Why the Broncos are peaking at the right time
December 30, 02012
When John Fox hired Luke Richesson back in February, it was with an eye on this week.
Fox wanted the Broncos to be playing their best football of the regular season right here, right now. But the Broncos would have to reverse a trend to do that. They had lost their last four last year, and, before Fox’s arrival, had lost six of their last seven in 2010 and eight of their last 10 in 2009.
How could Richesson stop the late season slides? By changing the way the Broncos trained.
And so he did. The first step was remodeling the weight room and a cost of approximately $500,000. The old equipment was donated to local organizations and several local high schools, including Eaton High School in Colorado, where Broncos defensive tackle Mitch Unrein attended.
Out went the old school racks, barbells and benches. In came pneumatic machines, cables, vibrating platforms and devices Arnold Schwarzenegger probably never would recognize.
“He’s really got out in front of everything, which I’m excited about,” Broncos executive VP John Elway said. “It’s not that old mentality of throwing 300 pounds on the bench. We’re still dong some of that stuff, but not nearly to the extent we used to. He tests players to tell where you are weak and he attacks those areas.”
Richesson is a progressive thinker who many NFL players are familiar with. During his eight years at Athletes’ Performance in Tempe, he trained more than 250 players in the pre-draft process, including 52 first rounders. He also trained many veterans in the offseason. He left Athletes’ Performance in 2009 to work for the Jaguars, where he implemented a similar program.
“This type of thing was different from old school NFL,” Fox told me. “It was more new wave, new science, not loading up the joints, lot of flexibility training. I think our sport was a little bit behind in this area.”
Richesson does things differently from a lot of his peers. He has three strength assistants, which is two more than most teams have. When other teams are enjoying “Victory Mondays,” the Broncos are training under Richesson’s supervision. “I think that has helped us endure,” Fox said.
Richesson has integrated mixed martial arts principles into workouts. He has the players go through a 30 minute, light portion of practice before starting stretches. And he has each player tracked with an individual heart rate monitor.
Richesson believes proper training and nutrition may be more important to the Broncos than other teams. “I think it’s clear, the research is clear, it’s more difficult to consistently maintain maximum performance, maximum output at altitude,” Richesson said in a story by Jeff Legwold in the Denver Post. “There’s the build-up of [carbon dioxide] when you train that your body has to deal with, and we have less oxygen. So, to that end we have to make sure everything else in the program is in order. Even the simple things like meals, sleep, what we eat, take on greater importance.”
Not everyone agrees with Richesson’s approach. The argument against these new age workouts is they fail to build power the way traditional, Olympic style lifts do. “I’m kind of mixed on that,” Fox said. “When you lift you are tightening your muscles and losing flexibility. Some of the most impressive physical guys I’ve ever coached—Bo Jackson, Herschel Walker, Junior Seau—they weren’t huge lifters. They did a lot of body weight stuff and were just naturally strong. You look at boxers, they don’t lift a lot of weights. They box. For some reason, in football for years, you had to bench press this, squat that. I think we are moving away from that.”
If the Broncos are an indicator of how this style of training impacts a team, expect others to follow their lead.
The Broncos appear to be peaking, having won 10 straight. Their starters have missed 60 games due to injuries, but if you take out the early season ending injuries of Jason Hunter, J.D. Walton and Ty Warren, starters have missed only 20 games with injuries. None of the injuries to starters were muscle pulls. Fullback Chris Gronkowski recently said this was the healthiest team he has been on.
“I think our guys our fresh now,” Fox said. “I like where our team is.”
They didn’t get to where they are the same way some of the great Broncos teams of yore did. But that’s probably a good thing.
“There was a time you couldn’t take your helmet off or drink water because they were signs of weakness,” Fox said. “Things change.”
And things have changed for the better in Denver.
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Whoa. Interesting "where are they now" (for me anyway)
(https://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=261356)