Offseason workouts vital for success

By Mark Rudi
Western Herald

For Western Michigan University athletes, the offseason can be just as important as the season itself.

Bronco athletes must stay in shape and work on their skills to get ready for the upcoming year and due to NCAA rules, all without their coaches.

For the WMU football team, the players go through spring football in March and April, but after finals, the players will stick around for the summer for weight lifting and conditioning.

“They’ll work with a strength coach and it’s [summer] a time to develop leadership qualities,” head coach Bill Cubit said.

One of those leaders will be junior quarterback Tim Hiller, who recorded WMU single-season records for passing attempts (522), completions (339), passing yards (3,725) and touchdowns (36) in 2008.

“The month of June is devoted to weight lifting,” Hiller said. “In the evening, we’re conditioning. Running a lot of position specific position drills.”

Since the team can’t work with Cubit, strength and conditioning coach Nate Peoples plays a key role in the offseason, as well as Hiller, who said it’s his job to make sure everyone is organized.
Many of the incoming freshmen participate in summer drills, but it’s up to Hiller and other Bronco captains to make sure the newcomers fit right in.

“This summer is probably going to be the most important summer since I’ve been here,” Hiller said. “I may have to monitor. Those guys [the freshmen] will come up with us.”

“I may have a freshman crash with me and the other guys will have some too,” he added. “They learn the system and become a part of it.”

The squad will also do a lot of individual work and seven-on-seven scrimmages. Seven-on-seven only consists of players from the skill positions, with the exception of the center.

Cubit expects the players to be conditioned and ready to go when practice starts in August, as the Broncos get ready for its Sept. 5 opener against the University of Michigan at the Big House in Ann Arbor.

As for the men’s basketball team, summer is spent to work on a lot of individual work. Team members will meet with head coach Steve Hawkins, individually, to discuss what they need to work on in the summer.

“He [Hawkins] basically expects us to work on individual parts,” junior guard David Kool said. “We have stuff like open gym and he does a great of job of letting us know (what to work on).”

Hawkins said aspects like freshman center LaMarcus Lowe getting stronger and junior center Donald Lawson working on getting softer hands in the post and finishing, are all skills that can be worked on in the summer.

As for Kool, he wants to get in the gym as much as possible and improve his three-point shooting percentage and make better decisions as he prepares for his final season in college basketball.

“We need David to be a deadly shooter and get shots off quickly,” Hawkins said.

The Brown and Gold will also stay in shape through conditioning and weight lifting and getting lots of shots in the gym.

“Strength is critical at this time of year,” Hawkins said. “Work on getting shots and they’ll have shot thousands until September.”

Summer is also critical for the Bronco hockey team, who will do a combination of on and off ice workouts. Like the other WMU teams, strength and individual work is key for the offseason.
“During the season, we try to maintain strength,” junior defensemen Tyler Ludwig said. “During the summer, we try to get strength.”

The Broncos work with strength and conditioning coach Jen Query in weightlifting and conditioning with workouts, like the bench press and the power clean, to gain strength.

The players are not on the ice during the Summer I semester and are free to leave Kalamazoo, but for those who go home, they need to spend time staying in shape.

Query will give each player a workout manual so they’ll be ready to come back for Summer II workouts, which are mandatory.

“They hit the weights real hard Summer one and then it’s full throttle in Summer two,” Query said.

Some of those individual workouts include working on a player’s speed on the ice as well as conditioning.

“We want strong athletes, but we need quick players,” Query said. “They’ll lift three to four times a week, but we’re still trying to get them quicker.”

Speed is worked on through running on a treadmill or the turf inside the Seelye Center with acceleration also being a key focus.

“Jen does a great job,” head coach Jim Culhane said. “This time last year we changed focus and she has brought us new training mechanics.”

Some of the incoming freshmen will join the Broncos in the summer, but due to NCAA rules, Query is not allowed to have any contact with them. It’s up to Ludwig, the Bronco captain, to get the freshmen ready.

“We pretty much tell them they’re on their own ticket,” Ludwig said. “We let them know they have to work themselves into a routine we’ve been doing for three years.”

“It’s [summer] huge for the freshmen and trying to get them up to par,” Query said.

With the addition of the Seeyle Center, which opened in 2003, all Bronco teams can expand their workouts during the offseason. This is vital for the hockey team with the Seeyle Center weight room and turf.

“It’s [Seeyle Center] exactly where we get our strength,” Ludwig said. “[It] gets us a little ahead of the competition.”

“The turf there is huge,” Query said. “We can do a lot of hockey specific workouts with the turf. We can work on their speed and acceleration.”

“It’s unlimited what we can do with the Seeyle Center,” she added.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Apr 20 2009. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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