re: Is our strength and conditioning program overrated?

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The defense seemed weak this year at DL and LB but I don't know if that's Moffits fault

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we only lost 7 or 8 studs from last year.

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I have noticed our linemen are not doing well on the bench press at the NFL combine.

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well laying on your back pressing weight up is the most important part of training for football IMO duhhh

Yeah exactly, it was an aberration last year

1.) The bench press is not a very effective measure of strength. It would be better to test squat or clean, but this is logistically difficult at the combine.

2.) Since they are testing max reps at 225, the combine doesn't even test bench press strength, more like muscular endurance. These guys could easily have 500 benches, but you'd never know it.

3.) Anyone with long arms is discriminated against in the bench press (so a prototypical, pass-knocking down DE may not look so goood).

I have an acquaintance whose son is an asst. weight coach at Maryland. The kid says LSU is the standard they want to reach in College Park.

Can the big cat drill!

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I have noticed our linemen are not doing well on the bench press at the NFL combine.

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And it doesn't seem to matter unless you're talking OL. Since 2007, there has only been one year when a LSU DL player was not starting sometime in their rookie year.

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Bench press is a dick measuring contest. Who cares?

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Exactly. It's not real strength as some guys like Michael Ford can bench 400 lbs but gets dropped like a feather. Mathieu put up 4 reps of 225, but he is knocking the shite out of guys way bigger guys, and taking footballs right from their locked arms.

Hell for me, the first time I ever benched was my 10th grade year (first time I started playing organized football), I could only throw up 220 at the time as a max, but nobody on my team was beating my leverage and hitting power but our FB.

I think they do the bench press at the combine for two reasons. It would be hard measure useable football strength exercises like cleans, push press, squats, etc due to they are also greatly dependent on form and technique and depth. Just to many variables. Where as bench is more straight forward. Two, it kind of shows who to stay away from in the draft. A guy with big bench numbers likely has short arms and/or spent to much time in the gym working on the 'glamour' exercises/muscles and probably is stiff and without good 'useable' strength. In other words, big bench numbers at the combine are probably looked at as a negative in most cases. A player would be well advised to sandbag his numbers a little on the bench at the combine.