Jerry Reese gave his typical Public Relations tour, stopping by with WFAN when Boomer & Carton visited Training Camp. In early August, everything is perfect. The veterans are great, the newcomers are great, the coaches are great… for all 32 teams. But what caught our ear was this (go to minute 1:28:00):
Jerry Reese: “We revamped the entire offseason program. We changed the weight room. We have a new system. We have a new Strength & Conditioning Coordinator…. We invested a lot of money in the weight room. Ben is ramping these guys up. He didn’t come out here the first day and throw a 2.5 hour practice at these guys. Every day he is doing a little bit more.”
Boomer: “Why the weight room? Was there something that somebody else is doing in the NFL? I know that after 3 years of all the injuries and being the most injured team in the NFL, there has to be something done. What is the model? Where are you getting your ideas from?”
Reese: “We did a lot of investigation around the league. Different teams are doing this..We looked at some college programs. We looked at some pro programs… Back in the day it was just power lifting and free weights. People are going away from that a little bit now. We are trying to get on board and try a different approach. Our players have enjoyed it during the offseason… so far so good.”
Carton: “Maybe there is too much weightlifting?”
Reese: “That might be, yah.”
We have been consistent in the message for what was structurally wrong with the Giants Strength & Conditioning. Our experts explained that there was too much strength training and not enough flexibility training. Additionally, the anecdotal evidence provided by (1) interviews with Jon Elway on Luke Richesson’s successful S&C program of the Denver Broncos (2) Shannon Turley of Stanford University and (3) the interview with Walter Thurmond after he left the Giants.. all supported the claim that the Giants were using too much strength and not enough flexibility.
Elway 2012: “It’s not that old mentality of throwing 300 lbs on the bench. We’re still doing some of that stuff but not to the extent that we used to.”
Reese 2016: “Back in the day it was just power lifting and free weights. People are going away from that a little bit now.”
Uh, we’ve been talking about this for two freaking years. Mind you it’s not on Reese as GM. It’s on Palmieri (who is now ‘reassigned’) and Barnes. If Barnes worked for Reese, I’d blame Reese. But Barnes apparently reports directly to the owners (John Mara), so it’s on Barnes.
Reese is explaining that Aaron Wellman is reducing the amount of strength training. That is HALF the issue. And that is a great start. BUT, the other half of the issue is the need for increased flexibility training. That is not clear that that has been embraced. We have NOT heard about that. And we have heard that Jasper Brinkley (who is back at practice) and J.T. Thomas have had hamstring issues, which is almost entirely caused by a lack of flexibility training. “Stretch and stretch and stretch,” says Turley. For Wellman’s part, we have read that he does embrace Functional Movement, another part of Turley’s program.
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