Harder to Break

Ben Herbert followed Jim Harbaugh from the University of Michigan to the San Diego Chargers,  just months after winning College Football’s national championship.

With Herbert comes a reputation as being one of the best strength and conditioning coaches in all of sports.

 In Herbert’s introductory press conference as Executive Director of Player Performance he said that no two people, even experts in his field, see training the same way.  He also made his perspective clear.

“My first goal is to make you harder to break,” said Herbert. “People often may say training we're gonna break, we're gonna break you down and build you up. My goal is not to break you, my goal is to make you harder to break.”

He goes about that by focusing on strengthening the areas around the most vulnerable parts of an athlete's body: the neck and head. 

“You have to be proactive at training those areas of the body,” continued Herbert. “So the neck work that I introduced today, the trap work, the 4-part cuff sequence to address the 4 rotator cuff muscles in their shoulder girdle, introduced them to some hip work, introduced them to some ankle work, right? These are things that are paramount if you want to make a football player harder to break, your training has to be sound.”

Herbert is known for his intense attention to detail. He stresses consistency… He defines that as showing up and doing all you can with what you have. He not only applies this to training but the things you train with. He says how you treat those things applies to your performance on the field.

“We had 2 and a half pound plates we used today and when they put those plates back, they put them back a certain way,” said Herbert. “Every plate says rogue at the top of the plate, every rogue is perfectly square. Doesn't matter if it's the second plate or the tenth plate, it goes back precisely. No different than a DB's eyes or his footwork or an offensive lineman's feet or his hand placement. Like ways we practic..