Football team showing up for voluntary workouts

John Wild-Auburn-Opelika Tourism Bureau Kevin Yoxall

Auburn football players have been meeting with head strength and conditioning coach Kevin Yoxall to prepare for the upcoming season in voluntary workouts. But the summer time isn't the only time they spend conditioning or lifting weights. Although they take a small step back from the workload during spring practice, the Tigers have been training hard since January.

"I tell recruits all the time that this is a 13-months-a-year job," Yoxall said. "That's the way it really truly is."

During the short time that players leave campus after the academic year ends, they are given workouts to complete at home.

"They don't miss a beat," Yoxall said. "Really the slowest time for the team in terms of lifting weights is during the season. But the guys who are redshirting or who are not playing much are going just as hard as they would during the summer."

Yoxall, or more commonly known among athletes as Coach Yox, is working with basically the entire team as almost all members of the 2010 signing class have arrived on campus.

Yoxall has been with Auburn since 1999 and oversees all strength and conditioning programs for men and women athletics. He graduated from Texas Christian University with a degree in special education and later earned his masters in exercise physiology while serving as the school's graduate assistant to its strength and conditioning coach.

During his college days, Yoxall was a regional record-holder for power lifting in 1982, and was named a Collegiate All-American power lifter in 1983. In addition to TCU, Yoxall has been the strength and conditioning coach at Minnesota and UCLA.

The NCAA requires that coaches give players eight discretionary weeks throughout the year. But Yoxall said the players are able to come into the weight room on their own if they choose.

"And most do," Yoxall said. "They're playing at this level for a reason. They are very intrinsically motivated and will still train anyway."

Right now the team is in the voluntary workouts phase of summer. Yoxall gives players the option of working out at 6 a.m. or 2 p.m. five days a week. Tuesdays and Thursdays are conditioning-only days while Wednesday is a weight-room day. On Mondays and Fridays, the team does both. Each workout lasts about three hours, including stretching and showering afterward.

The weight room is also open on Saturdays, giving players the option to lift an extra day.

"I'm up here anyway tweaking things and getting ready for the next week," Yoxall said. "I think people will be surprised at the number of kids we have come up here on their own. There's a lot more commitment than I think most people assume is going on. This takes as much time as a job and the kids take it seriously."

By rule, Yoxall cannot hold a player to more than eight hours of training a week. But to compete in one of the nation's toughest football conferences, players understand that they need more time to improve physically.

"It takes a ridiculous amount of time to get a guy ready to play football," Yoxall said. "I'm 50 years old and I train more than eight hours a week and I'm not even competing anymore."

The team is about four weeks into their summer workouts now. Yoxall explained that they are still in a base phase, meaning they are recording more reps in the weight room and running longer distances. For example, Yoxall has the players run 200- or 150-yard sprints early in the summer, but as the weeks go by he will break them down into multiple 20 or 30-yard runs to cover the same distance.

"The average play in football lasts four to seven seconds," Yoxall said. "As summer goes along we try to get closer to what they will experience on the field in terms of the position they play. Guys will wear weighted vests to get used to the 12 to 15 pounds of pads they're wearing during a game. The defensive backs will be backpedaling just as much as they did running forward because that's what they have to do at their position."

Yoxall said he likes to keep the first-year players separated from the veterans because he wants to ensure that they are training without any other influences. The new group won't be integrated with the rest of the team until after the bowl game.

"We take them through a very long orientation process," Yoxall said. "Even if a kid has a high amount of knowledge, I'm going to assume he's never lifted weights in his life. And that's how we're going to teach them. Some are faster to progress than others."

Nutrition also plays a crucial role in an athlete's training. Yoxall is assisted by team nutritionist and strength and conditioning coach Ryan Russell to help educate players on that topic. Just like a car needs fuel to function, Yoxall explained that a player wouldn't benefit from a workout if he didn't eat properly. And even at the SEC level, he added that there are a number of athletes that do not have a solid grasp of proper nutrition.

"It's easy to control what they eat if they live on campus," Yoxall said. "But the ones who give us the biggest headaches are the ones who live off campus. They're going to drive home after a workout and be very, very tired and very hungry, and they're going to take the most traveled path. They'll pull right into a drive thru and grab that 50 grams of fat and not think anything of it because they're so ravenous at that point."

Since players receive living expense money through their scholarships, Russell informs players on how to shop for groceries and prepare simple and healthy meals. Russell also controls the players' vitamin supplements. Yoxall believes supplements are important for college athletes.

"But I emphasis that there is no supplement out there that is better than real food," Yoxall said.

Some players are asked to gain or lose weight over the summer to be better equipped at their position when the season arrives. And although it can be difficult to ask an athletic teenager to pack on the pounds in just a few months, Yoxall said it is possible if he commits.

"You've got to be a very motivated and disciplined kid," Yoxall said. "(Defensive end) Craig Sanders is a great example. When he came in here and we did his physical, he weighed 224. He was 248 today. That's since January. However, that's the exception more than the rule. But he's one of those guys. He's a great kid. It's a matter of a commitment."

Running back Onterio McCalebb is another player who has been asked to pack on the pounds. At about 160 pounds last year as a freshman, McCalebb was prone to injury in the hard-hitting SEC. Running backs coach Curtis Luper said in the spring that he'd like McCalebb to weigh 185 pounds by August.

Even though the team is training on a voluntary basis, Yoxall said all of the players are putting in effort and understand the importance of the workouts. More than 40 of the older players have been in attendance for the 6 a.m. workouts by 5:45 a.m.

"And my watch is five minutes fast," Yoxall said. "The dedication of these kids is tremendous."

As for the players who chose to skip out on the workouts, Yoxall lets them know what the future likely has in store for them if they continue to do so.

"If they're not going to work for us in here, they're probably not going to do it out on the practice field," Yoxall said. "They end up standing next to me on Saturdays instead of being out there playing where they should be."