July 20, 2010

Story by senior punter Jonathan LaCour
Video edited and produced by senior running back Baron Batch

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Everyone loves football season, but it's what goes on in the off-season that prepares us for the fall. This spring changes were made to the coaching staff, including a new head strength coach.

Head Coach Tommy Tuberville brought Coach Joe Walker with him from Auburn to fill the position of Head Strength Coach. Although he was new to Texas Tech, he didn't act like it. I had been through two off seasons here at Tech before Coach Walker arrived and immediately noticed an extreme difference in coaching styles from our last strength coach.

In February we went through a month-long conditioning program called "4th Quarter Drills" which was basically a variety of agility stations combined with a series of mat-drills to get the team into shape for spring football. It was tough but proved to be a very productive month with the great spring we had. The drills were similar to our past year's "Midnight Maneuvers" except they were during the day. Although the drills lasted about twice as long, we were able to get to bed at a reasonable hour, which was a worth it!

The last thing Coach Walker told us before taking our month off in May was that we needed to keep up with our workouts while we were gone. After the intense spring we had, I took his statement to heart so I wouldn't struggle as much in the beginning of the summer. As it turns out, I don't exactly push myself to the extreme when I am on vacation, which showed the first day back when we were welcomed with a series of sprints and shuffles up a hill.

People always think that because I am a punter, I am not a valid source for evaluating our workouts but the truth is that I have to do every workout the rest of the team does.

Coach Walker likes us to condition before hitting the weights. His philosophy is that we will be tired in the game and that is when we will really need to show our strength and endurance. He doesn't care how much we can squat or power clean, he only cares about how much we can lift after we condition.

Like most coaches, Coach Walker is strictly business in the weight room, but he is pretty laid back outside of it. I guess he has to be with Linebacker, Bront Bird and Quarterback, Steven Sheffield always goofing around with him. "Inside the weight room Coach Walker is like a red-uniformed guard outside of St. James' Palace. He's stoic and ready to kill. Outside the weight room, he's like an awkward kid on the playground who says his joke too late or one that no one understands and everyone just stares at him," said Bird.

We recently had the weight room completely renovated to be more efficient and each of us now has a platform available to us to work out on at all times. Rather than having to wait for one to open, we can all bench or squat or power clean all at the same time if we want to.

As far as workouts go, we have fewer reps than we used to have, but with more weight. Personally, I have noticed an improvement in my strength and I think I can say the same for the rest of the guys.

We are divided into three large workout groups and then divided within those groups by a personal strength coach. Each group has their own row of platforms where we do the majority of our lifting.

Each of us who have been here for a while have all agreed that specifically our new strength program has improved and we can't wait to hit the field Sunday September 5th and show SMU what we have been doing all off-season.