Out of the mainstream
Nowitzki's coach prefers rowing as training method
08/07/2001
By Jodie Valade / The Dallas Morning News
Holger Geschwindner
Nowitzki plays the saxophone, part of Geschwindner's theory of applying rhythm to basketball.
Dirk Nowitzki began his quest for improvement to NBA elite status this offseason with the same high-intensity summer program that graces a part of his vacation each year.
It's a week filled with lots of rowing. Not to mention some handstands. And nights spent in sleeping bags on a gym floor. And, don't forget, the daily dose of dancing and saxophone playing.
"Basically, it's a pretty hard day," Nowitzki said from Germany.
He's not kidding, either. It's how he spends time at the not-quite-mainstream basketball camp run by Nowitzki's German coach and representative, Holger Geschwindner, each summer in Starnberg, Germany. It might even be part of the secret to Nowitzki's rapid improvement – so much so that other Mavericks players have considered joining their teammate.
Steve Nash and Eduardo Najera have expressed an interest in the camp. And Michael Finley tried to join Nowitzki this year before scheduling conflicts forced him to settle for a phone call that didn't even get recorded on a confusing German answering machine.
Holger Geschwindner
Nowitzki's trainer believes handstands will help strengthen the shoulders.
The camp's focus is on non-traditional exercises, all of which Geschwindner believes are vital to physical and mental development in basketball. For Nowitzki, it's also a chance to return to his basketball roots, playing with the friends and teammates he has known growing up in Germany. And it's a chance to temporarily abandon the NBA lifestyle for a more comfortable environment.
"I don't care what other NBA players do," Nowitzki said. "That's how I grew up. That's how I played basketball when I was young."
That's not how most people play basketball, though. Geschwindner focuses the camp, which was held in June, around rowing. His theory is that rowing provides an all-around workout for athletes, with particular emphasis on the back, a problem area for many basketball players. With instruction from a former world-class German rower, Dieter Sator, campers begin each day rowing to an island about five miles into a lake at Starnberg, a town just south of Munich.
"Rowing is a very symmetrical movement," said Geschwindner, who was captain of the 1972 German Olympic basketball team. "With eight guys in a boat, nobody can cheat. You can see automatically if one guy is pulling a little slower."
Holger Geschwindner
Geschwindner had a boat designed to accomodate 7-footers like Nowitzki (second from right).
And perhaps the best part: "Nobody can stop. You cannot escape to the shore."
This summer, rowing was a little easier. Geschwindner had a special boat made for his camp specifically to accommodate 7-footers such as Nowitzki, at a cost of about $25,000 furnished entirely by a donation from Schroders, a private European bank.
But rowing isn't the only part of the instruction. In addition to regular 3-on-3 games at night, players perform other unusual exercises. Handstands, Geschwindner believes, helped strengthen Nowitzki's shoulder enough so that he did not miss any games after a shoulder injury early last season.
"Hopefully when the season starts this year, he can walk easily anytime without feet," Geschwindner said with a laugh.
But that's not all. Geschwindner's unofficial motto for the camp is, "B-ball is jazz." He stresses rhythm and movement in basketball, likening playing to dancing. Morning stretches at camp are performed to different tunes, each song signifying a different exercise.
Players also break out instruments in the evening, but lingering dental issues from a tooth knocked out in the playoffs prevented Nowitzki from cutting loose on his saxophone as much as he would have liked this summer.
And Nowitzki, like all the rest of the campers, slept on a hard gym floor in a sleeping bag.
"He does not feel like a celebrity," Geschwindner said. "He's not a guy who has fun being famous. He just wanted to play his basketball, do his thing being together with his friends."
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