I’m currently in the middle of the grind. The war-room. 

 With the intensity of combine training underway, I was able to join a webinar with VALD and Universal Speed Rating earlier this week to talk about the entire testing and training process we use for our athletes getting ready for the Combine. 

 Below I share the purpose of why we do Combine Training, as well as the two components that are included. 

If you want to catch the recording of the webinar, you can also check that out here.

 Let’s dive in… 

The Purpose of Combine Training: 

There are two reasons we do all this work for NFL Combine: 

• Maximize NFL Combine Performance
• Improve Health 

So if what we do does one without the other, it’s meaningless. If we get a guy to run a 4.2 but he can’t run without getting hurt then it’s worth nothing. 

The two go hand in hand. 
 
Our jobs are to maximize performance and health at the same time.

And we don’t have much time to do it…

8 Blocks

Here’s our entire schedule:

Week 0 is all the early entries. So guys that weren’t in the playoffs or finished after Thanksgiving. 

Week 1&2 is the intro and general prep period. 

We teach them to warm up. We get them going on some of the volume, some accel work, and then gradually build. 

Week 3 is our first loading week. It’s the highest volume and the highest intensity that they’ve experienced. Typically, week 3 is the riskiest week because it introduces a lot of things pretty fast. 

Week 4 and 5 we’re growing 10% each week. So we’re increasing the volume of work. 

Week 6 is our first download week. 

We will de-load some of the volume but the intensity will stay the same. 

Week 7 is mock combine and then week 8 we compete. 

It’s a relatively quick amount of time. Really the only things that are changing week to week is in volume or intensity. 

Now, let’s talk about the two components of combine training: 

Two Components of Combine Training: Profiling & Monitoring 

Today, I’m going to talk about profiling and next week I’ll hit monitoring. Here’s our profiling model for combine:

I’ve talked about profiling a lot before, basically, we’re trying to see if there is a physical or technical problem and then second we want to know if we have the prerequisites to run fast. 

At the base of the pyramid, it’s the most general. At the top, most specific. 

Starting at the bottom, it’s all structural. 

Next, you have max strength and power, which are pretty general. We need to be proficient at these, but it doesn’t have to be world-class. 

Then it starts to get more specific. Things like unilateral or reactive strength, and acceleration and deceleration profiling, and kinematic which are more technical. 

The base of the red part is really just giving us insights into global neuromuscular capabilities. 

The middle is asking: can you transfer that into running? 

So if you have unilateral strength, reactive strength, etc. can you actually put those into practice and make an effective accel or decel. 

And at the top is the kinematic profiling, which is all the technical fancy things… 

Here’s a list of all of the profiling tests we use and the reason behind why:

Profiling Model (Initial Testing): 

Next, we have our initial testing:

These tests literally mean nothing without contextualizing it. 

The way we contextualize it is by normalizing everything into a STEN score, which is a scale from 1-10. 

Each test you see above has its own normative data range. Ankle, knee, and hip ISO, for example, Alex Natera has produced a ton of literature on those. So we know what’s good and what’s not good. 

For some of the tests, if we don’t have a lot of normative data we just create our own data range with what we have. 

The goal is to get everybody to an 8 out of 10 on most of the tests. 

If an athlete starts out with a 1 out of 10 on the ankle structure, there’s obviously an ankle issue. If they’re at a 7.5, it might just require a little bit of training to get their ankle dorsiflexion better. 

So with each of these, we have the standardized score, and that way I can give this to a therapist, to a nutritionist, to a strength coach, to an agent, to the athlete themself. 

The actual numbers are irrelevant. If I tell an athlete his internal rotation is 22 degrees it means nothing. 

But if I can say that it’s a 2 out of 10, he knows it’s not good. So everything gets normalized and the real numbers are just shared with our staff. 

So for all of our structural and physical testing, that’s how it’s done. Our speed testing is a little different… 

Speed Testing 

We’re able to capture everything we need for our speed testing on just 4 runs:

We’ll do one 30-yard sprint, which we can use to project to 40. 

We do a load velocity profile. So, three resisted runs. 

We do our sprint movement assessment score (SMAS) off of the 30 which is used to assess risk. 

Then finally we’ll use Motion IQ which identifies the area of risk. 

So in 4 runs, I capture all this data. 

In the webinar I did earlier this week with VALD and Universal Speed Rating, I go through what each of these tests entail in more detail.

Here’s the recording if you missed it: NFL Combine Training Protocols 

If you want to hear the full explanation on the speed profiling (LVP), SMAS Profiling, and Quadrants with Motion IQ, I start talking about those around the 12 minute mark. 

In Part 2, I’ll walk through the second component of our combine process: Monitoring.

You can read part 2 here. 

LET’S KEEP BUILDING.