Here is the first part of my long interview with Speer. There is plenty more to come.
In this unprecedented time, what have you been doing in the summer with these guys?
"When this whole thing started back in March, it was a Friday the 20th, well, the week prior to that, that Monday prior to that, we had shifted to 10 in the weight room only and all this. It was so new and everything, but Tuesday we got word that Friday we are shutting it down until further notice? A lot of people were saying June 1, July 1, but it was certainly with the school canceling and going to all on-line classes, it became kind of obvious that June 1 might be the earliest possible date we could back in, and that made sense because we were scheduled to start summer (voluntary workouts) anywhere on June 1. That just made sense. My staff and I wrote a program basically to carry us from that Monday (March 23) through June 1. Around that week we also started shutting down gyms, so we knew that was going to be a big problem. The program we wrote originally was for going home kind of like you do a recruiting program. They've got access to high school gyms and whatever. Well it became apparent they were shutting everything down, so we got together as a staff and drew up a body-weight workout and we didn't do it for (just) football. We did it for all athletes. We even had some administrators that wanted it so they could work out for a month. Then we updated it. And then the strength coaches that worked with the other teams could program how they saw fit, and a lot of them used the June 1 deadline as well.
"So that's what we did. A couple of weeks ago it became apparent that June 15 would be our starting date and the June 1 program was going to end, so I updated the program in a two-week cycle to get the guys to the 15th of June."
How much have they been able to follow the program?
"Well when this stuff first went down, the feedback was nobody had a gym. We've got two guys, one guy's dad is a gym owner, so he was fine, and another guy's dad used to own a gym, so he had a pretty good garage set up, but then a lot of our guys (would say) 'my dad's got a pair of 25-pound dumb bells or some kind of mix and match of that, but most of our guys had nothing. At the very beginning guys were going out and buying stuff. Guys were building squat racks and things like that, which was awesome, but for the most part, most of our guys as far as weight equipment goes, it was very sparse. I had one guy call me wanting to know how can I go about pushing a truck, so I gave him some advice on the truck-push program. We tried to be creative, but the initial feedback was they didn't have the means to do it. As this thing started to evolve real early, we told them the absolute most important thing right now is that you're running. They were in offseason shape. We had five spring practices. They were in good shape. It's easy to kick back and don't go do training. We talked to our guys almost daily. The strength coaches, we split up the call lists. We didn't call anybody on the weekend. I made a couple of weekend calls, but for the most part our guys got talked to very regularly. A lot of it was how's the workout going, but a lot of it was just small-talk stuff. That was really the best thing about the calls. It was just hey, how are you doing, how's your families, things like that. It was good.
"For the most part we're at the end of it now, so we're excited to get back in. I've got to get tested on Friday, me and my staff. Our guys will roll in Monday or Tuesday and we look for Wednesday the 17th to be our first day to work out as a team."
How much time do you estimate it will take to get back back where they would have been?
"There's no way to know until I see it. I don't even want to guess. There's no way to get that training back. It's gone. It's never coming back, so the worst thing you can do in my opinion is try to rush it and make up ground. We're not taking that approach. We've taking it as we've got a long time, let's write this thing the right way, implement this thing the right way and get our guys in shape for fall camp and through fall camp. That's priority No. 1. And when I'm talking about in shape and in condition, a lot of people think cardiovascular. I'm talking ankles, knees and hips. If you think about it, some of our guys may not have made a whole lot of cuts, so it's the ankles, knees and hips stuff we're going to have to address early on and work through that.
"If you look at the NFL back when they had the lockout in 2011, there was no football from the middle of March until the end of July, just over four months, and then when they started, they had 17 days from the beginning of training camp to the first preseason game. There were 10 Achilles tendon injuries in the first 12 days of camp, which is obviously way higher than it was normally. And these are the best in the world at what they do, but it showed if you're not doing the movements, bad things can happen. We're focusing early on on just getting able to operate again."
They are talking about starting preseason practice in the middle of July to give teams extra time to prepare for the season. Are you in favor of that?
"There's been all kinds of talk about all kinds of things, and we'll be ready whatever they say. If coach comes in next week and says we'll get to start some phase of preseason camp on July 15, that's fine with us. We'll just adjust. I'm not sure it would actually change a lot for us right now. It would change once camp got here, but it's not like we can speed it up. We'll adapt, improvise and be fine with whatever they decide. I will say this. Normally as a strength coach I would be not for that (an early start to practice). I'd be heck no, because like all the rest of the strength coaches in the world, I want as much time with the guys as possible. But in this case, I don't know that (starting practice earlier) is a bad thing because the main goal in all of this is being ready for football. It's not being ready for a bunch of running or being ready for a bunch of weightlifting. It's being ready for a whole bunch of football, so in our case I don't think that's a worst-case scenario, whereas in years past if we had a four-week summer I'd be very concerned."
In terms of the social distancing rules, how much is the new weight room equipped to handle this era?
"We've got to have limits, but it's not going to change what we do as far as order of exercise. My staff, we're all going in and we're going to do some re-arranging and our goal is to keep our guys from having to move around the room very much. If we can have a guy come in and dirty up his bar, his weights, his racks and not cross each other up, that's what we're going to do. It should not affect us from a well, they can't lift this way. No, we're still going to train the way we train."
How big a difference is it from if you'd had to do this in the old cramped weight room?
"Not even close. Not even close."
In this unprecedented time, what have you been doing in the summer with these guys?
"When this whole thing started back in March, it was a Friday the 20th, well, the week prior to that, that Monday prior to that, we had shifted to 10 in the weight room only and all this. It was so new and everything, but Tuesday we got word that Friday we are shutting it down until further notice? A lot of people were saying June 1, July 1, but it was certainly with the school canceling and going to all on-line classes, it became kind of obvious that June 1 might be the earliest possible date we could back in, and that made sense because we were scheduled to start summer (voluntary workouts) anywhere on June 1. That just made sense. My staff and I wrote a program basically to carry us from that Monday (March 23) through June 1. Around that week we also started shutting down gyms, so we knew that was going to be a big problem. The program we wrote originally was for going home kind of like you do a recruiting program. They've got access to high school gyms and whatever. Well it became apparent they were shutting everything down, so we got together as a staff and drew up a body-weight workout and we didn't do it for (just) football. We did it for all athletes. We even had some administrators that wanted it so they could work out for a month. Then we updated it. And then the strength coaches that worked with the other teams could program how they saw fit, and a lot of them used the June 1 deadline as well.
"So that's what we did. A couple of weeks ago it became apparent that June 15 would be our starting date and the June 1 program was going to end, so I updated the program in a two-week cycle to get the guys to the 15th of June."
How much have they been able to follow the program?
"Well when this stuff first went down, the feedback was nobody had a gym. We've got two guys, one guy's dad is a gym owner, so he was fine, and another guy's dad used to own a gym, so he had a pretty good garage set up, but then a lot of our guys (would say) 'my dad's got a pair of 25-pound dumb bells or some kind of mix and match of that, but most of our guys had nothing. At the very beginning guys were going out and buying stuff. Guys were building squat racks and things like that, which was awesome, but for the most part, most of our guys as far as weight equipment goes, it was very sparse. I had one guy call me wanting to know how can I go about pushing a truck, so I gave him some advice on the truck-push program. We tried to be creative, but the initial feedback was they didn't have the means to do it. As this thing started to evolve real early, we told them the absolute most important thing right now is that you're running. They were in offseason shape. We had five spring practices. They were in good shape. It's easy to kick back and don't go do training. We talked to our guys almost daily. The strength coaches, we split up the call lists. We didn't call anybody on the weekend. I made a couple of weekend calls, but for the most part our guys got talked to very regularly. A lot of it was how's the workout going, but a lot of it was just small-talk stuff. That was really the best thing about the calls. It was just hey, how are you doing, how's your families, things like that. It was good.
"For the most part we're at the end of it now, so we're excited to get back in. I've got to get tested on Friday, me and my staff. Our guys will roll in Monday or Tuesday and we look for Wednesday the 17th to be our first day to work out as a team."
How much time do you estimate it will take to get back back where they would have been?
"There's no way to know until I see it. I don't even want to guess. There's no way to get that training back. It's gone. It's never coming back, so the worst thing you can do in my opinion is try to rush it and make up ground. We're not taking that approach. We've taking it as we've got a long time, let's write this thing the right way, implement this thing the right way and get our guys in shape for fall camp and through fall camp. That's priority No. 1. And when I'm talking about in shape and in condition, a lot of people think cardiovascular. I'm talking ankles, knees and hips. If you think about it, some of our guys may not have made a whole lot of cuts, so it's the ankles, knees and hips stuff we're going to have to address early on and work through that.
"If you look at the NFL back when they had the lockout in 2011, there was no football from the middle of March until the end of July, just over four months, and then when they started, they had 17 days from the beginning of training camp to the first preseason game. There were 10 Achilles tendon injuries in the first 12 days of camp, which is obviously way higher than it was normally. And these are the best in the world at what they do, but it showed if you're not doing the movements, bad things can happen. We're focusing early on on just getting able to operate again."
They are talking about starting preseason practice in the middle of July to give teams extra time to prepare for the season. Are you in favor of that?
"There's been all kinds of talk about all kinds of things, and we'll be ready whatever they say. If coach comes in next week and says we'll get to start some phase of preseason camp on July 15, that's fine with us. We'll just adjust. I'm not sure it would actually change a lot for us right now. It would change once camp got here, but it's not like we can speed it up. We'll adapt, improvise and be fine with whatever they decide. I will say this. Normally as a strength coach I would be not for that (an early start to practice). I'd be heck no, because like all the rest of the strength coaches in the world, I want as much time with the guys as possible. But in this case, I don't know that (starting practice earlier) is a bad thing because the main goal in all of this is being ready for football. It's not being ready for a bunch of running or being ready for a bunch of weightlifting. It's being ready for a whole bunch of football, so in our case I don't think that's a worst-case scenario, whereas in years past if we had a four-week summer I'd be very concerned."
In terms of the social distancing rules, how much is the new weight room equipped to handle this era?
"We've got to have limits, but it's not going to change what we do as far as order of exercise. My staff, we're all going in and we're going to do some re-arranging and our goal is to keep our guys from having to move around the room very much. If we can have a guy come in and dirty up his bar, his weights, his racks and not cross each other up, that's what we're going to do. It should not affect us from a well, they can't lift this way. No, we're still going to train the way we train."
How big a difference is it from if you'd had to do this in the old cramped weight room?
"Not even close. Not even close."
