COME BACK STRONGER & SMARTER like Damian Lillard
DAMIAN LILLARD knows this drill well – but it's never felt this good. He grabs the thick black handle of the giant machine, called a Proteus Motion, in front of him. The handle is attached to a black tube, which slides in and out of the massive, rotating machine opposite Lillard. An LCD screen sits to the left, tracking his every (power-laden) movement.
Lillard is in Gem Fitness (aka the Lions Den), a gym that sits on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon. It's a multi-room facility that blends classic equipment (dumbbells, sleds and a single trap bar tucked between a wall and a treadmill) with more unusual gear, like the Proteus, a handful of pneumatic resistance machines and a mini barbell with grips that slide across it (for better biceps curls). On one wall in the main room, there's a picture of Lillard, standing, ripped and shirtless and seven kilograms heavier. It was taken during the pandemic, when he showed up here daily and was in the best shape of his life. Back then, he says, “I was just training to train”.
Now he has newpurpose: back in January, the 32-year-old Portland Trail Blazers star shut things down after months (correction: years) struggling with a core-muscle injury, and he could only watch (actually, he barely watched; more on that later) as his teammates stumbled to
