The strength and conditioning program of the Arizona Cardinals

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The Strength of Birds
The Cardinals shook up their strength and conditioning staff in the offseason, bringing in a mad scientist and an Olympic gold medalist hurdler to recondition the team. Plus, Johnny Manziel, San Francisco suspension chatter and more
By Greg A. Bedard

When Cardinals players report Monday for the beginning of offseason workouts, they’re going to be entering into a new era. The NFL might be as well.

The previous seven years, John Lott ruled Arizona’s strength and conditioning program and was popular with many players. He was also a bit of a cult figure for his active spotting of the bench press during the combine. Lott was let go after the season by coach Bruce Arians, who decided to go back to the future for the Cardinals’ strength and conditioning. Arians hired 56-year-old Buddy Morris, a legendary figure known in strength circles for being a bit of a mad scientist. Morris last was on an NFL staff in 2005 when he and Arians crossed paths with the Browns.

One of Morris’ first decisions after joining the Cardinals, and the suggestion actually originated with Arians, was to hire two-time Olympic gold medalist hurdler Roger Kingdom to a full-time position as assistant strength and conditioning coach. It’s believed to be the first time an NFL team has named a world-class sprinter to a coaching staff. Pete Alosi was held over from Lott’s staff as another assistant.

“We have three guys that are really trying to move us ahead of everybody on a daily basis trying to get better,” Morris said this week. “I’ve got good friends throughout the league as head strength and conditioning coaches. I’m trying to stay ahead of these guys now so we view it every day as a competition. We’re trying to do our part to win games. Speed is the name of the game, and if I can get an edge from an expert like Roger, I’m going to do it.”

buddy-morris.jpg

Buddy Morris at Pittsburgh in 2009 (George Gojkovich/AP)

Kingdom, 51, won the 110 meter hurdles at both the 1984 and ’88 Olympics. Morris was Kingdom’s strength coach at the University of Pittsburgh, where he initially arrived on a football scholarship. Track became Kingdom’s focus when he won the NCAA title as a sophomore. But football has always been Kingdom’s love.

“Football has been my life,” Kingdom said. “Everybody saw that track was so natural for me but I still wanted to play football. It left a void, I was so happy when I had an opportunity to intern a couple of times with Coach Morris at Pitt, and I was ecstatic to intern with the Browns.”

As a track star, Kingdom was known for his stoic presence. Nothing flustered him. Kingdom said there have been five times that he knowingly showed joyous emotion: both times he won the gold, when he set the world record in 1989, when he won the U.S. title in 1995 after coming back from two knee surgeries, and when Morris called and asked, “Are you ready to go to work?”

“I was jumping around all over the place, which I don’t normally do,” Kingdom said. “To me, this is a dream come true. It was something that I always wanted. I never saw myself being here, but it’s something I always aspired to do.”

Kingdom has a very clear vision for why he is with the Cardinals.

“My role is to make sure we find a balance between strength and conditioning, and speed training. There has to be a balance,” he said. “As we strengthen these athletes here they can continue to get faster and be able to apply that on the field. The bottom line is to be more efficient as an athlete. If I can train an athlete to be consistent and more efficient in every movement that he makes on the field, then he’s going to get more work done instead of wearing down.”

roger-kingdom.jpg

Before winning gold in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics, Roger Kingdom attended Pitt on a football scholarship. (Doug Mills/AP)

One can definitely appreciate that a world-class sprinter can help Cardinals players like wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, running back Andre Ellington and defensive back Patrick Peterson—guys who play positions where speed is a big asset. But what about the big uglies inside, like right tackle Bobby Massie or nose tackle Dan Williams?

“The goal is consistency through improved mechanics,” Kingdom said. “If you get somebody like a Larry Fitzgerald and you work on their improved mechanics, next thing you know you’re going to slowly see improvements in their time, improvement in their effort and also their endurance to be able to last throughout the season. That’s our most important point. We want to make sure they run just as well in game 12 or 14 as they are in game 1 or 2. Same thing with the linemen. If they’re efficient then they have endurance. If they have that, they continue to have that explosion throughout the game to drive guys off the ball.”

Outside the box thinking is what you get with Morris, who had three different tours of duty at Pittsburgh, his alma mater. The first time he left was to stay home when his daughter was ill while waiting on the liver transplant list. Morris went to work in a hospital doing physical therapy, and that might have been a blessing in disguise. Morris learned to look at the human body differently and what it really means to rehab from injury, and the importance of prehab—working to prevent injuries. The players who have worked out in the Cardinals’ facility during the offseason—the strength coaches are allowed to be there for safety and technique—have noticed a difference.

“Our guys say our warmup is everybody else’s workout,” said Morris, who trained Jim Covert, Bill Fralic, Russ Grimm, Dan Marino, Mark Stepnoski, Ruben Brown and Curtis Martin at Pittsburgh. “Our warmup is pretty extensive, and now we are programming by position. We’re not going to run a cookie cutter program where everybody comes in and does the same thing. We’re not just about lifting weights. That’s only one component but that’s the component everybody thinks about. It’s much more than that. It’s about dynamic movement, it’s about activations, it’s about prehab and rehab, it’s about making sure our guys are perfect biomechanically, more efficient so they don’t waste energy.”

Yup, it’s a new era in the Cardinals’ strength and conditioning department. The rest of the league will be watching to see the results.
 

Elmgrovegnome

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Blabbety blah!

Lets hope that all of this thought on how to move efficiently makes them forget about how to play football.
 

RamzFanz

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The Strength of Birds
The Cardinals shook up their strength and conditioning staff in the offseason, bringing in a mad scientist and an Olympic gold medalist hurdler to recondition the team. Plus, Johnny Manziel, San Francisco suspension chatter and more
By Greg A. Bedard

When Cardinals players report Monday for the beginning of offseason workouts, they’re going to be entering into a new era. The NFL might be as well.

The previous seven years, John Lott ruled Arizona’s strength and conditioning program and was popular with many players. He was also a bit of a cult figure for his active spotting of the bench press during the combine. Lott was let go after the season by coach Bruce Arians, who decided to go back to the future for the Cardinals’ strength and conditioning. Arians hired 56-year-old Buddy Morris, a legendary figure known in strength circles for being a bit of a mad scientist. Morris last was on an NFL staff in 2005 when he and Arians crossed paths with the Browns.

One of Morris’ first decisions after joining the Cardinals, and the suggestion actually originated with Arians, was to hire two-time Olympic gold medalist hurdler Roger Kingdom to a full-time position as assistant strength and conditioning coach. It’s believed to be the first time an NFL team has named a world-class sprinter to a coaching staff. Pete Alosi was held over from Lott’s staff as another assistant.

“We have three guys that are really trying to move us ahead of everybody on a daily basis trying to get better,” Morris said this week. “I’ve got good friends throughout the league as head strength and conditioning coaches. I’m trying to stay ahead of these guys now so we view it every day as a competition. We’re trying to do our part to win games. Speed is the name of the game, and if I can get an edge from an expert like Roger, I’m going to do it.”

buddy-morris.jpg

Buddy Morris at Pittsburgh in 2009 (George Gojkovich/AP)

Kingdom, 51, won the 110 meter hurdles at both the 1984 and ’88 Olympics. Morris was Kingdom’s strength coach at the University of Pittsburgh, where he initially arrived on a football scholarship. Track became Kingdom’s focus when he won the NCAA title as a sophomore. But football has always been Kingdom’s love.

“Football has been my life,” Kingdom said. “Everybody saw that track was so natural for me but I still wanted to play football. It left a void, I was so happy when I had an opportunity to intern a couple of times with Coach Morris at Pitt, and I was ecstatic to intern with the Browns.”

As a track star, Kingdom was known for his stoic presence. Nothing flustered him. Kingdom said there have been five times that he knowingly showed joyous emotion: both times he won the gold, when he set the world record in 1989, when he won the U.S. title in 1995 after coming back from two knee surgeries, and when Morris called and asked, “Are you ready to go to work?”

“I was jumping around all over the place, which I don’t normally do,” Kingdom said. “To me, this is a dream come true. It was something that I always wanted. I never saw myself being here, but it’s something I always aspired to do.”

Kingdom has a very clear vision for why he is with the Cardinals.

“My role is to make sure we find a balance between strength and conditioning, and speed training. There has to be a balance,” he said. “As we strengthen these athletes here they can continue to get faster and be able to apply that on the field. The bottom line is to be more efficient as an athlete. If I can train an athlete to be consistent and more efficient in every movement that he makes on the field, then he’s going to get more work done instead of wearing down.”

roger-kingdom.jpg

Before winning gold in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics, Roger Kingdom attended Pitt on a football scholarship. (Doug Mills/AP)

One can definitely appreciate that a world-class sprinter can help Cardinals players like wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, running back Andre Ellington and defensive back Patrick Peterson—guys who play positions where speed is a big asset. But what about the big uglies inside, like right tackle Bobby Massie or nose tackle Dan Williams?

“The goal is consistency through improved mechanics,” Kingdom said. “If you get somebody like a Larry Fitzgerald and you work on their improved mechanics, next thing you know you’re going to slowly see improvements in their time, improvement in their effort and also their endurance to be able to last throughout the season. That’s our most important point. We want to make sure they run just as well in game 12 or 14 as they are in game 1 or 2. Same thing with the linemen. If they’re efficient then they have endurance. If they have that, they continue to have that explosion throughout the game to drive guys off the ball.”

Outside the box thinking is what you get with Morris, who had three different tours of duty at Pittsburgh, his alma mater. The first time he left was to stay home when his daughter was ill while waiting on the liver transplant list. Morris went to work in a hospital doing physical therapy, and that might have been a blessing in disguise. Morris learned to look at the human body differently and what it really means to rehab from injury, and the importance of prehab—working to prevent injuries. The players who have worked out in the Cardinals’ facility during the offseason—the strength coaches are allowed to be there for safety and technique—have noticed a difference.

“Our guys say our warmup is everybody else’s workout,” said Morris, who trained Jim Covert, Bill Fralic, Russ Grimm, Dan Marino, Mark Stepnoski, Ruben Brown and Curtis Martin at Pittsburgh. “Our warmup is pretty extensive, and now we are programming by position. We’re not going to run a cookie cutter program where everybody comes in and does the same thing. We’re not just about lifting weights. That’s only one component but that’s the component everybody thinks about. It’s much more than that. It’s about dynamic movement, it’s about activations, it’s about prehab and rehab, it’s about making sure our guys are perfect biomechanically, more efficient so they don’t waste energy.”

Yup, it’s a new era in the Cardinals’ strength and conditioning department. The rest of the league will be watching to see the results.

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