Randy Couture at the NFL Combine

Other Sports Football
1

Look out - MMA trainers are trying to re-invent football conditioning. Once again, for the guys who are doing nothing in the off-season, anything will help. But, please…

Randy Couture is spending the weekend in Indianapolis, trying to drum up interest in mixed martial arts training methods in general, and his Xtreme Couture gym in particular, for NFL teams interested in exploring new methods of strength and conditioning for their players.

Fox Sports NFL reporter Jay Glazer is working with Couture in designing and implementing MMA-oriented training programs for football players and athletes in other sports.

MMA training has become is the latest workout craze for NFL players, and Couture is seeking to expand that and position his own gym as the go-to place for football players who want to mix things up during the off-season. Minnesota Vikings defensive end Jared Allen has trained at Xtreme Couture and raved about the results.

“I think it’s going to be the most important thing I did to help my career,” Allen said last year. “It totally changed my entire workout regimen. It’s so much easier on the body than running and all that stuff that puts impact on your joints. Plus, it’s fun. You won’t get burnt out doing the same old running and hills. You’ll push yourself further than you ever anticipated.”

A few NFL players have expressed interest in going beyond just training in MMA and actually competing professionally after they retire. One such player, New England Patriots free agent guard Stephen Neal, is a former NCAA heavyweight champion wrestler who beat UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar on the wrestling mat in college. Couture told Tom E. Curran of CSNNE.com that he likes Neal’s chances.

“I talked to him recently,” Couture said of Neal. “Give me a little time to work with him I think he’ll be tremendous. Any wrestler with the mindset that he has who works with that kind of vision will do well. I guarantee he’d have Brock Lesnar’s attention.”

We’re not going to see Neal in the Octagon any time soon. But we are going to see more NFL players training the UFC fighters do.

http://www.mmafighting.com/2010/02/27/randy-couture-at-the-nfl-combine/?ncid=txtlnkusspor00000002

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Could be a good thing, I remember when I use to box in the summer back in high school I think it helped with my overall conditioning etc - made a big difference in fall camp. Shit Jared Allen is a beast on the field and this type of training is probably playing a role with the type of effort he’s able to produce every single snap in addition to the Vikings HIT offseason workouts.

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Who knows. I have a martial arts background and I think it helped me when I played football (Cornerback)

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Yes - but there is a difference between having a martial arts background and having Couture take over football conditioning for NFL players. Having said that, I know that many NFL teams do not have sophisticated strength and conditioning programs. We would hope that the administration would know what proper conditioning for football would entail, but that is not the case by a long-shot.

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Couture could probably produce a better 40 than Michael Johnson’s camp.

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lol…

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Why are you guys cracking jokes on MJ, his guys actually perform well at the combine?

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There is so much money to be made off young guys who have hopes of making it into the league. Unfortunately, only a few trainers know how to develop an athlete right, such as, Joe Defranco.

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and where did he learn his stuff from…:slight_smile:

although he does seem to get good results some of his stuff imo is questionable, with too much emphasis on MaxS.

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Its the NFL, I’m not too sure that emphasizing MxS is a bad thing, especially for the linemen and linebackers.

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No point in doing tons of max strength with Nfl players. I had the chance to work with a nfl DE last year and we did zero max strength. I had to sell him on doing 1/2 squats.

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I think there are many ways to prep athletes, with no single system being good for all athletes. I am a big believer in being strong, fast, and flexible. My kid’s do a WSB 531 type variation. It’s hard to do block periodization as the coaches at the schools have their own agenda. I like conjugate because it allows for me to make rapid improvements in many areas in a short period of time. As far as Joe D goes, he has a strong record of success so I think it is difficult to argue with waht he does. MMA training for football is about as intelligent as Mike Barwis is at designing workouts. I train a KOTC world champion MMA fighter. What I do with him and football guys is so drastically different, it’s hard to imagine finding any cros over short of hand fighting along the line of scrimmage. It’s football, so what exactly does Randy have to offer? I imagine not much for a football player. That’s just my opinion. Totally different energy system requirement.

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You can do anything with great athletes, shit Chad Johnson did boxing all last offseason and had one of his best seasons. I can throw a bunch of high school athletes in a corner and have them do pushups, situps, jumping jacks for 4months and I’m sure there performance will improve. Tell Mr. Allen that MMA training doesn’t help his performance.

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With the same line of thinking, driving cars for Topgear tv Format helped Usain Bolt to run 19"19…

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Jay Glazer’s explanation of their program will make you sick. He was all over sports talk radio last fall bragging that 90 percent of the athletes quit after the first day, and that Jared Allen and Matt Leinart are the only two athletes to survive the progarm. It basically sounded like a barwish type of think of stupid crap to make an athlete puke program. A complete opposite of a Francis or Thinker program.

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Yes …their luck is to have gifted athlete, in a not-absolute performance sport…should understand that if people quit in 1 day,is also a damage for the coach 's income!!

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I absolutely agree. Certainly it must be catered to positional requirements.

My thinking was considering combine training, more sspecifically the 40 yard dash. Lots of MaxS and dynamic methods. He also, appears to place the weights as the primary training means of getting faster. But then again, it is hard to speculate considering i do not know every detail of his program, only observations from his website and a powerpoint from his training with miles austin.

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one thing about it, Jared allen already has the:

size
strength
speed

that a great NFL d-end has. Now he’s just fine-tuning his upper level skills. To transform a High school or collegiate player, MMA training is probably counter productive.

JA says running hills is boring, yet, they apparently helped get him to the nfl!

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Non sense, I suppose the 8x400, and 10xgassers are the secrets to transforming hs athletes.

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you apparently misunderstood me. He used running hills as an example of his previous training. If he had said, “I got tired of all that weightlifting and running” Would you have said, “Yeah, weightlifting and running isn’t as effective as people think.”

?