Jay Sabol is an educated man, a dedicated man, a behind-the-scenes player for the NBA's Miami Heat. At age 41, he has a master's degree in exercise physiology and 10 years of experience as the team's assistant trainer. He'll do almost anything to help the Heat win.

Some of what he does is mundane. On a recent visit, he was clearing the locker room of sweat-soaked uniforms, soiled towels, tendinitis bands, ankle braces, and empty sports-drink bottles after a Miami victory over the Orlando Magic.

But he has other, more vital tasks, one of which is helping the team's star center, Shaquille O'Neal, get into the best shape of his life. To say that O'Neal and his 7-foot-1, 327-pound frame have provided a lift for the league's southernmost franchise would be an understatement. Thanks largely to Shaq's largeness-or rather, the lean-muscled, quicker version of his largeness-the Heat are the dominant team in the Eastern Conference and a mid-season favorite to compete in the NBA Finals in June.

If Shaq deserves credit for this, which he does, then so does Sabol-even if the players and his coworkers like to give Sabol a hard time. "They've been saying I'm dead weight around here,'' the affable bachelor says with a smile.

But sometimes, dead weight is just what Shaq needs.

Among the more unique facets of the strength, conditioning, and nutrition program that has revitalized the sport's most imposing presence is a lifting move the big man calls "people squats."

"He will hold somebody-they just have to lie stiff as a board-and he holds them in front of himself and squats nice and deep," says Heat strength and conditioning coach Bill Foran. "He does sets of 10." Sometimes Shaq uses lighter people. "But if he's real warmed up, he grabs heavier people," Foran adds.

For instance, people like Sabol, who's 6 feet tall and weighs 195 pounds.

"You just have to hold still and let him lift your dead weight," Sabol says, dumping an armload of towels into a laundry bin. "The thing you marvel at is [that] he can just hold you in his arms, straight out in front of him. That's pretty amazing." extra-large and in charge

Ever since his rookie NBA season a decade ago, Shaq has been amazing. Like Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar before him, Shaq redefined the role of the center, dominating the paint and intimidating opponents. In the early going, he did it with brute force. With the Orlando Magic, from 1992 to 1996, Shaq was a human battering ram, bending rims and shattering backboards, a huge but hardly savvy player who would rather go through you than around you. Back then he was big-muscle Shaq (a career-best 13.8 rebounds a game in his rookie season), but also erratic Shaq (3.8 turnovers a game-nearly a full turnover higher than any other season).

"When I was a younger player, I started listening to all these experts," Shaq says in the bowels of Miami's AmericanAirlines Arena, his mass teetering on a folding chair on the gray, carpeted runaway between the locker room and the court on which he does battle. "They said, 'You've got to get stronger. You've got to lift weights.' And then I started liking the way I was looking on film and I just kept lifting and started lifting real heavy. [Lakers coach] Phil [Jackson] just told me to keep lifting and keep getting strong."

Not only was he lifting heavy, he was getting heavy. In his glory days with the Lakers, he assumed Michael Jordan's crown as the most dominant player in the league and became the king of a bonafide NBA dynasty. But during the final years of his stellar run with the Lakers, larger-than-life Shaq became larger than he'd ever been in his life, hauling 360 pounds up and down the court. He was still successful, putting up big points, and regularly appearing on the league's All-Defensive teams. But he was too big for his own good.

One Saturday morning last July, after he'd pushed his trade to the Heat, he met with legendary NBA coach Pat Riley, who had become the president of the fran-chise. Sitting in Shaq's 64,000-square-foot house in Orlando's exclusive Isleworth enclave-just down the road from the equally huge homes of Tom Hanks and Tiger Woods-Riley and O'Neal talked about the center's future with the Heat. Riley looked O'Neal in the eye and told him what type of player he wanted him to be. And after the meeting, O'Neal looked into the mirror.

He was no longer an indestructible 25-year-old. At age 32, he needed to change, he needed his body to change.

"I realized that I can't be at that heavy number that I was, especially now," he says, appreciating both the drawbacks of age and the requirements of a Heat playing style that demands his presence not only on the defensive end of the court-which had previously been his refuge-but on the offensive end as well. "Pat wanted me at 325 [pounds]. So now I'm 327. I'll probably take it down 9 or 10 more pounds going into the playoffs."

For an opponent, facing Shaq in any condition is a scary thought. Facing him when he's slimmed down and has added lean muscle mass-that's nightmare material.

After his meeting with Riley, Shaq consulted with Foran and began a rigorous weightlifting and conditioning program. Through higher reps and lower weights, through chicken and fish (and no cheeseburgers), through early-morning and late-night sessions on the elliptical trainer, mean has turned lean. The number 33 that lumbered for the Lakers now wears number 32 and hurries for the Heat. He is playing an aggressive, blitzing type defense heretofore unseen by a player with such mass, pressuring opposing players farther from the basket than at any time during his career. Compared to last season, two important measures of his performance-shots blocked and points per game-have nudged higher. More important, with his new-found strength and quickness, he has helped the Heat pump up its scoring average to more than 102 points per game, a whopping 12-point jump over last year.

"The main goal of my training is to stay trim and fit and play as many years as possible," Shaq says, adding that his goal is to win at least three more championship rings.

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