Welcome to Dan Riley's latest installment of Texans Fitness Corner ...

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Carter Toole is the Director of our Texans website. He receives the questions for the Fitness Corner and passes them on to me. Your question is a good one but somewhat general in nature. I’ll do my best to answer your question in the space available. I would also suggest you to refer to past installments of the Fitness Corner for additional information. Carter has stored our past Fitness Corner installments in the link titled, Fitness Corner Archive. It is located at the end of this installment. The strength and conditioning profile for our Houston Texans (and your Munich Rangers) will incorporate seven basic components. Each component must be addressed individually. The seven components include the following: Strength and ConditioningProfile for the Houston Texans · Nutrition · Muscular Fitness · Flexibility · Conditioning · Specific Speed & Quickness Training · Skill Development · Rest All of our players will utilize the same training protocol for each of the components listed above, except for Specific Speed & Quickness Training and Skill Development. The Motor Learning Community agrees that Skill Development is very specific. Athletes must practice the exact skills they use to play the game to refine those specific skills. It’s almost impossible to duplicate any of those skills in the weight room unless you clear an area and have your players put on the pads and scrimmage at full speed. Skills are specific. Don’t try to imitate football skills in the weight room. It can’t be done. I’m not a football coach. I can’t advise you on how to improve the skills used to play offensive line. I’d recommend you exchange ideas with other offensive line coaches for this information. I can tell you that the transfer of skill from one task to another (task to task transfer) is almost non-existent. For example, the skills used to jump rope will not transfer to the skills used to pass protect. The message is, whenever possible practice the exact skills your players will use in a game. Sage states, “Studies of motor skill transfer from one task to another are not numerous but they do consistently support the notion that there is little transfer
from one task to another. In summarizing data on task-to-task transfer with motor tasks it appears that there is little transfer of any kind.” Therefore don’t waste valuable time and energy practicing skills that aren’t specific to the exact task at hand. Intra-task transfer is a term used by motor-learning experts to describe several tasks performed in sequence to complete a skill. Transfer does take place with intratask transfer. I have observed Russ Grimm coach the offensive line by having them (from their stance) practice their first step only. Over and over, the linemen would practice taking their first step. He would then have them practice hand placement, followed by a second step. Each task was practiced individually and eventually put together and practiced from beginning to end at full speed. Each of these individual tasks when practiced individually will transfer to the whole task at hand. This is called intra-task transfer. My only advice regarding skill development is to have your offensive linemen spend as much time as possible on the exact skills they will use to play the game. The same is true for all positions. Specific Speed and Quickness is the other fitness component we individualize by position. The best way (and the only way) to develop and maintain the specific fitness levels used to play the game of football is to eventually play the game of football at game speed. We can’t create the intensity of game like conditions (an opponent, spectators, television coverage, etc., speed of the game) in our off-season conditioning program. Specificity of conditioning is a term we use to describe the specific adaptations that take place physically from an exercise or activity. Conditioning is very specific. The energy demands used to run block and pass protect are different than the specific energy demands used to run in a straight line. Our off-season running and conditioning program is designed to target the energy systems our players use to play football. Our goal is to get them in good enough shape to go to summer camp and use football to get them in shape to play the game of football. The only way to develop the exact level of conditioning needed to play the game of football is actually play the game of football. It’s unrealistic to expect our players to play football all year in an attempt to stay in football shape. During the off-season all of our players (to include our offensive linemen) utilize the same conditioning and running regimen. Several weeks before going to summer camp we encourage our players to implement position specific conditioning drills we call, “Skilled Pattern Running.” These conditioning patterns are specific to each position. If your players had wet paint on their shoes while playing a game, you could observe the specific tracking patterns each position player uses during a game.
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