OFF SEASON - DL

Good morning! I am saddened to say the off season is fast approaching, and for some college teams, its here. For fans, that means following another sport or patiently waiting for next season. For the players and staff, this means recovery and regrouping for next season. To prepare for next seasons many weeks of war on Saturdays. And that is what I will be touching on in today’s read.

Specifically, I thought I’d break down the needs for each position group as far as performance and resilience to injury on the field. Now with programming for a team, much of it is based on the data from that specific team such has season injuries, strengths, weaknesses, and positional demand, but today we will just focus on positional demands, specifically D-Line. Tune in the next following weeks to see the demands for other positions on the field.

*The injuries discussed in this newsletter are for general educational purposes only. I am not affiliated with the athlete’s medical team, and the information shared does not reflect any insider or team medical details. Specifics about the injury are often unavailable, which can significantly influence the estimated timeline for return to play.

Defensive Lineman

Before we jump into the nitty gritty, I thought I’d make couple lists of greatest defensive lineman. Here we go:

Top D-Line in this upcoming Draft:

1. Peter Woods (Clemson)

2. Kayden McDonald (The Ohio State University)

3. A’Mauri Washington (Oregon)

4. Christen Miller (Georgia)

5. Mateen Ibirogba (Wake Forest)

Best D-Line stats this season in the NFL (Sacks):

Prior to yesterday’s additional stats*

1. Myles Garrett (19)

   (extra space here to show how dominate Myles Garrett is playing this season)

2. Micah Parsons (12.5)

3. Danielle Hunter (11)

4. Will Anderson Jr. (10.5)

5. Aiden Hutchinson (8.5)

Greatest Defensive Tackles of ALL Time:

1. John Randle

2. Aaron Donald

3. Joe Greene

4. Alan Page

5. Bob Lilly

With the greatest defensive tackles of all time, you really could make an argument for many more players but we’ll stick with these 5 for now.

So what are we going to train with this position?

Welp, with a long off season there are many-many buckets we would want to cover including ankle, shoulder, core, hip, thoracic rotational power, lateral power, no stretch plyometric, grip/hand/wrist, anti lateral flexion, neck, knee, and probably much-much more. But lets take a few of these and break down why we want to train it and how we can train it for better performance and reduce the risk of injury.

Shoulder

A crucial area to train in the offseason for a defensive lineman, but really, for any position on the field. Shoulder injuries are common in football, but with defensive lineman, they rely heavily on their shoulder. One, transferring power from their lower body through there core to their arms with a strike. That requires a strong stable shoulder to transfer that power. Another reason why stabilization is important is due to the war in the trenches, taking on unpredictable contact from offensive lineman. Training what I call rhythmic stabilizations for the shoulder to increase the golgi tendon response from the muscles to contract to tighten down the shoulder into the joint. Muscles like the rotator cuff attach right into the labrum, therefore, those muscles contracting pulls the shoulder into the socket allowing for better control and stabilization of the shoulder.

We can hit the rotator cuff in the weight room with sidelying external rotation with a dumbbell, banded internal rotation, doing a palloff press with a band and a KB on the band to give us the unpredictable perturbations to mimic that stress on the shoulder.

Anti Lateral Flexion and Anti Rotation

Anti Lateral flexion refers to your ability to resist bending sideways. Not only is this important to be able to protect the spine but this also plays a huge role in performance. As a Defensive lineman, one of your main roles on the field is to maintain your gap. With offensive lineman pushing and twisting you to create a hole for the running back, you are using your core musculature to prevent this twisting and lateral bending. Some exercises to hit anti lateral flexion include farmers carries, side planks, and pallof press.

No Stretch Plyometric

A no stretch movement is a movement where you eliminate the stretch-shortening cycle (the quick dip before jumping) that loads the muscle like a spring. This makes the movement pure concentric.

Training this is important because this is how defensive lineman start every single play. Down, in a stance, then explode out on the snap of the ball. Therefore, training the body in the off season to get used to this movement will increase their performance during the season.

Some exercises that we can train in the gym is a paused squat jump, box squat with weight at 67-85% of max (power), bench press with a pause, or a kneeling jump to feet.

If you are interested in a deeper dive of off season training for defensive lineman, click the link below and type in “DL of season programming!”

Neck

In the trenches, defensive lineman are taking blows to the head typically every play. And in a step to help prevent concussions (caused by the acceleration and deceleration of the head), training the neck to be strong and stable will help decrease the amount of acceleration and deceleration of the head.

The combination of training the neck and shoulder can build resilience to stingers as well with strong, stable musculature around the brachial plexus.

Some of my favorite exercises to train the muscles around the neck are neck push ups, partner 4 way neck, and trap bar shrugs.

*Due to my professional association with the Atlanta Falcons during preseason and my current role with the Florida State Seminoles, I will not provide educational content or commentary on any injuries within these programs during or after the season.

Hand/Grip/Wrist

Finally, and of course, hand, grip, and wrist strength. In the trenches, DL are in hand combat play after play after play. Stubbed fingers, hyperextended and hyperflexed wrist occur all the time. On top of that, gripping a 300lbs offensive lineman to rip him out the way requires a lot of distal strength in this area.

Training this area can be as simple as using a fat bar to grip during bench, griping heavy weights for shrugs or farmers carries without wrist straps.

There are many more areas that we can train for defensive lineman in the off season which should be trained. Hopefully, this is a great starting point for you if you’re a defensive lineman, or if you have DL athletes you are training.