David Yankey

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dead_poet
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David Yankey

Post by dead_poet »

I thought I'd start a thread for this guy as he seems to be a bit of a crowd favorite at a position of need.

Seems like his biggest knock is a lack of upper body strength, which is a problem for me if he's in consideration for a starting role in 2014. The thought of him going up against Suh/Fairley makes me cringe. He may need a year or two of intense strength training (with intense focus on nutrition as he's another guy that's like Kalil and not naturally a "big man", needing to consume a lot of calories to get/keep his weight up) before being able to handle the big boys consistently. There's a big reason why he lasted to us, and he's a bit of a polarizing player from what I understand. Some analysts even thought he may go undrafted despite his impressive resume.

Here's one possible explanation for his strength "deficiencies": http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1739 ... th-program
What they are doing is building one of the most comprehensive and successful player development programs in the country through highly specialized training, personalized by position and player.

Stanford’s player development team focuses its efforts on injury prevention, athletic performance and mental discipline—in that order. Basically, the Stanford weight program doesn’t worry about having the "strongest" guys in college football. It focuses on football strength, technique and making sure the best Cardinal players stay on the field all season.

“This is an unusual and forward-thinking focus,” said Will Carroll, the Sports Medicine Lead Writer at Bleacher Report. “I guess we should expect that from Stanford. Most teams use the weight room and even advanced tools like Alter-G treadmills, SwimEx pools and the like in a caveman fashion. It’s all get bigger, get faster, which is easily measured. Injury prevention is more subtle.”

The guiding principle is “do no harm,” and Stanford has been wildly successful in doing so. In the six years since Turley took over the Stanford strength program, games missed due to injury has decreased 87 percent.

“That kind of drop is stunning,” Carroll explained. “I think most programs would be happy with 10 percent. For an NFL team, that kind of drop would be worth a win or more, as well as about $20 million in lost payroll.”

For those who say numbers in the weight room are important measure of success on the field, Turley would counter with the example of Stanford’s 6’5”, 313-pound All-American guard David Yankey, who Turley says can barely bench his own body weight.

‘‘He’s got to have some pop, I get it,” said Turley. “But isn’t the rate at which you strike more important than moving a bunch of weight around really slow?”

Turely explains that bench press and squat goals don’t even factor into his thinking when he designs a workout for a player. He is concerned only with a player’s ability to move as he needs to on the football field.

For an offensive lineman like Yankey, this means the mobility and stability of his shoulder, the stability of his core and the mobility of his lower body. Optimizing those characteristics allows him to get low and quickly apply force in the direction he intends to move, thus fulfilling his role as a blocker.

Stanford’s focus on injury prevention over athletic performance, along with the absence of the almighty record board in the weight room, sets its program apart from other powerhouse programs (yes, Stanford is a modern-day powerhouse).

“This functional focus, with less emphasis on big muscles and gallons of sweat, is brilliant,” Carroll said. “Each player has a function and certain movements and patterns that help him fulfill that function. Stanford is way ahead of the curve on this.”

“Our numbers are very unimpressive,” said Turley. “But we’re not chasing numbers. We are chasing lean muscle, reducing body fat and making guys functionally strong for football.”
I thought this was a very comprehensive analysis of Yankey:

http://www.battleredblog.com/2014/5/5/5 ... vid-yankey
“Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that.” --- Bill Shankly
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Re: David Yankey

Post by Texas Vike »

dead_poet wrote:I thought I'd start a thread for this guy as he seems to be a bit of a crowd favorite at a position of need.

Seems like his biggest knock is a lack of upper body strength, which is a problem for me if he's in consideration for a starting role in 2014. The thought of him going up against Suh/Fairley makes me cringe. He may need a year or two of intense strength training (with intense focus on nutrition as he's another guy that's like Kalil and not naturally a "big man", needing to consume a lot of calories to get/keep his weight up) before being able to handle the big boys consistently. There's a big reason why he lasted to us, and he's a bit of a polarizing player from what I understand. Some analysts even thought he may go undrafted despite his impressive resume.

Here's one possible explanation for his strength "deficiencies": http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1739 ... th-program
I thought this was a very comprehensive analysis of Yankey:

http://www.battleredblog.com/2014/5/5/5 ... vid-yankey
Interesting article (the bleacher report one, I haven't read the other yet). It sounds like a very "Stanford" approach--the West Coast Ivory prides itself on this kind of forward thinking as an institution, so it's fitting that the football team's approach is different too.

One point that stood out, though, is that they say they aren't chasing numbers and yet they measure the success of their alternative approach with the percentage of games missed, i.e. numbers. Even so, I think you're right that his slide may be due in part to his unimpressive size/strength combo. We discussed Mayock's term "heavy hands" in another thread… apparently Yankey's aren't so heavy.
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Re: David Yankey

Post by Texas Vike »

DP: that writer uses some really odd analogies, but the analysis is super in-depth.

This part stood out, especially related to trying to understand why Yankey slid a bit:
if I'm running a NFL team, I would not use a second round pick on a player who must improve at such a critical trait. It's a risk I would pass on early in the draft; I'd use the selection to take someone who is ready to start from the moment he is selected.

Yankey is not that guy. He will need some strength training and a year watching before he can be an everyday player in the NFL
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Re: David Yankey

Post by mondry »

I brought this exact thing up in the "Vikes go to old school weight program" thread and this is EXACTLY what I was talking about between building for Bruce Lee (explosiveness) compared to slow useless bulk trying to turn football players into body builders and the injury concerns I had.

I said lifts like the Bench press that over develop pectorals and what not is what leads to injury (more or less) and that was my primary concern with the change. Funny this article pretty much says exactly what I tried to say. Hopefully you guys believe me now. The thing is, who cares if you can't lift really heavy while laying on your back, that doesn't matter in football at all, if you're on your back, guess what, you got pancaked and you already lost.

I particularly liked this quote, “This functional focus, with less emphasis on big muscles and gallons of sweat, is brilliant,” Carroll said. “Each player has a function and certain movements and patterns that help him fulfill that function. Stanford is way ahead of the curve on this.” It'd be like Lance Armstrong having a huge chest and shoulders when all he needs to do is pedal a bike.

That's exactly how I lift and when people ask me for advice that's what I try to tell them. It's about functional full body strength. I don't care if you can isolate your pek's laying down on a bench and knock out 350 pounds for 2 reps. I care that you don't tear your pek right off the bone and sideline yourself for 3 months as you can't even raise your arm #1, and then #2 is that you get stronger in a way that might actually be useful to you.

That's because there are two types of muscle fibers you can develop, one is slow twitch which gives you that "power" on the bench press in a non chaotic and controlled situation where you can use perfect form and take your time. The other is fast twitch which gives you the explosiveness in chaotic and uncontrolled situations. Training those slow twitch muscles and getting bulky is what leads to injury when you depend on slow twitch strength to play a chaotic sport like football. Imagine trying to bench 500 pounds with a 300 pound guy pulling on you and knocking you around, it's down right dangerous.

Stanford most likely focuses on developing the FAST TWITCH muscle fibers in their athletes so while it says that Yankey can barely bench his own body weight, who the hell cares? It just means he hasn't developed the slow twitch muscles that aren't that useful for football as much as a bodybuilder going for nothing but mass has.

It actually makes me laugh now, finding out why Yankey slid to the 5th round for us. WHAT A JOKE some of these quotes are saying he won't be strong enough to play FOOTBALL in the nfl. I bet he'll be one of the most reliable, never hurt, and one of the higher functional strength guys. A good puller, a good blocker at the 2nd level because he won't be too bulky to even move around!

Now I will say, the BEST program probably falls somewhere in the middle of what Stanfords doing and the "old school" stlye. You should primarily focus on fast twitch muscle development but you also shouldn't completely abandon the slow twitch muscles for pure strength gains. I would say 75% to 25% would be a good ratio (the focus of your workouts) developing primarily fast twitch for explosiveness most of the time but still doing workouts to improve slow twitch strength.

What concerns me is I think we might be doing it the other way, 25% for fast twitch, 75% bench press and squats to the moon.
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Re: David Yankey

Post by Eli »

The _one_ thing I'm hoping David Yankey accomplishes in the near-term is to prompt the Vikings to part ways with Charlie Johnson.
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Re: David Yankey

Post by JD_Fiction »

I am hoping that our line looks like Kalil-Yankey-Sully-"Tiny"-Loadholt by the time pre season starts, Looks very good on paper anyway. :rock:
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Re: David Yankey

Post by jackal »

Agreed Johnson just is horrible

Watch Yankee highlights and he just
knocks the stufing out of people and
runs downfield lead blocking for RBs
10 yards or more ... I was hoping for
this guy really bad and in my mock
was hoping for him in the second round.
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Re: David Yankey

Post by PurpleHalo »

mondry wrote:I brought this exact thing up in the "Vikes go to old school weight program" thread and this is EXACTLY what I was talking about between building for Bruce Lee (explosiveness) compared to slow useless bulk trying to turn football players into body builders and the injury concerns I had.

I said lifts like the Bench press that over develop pectorals and what not is what leads to injury (more or less) and that was my primary concern with the change. Funny this article pretty much says exactly what I tried to say. Hopefully you guys believe me now. The thing is, who cares if you can't lift really heavy while laying on your back, that doesn't matter in football at all, if you're on your back, guess what, you got pancaked and you already lost.

I particularly liked this quote, “This functional focus, with less emphasis on big muscles and gallons of sweat, is brilliant,” Carroll said. “Each player has a function and certain movements and patterns that help him fulfill that function. Stanford is way ahead of the curve on this.” It'd be like Lance Armstrong having a huge chest and shoulders when all he needs to do is pedal a bike.

That's exactly how I lift and when people ask me for advice that's what I try to tell them. It's about functional full body strength. I don't care if you can isolate your pek's laying down on a bench and knock out 350 pounds for 2 reps. I care that you don't tear your pek right off the bone and sideline yourself for 3 months as you can't even raise your arm #1, and then #2 is that you get stronger in a way that might actually be useful to you.

That's because there are two types of muscle fibers you can develop, one is slow twitch which gives you that "power" on the bench press in a non chaotic and controlled situation where you can use perfect form and take your time. The other is fast twitch which gives you the explosiveness in chaotic and uncontrolled situations. Training those slow twitch muscles and getting bulky is what leads to injury when you depend on slow twitch strength to play a chaotic sport like football. Imagine trying to bench 500 pounds with a 300 pound guy pulling on you and knocking you around, it's down right dangerous.

Stanford most likely focuses on developing the FAST TWITCH muscle fibers in their athletes so while it says that Yankey can barely bench his own body weight, who the hell cares? It just means he hasn't developed the slow twitch muscles that aren't that useful for football as much as a bodybuilder going for nothing but mass has.

It actually makes me laugh now, finding out why Yankey slid to the 5th round for us. WHAT A JOKE some of these quotes are saying he won't be strong enough to play FOOTBALL in the nfl. I bet he'll be one of the most reliable, never hurt, and one of the higher functional strength guys. A good puller, a good blocker at the 2nd level because he won't be too bulky to even move around!

Now I will say, the BEST program probably falls somewhere in the middle of what Stanfords doing and the "old school" stlye. You should primarily focus on fast twitch muscle development but you also shouldn't completely abandon the slow twitch muscles for pure strength gains. I would say 75% to 25% would be a good ratio (the focus of your workouts) developing primarily fast twitch for explosiveness most of the time but still doing workouts to improve slow twitch strength.

What concerns me is I think we might be doing it the other way, 25% for fast twitch, 75% bench press and squats to the moon.
This post makes me think of David Boston, who was a promising young WR who went insane in the weight room. He had so many muscles which seems to have actually made him more prone to being injured.
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Re: David Yankey

Post by frosted »

mondry wrote:I brought this exact thing up in the "Vikes go to old school weight program" thread and this is EXACTLY what I was talking about between building for Bruce Lee (explosiveness) compared to slow useless bulk trying to turn football players into body builders and the injury concerns I had.

I said lifts like the Bench press that over develop pectorals and what not is what leads to injury (more or less) and that was my primary concern with the change. Funny this article pretty much says exactly what I tried to say. Hopefully you guys believe me now. The thing is, who cares if you can't lift really heavy while laying on your back, that doesn't matter in football at all, if you're on your back, guess what, you got pancaked and you already lost.

I particularly liked this quote, “This functional focus, with less emphasis on big muscles and gallons of sweat, is brilliant,” Carroll said. “Each player has a function and certain movements and patterns that help him fulfill that function. Stanford is way ahead of the curve on this.” It'd be like Lance Armstrong having a huge chest and shoulders when all he needs to do is pedal a bike.

That's exactly how I lift and when people ask me for advice that's what I try to tell them. It's about functional full body strength. I don't care if you can isolate your pek's laying down on a bench and knock out 350 pounds for 2 reps. I care that you don't tear your pek right off the bone and sideline yourself for 3 months as you can't even raise your arm #1, and then #2 is that you get stronger in a way that might actually be useful to you.

That's because there are two types of muscle fibers you can develop, one is slow twitch which gives you that "power" on the bench press in a non chaotic and controlled situation where you can use perfect form and take your time. The other is fast twitch which gives you the explosiveness in chaotic and uncontrolled situations. Training those slow twitch muscles and getting bulky is what leads to injury when you depend on slow twitch strength to play a chaotic sport like football. Imagine trying to bench 500 pounds with a 300 pound guy pulling on you and knocking you around, it's down right dangerous.

Stanford most likely focuses on developing the FAST TWITCH muscle fibers in their athletes so while it says that Yankey can barely bench his own body weight, who the hell cares? It just means he hasn't developed the slow twitch muscles that aren't that useful for football as much as a bodybuilder going for nothing but mass has.

It actually makes me laugh now, finding out why Yankey slid to the 5th round for us. WHAT A JOKE some of these quotes are saying he won't be strong enough to play FOOTBALL in the nfl. I bet he'll be one of the most reliable, never hurt, and one of the higher functional strength guys. A good puller, a good blocker at the 2nd level because he won't be too bulky to even move around!

Now I will say, the BEST program probably falls somewhere in the middle of what Stanfords doing and the "old school" stlye. You should primarily focus on fast twitch muscle development but you also shouldn't completely abandon the slow twitch muscles for pure strength gains. I would say 75% to 25% would be a good ratio (the focus of your workouts) developing primarily fast twitch for explosiveness most of the time but still doing workouts to improve slow twitch strength.

What concerns me is I think we might be doing it the other way, 25% for fast twitch, 75% bench press and squats to the moon.
You're going in the right direction here, but you're not entirely correct in some of the concepts you discussed. First and foremost, there is NOTHING wrong with incorporating bench press, squat, deadlift, etc. - these type of lifts are so important, in that they are compound exercises, multi-joint lifts that recruit large numbers of muscles to complete the lifts. They are much more effective than isolation exercises or machines in developing lean muscle mass. I think your opinion of these type of lifts being less effective or contributing to injury is misguided - as long as you perform the lift through the body's entire/full range of motion, they are 100% safe, effective, and entirely beneficial for sport related performance.

The idea that Stanford is focusing on fast twitch muscle fibers over slow twitch muscle fibers, and that is what makes Stanford's program so effective? Sorry, that is completely off base. Bench press and squat are HUGE for fast twitch fibers. A man with large pectoral muscles, developed from flat/incline/decline bench pressing generally has LOTS of fast twitch muscle fibers. Fast twitch, or type IIA/type IIB muscle fibers are larger and contract more powerfully and quickly than slow twitch muscle fibers (type I muscle fibers). Anaerobic activities (such as lifting weights and sprinting - explosive movements), are what recruits fast twitch muscle fibers. Aerobic activities (endurance activities, such as long distance running, swimming, etc.) are what recruits slow twitch muscle fibers.

I believe you're missing the point of the benefit that Stanford football's strength and conditioning program. I am 1000% on board with the way they do things - but it is more about flexibility, and training specificity than anything. The idea that they are training recruitment of fast twitch vs. slow twitch fibers? No, that is nothing revolutionary. That is every football program across the country that realizes that to be sudden and explosive on a football field, you need to practice sudden, explosive movements in the weight room.

As long as you also incorporate Olympic lifts, such as clean, clean and jerk, snatch, etc, you are training your body for power (speed x strength). I agree, that training solely for strength is not going to improve an individual on a football field, but by combining the strength one has gained with speed of movement, you see significant gains on the gridiron. I will say it again, because I can't stress how important it is: HANG CLEAN, POWER CLEAN, SNATCH, CLEAN AND JERK - lifts like these that train your body fthrough triple extension (ankle, knee, and hip) teach you how to convert strength to power by teaching your body how to EXPLODE.

As I stated, I love what Stanford does in their strength and conditioning program. Functional strength and flexibility SHOULD be a large part of what a football team is doing in the weight room. It is huge for injury prevention, and I have long said that football teams need to look more at ankle mobility, hips, and flexibility when scouting players for the draft. In fact, back in February I posted a similar article regarding Stanford here in a thread discussing David Yankey:
frosted21 wrote: I think you are spot on in regards to Yankey. Stanford players the last few years don't necessarily test out well as far as measurables go at the scouting combine and such, but they are trained a bit differently, and that has a lot to do with it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/31/sport ... ted=1&_r=0

That's an awesome article. Give it a read, the Stanford strength and conditioning coach is a big believer in flexibility and functional strength. It definitely shows on the football field.

Check out Barry J. Sanders doing some foam rolling:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2013/1 ... RD-11.html

Making his pops proud.
I guess my whole point with this, is that Stanford is doing a wonderful job, but you do not need to be concerned about what the Vikings are now doing in their strength program. From the article I read about it, they are going in the right direction. The old way of doing things sounded like it focused entirely too much on isolation, one joint, open chain machine type exercises. Now they are getting back to compound, closed chain, multi-joint exercises. For someone like me (I'm a nerd), that is very exciting. They could learn some things from Stanford's program, and could certainly incorporate some of those things into their program for the purpose of flexibility, injury prevention, and functional movement abilities, but Stanford, I feel, could also stand to incorporate some of what the Vikings are now doing into their program as well. They're not opposite concepts - they're entirely different areas of study, really.

The main thing is focusing on training specificity - that is:
1. Muscles involved in the movement task
2. The specific ranges of motion for all the joint actions in the movement task.
3. The body segments train at the frequency of the desired movement task.
4. Train the energy systems that are utilized while performing the movement task.

Additionally, for a movement task such as football, developing a large amount of lean muscle mass is advantageous as it increases a performer's power (speed X strength) and inertia (speed X mass), both of which are essential.

I am sorry for being so long winded. I am extremely passionate about this subject, and it is the area I got my degree in, so I wanted to chime in. I apologize if I came across condescending or a jerk, I didn't mean it to be. I could honestly sit here and type about this all day, but I'll spare you all.
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Re: David Yankey

Post by mondry »

VikingsFanInCA wrote:The Stanford research is dead on. I've never heard anything put that way, but it makes sense to me personally.

I am a gym rat. I have been lifting for over 2 and a 1/2 decades. I have gone through many phases. Bodybuilding. Powerlifting. Then I started fighting (boxing, kickboxing, JJ, Krav) and I thought "I'm gonna wipe the floor with these guys who don't lift like I do".

WRONG.

After a few years of fighting I FINALLY learned something similar to what this Stanford research is all about. It started to click when I changed up my workouts to endurance, shoulder and core stability, and explosiveness.

I lift a lot less now than I did when powerlifting or bodybulding. I'm also smaller. But I hit 10x as hard. And 10x as fast. Hittting HARDER at a lighter weight and with less actual muscle. And oh so much faster.

These scientists phrase it much better than I ever could. Trust me as someone whos done all of this for a very long time - it makes sense.
Well said, I'm glad you could share your experience. If all it took was being big and bulky Brock Lesnar would be an MMA god.
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Re: David Yankey

Post by Texas Vike »

frosted21 wrote: You're going in the right direction here, but you're not entirely correct in some of the concepts you discussed. First and foremost, there is NOTHING wrong with incorporating bench press, squat, deadlift, etc. - these type of lifts are so important, in that they are compound exercises, multi-joint lifts that recruit large numbers of muscles to complete the lifts. They are much more effective than isolation exercises or machines in developing lean muscle mass. I think your opinion of these type of lifts being less effective or contributing to injury is misguided - as long as you perform the lift through the body's entire/full range of motion, they are 100% safe, effective, and entirely beneficial for sport related performance.

The idea that Stanford is focusing on fast twitch muscle fibers over slow twitch muscle fibers, and that is what makes Stanford's program so effective? Sorry, that is completely off base. Bench press and squat are HUGE for fast twitch fibers. A man with large pectoral muscles, developed from flat/incline/decline bench pressing generally has LOTS of fast twitch muscle fibers. Fast twitch, or type IIA/type IIB muscle fibers are larger and contract more powerfully and quickly than slow twitch muscle fibers (type I muscle fibers). Anaerobic activities (such as lifting weights and sprinting - explosive movements), are what recruits fast twitch muscle fibers. Aerobic activities (endurance activities, such as long distance running, swimming, etc.) are what recruits slow twitch muscle fibers.

I believe you're missing the point of the benefit that Stanford football's strength and conditioning program. I am 1000% on board with the way they do things - but it is more about flexibility, and training specificity than anything. The idea that they are training recruitment of fast twitch vs. slow twitch fibers? No, that is nothing revolutionary. That is every football program across the country that realizes that to be sudden and explosive on a football field, you need to practice sudden, explosive movements in the weight room.

As long as you also incorporate Olympic lifts, such as clean, clean and jerk, snatch, etc, you are training your body for power (speed x strength). I agree, that training solely for strength is not going to improve an individual on a football field, but by combining the strength one has gained with speed of movement, you see significant gains on the gridiron. I will say it again, because I can't stress how important it is: HANG CLEAN, POWER CLEAN, SNATCH, CLEAN AND JERK - lifts like these that train your body fthrough triple extension (ankle, knee, and hip) teach you how to convert strength to power by teaching your body how to EXPLODE.

As I stated, I love what Stanford does in their strength and conditioning program. Functional strength and flexibility SHOULD be a large part of what a football team is doing in the weight room. It is huge for injury prevention, and I have long said that football teams need to look more at ankle mobility, hips, and flexibility when scouting players for the draft. In fact, back in February I posted a similar article regarding Stanford here in a thread discussing David Yankey:
I guess my whole point with this, is that Stanford is doing a wonderful job, but you do not need to be concerned about what the Vikings are now doing in their strength program. From the article I read about it, they are going in the right direction. The old way of doing things sounded like it focused entirely too much on isolation, one joint, open chain machine type exercises. Now they are getting back to compound, closed chain, multi-joint exercises. For someone like me (I'm a nerd), that is very exciting. They could learn some things from Stanford's program, and could certainly incorporate some of those things into their program for the purpose of flexibility, injury prevention, and functional movement abilities, but Stanford, I feel, could also stand to incorporate some of what the Vikings are now doing into their program as well. They're not opposite concepts - they're entirely different areas of study, really.

The main thing is focusing on training specificity - that is:
1. Muscles involved in the movement task
2. The specific ranges of motion for all the joint actions in the movement task.
3. The body segments train at the frequency of the desired movement task.
4. Train the energy systems that are utilized while performing the movement task.

Additionally, for a movement task such as football, developing a large amount of lean muscle mass is advantageous as it increases a performer's power (speed X strength) and inertia (speed X mass), both of which are essential.

I am sorry for being so long winded. I am extremely passionate about this subject, and it is the area I got my degree in, so I wanted to chime in. I apologize if I came across condescending or a jerk, I didn't mean it to be. I could honestly sit here and type about this all day, but I'll spare you all.
I, for one, found your post extremely enlightening and read it very carefully. I'd listen to more, in fact.

I had started a reply to Mondry's post, with the intent of pointing out some discrepancies... but I found myself incapable of articulating them as well as you have here! Thanks for the info. Great post.
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Re: David Yankey

Post by frosted »

Texas Vike wrote:I, for one, found your post extremely enlightening and read it very carefully. I'd listen to more, in fact.

I had started a reply to Mondry's post, with the intent of pointing out some discrepancies... but I found myself incapable of articulating them as well as you have here! Thanks for the info. Great post.
Cheers!
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Re: David Yankey

Post by mondry »

frosted21 wrote:
You're going in the right direction here, but you're not entirely correct in some of the concepts you discussed. First and foremost, there is NOTHING wrong with incorporating bench press, squat, deadlift, etc. - these type of lifts are so important, in that they are compound exercises, multi-joint lifts that recruit large numbers of muscles to complete the lifts. They are much more effective than isolation exercises or machines in developing lean muscle mass. I think your opinion of these type of lifts being less effective or contributing to injury is misguided - as long as you perform the lift through the body's entire/full range of motion, they are 100% safe, effective, and entirely beneficial for sport related performance.

The idea that Stanford is focusing on fast twitch muscle fibers over slow twitch muscle fibers, and that is what makes Stanford's program so effective? Sorry, that is completely off base. Bench press and squat are HUGE for fast twitch fibers. A man with large pectoral muscles, developed from flat/incline/decline bench pressing generally has LOTS of fast twitch muscle fibers. Fast twitch, or type IIA/type IIB muscle fibers are larger and contract more powerfully and quickly than slow twitch muscle fibers (type I muscle fibers). Anaerobic activities (such as lifting weights and sprinting - explosive movements), are what recruits fast twitch muscle fibers. Aerobic activities (endurance activities, such as long distance running, swimming, etc.) are what recruits slow twitch muscle fibers.

I believe you're missing the point of the benefit that Stanford football's strength and conditioning program. I am 1000% on board with the way they do things - but it is more about flexibility, and training specificity than anything. The idea that they are training recruitment of fast twitch vs. slow twitch fibers? No, that is nothing revolutionary. That is every football program across the country that realizes that to be sudden and explosive on a football field, you need to practice sudden, explosive movements in the weight room.

As long as you also incorporate Olympic lifts, such as clean, clean and jerk, snatch, etc, you are training your body for power (speed x strength). I agree, that training solely for strength is not going to improve an individual on a football field, but by combining the strength one has gained with speed of movement, you see significant gains on the gridiron. I will say it again, because I can't stress how important it is: HANG CLEAN, POWER CLEAN, SNATCH, CLEAN AND JERK - lifts like these that train your body fthrough triple extension (ankle, knee, and hip) teach you how to convert strength to power by teaching your body how to EXPLODE.

As I stated, I love what Stanford does in their strength and conditioning program. Functional strength and flexibility SHOULD be a large part of what a football team is doing in the weight room. It is huge for injury prevention, and I have long said that football teams need to look more at ankle mobility, hips, and flexibility when scouting players for the draft. In fact, back in February I posted a similar article regarding Stanford here in a thread discussing David Yankey:
I guess my whole point with this, is that Stanford is doing a wonderful job, but you do not need to be concerned about what the Vikings are now doing in their strength program. From the article I read about it, they are going in the right direction. The old way of doing things sounded like it focused entirely too much on isolation, one joint, open chain machine type exercises. Now they are getting back to compound, closed chain, multi-joint exercises. For someone like me (I'm a nerd), that is very exciting. They could learn some things from Stanford's program, and could certainly incorporate some of those things into their program for the purpose of flexibility, injury prevention, and functional movement abilities, but Stanford, I feel, could also stand to incorporate some of what the Vikings are now doing into their program as well. They're not opposite concepts - they're entirely different areas of study, really.

The main thing is focusing on training specificity - that is:
1. Muscles involved in the movement task
2. The specific ranges of motion for all the joint actions in the movement task.
3. The body segments train at the frequency of the desired movement task.
4. Train the energy systems that are utilized while performing the movement task.

Additionally, for a movement task such as football, developing a large amount of lean muscle mass is advantageous as it increases a performer's power (speed X strength) and inertia (speed X mass), both of which are essential.

I am sorry for being so long winded. I am extremely passionate about this subject, and it is the area I got my degree in, so I wanted to chime in. I apologize if I came across condescending or a jerk, I didn't mean it to be. I could honestly sit here and type about this all day, but I'll spare you all.
Hey don't worry about it man, I tried to keep it simple and really dumbed down so it'd be easy to understand without getting into "Muscle fiber Type IIA / IIB" and that sort to help the point get across easier. I'm passionate about this too, so I understand, and really I agree with just about everything you said. I don't think we're that far off on seeing eye to eye on this.

Please don't get me wrong, I LOVE Olympic lifts and admit that they're great at what they do. All I'm saying is that in itself, -can- be a problem when it comes to football. They're so good they can lead to overdeveloped core muscles where you begin to lose functionality elsewhere in order to gain more bulk and strength. I also believe this is what leads to FOOTBALL players getting injured at a higher rate than normal and why I think Stanfords program saw such a reduced rate in injury. They don't focus on pure bulk and over training core muscles that aren't essential to the football players game.

I should also say that the "old school weight training" isn't the scariest thing to hear. I highly doubt they will abandon all the scientific sports research done in the past 40 years and that it's likely going to be the "best of both worlds", old school and new school training so there likely isn't much to worry about. I don't think they'll only train like they did in 1970 for example hehe but take the useful stuff from that era and implement it into current training.

I'm also not saying the change to "old school weight training" is worse than what they had, so I am going to clarify that too, it's a step in the right direction. Personally I love kettlebells and do my cleans, snatches, get-ups, box squats, etc and get what I feel is incredibly good full body training as opposed to when I was doing olympic lifts with a bar. I think the kettlebell gives you a better fully body workout but of course the downside is you can't stack as much weight and you won't get HUGE from it. Both are the two best ways I've ever lifted though, as far as efficiency goes and depending on what your goals are.

I follow Pavel Tsatsouline style of kettlebell training, he trained Russian Spetnaz special forces before coming to America. His wiki says "Tsatsouline is now a subject matter expert to the US Marine Corps, the US Secret Service, and the US Navy SEALs." so clearly he's doing something right! One of my favorite things he said is when training Spetnaz or the SEALs, we don't have 15 minutes to warm up or do some stretches, my guys have to be ready to go, bad guys won't wait for us to get ready. So he trains them for a high level of innate flexibility and functional strength and uses the kettlebell to do it.

I'm kinda thinking here that if you trained a football team that way, you might give up some of that RAW power and bulk but maintain a greater level of functional strength and reduce your injury risk as much as Stanford did. I don't know what Stanford DID to achieve those results so that's part of the problem. But like I said, it seems like we should go for the best of both worlds and train for flexibility, functional strength, and a bit of Raw size / power. Will we get that in the Vikings weight room in the right ratios? That's where I'm not 100% sure but I do think it'll be better than last year.

If you look at it, a lot of our guys were injured last year, and that's kind of been the story throughout the previous workout's era. I don't like to see Harison Smith hurt or Rhodes get hurt on what looks like an absolute routine play. Cook's been hurt as well when it looks like very little actually happens on the play. Childs destroys both his knees in practice on a routine sideline catch. I definitely think there is something to it and I'm glad we've made this change. All I'm saying is we could probably go even further if we really wanted and Stanford seems to be doing that. (at least in THAT direction) Heck I remember a few years now where half our defense has been hurt, leading to some of our worst seasons.

I also don't believe in "injury" prone. If a guy seems to be "Injury prone", it's probably because he's trained in a way that gives him very poor flexibility and there's a "reason" behind him getting hurt all the time. Sure if your knee takes a bad hit two years in a row like Cedric Griffin then there's not much you can do about it but a lot of those hamstring, calf, pectoral, shoulder, etc, type injuries are preventable imo and I hope Stanford sets the tone towards that.

Great discussion btw, I don't have a degree in this stuff, I'm just going off of personal experiences and keep learning as I go so seriously, don't feel bad about it.
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Re: David Yankey

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mondry wrote: I'm passionate about this too, so I understand, and really I agree with just about everything you said. I don't think we're that far off on seeing eye to eye on this.
Totally man! I think we're on the same wavelength here, and as they say, there's more than one way to skin a cat. I would love to sit down and pick Turley's (their strength coach) brain. The way they run things at Stanford is pretty unique and it obviously has a ton of value, with the team's success and resistance to injury being a perfect example of that value.

And yes, I love this type of discussion!
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Re: David Yankey

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frosted21 wrote: Totally man! I think we're on the same wavelength here, and as they say, there's more than one way to skin a cat. I would love to sit down and pick Turley's (their strength coach) brain. The way they run things at Stanford is pretty unique and it obviously has a ton of value, with the team's success and resistance to injury being a perfect example of that value.

And yes, I love this type of discussion!

This is exactly the kind of informed and civil back and forth that I appreciate about this board. Good stuff guys. :smilevike:
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