How NFL Combine training has evolved in just a short time

The best college football players are on display in Indianapolis for the 2020 NFL Scouting Combine. The event is over a week long, with each position group in Indy for parts of five days. The combine consists of three parts, spread throughout: medical (measurements, evaluations), mental (testing, interviews), and physical performance (bench press and on-field drills).

While the combine has mostly stayed the same, the preparation for it has changed drastically.

I trained for the combine in 2008 at a facility in Cool Springs, Tennessee, outside of Nashville. It was top-notch and the staff was great. We’d work out in the morning and move along. This is how workouts used to be — just get your job done and go home. Our meals were on our own, though maybe we were given a meal plan. I know I was advised to lose weight, but I was never given much guidance on how to do it. There was barely any prep for the mental part, besides a day or two studying for the Wonderlic.

Times have changed.

The week before this year’s combine, I spent a few days with a group of young men who were getting ready for the event. I was able to see firsthand how the entire process has evolved. Now, it’s about “prehab,” rest and recovery, and preparing your mind. The workouts are almost secondary, as the experts have understood those aren’t the most important part of the combine.

I traveled to Michael Johnson Performance, just north of Dallas. They have around 40 combine athletes, including 13 offensive linemen, who I spent the bulk of my time with there. My longtime friend Duke Manyweather, creator of OL Masterminds, partnered with MJP for the most cutting-edge training around. MJP has a state-of-the-art facility, with every imaginable piece of equipment paired with trainers who understand the exact science of preparing players for the combine.

The goal of training now is looking at the entire body, including the mind.

To start, MJP and Duke study an athlete’s body movements, looking for areas of weakness. They use methods such as Nike Lab testing of foot structure and pressure points, before designing a plan to improve these areas while also strengthening the entire body.

If you’ve got a weakness in the left glute, it might turn off other muscles in the leg, which could lead to overcompensation on the opposite side and then injury. Players will have corrective exercises and pre-workout “rehab” to make sure said muscles are firing. They are able to work through issues within the body to make sure the athlete is training, and ultimately performing, at the highest possible level at the combine.

(Duke specifically has his own person to help with his offensive line clients, which number around 40 players if you include the veterans like Terron Armstead, Trent Brown, and Lane Johnson.)

Not only are players now preparing more before the workouts and through the drilling, they are required to get treatment after workouts, even if it’s not needed. Wednesday was bench day, so all the offensive linemen headed to the training room to get their upper body worked on, no questions asked. MJP is providing a blueprint for athletes to use as they figure out how to navigate an NFL season.

I wish I’d known the benefits of prehab and corrective exercises when I was younger in my career.

Another part of body prep is the food, which is tailored to each athlete’s specific needs and is sent to their hotel room every day. Every meal for the day is provided, including snacks. All of this is covered by the agent of said player. Proper fueling for bodies was largely ignored by NFL teams and players until the early 2010s. If you needed to lose or gain weight, you simply just had to eat less or more. Now it’s engineered to get the foods each player needs to make this happen.

On-field training has changed for the better, as athletes are now split up by positions or body type. Until about five years ago, we all worked out together, no matter the position. There might have been a different focus for the linemen and the skill players, but the workout was together. The same thing with drills. We trained together, which looking back, seems silly because our bodies need different training.

This is where Duke, who just works with offensive linemen, comes in. Offensive linemen need to focus on pushing and pulling, which gets our bodies ready for the physical toll of action in the trenches. Our workouts should not be the same as, say, a defensive back. The 40-yard dash is the exception.

Performing at the combine is much more than physical, and this is where the biggest changes in combine training are happening. Back when I went through it, and even just a few years ago, there was minimal focus on the mental side of the combine and beyond.

Now, it begins early in the process when you arrive at MJP to work with them and Duke. First, they survey people around the league to get the exact concerns teams have about players off the field. The facility prepares the players for all of this and will adjust their post-workout activities around these concerns.

Duke recruited me to discuss scheme and what the players will need to know for their interviews. MJP and Duke have mock interviews with the prospects to grill them and make sure their answers will be good enough for the NFL teams.

Beyond the interviews, Duke brought in Gary Frazier, a sports and performance psychology consultant, to speak with the players. Gary’s goals were to help them uncover what’s possible, find their internal motivation for wanting to pursue playing in the NFL, and create a vision for where they are headed. I loved hearing this presentation.

I’d love to be a draft prospect now. I’d have been more prepared for the combine and had much better knowledge about my body. This training is invaluable for the players, and I was glad to be a part of it.