May 2012 Blog Posts (12)

It doesn't matter who you are or who you think you are, when you make poor choices, you will eventually pay for them.  Just like all of us, Alex Boone has made poor choices in his life, subsequently going undrafted in the NFL draft after being a four year starter at Ohio State while entering the university as the number one high school offensive line prospect in the country. Fast forward…

Christian Petersen/Getty Images

Life is about personal growth and Bobby Massie is a great example to all young athletes that are transitioning through life. Massie is one of the rare genetically gifted athletes that have many of the skills and abilities that most will have to work for but many will never have.  But as I…

Simplicity seems to be a thing of the past in terms of how we train and even live our lives.  A lot of really smart people have advanced our society in a direction where many within my age group only dreamed of while watching the Jetsons. These advancements have been for the greater good and some to our…

Most offensive linemen fall into two distinct categories, those that are trying to gain weight and those that are trying to lose weight.  The bitter reality is the latter demographic is more pronounced than ever before and the trend appears to be on the rise.

There’s a lot of misinformation floating around when it comes to the topic…

Far too many athletes believe that their perfect physique or enhanced athletic performance is easy as a trip to the local “nutrition center”.  Unfortunately, the bitter reality is that billions of dollars are generated off the backs of the uninformed but eager to be successful.

Success has somehow been condensed within an unrealistic timeframe…

Not all athletes have access to properly equipped weight training facilities or knowledgeable trainers to provide literate guidance.  But it’s a relatively safe assumption that in the 21st century an athlete will have access to a vehicle.  The vehicle may not be owned by you or your family and may not be the…

Growing up in the "how much ya bench" culture of football, it's easy to forget that bench press is more like the pauper of strength exercises and not the king. In terms of the bar path in the bench press, it's one of the least correlated lifts as it doesn't functionally manifest itself on the football field.  If you are in a horizontal position and pressing an opponent off of…

An offensive lineman’s most valuable asset is found in the strength of his grip.  If ALL else fails, the ability to hold on is ones saving grace.  Obviously, the idea is to never get caught in a situation where a potential yellow flag is thrown but there has never been a good offensive lineman that hasn’t been called for holding.  At its core, a holding penalty is a tell…

The final addition to my three part series on the most important and often neglected muscle groups for proper development of offensive linemen is the low back (lumbar spine region).

Thus far the common theme between the vmo, glute medius and lumbar spine region is stability. …

Continuing with my top three most underdeveloped yet most influential muscle groups on offensive line play, the glute medius is number two.

One could make the argument that my logic could apply to any athlete throughout all sports, but given the nature of offensive line play, an…

 Larry Allen

Strength is an obvious key component to being an effective offensive lineman.  If technique is to an o-lineman what water is to the body, then strength is oxygen.  Both are essential to your survival but the body can go much longer without water than it can oxygen.

The challenge within strength development is to develop what is referred to as “functional” strength.  Functional, defined operatively inside athletics means to simply…

I’m all too familiar with being overly concerned with scale weight versus focusing on performance enhancement.  Starting my football career on the offensive line as a 190-pound high school freshman, I spent a lot of time gorging groceries in order to make myself more desirable to college recruiters and to appease the popular opinion…