Semi-OT: Washington Post article on football players and muscle mass
Really interesting article in the WaPo today about a new way some trainers are starting to think about football players and muscle gain. Relevant to our interests here at MGoBlog because of the periodic "phone book has arrived" posts, which treat all new weight as muscle gained (positive!). Sounds like there's mounting evidence that new muscle is not always a good thing and might in fact be increasing injury risk for some players. Former Michigan S&C coach Aaron Wellman, who is now at Indiana, features prominently in the article.
Our current S&C staff seems to be better than most. Wonder what their thinking is about all this.
April 26th, 2023 at 12:31 PM ^
I’m way ahead of the curve on this. I’ve been not building muscle mass for decades.
April 26th, 2023 at 12:41 PM ^
Hilarious response!!!
April 26th, 2023 at 12:50 PM ^
Waiting for that OMG Shirtless pic ... Until then, I don't believe you ...
Pics or it didn’t happen
April 26th, 2023 at 12:52 PM ^
Get swoll!
I mean...get small!!
April 26th, 2023 at 12:57 PM ^
Aaron Wellman was strength coach under Hoke, correct?
April 26th, 2023 at 12:58 PM ^
Yep.
My secret is beer and pretzels
Glad to hear injury prevention is becoming a top priority. It seems like a lot of our seasons in the past decade or so have had the potential to be special, only to be derailed by injuries to players we couldn't afford to lose. We may finally be bringing our talent level up enough to mitigate some of that (see: Donovan Edwards going ham on OSU while Blake Corum sat on the bench), but there's always going to be critical players. You can't prevent all injuries but reducing them should be as, if not more, important as getting stronger and faster.
Not really new, and one of the main detriments of steroids in sports is that the tendons, ligaments, skeleton can't handle the stress being put on them by the additional force being produced.
I suggested this years ago when we had all these injury problems alongside obvious increases in muscle mass. The board disapproved.
April 26th, 2023 at 10:48 PM ^
Exactly. The concept has been known for a very long time, this is why you don’t see body builders (clean or not) doing athletic things. Being able to rapidly produce a large amount of force is largely neuromuscular and a very different thing than muscle mass
Talking about loss of muscle, Notre Dame's season starting 5 star QB from last year is in the portal.
So sad. Too bad Sam Hartman is an upgrade. Leaves them pretty thin on depth though.
Just hit me with some chocolate milk and pizza.... I don't need any new muscle
Better be whole milk in that chocolate milk!
April 27th, 2023 at 11:00 AM ^
What on earth is 'new muscle' and how does your body know the difference?
I'll check it out. Strength training is something that has a ton of fads, and alot of core truths. Stick to the core truths and experiment with the fads to move forward.
I started lifting just after nautilus, went through plyometrics, manual resistance, olympic lift training and core strength training, pilates, etc. It's all good, don't get me wrong. But each at the time was the Next Big Thing Going To Revolutionize Everything!. In reality it's alot of tweaking to old knowledge and adjusting the balance of what you do.
So don't be afraid to try new stuff, but don't be too quick to abandon the old to get to the new. I doubt you're going to see colleges back off too much on adding 'new' muscle to the incoming freshman OL.