WATCH: How Kentucky is making Oscar Tshiebwe an even bigger beast

How do you make Oscar Tshiebwe, nationwide participant of the yr, much more of a beast? That’s the duty Brady Welsh, Kentucky’s new energy and conditioning coach, faces this offseason. In a brand new video function, Welsh describes his plan for Oscar, who already has a leg up on lots of his teammates within the weight room.

“Massive O is just a little bit totally different,” Welsh stated. “Energy-wise, power-wise, force-wise, leverage, sensible, he’s the strongest participant on the group, simply. He’s the most effective on the group. In all probability the most effective I’ve ever labored with.”

That stated, there are areas for enchancment. Welsh stated he’s specializing in serving to Oscar turn out to be extra fluid. A part of that course of is educating Oscar to make use of all elements of his ft, which he didn’t have the luxurious of rising up as a result of he usually wore footwear that have been too small for him. To assist, Welsh is having Oscar do lots of workouts barefoot.

“Lots of basketball gamers, particularly in the event that they’re massive and robust, lots of them are simply actually heavy-footed. In the event you hear these heavy ft, it’s as a result of they’re not truly utilizing these toes. They’re not truly utilizing their gait the best way they should. The very last thing to hit the bottom, whether or not you run, leap, minimize, something, is your massive toe. And the remainder of your toes are there that will help you stability. So I’m attempting to get him to grasp that. Stretch these toes again out. Get him to relearn the right way to work together with the bottom.”

With the footwork comes improved stability, which can give Oscar much more alternatives to faucet into his energy, which is already off the charts.

“The objective is, if we work on this each day, he can begin to understand some extra of his energy. As in comparison with simply operating by means of folks on a regular basis, extra of a scenario the place he’s shifting round folks and having the ability truly to be an athlete.”

Spectacular stuff. Watch Oscar work under.