Routine of Ty Law, Patriots all-pro corner

[RedLefty]

Sports Illustrated has posted the off-season program that Ty Law uses. Looks like he's based his training on speed/agility (makes sense for his position); he even has a track coach as his trainer.

Interesting idea of approaching a specialist in what you need to be successful, even if that means going to a coach of another sport. I wonder, for example, if a powerlifting or wrestling coach would be beneficial for training NFL lineman? Pitching coaches to work with quarterbacks??

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...920/index.html

[dos]

Looks like he's based his training on speed/agility (makes sense for his position); he even has a track coach as his trainer.

There's actually not a single agility drill listed in Law's workouts (probably becuase a track coach wouldn't know an agility drill from a football). Pretty funny seeing how his sport is around 2% linear and 98% chaotic. Even his strength exercises are mostly all sagittal plane movements. Especially love this one

For endurance: stationary bike, 30 minutes; four-mile walk, then a two-mile run; 400-meter race, then a 300, a 200 and a 100.

WTF? A DB riding a stationary bike for 30 min. then WALKING 4 mi. and then running 2 miles?!?!?! Talk about making a 'jogger out of a jumper'! Man, some of these guys are so out-of-wack in their training methods. I always say that track coaches are the LAST people football players need to have training them!

The majority of his training should be change of direction,chaotic stuff. His strength training should also include multiple plane training or AT LEAST some lateral strength development. Brutal....just brutal.

[RedLefty]

Yikes, guess I didn't read the endurance stuff too closely -- that routine doesn't seem to make any sense for a sport and position with a cycle of react, turn, sprint, adjust, twist, hit, jump, for 60 defensive plays over about three hours. Bottom line for a defensive back: Can you make these explosive movements safely and with authority? And can you do it again and again with less than 60 seconds of rest?

It was also intersting how little diversity there appeared to be in his strength program, considering he has to line up against guys like Terrell Owens, Hines Ward...

[Alwyn]

This is the stuff that drives me I-N-S-A-N-E !!!!

Hiring a track coach! (track is predictable, simple reaction, a straight line with a slight curve to the left - football is chaotic, multi directional, choice reaction, multiple plane holding a ball - pushing off other players etc etc ). It doesn't even remotely fit. I'm not knocking track coaches here - but multi-directional chaos is not what their sport is all about.

A FOUR MILE WALK !! Because walking four miles is exactly what will prepare you for the NFL. Even Symbolic wouldn't agree with this !

Weights:
• 15 lunges with 45-pound dumbbells. Four sets.
• 15 straight arm raises, with 45-pound dumbbells. Four sets.

So his loading for his entire lower body is just enough for his anterior delt ? Weird. Never met anyone with an anterior delt as strong as their glutes, hams, quads and calves.

• Five bench presses, 225 pounds. Four sets.
• Five squats, 250-300 pounds. Three sets.

He's only squatting 25-75lbs more than his best bench?
So the entire hip/lower back/lower body and core can only produce 10-30% more total power than the shoulder girdle. Uh oh.

I'm predicting an injury. This program will do NOTHING to prepare him. The picture of the push up DB row (which I invented by the way [img]smile.gif[/img] ) just ask Dos, is cool though.

AC

[dos]

The picture of the push up DB row (which I invented by the way ) just ask Dos, is cool though.

I think the Renegade claims to have made that one up buddy....he calls it the 'renegade row'. BTW, That 'Cosgrove row' is part of the 15 min. workout I just did for MH.....GREAT workout BTW....a total ass-kicker! (even if I say so myself....)

[Alwyn]

Originally posted by dos:

quote:

---

The picture of the push up DB row (which I invented by the way ) just ask Dos, is cool though.

I think the Renegade claims to have made that one up buddy....he calls it the 'renegade row'. BTW, That 'Cosgrove row' is part of the 15 min. workout I just did for MH.....GREAT workout BTW....a total ass-kicker! (even if I say so myself....) [/quote]The cool thing is ...the editing at MH is SOOOOO strong - it'll look even better than it is !!! (I am a bad man).

AC

[RedLefty]

The cool thing is ...the editing at MH is SOOOOO strong - it'll look even better than it is !!! (I am a bad man).

AC [/QB]

Speaking of looking good, Ty Law looks pretty cool in that picture. Whenever I'm doing those rows or T-pushups, I also wear sunglasses, large necklaces, and a watch, just like him.

[dos]

I also love this one...

After the season Law lets himself get well above his playing weight. In May, he says, "I cut out carbs for two weeks and drop a quick 15 pounds."

Sure, it's always good for an athlete to get nice and fat and then actually think he's dropping 'bad weight' before the pre-season begins. Shit, he doesn't need all that glycogen and water anyway right?!

BLING-BLING

[BjsAust]

I think the chains are there for added resistance. He probably read a Westside summary somewhere...

[BjsAust]

On a serious note, if his conditioning training (or whatever you call his off season preparations) arent as good as they can be, but he's still made the level he has. If one of you guys could get your hands on him, what sort of improvements would you expect to see? Are we talking just a little extra polish on top, or could real gains still be made?

[gobbla]

the guy is obviously doing something right to be a professional athlete. we could dog him all day long but he's making millions of dollars because of his physical talent aren't making kakka off of ours.

IMO the 100+ sprints that he does are likely bennificial for his endurance. Especially considering the way football is. 30 seconds of all out followed by a minute + of break.

Seems like we're throwing an aweful lot of stones...that workout would likely do me in!

[Mark_13]

I have a hard time beliving any professional athlete of any sport is going to give his workout to a magazine. Do you think his coachs, wich are probably making a nice coin are going to have it published? I could be WAY off the ball, but I have a hard time seeing any REAL pro workout being put in a magazine that sells for 3 bucks a pop.

[GqArtguy]

You know the workout could be misleading. For example it only gives the sets but not the reps. Maybe he can bench 225 for only 4 sets of 3 and squat 250-300 for 15. Who knows.

I will say that I dont believe he can bench 300 for 15 [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Adam Campbell]

Seems like we're throwing an aweful lot of stones...that workout would likely do me in!

It's not about causing fatigue--dos and AC were addressing the strategy. Of course he's in great shape. Of course he's a great athlete. But... is he using the most effective type of training? How much better could he be?

I have a hard time beliving any professional athlete of any sport is going to give his workout to a magazine. Do you think his coachs, wich are probably making a nice coin are going to have it published? I could be WAY off the ball, but I have a hard time seeing any REAL pro workout being put in a magazine that sells for 3 bucks a pop.

That makes sense to me, but it's really quite the opposite. The coaches don't run the show; the athlete does--he's the one with the money. So if I call a player, say Ty Law, and start asking him what he does, he'll tell me. He doesn't care. And typically he doesn't even know why or what he's doing. (Two of the smarter guys I've talked to when it comes to training have been Ricky Watters, who seemed to get why you would do unilateral exercises, and Johnnie Morton, who just seemed in to training period.)

Rarely does he ever mention his coach. Occasionally, there are guys like Tiger Woods who don't want it revealed how they train, but again, that's the athlete dictating the flow of info, not the coach.

I guess what I'm saying is that the info is real, but it's often out of context and abbreviated based on what the athlete can remember, or what he thinks has had the greatest impact.

For example it only gives the sets but not the reps.

I assumed "five" bench presses meant five reps. I'm guessing SI figures their readers don't know what repetitions are:

• Five bench presses, 225 pounds. Four sets.

I've done a ton of these interviews and I feel the info they give typically isn't useful at all. So what if this guy does X and Y. What shoud I do?

As for dos' and AC's comments, they're right and exemplify one of the major problems in this field: Few people know how to recognize talent and knowledge simply because they don't know anything about any of it. Or they hire people for the wrong reason. (Success in another sport isn't necessarily the right reason.) In many ways, the strength and conditioning field is just like the NFL head coaches club: You can go 0-16 and someone will still give you a job b/c you have "experience". In reality, you might not know anything besides how to get and keep a job. A few of us know an editor like that.

[dos]

30 seconds of all out followed by a minute + of break

Football is actually closer to 6-8 seconds of burst activity followed by around 40+ seconds of recovery. This is around a 5:1 work:rest ratio so something like sprinting 50 yards followed by a 25-30 sec. rest would be most specific.

BTW, as a guy who trains entire football teams for a living, many of whom go on to play at the highest levels of Div. 1 and even the NFL, it is pretty easy to 'throw stones' (if you want to call it that) at some of these training programs as they have glaring flaws. I won't tell Kersee how to train his track athletes just like he shouldn't try to tell me how to get football players stronger and faster for their sport . The statement that 'he has to be doing something right' could also carry an *asterisk* next to it that says picking your mom and dad is the most important variable in athletic ability. Believe me, just because a guy is in the NFL doesn't mean he's training correctly...by all means.

Another poster stated that this workout (law's workout in SI) would make anyone tired....sure, and so would hiking up a mountain but how would that benefit an anaerobic athlete?

Do you think his coachs, wich are probably making a nice coin are going to have it published? I could be WAY off the ball, but I have a hard time seeing any REAL pro workout being put in a magazine that sells for 3 bucks a pop

I don't about all that but if the coach WASN'T doing this garbage, he should sue the writer who made it up (if he even realizes how bad it is...). It is one of the worse FB training programs I have seen.....and I've seen some bad ones.

[BiggerThanYou]

I really don't understand how someone training players at the professional level can have such a lack of understanding for what the athlete really needs. Endurance I agree is needed, but speed and agility for Ty's position would have to be the spots one would want to concentrate on. How can a trainer overlook this and recommend freakin' 4 miles of DAMN WALKING followed by a 3 mile JOG, not sprint, but JOG? I played his position in Highschool and my freshman year of college. We never had workouts anywhere similar to that. Sprints, explosive exersizes, and fast twitch training. Good thing professional athletes are the cream of the crop when it comes to the gene pool, because this is not the first rediculous workout I've read that a professional football player swears by.

[gobbla]

I could be wrong...but I think his trainers (as in team of trainers, not reffering to individuals) train NFL players for a living...so they would have the same qualifications or better than pretty much any of us on the board for training and conditioning NFL players wouldn't they? Just a thought. Nothing but respect for any of you and what you do. You're successful (assuming) and are good at what you do (assuming again). But as a four year pro-bowler...mabey he and the track coaches have something going on that works for him...which means that the training is effective right?

I don't agree with some of the stuff on there either...but damn. I wonder how long this training is for and when it is (off season\full season\training camp\pre-season)? I wouldn't think he'd do that all the time, but as an off season regiment mabey a little bit of focused training for one individual goal? I've heard that some players may go the entire off season without working out hardly at all...is that true?

[GqArtguy]

I think one thing we should take into acct is that he is a pro, meaning that he is already genetically disposed to have the agility, speed, etc. with/without training. Given that, his routine does suck but his base is better than any of ours (for the purpose of football) that we would need better training than that to get remotely close to his caliber.

[gobbla]

I kind of wonder if this routine isn't suppost to be for a football player perse...as in "isn't meant to make you a better football player". I'm kinda thinking that he was sitting back thinking to himself "I need to be a faster runner" and found a professional trainer specifically to develop him to be a faster runner\sprinter. And so he went to an olympic caliber coach and asked for a program to specifically develop speed...which he got.

It's entirely possible...if not entirely likely that he has a different program for the majority of the year.

[fitone]

I don't really buy that is his real work-out. What about his diet? Thats more of a joke then his training. By, the way I invented those push-ups back in 2001. I have since update with what I called a walking push-up. Where you do a row and move forward with the dumbbell and you do a push-up on an angle and then a row again. Then repeat it.

[Brian Grasso]

It would be interesting to see where that exercise did come from. I started doing that particular push-up/row combination with athletes back in 1998 while I was working at a development center in Canada... and I didn't know Alwyn or Silas back then!

- Brian

[dos]

And so he went to an olympic caliber coach and asked for a program to specifically develop speed...which he got.

Good point and probably the point I tried to make on my very first post. Track coaches can improve your speed...your linear speed, period. Seeing how SMALL of a role linear speed actually is in football, one has to question the basis for hiring a track coach to help 'improve speed'. As far as tooting the horns of professional strength coaches and personal speed coaches.....we had a long running thread a while back on a particular NFL 'strength guru' in which we discussed the hows and whys of how they got there and how they get away with doing some of the things they do etc.

Lastly, some of the best S&C coaches in the USA are at schools you guys have never heard of....some are even at high schools. It's easy to call yourself a 'guru' when all your clientele are world class athletes....people just don't argue when you say 'look at my product'. The problem with that statement is that the product was already world class BEFORE he/she got to you right?

[Alwyn]

Productivity = Potential - losses due to faulty training !

So a high potential ruined by shitty training can still be good.

That's often what you see with some pros.

AC

[Chris Correia]

Originally posted by Brian Grasso:
It would be interesting to see where that exercise did come from. I started doing that particular push-up/row combination with athletes back in 1998 while I was working at a development center in Canada... and I didn't know Alwyn or Silas back then!

- Brian

Of course, SOMEONE has to be the first to do any exercise, but in some cases, so many people could have started a particular exercise in a reasonable period of time just because, well, like a mountain, "It was there."

I started doing "do a pushup, then point at the ceiling" (and also, point at the front and point behind you) with my students about two or three year ago essentially as fun variation. It just came to me while we were doing pushups. It turns out they are "T-pushups". I'm sure lots of people were doing them before me, but I came up with it on my own. It just happens.

I guess we need a topic: the geneology of the pushup/row. See how far back we can trace it.

[Alwyn]

I hope you realize we're just joking Chris.
None of us really think we invented any exercises.

At least I don't. Silas and Brian might ! [img]smile.gif[/img]

AC

[Chris Correia]

Originally posted by Alwyn:
I hope you realize we're just joking Chris.
None of us really think we invented any exercises.

At least I don't. Silas and Brian might ! [img]smile.gif[/img]

AC

Oh, I do realize that. I was just commenting on the "who was the first for a given exercise" concept and that in an open (and probably bigger forum), a kind of geneology of sorts could be documented. Everyone gets to note when they first saw/learned a particular movement, and see how far back it goes.

Heck, *I* was doing those pushup/rows in 1932 . . . uh, OK, actually, that must have been my grandfather . . . back in Scotland.

BTW Alwyn, I as tickled to see that my ignorance resulted in a worthwhile question for your newsletter.

[Snake_Plisken]

Hey dos, J.J. Arrington isn't doing so bad At cal in Tedfords program.

[dos]

Hey dos, J.J. Arrington isn't doing so bad At cal in Tedfords program.

JJ is our pride and joy.....a 2003 NSCA S&C All-American athlete and likely a rich boy next year?!?! What a great, great kid. Was looking forward to seeing him play tonight on ESPN but thanks to the hurricane, no go. I will see him this weekend though at our game. 3rd leading rusher in the country w/ 358yds and 11+ yards per carry after 2 games. BTW, I played @ CAL as well

[BiggerThanYou]

Originally posted by gobbla:
I kind of wonder if this routine isn't suppost to be for a football player perse...as in "isn't meant to make you a better football player". I'm kinda thinking that he was sitting back thinking to himself "I need to be a faster runner" and found a professional trainer specifically to develop him to be a faster runner\sprinter. And so he went to an olympic caliber coach and asked for a program to specifically develop speed...which he got.

It's entirely possible...if not entirely likely that he has a different program for the majority of the year.

Ok, tell me how this routine consisting of walking 4 miles followed by casually running 2 is geared at speed developement.

[Ikan Twin]

Originally posted by BjsAust:
I think the chains are there for added resistance. He probably read a Westside summary somewhere...