Aaron Rodgers. Drew Brees. LaDainian Tomlinson. Reggie Bush. Besides being NFL Pro Bowlers, what do these guys have in common?
They're all trained by Todd Durkin, C.S.C.S., owner of Fitness Quest 10 in San Diego, a contributor to Men's Health, and author of The Impact! Body Plan.<!--more-->
Durkin makes his living training elite athletes, but he also helps average men (and women) achieve their ideal bodies too. And he does so with the very same strategies, exercises, and workout plans he gives top athletes. Walk into his gym, in fact, and you may very well see a grandmother training next to an NFL superstar. That's pretty cool.
We recently asked Durkin to how top NFL athletes get and stay in peak physical condition—and how you can do it, too. Here's what he told us.
Secret #1: Work Your Weaknesses
Durkin: The average guy avoids exercises he's not good that. Oftentimes, these should be his focus.
I do the same thing with my athletes. When I first started working with LaDainian in 2002, he had room for improvement on his balance. He since has become so much better. When I started working with Brees (pictured here training at Durkin's gym) that same year, his core wasn't as strong as it should be. So with an emphasis on joint integrity and core strength, he was able to really improve his game.
Many guys come to me and they're already strong. I want to try and make them faster, more explosive, and more flexible. You would be surprised that some of our workouts don't involve a lot of traditional “weight” training. I like to emphasize speed, agility, quickness, acceleration, power, and metabolic conditioning along with my strength and flexibility work.
And this variety goes beyond punishing your muscles.
I love to create exercises that challenge the mind as well as the body. For example, while doing 45-second slide board drills [where you skate side-to-side on a frictionless surface], I like to force my athletes to catch tennis balls coming at them while they're sliding. Can you catch two balls coming at you at the same time?
Can you catch playing cards that I am tossing up in the air while I am quizzing you on questions relating to your sport, your position, or other questions that challenge you to think while you are tired? By involving so many aspects, you train your body. But you also train reaction time and hand-eye coordination, and all of these aspects combine to create a better athlete.
During the card flip game, Drew and LT both caught 18 out of 20 cards with one hand. This is incredibly challenging and requires great focus. And Drew once caught 139 tennis balls in a row. Think about that: He is skating back and forth on a slideboard working his entire body as I toss two balls at him at the same time, and it took 140 attempts for him to drop a ball once. Amazing.
Secret #2: Pick Up Your Pace
Durkin: For me, tempo is king. I love to keep the heart rate up during the workout, and because of this I encourage my athletes to train with a heart-rate monitor. I'd recommend the same for any person because, regardless of fitness level, this leads to improvement. You don't need to train all day—the intense part of my clients' sessions is approximately 45 minutes. Get in, do your work, and then recover.
In addition, you need to diversify your program—keep it challenging, mix it up, and train the body from the feet to the fingertips, left and right, front and back. A great workout should have these eight components to it:
1. The dynamic warmup: Calisthenics and bodyweight exercises that help warm your muscles and activate your central nervous system, for better performance.
2. Joint integrity: This focuses on exercises that strengthen the small muscles that surround your joints, improving your strength and reducing your risk for injury.
3. Strength training: Designed to improve strength and build muscle.
4. Power plyometrics: These are explosive exercises that boost your ability to activate muscle fibers quickly, to help you jump higher, throw harder, and run faster.
5. Movement training: This involves training for speed, agility, and quickness, including hand-eye coordination and reaction-time drills.
6. Core conditioning: The emphasis here is on the muscles of your abs, lower back, and hips, in order to improve core strength and stability.
7. Flexibility, recovery, and regeneration: Foam rolling and stretching are used to help improve mobility and speed recovery of muscles.
8. Metabolic conditioning: You might think of this as cardio.
Each of those components is part of the workout Durkin created exclusively for Men's Health. Click here to try The NFL All-Pro Workout—and to see Drew Brees demonstrating some of the exercises.
Secret #3: Don't Skip the Big Three
Durkin: Everyone should be doing pullups, pushups, and lunges as part of their regular workout. Here's why:
1. Pullups. This exercise taxes your entire upper body, and performing them correctly—where you pull your chest up to the bar and retract your shoulder blades and contract the muscles in your upper back—leads to improvements in strength and appearance. And if you can't do pullups, then use an implement like a TRX (shown at right) to assist you. I love the TRX and use it in every session with my athletes because it allows me to get creative with my programming and adjust to the level of my client (from beginner to advanced athlete).
2. Pushups. They're another great upper-body builder for your chest, shoulders, back, and arms. But mix it up by putting medicine balls under your hands, do them with different hand positions, wear a weighted vest, or try them inverted. The pushup is a great basic movement that can be modified for all levels. You have to love the basics; and you can do these movements whether you are in the gym, outside, traveling, or at home.
3. Lunges. I love lunges because they target the entire lower body. And when you're looking to get the most bang for your buck, focus on training the big muscles like the glutes and quads. Again, you can diversify the types of lunges that you do—straight, angled, reverse, side, cross-behind. Have fun with it, but they'll surely work your entire lower body.
You can learn how to do each of these exercises, and their variations, in the Men's Health Workout Center.
Secret #4: Avoid These Common Mistakes
Durkin: I see a lot of mistakes at the gym. Here are six you should start correcting today.
1. Too much emphasis on big weights. There's nothing wrong with challenging yourself with heavy weight, but also focus on taking 30 to 60 seconds of rest on some days between sets (this will force you to use lighter weights), interval your exercises, and work on your conditioning.
2. Not enough total-body training and conditioning. Men love to focus on their chest and biceps, but total-body training will improve the appearance of your entire body.
3. A lack of variety. I want you to hit the iron, but also use tools like medicine balls, stability balls, the TRX, and the BOSU to ensure you're working multiple muscle groups and diversifying your program.
4. Overtraining. Many injuries happen because of too little rest and too much emphasis on the same muscle groups.
5. Inconsistent nutrition. Nutrition and proper hydration fuels everything, and most of us can do a better job in this department. (Start by avoiding the 20 Worst Foods in America!)
6. Not getting enough sleep. No sleep means no growth. You need to be eating right, sleeping right, and training hard to keep the results improving. That's a great formula to start you in the right direction.
source:
http://health.yahoo.net/experts/menshealth/4-fitness-secrets-nfl-top-trainer
They're all trained by Todd Durkin, C.S.C.S., owner of Fitness Quest 10 in San Diego, a contributor to Men's Health, and author of The Impact! Body Plan.<!--more-->
Durkin makes his living training elite athletes, but he also helps average men (and women) achieve their ideal bodies too. And he does so with the very same strategies, exercises, and workout plans he gives top athletes. Walk into his gym, in fact, and you may very well see a grandmother training next to an NFL superstar. That's pretty cool.
We recently asked Durkin to how top NFL athletes get and stay in peak physical condition—and how you can do it, too. Here's what he told us.
Secret #1: Work Your WeaknessesDurkin: The average guy avoids exercises he's not good that. Oftentimes, these should be his focus.
I do the same thing with my athletes. When I first started working with LaDainian in 2002, he had room for improvement on his balance. He since has become so much better. When I started working with Brees (pictured here training at Durkin's gym) that same year, his core wasn't as strong as it should be. So with an emphasis on joint integrity and core strength, he was able to really improve his game.
Many guys come to me and they're already strong. I want to try and make them faster, more explosive, and more flexible. You would be surprised that some of our workouts don't involve a lot of traditional “weight” training. I like to emphasize speed, agility, quickness, acceleration, power, and metabolic conditioning along with my strength and flexibility work.
And this variety goes beyond punishing your muscles.
I love to create exercises that challenge the mind as well as the body. For example, while doing 45-second slide board drills [where you skate side-to-side on a frictionless surface], I like to force my athletes to catch tennis balls coming at them while they're sliding. Can you catch two balls coming at you at the same time?
Can you catch playing cards that I am tossing up in the air while I am quizzing you on questions relating to your sport, your position, or other questions that challenge you to think while you are tired? By involving so many aspects, you train your body. But you also train reaction time and hand-eye coordination, and all of these aspects combine to create a better athlete.
During the card flip game, Drew and LT both caught 18 out of 20 cards with one hand. This is incredibly challenging and requires great focus. And Drew once caught 139 tennis balls in a row. Think about that: He is skating back and forth on a slideboard working his entire body as I toss two balls at him at the same time, and it took 140 attempts for him to drop a ball once. Amazing.
Secret #2: Pick Up Your Pace
Durkin: For me, tempo is king. I love to keep the heart rate up during the workout, and because of this I encourage my athletes to train with a heart-rate monitor. I'd recommend the same for any person because, regardless of fitness level, this leads to improvement. You don't need to train all day—the intense part of my clients' sessions is approximately 45 minutes. Get in, do your work, and then recover.
In addition, you need to diversify your program—keep it challenging, mix it up, and train the body from the feet to the fingertips, left and right, front and back. A great workout should have these eight components to it:
1. The dynamic warmup: Calisthenics and bodyweight exercises that help warm your muscles and activate your central nervous system, for better performance.
2. Joint integrity: This focuses on exercises that strengthen the small muscles that surround your joints, improving your strength and reducing your risk for injury.
3. Strength training: Designed to improve strength and build muscle.
4. Power plyometrics: These are explosive exercises that boost your ability to activate muscle fibers quickly, to help you jump higher, throw harder, and run faster.
5. Movement training: This involves training for speed, agility, and quickness, including hand-eye coordination and reaction-time drills.
6. Core conditioning: The emphasis here is on the muscles of your abs, lower back, and hips, in order to improve core strength and stability.
7. Flexibility, recovery, and regeneration: Foam rolling and stretching are used to help improve mobility and speed recovery of muscles.
8. Metabolic conditioning: You might think of this as cardio.
Each of those components is part of the workout Durkin created exclusively for Men's Health. Click here to try The NFL All-Pro Workout—and to see Drew Brees demonstrating some of the exercises.
Secret #3: Don't Skip the Big Three
Durkin: Everyone should be doing pullups, pushups, and lunges as part of their regular workout. Here's why: 1. Pullups. This exercise taxes your entire upper body, and performing them correctly—where you pull your chest up to the bar and retract your shoulder blades and contract the muscles in your upper back—leads to improvements in strength and appearance. And if you can't do pullups, then use an implement like a TRX (shown at right) to assist you. I love the TRX and use it in every session with my athletes because it allows me to get creative with my programming and adjust to the level of my client (from beginner to advanced athlete).
2. Pushups. They're another great upper-body builder for your chest, shoulders, back, and arms. But mix it up by putting medicine balls under your hands, do them with different hand positions, wear a weighted vest, or try them inverted. The pushup is a great basic movement that can be modified for all levels. You have to love the basics; and you can do these movements whether you are in the gym, outside, traveling, or at home.3. Lunges. I love lunges because they target the entire lower body. And when you're looking to get the most bang for your buck, focus on training the big muscles like the glutes and quads. Again, you can diversify the types of lunges that you do—straight, angled, reverse, side, cross-behind. Have fun with it, but they'll surely work your entire lower body. You can learn how to do each of these exercises, and their variations, in the Men's Health Workout Center.
Secret #4: Avoid These Common Mistakes
Durkin: I see a lot of mistakes at the gym. Here are six you should start correcting today.
1. Too much emphasis on big weights. There's nothing wrong with challenging yourself with heavy weight, but also focus on taking 30 to 60 seconds of rest on some days between sets (this will force you to use lighter weights), interval your exercises, and work on your conditioning.
2. Not enough total-body training and conditioning. Men love to focus on their chest and biceps, but total-body training will improve the appearance of your entire body.
3. A lack of variety. I want you to hit the iron, but also use tools like medicine balls, stability balls, the TRX, and the BOSU to ensure you're working multiple muscle groups and diversifying your program.
4. Overtraining. Many injuries happen because of too little rest and too much emphasis on the same muscle groups.
5. Inconsistent nutrition. Nutrition and proper hydration fuels everything, and most of us can do a better job in this department. (Start by avoiding the 20 Worst Foods in America!)
6. Not getting enough sleep. No sleep means no growth. You need to be eating right, sleeping right, and training hard to keep the results improving. That's a great formula to start you in the right direction.
source:
http://health.yahoo.net/experts/menshealth/4-fitness-secrets-nfl-top-trainer
