I mentioned a few months ago that I was training a football player for some combines and pro-day workouts… so here is an update.

Dave has been training his ass off we basically trained 2 sessions per day 5 days a week then 1x a day on weekends for about 6-8 weeks…

Dave has been an interesting athlete for me to train as he is a D-Lineman or big linebacker (he’s about 6’1 and 260)… Most guys I have trained at this level have been skill guys… Dave was a Neptune grad and played football at New Haven then transferred to Kutztown for his final year where he was All-Conference and had a great season as one of the top Ends in DII.

Ok, So dave came in out of shape after having not done anything since the end of football… so one of the challenges was to get him a base of GPP while still training for the combine tests. That GPP (general physical preparedness) is needed to recover from hard training sessions and to be able to recover from event to event during the combine…. its a long day when you go to these pro day workouts.

Dave is massively strong in the upper body but seriously lacked in the endurance department so the 225 bench test when he first came in was way low for his strength levels. Good thing is that it’s easier to build endurance than maximal strength in a short period of time. He came in benching 390 pounds but only doing 225 for 19 reps. We did work Max Effort Upper Body but we did much more endurance work and he just benched 225 for 28 reps and raised his max bench 15lbs. Weakness in his upper body primarily the lats and triceps.

After that we had to teach him the 40 yard dash stance and start and acceleration. We worked the stance and get off almost every day the first few weeks. Once we got that down we had to get in sprinting shape so a steady dose of power walks and sled sprints with short rests. At the field our true speed training was resisted starts up to 30 yards and few 40’s, fly runs to work on top speed, and at the end we did an overspeed session which really helped him to get his legs to turnover. The sprint training in the final two weeks brought him from a 5.0 to 4.8. Big guys aren’t used to running that far in a straight line so he needed that top speed work to get his times down.

His 10 yard dash split went from a 1.8 to a consistent 1.6…. He also was timed at a recent pro day at 1.3… Maybe an error but also maybe it was well below 1.6??….

He came in sumo deadlifting 475. For many that would a big number but for me thats too low for a guy with his size and strength levels. He had a weak lower back and glutes and couldn’t lock out. We attacked the back and glutes hard and brought up that deadlfit. We haven’t again maxed it out but he pulled the same amount (475) plus heavy green bands (220lbs at top) just 5 weeks later which means he is well over 500 now and faster.

Dave has always been a good jumper we tested him week 1 at 33″ on his vertical and he got 34.5 at a combine. We trained a lot of resisted jumps and depth jumps.

The agility drills just kept improving as we practiced them and refined his steps. Also, Ive made videos in the past about how we use a wide stance for many of our lifts this improves mobility by going wide and gaining lateral ground force helped those drills…

I put together a video below… As you watch the video you can see how much faster he sprints as the clips go along…(the video is in chronological order)