Shaquille O’Neal trains about an hour a day, and a third of that is low-intensity cardio. The rest goes to weights, with chest, arms and back getting most of the work. The former Lakers center has kept that schedule through a packed calendar as a Reebok basketball president and a TV analyst. It started after he retired in 2011 and later weighed more than 322 pounds.O’Neal laid out the details as his Netflix docuseries, ‘Power Moves with Shaquille O’Neal’, began streaming. The food is simple, the sessions are short and his hips and joints still set limits. A four-day gym week, a short list of foods and one joke about Arnold Schwarzenegger sum up the plan. By his own account, he spent 2020 eating and watching Netflix before anything changed.
What does Shaquille O’Neal’s bodybuilding routine look like?
The 7-foot-1 Hall of Famer lifts four days a week, and each session runs about an hour. Around 20 minutes goes to cardio at a low intensity. The rest of the time is for weights.A recent video gave a clear look at a typical session. O’Neal did high-rep sets of cable chest flyes, then moved to an incline bench for a lat pulldown variation. He finished with a few classic bodybuilding poses and a caption that read, “Here I come Arnold Shaqanager.” Nobody should read that as a Mr Olympia plan. It was a joke, and a good-natured one.O’Neal has described the same split in his own terms. Twenty minutes of cardio, then chest, biceps, triceps, sit-ups and back, and he is done. Lifting takes between 30 and 45 minutes a day, which brings the total to about an hour. High reps suit what he likes most about training, the pump, especially in the biceps. He has said his arms feel good and young.
What does O’Neal eat now?
The old routine leaned hard on bread. O’Neal has called himself a sandwich guy, with one for lunch, one for dinner and another as a snack. During his playing days the menu was McDonald’s burgers or a turkey club with extra mayo and two pineapple sodas.The new plan cut out bread, late-night lemon Oreos and Entenmann’s cakes. Fruit, protein shakes, salads, fish, chicken and asparagus or other vegetables took their place, all in very small portions. Six months of eating that way took off 25 to 30 pounds by his count. In metric terms, that is about 13 kilograms.Perfection was never the goal. O’Neal still dislikes vegetables and still snacks, only in moderation. He was also trying to get soda out of his life. The changes showed up away from the scale too. The seven-footer sleeps through the night now, has more energy and says he wants to train all the time.
Why did O’Neal decide to change his habits?
The turn came after a rough stretch. O’Neal lost his sister, Ayesha Harrison-Jex, and then former Lakers teammate Kobe Bryant. He counts 28 others who died as well. He called 2020 a really bad year and said he did not feel like doing anything. When you have no energy to do anything but need to stay out of trouble, he explained, food and streaming are the two options.The scale followed. A decade after retiring, the four-time champion weighed more than 322 pounds. He has put his pandemic weight near 415, up from 325 as a player. He also went to a doctor on his own for the first time in his life, about two years before a 2021 interview. The doctor had a list of things to fix, and snacking was on it.The spark came from social media. In 2021, O’Neal swapped late-night snacks for balanced meals and regular workouts after scrolling past one Instagram post. “I saw this 70-year-old guy on there, and he had muscles everywhere,” he said. He decided to switch things up.
How do O’Neal’s hips and joints affect his workouts?
Years of pro basketball and a hip replacement in 2023 have changed what O’Neal can do. He has said his hips are bad and his joints ache, so jumping and running around are out. Treadmill work is a walk now, and it bothers him. “I can’t run anymore and it’s sad,” he told Men’s Health. He added that he used to be the greatest athlete ever and now has to walk.Jogging is next on his list, and he has said so. Until then, the cable machines and the bench do the heavy lifting.The schedule still fits around a full calendar. O’Neal works as an analyst at ESPN and as the head of Reebok’s basketball division. The Netflix series follows his effort with Allen Iverson to revive that division. Family and business add to the load. The veteran keeps showing up for the gym anyway.
What goals has O’Neal set for himself?
The targets he shared in 2021 were specific. O’Neal wanted to get down to 350 pounds and be lean enough to post a shirtless photo on Instagram for his 50th birthday in March. His simpler fitness goal was to keep his stomach from hanging over his belt. He joked about avoiding what he calls the over-the-belt Barkley, a nod to his Inside the NBA colleague Charles Barkley, who trades jabs with him about weight. Protecting his endurance and energy was part of the plan too.Age is on his mind. Comedian Deon Cole said in a Netflix special that anyone in their 40s has 30 summers left. O’Neal remembered the number as 15, which would put him at 65. Cole has since explained the line is about having years to live in a vibrant way, not about dying. O’Neal said he had never thought about it until he heard it. By his own math he has 15 summers, or 30 if Cole’s number is the right one.
