouldn’t be soaking as long. He would also do well to keep using the same bike, so as not to ruin all of them.
Just some food for thought. Now excuse me while I go use my elliptical on Mercury.
