How to Build a Bully_ Inside the Stanford Football Strength Program _ Bleacher Report

11/7/13 How to Build a Bully: Inside the Stanford Football Strength Program | Bleacher Report

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How to Build a Bully: Inside the StanfordFootball Strength Program

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ByMax Rausch(Senior Writer) on August 16, 2013

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“We bow to no man, we bow to no program. We are going to build a bully.”—Jim Harbaugh

In the winter of 2006, on the heels of their fifth straight losing season and an embarrassing 1-11

record, belief that the Stanford Cardinal could put a competitive team on the field was wavering.

There were even rumblings that Stanford should drop down a div ision, presumably to compete

against its brainy Ivy League brethren, or drop football altogether.

Cue the fiery Jim Harbaugh and his y oung staff. They recognized that while Stanford could not

lower its academic standards to broaden the talent pool, it could take advantage of the Stanford

student-athlete's unique psy chology and "inherent competitiveness," as current head coach David

Shaw puts it, to build a winner.

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Before that process could start on the football field in spring practice, it would be introduced by the

Kissick Family Director of Football Sports Performance, Shannon Turley , in summer conditioning.

He was, and still is, responsible for planting the seeds of belief in Cardinal freshmen and getting the

upperclassmen to buy into the philosophy the Harbaugh regime was selling and Shaw continues to

sell.

Senior linebacker Shay ne Skov gets a lift in at the

Arrillaga Family Sports Center.

"When y ou are losing and y ou are 1-11 , there are people that are frustrated," said Turley . "They

know that there are things that are unacceptable being accepted and they want a change."

To begin, Turley said the Stanford Play er Development team enlisted the aid of upperclassmen who

were "borderline obsessed" with change. "Then we empowered them so they could impose their own

expectations on the roster, which is so much more effective than any coach talking."

Y ear Rushing Y ards Attempts Y PC National Ranking

2006 7 81 367 2.1 115th

2007 1334 446 3.0 103rd

2008 2395 490 4.9 31st

2009 2837 536 5.3 10th

2010 27 7 9 535 5.2 18th

2011 27 38 518 5.3 20th

2012 2440 549 4.4 39th

If there were a way to statistically quantify a team’s bully factor, it would be rushing y ards and

rushing y ards allowed. These stats are heav ily dependent on a team’s ability to control the trenches

and impose its will on the opposing offense or defense. Classic bully characteristics.

Y ear Rushing Y ards Allowed Attempts Y PC National Ranking

2006 2526 519 4.9 118th

2007 2032 480 4.2 7 3rd

2008 1835 47 5 4.0 7 6th

2009 17 34 386 4.5 62nd



2010 1515 37 2 4.1 23rd

2011 1084 349 3.1 4th

2012 1140 400 2.8 4th

In the six y ears since Turley brought his strength and conditioning program to The Farm, as

Stanford is known to many , the defense has cut the number of y ards allowed per carry nearly in

half, and the offense has more than tripled its production on the ground.

A bully was born. Here’s how Stanford did it.

"I Don't Care How Much You Can Bench"

Harry How/Getty Images

There aren’t a lot of bells and whistles on The Farm; the Stanford program focuses on simplicity and

execution. “I don’t have a lot of secrets or gimmicks,” said Turley . “There is an old school way that

probably works. It’s been working for a long time.”

Turley does not have some sort of magical formula, nor are his play ers putting up Zeus-like

numbers in the weight room.

"I don’t care how much guy s can bench squat or power clean," Turley said. "It has nothing to do

with play ing football. Football is blocking and tackling. It’s creating contact, avoiding contact and

gaining separation if y ou are a skill guy on the perimeter. That’s football."

What they are doing is building one of the most comprehensive and successful play er development

programs in the country through highly specialized training, personalized by position and play er.

Stanford’s play er development team focuses its efforts on injury prevention, athletic performance



and mental discipline—in that order. Basically , the Stanford weight program doesn’t worry about

having the "strongest" guy s in college football. It focuses on football strength, technique and

making sure the best Cardinal play ers stay on the field all season.

“This is an unusual and forward-thinking focus,” said Will Carroll, the Sports Medicine Lead Writer

at Bleacher Report. “I guess we should expect that from Stanford. Most teams use the weight room

and even advanced tools like Alter-G treadmills, SwimEx pools and the like in a caveman fashion.

It’s all get bigger, get faster, which is easily measured. Injury prevention is more subtle.”

The guiding principle is “do no harm,” and Stanford has been wildly successful in doing so. In the

six y ears since Turley took over the Stanford strength program, games missed due to injury has

decreased 87 percent.

“That kind of drop is stunning,” Carroll explained. “I think most programs would be happy with 10

percent. For an NFL team, that kind of drop would be worth a win or more, as well as about $20

million in lost pay roll.”

USA TODAY Sports

David Y ankey

For those who say numbers in the weight room are important measure of success on the field,

Turley would counter with the example of Stanford’s 6’5”, 313-pound All-American guard David

Y ankey , who Turley say s can barely bench his own body weight.

‘‘He’s got to have some pop, I get it,” said Turley . “But isn’t the rate at which y ou strike more

important than moving a bunch of weight around really slow?”

Turely explains that bench press and squat goals don’t even factor into his thinking when he

designs a workout for a play er. He is concerned only with a play er’s ability to move as he needs to

on the football field.

For an offensive lineman like Y ankey , this means the mobility and stability of his shoulder, the

stability of his core and the mobility of his lower body . Optimizing those characteristics allows him

to get low and quickly apply force in the direction he intends to move, thus fulfilling his role as a

blocker.

Stanford’s focus on injury prevention over athletic performance, along with the absence of the

almighty record board in the weight room, sets its program apart from other powerhouse

programs (y es, Stanford is a modern-day powerhouse).

“This functional focus, with less emphasis on big muscles and gallons of sweat, is brilliant,” Carroll

said. “Each play er has a function and certain movements and patterns that help him fulfill that

function. Stanford is way ahead of the curve on this.”

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“Our numbers are very unimpressive,” said Turley . “But we’re not chasing numbers. We are

chasing lean muscle, reducing body fat and making guy s functionally strong for football.”

Can't Stop, Won't Stop

Ky le Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Stanford football is a y ear-long commitment. Between the season, spring practice, fall camp and

three six- to seven-week offseason training sessions, the Cardinal play ers are participating in

football-related activ ities for 43 weeks out of the y ear. Of those weeks, 19 are spent exclusively in

the weight room and on the track under Turley ’s superv ision.

The winter program is focused on recovery from the season, while the spring offseason program is

the only time the Cardinal focus on speed and power development.

Things heat up in the summer when conditioning is the main focus. From late June through the first

week of August, Turley will run his play ers through a variety of position-specific exercises that

focus on the movements they are going to execute repeatedly in fall practice and throughout the

season.

During the season, the Stanford program focuses on recovery and restoring mobility to sore bodies

that have performed the same action over and over again on the field.

Specialization

The stated goal of Turley ’s strength program is to “develop lean, athletic play ers that can play with

low pads and leverage and exert force in the direction that they intend to move.” Turley builds

football play ers, not weightlifters or track athletes. “We are not training for a 40 because y ou don’t

run a 40 in football,” he said.

All of Stanford’s workouts are grounded in the SAID (Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands)

principle Turley has carried with him since his day s as a student assistant working under Mike

Gentry at Virginia Tech.

Turley “fundamentally and firmly ” believes the best way to train for football is to practice and

repeat the specific movements a play er is required to make on the field, and he designs

personalized workouts for each play er accordingly .

Turley and his staff start with separate workout templates designed for each of the six play er

groups (skill, big skill, linemen, quarterbacks, specialists, freshmen) and personalize based on a



play er’s injury history and predetermined movement patterns, which usually stem from

experience play ing other sports or prev ious injury . As the play ers’ bodies mature throughout their

careers, the workouts change.

“I think the more specialized y ou can be, the more things y ou can influence in the phy sical and

mental development of y our play ers,” said Turley .

All-American tight end Coby Fleener is a great example of a play er who came in with a pre-existing

injury —a herniated disc—that Turley was able to work around.

During Fleener’s five y ears at Stanford, Turley said he modified the tight end’s workout based on his

injury and his indiv idual needs. “It was a lot different when he was a 219-pound freshman and a

250-pound senior,” he said.

Don’t be mistaken—Turley doesn't take it easy on a play er because he has a pre-existing weakness

from an injury , poor training or overuse on the field. His challenge is to find a way to offset that

weakness to allow the play er to reach optimal performance on the field.

For example, Stanford senior right tackle Cameron Fleming’s right hip is “locked up” due to

overuse. This is a “very predictable” situation for a right tackle, according to Turley .



The Stanford linemen's summer workout schedule which focuses on conditioning in preparation for

the season.

Fleming plants and drives off his right leg on v irtually every rep he takes in practice or a game. At

Stanford’s average of 69.1 offensive play s per game, that’s 967 play s per y ear, in addition to

countless practice reps. That’s a lot of wear and tear.

“We are going to train him as a right tackle because that’s what he is and that’s what he’s got to be

good at,” Turley said. “But with that comes a certain overdeveloped musculature and firing pattern

[in his hip and leg]. I can’t take it easy on him, per se, but we’ve got to do more mobility work to

address his risk.”

Isom etrics

The most unique aspect of the Stanford strength program is its focus on isometric and eccentric

exercises. While other college football programs and weekend warrior weightlifters focus on the

force-delivering or concentric aspect of a lift or exercise (rising out of a squat or pushing up the

bench press bar), Turley preaches the control of the weight. This increases stability and durability

of the muscle.

Concentric-focused training is power-focused and creates great numbers in the gy m, but it puts

athletes at greater risk of injury .

"While some programs do similar things, it’s seldom the focus," explained Carroll. "It’s secondary or

worse. Any one who’s been in a weight room has done 'negative reps' or 'slo-mo reps,' but this kind

of program built around those things is unique."

Turley starts all the play ers—upperclassmen and freshmen alike—with body weight movements or

accentuated eccentrics (the lowering phase of a pull-up) and isometrics (holding a push-up or squat

in position for an extended period of time). These exercises teach play ers how to control their



bodies and learn how to have the endurance to do it correctly when they get fatigued.

Shock to the Sy stem

In their first summer in the program, freshmen work almost exclusively on conditioning, flexibility

and core strength through the use of accentuated eccentrics and isometrics. They do y our gy m

teacher’s favorite exercises: pull-ups, push-ups, body weight squats and lunges. They even climb

rope “like old-school gy m class,” said Turley .

The workout Stanford freshmen are responsible for after their three week acclimation period. They

are not allowed to lift during their acclimation period.

The bright-ey ed rookies face a big shock when they first first show up at the weight room. They

don’t get to touch the weights, at least for the first three weeks.

“They want to go lift weights, but I’m not gonna let ‘em,” said Turley . “It’s pretty frustrating. But it’s

part of the mental discipline. Y ou find out who can concentrate, who can take coaching, block out

the noise and keep grinding through it and find a way to meet the standard and get it done.

Somebody is going to break; it’s inev itable.”

An 18-y ear-old’s first few weeks on a college campus are tough enough without the pressure that

comes with play ing football at a Div ision I school, so Turley is careful to ease his new play ers into

the program. These guy s are used to being big fish in small ponds. But when they arrive on The

Farm, the pond expands, and the fish get bigger and stronger.

“The initial shock is the productiv ity and the amount of work we are going to compress into a run,”

said Turley . "That volume and intensity of the conditioning is overwhelming. We get done with the

first 15 minutes of warm-ups some day s and these kids are already spent. The stress of hav ing to

compete when they ’re already fatigued is almost emotionally traumatic."



Align Your Choices with Your Goals

Turley ’s mental development program kicks into high gear immediately when a new group of

freshmen arrive on campus. “The shock factor is an opportunity for y ou to impact their first

learning,” Turley said.

He firmly believes that what Stanford football play ers “learn first, they are going to learn best,”

which makes a play er’s buy -in during those try ing first three weeks all the more important to his

eventual success in the Stanford program.

The first summer is all about getting the newbies “to invest in the process and develop the right

habits” in football, training, diet and lifesty le. For Stanford play ers, investment in the process

means consistently making choices that align with a play er’s goals for himself and the team. Turley

calls this buy -in “fundamentally important.”

Turley uses accountability and personal challenges as the major tools of mental development. He

describes his program as “process-focused,” which means he sets effort and improvement goals for

his play ers rather than chasing result-oriented goals. "I don’t care [about] the number," he said. "I

care about their ability to improve it."

The team code of conduct is simple: technique, effort, attitude and mental discipline. "Four things

y ou have complete and total control over, that take absolutely no talent and no ability . That’s

where we want to invest ourselves," Turley explained. "In every situation they are in with us, they

have complete and total control over that."

Ownership is of paramount importance to the psy chology of Stanford teams. Every summer the

seniors draw up a team covenant with Turley . The seniors use the covenant to set the goals for the

season and an action plan for how to achieve them. They take ownership of the covenant and self-

police the underclassmen.



Stanford's team covenant from 2007 , Shannon Turley 's first y ear with the team.

As y ou can imagine, the 2007 version looks a lot different than the 2012 version. The 2007

version is cluttered, unfocused and reflects a losing culture. The mission and goals are very

outcome-focused, and there are a ton of rules that might fall under the common sense umbrella. At

the bottom are a few statements basically begging play ers to buy in.

“That’s a pretty awful team covenant,” said Turley . “It was great for what we needed at the time, but

that shows y ou where the culture was.”

The 2012 team covenant only lists one goal: Win the Pac-12 championship.

Mission accomplished.

All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted; photos by author unless otherwise noted.

Follow Max Rausch on Twitter @MaxHRausch.

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