Truth be told, Bismack Biyombo wishes he was playing basketball right now. “The desire was to play,” Biyombo tells M&F. “I wanted my team [the Charlotte Hornets] to play in the bubble.”
But as a vice president of the NBA Players Association, his main goal wasn’t to focus on himself or his team— it was to make sure basketball returned in some shape or form after play was suspended in March due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“The bigger picture was to make sure basketball came back and what that was going to look like,” he says.
The end result was the 2020 NBA Bubble, an isolation zone in Walt Disney World in which regular season and playoff games are played at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex. Twenty-two teams were invited to participate in the bubble—where there are strict rules on what players and staff can and can’t do—but the Hornets was not one of them.
Bismack’s not bitter or upset at that, though. Instead, he sees it as an opportunity to improve and come back stronger than ever. He’s also using this time to focus on the Bismack Biyombo Foundation, which helps create opportunities for children in his native Democratic Republic of Congo through athletics, education, and clinics.
“If you’re going to give me this much time, it’s a great opportunity to improve and develop on the little things and to make sure I get the most of out of the year,” he says. “I wanted to get better as a player and focus on the businesses I’m in.”
Bismack recently took the time to speak with M&F about exactly what he’s doing to become a better player, how he’s switched up his training routine, and why so many NBA players are switching to a plant-based diet.
Typically, Bismack has trained with barbells and dumbbells, but lately he’s been into using kettlebells. He explains that while he would use kettlebells during the seasons, they were never really a part of his off-season routine.
But when quarantine orders were handed down, his trainer snatched a few of them from the gym for Bismack to train with. The kettlebells, he says, offer him much more mobility than other weights.
“In most of the situations I’m going to be in, whether that’s guarding someone or trying to box somebody out, my waist has to be able to shift from side to side,” he says. “I think the kettlebells help me with that.”
Indeed, kettlebells do have much more range of motion than a barbell or dumbbell, and are much better suited for fixing asymmetries in the body— a must for someone who needs to turn on a dime at any given notice.
“Now I know the movement of my body,” he says.
His workouts aren’t easy either. He typically goes for an EMOM-style workout with heavy weights, sometimes up to 80 pounds, wherein he’ll complete six snatches on his right side, then six on the left the next minute for 40-45 minutes.
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Courtesy of Bismack Biyombo
His daily routine
Bismack’s day will start at 5 or 6 a.m., depending on how busy he is. For the first hour, he’ll read or handle business matters—either with his foundation or the NBA Players Association. “I want to get my mind ready for the day,” he says.
After that, he’ll go into the gym for some lifting and then practice basketball. During the off-season, he’ll go back to handling any business-related issues that might need to be attended to.
These days, he also makes sure to sit down and watch the NBA games taking place in the bubble. And he makes time to spend with his family.
“I’m still enjoying life,” he says. “God has given me an opportunity to still enjoy life so I’m going to take advantage of that. I’m always thankful.”
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Courtesy of Bismack Biyombo
Going plant-based
Three years ago, Bismack started moving away from red meat and ate more chicken and fish. Then, he cut out basically all meats and now eats a primarily plant-based diet — on “cheat days” he might include a little fish. “My brother was joking that my cheat days are still a healthy day for him,” Bismack said with a laugh.
The plant-based diet, he says, has helped cut inflammation and still provides him with ample energy to run up and down the court and lift every day.
He’s also started including intermittent fasting by skipping breakfast every day, because, he says, the food he eats at night is still in his system providing him with enough energy until lunchtime. “I was still full of energy,” he says, “because every time you eat something at night you have to wait until it’s out of your system. I thought I was going to lose energy by cutting out breakfast, but that wasn’t the case.”
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Courtesy of Bismack Biyombo
Why the NBA is going plant-based
More and more athletes are adopting a plant-based diet for ethical and health reasons, and nowhere is this more true than in the NBA. On the Brooklyn Nets alone, four players are plant-based. Chris Paul, of the Oklahoma City Thunder, was featured in the documentary Game Changers, which sought to prove that vegan diets are advantageous for athletes.
Bismack believes there’s one primary reason for this: a quick turnaround. People who adopt a plant-based diet, he says, notice a burst of energy after giving up animal products. “You want to be more energetic,” he says. “That’s more important than anything.”
He equates it to putting quality gasoline in a high-performance car. “They’re trying to figure out, ‘OK, how can I maximize my potential?” he says.
