Big Dez is always gonna be big

Won’t be in a pro locker room for long if at all

You can work that kid 6 hrs a day, won’t mean a damn if soon as he leaves he goes back to his vices that made him over 400 lbs to begin with

This post was edited on 11/28/23 at 10:53 am

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Posted by Partha

Member since Jan 2022

6148 posts

Posted on 11/28/23 at 11:40 am to dbuchanon

Ben Herbert explains how Michigan football handled adversity this season?

quote:
Jim Harbaugh has called Ben Herbert the “X factor” in Michigan football’s recent success, and the Director of Strength and Conditioning explained this week how he prepares the Wolverines to face any obstacle.

Speaking on “In the Trenches,” Herbert explained how he keeps Michigan players uncomfortable in order to help them grow.

“In training, I believe that there has to be a level of consistency, right? We want the guys — we want them physically and mentally to be able to adapt to what they're doing,” he said. “But I never want this sense of comfort — especially mental comfort. They never know what they're doing when they come into the room. I shouldn’t say ‘never’; rarely do they know. People in general, they want to know what is in store in their life, just in general, what's to come, what's going to happen, so I can plan for it. In this game, that’s not a luxury that we have.”

DT Kris Jenkins offered an example: Herbert will select a random player and instruct them to beat their personal record at a certain drill. If he cannot, everyone on the team has to run conditioning. That teaches how “you never know when your name is going to be called,” and your response to that challenge will matter.

Case in point: When Herbert and the Wolverines landed at Penn State before a top-10 showdown, they learned the Big Ten had suspended Jim Harbaugh. But the Wolverines didn’t flinch — even in the moments after they first heard the news.

“There's circumstances that we’ll create in the offseason to simulate. And you always want the simulation to carry over to real life,” Herbert said. “Now, there's times when, like I tell our guys, we may not be blessed with this adversity.

“Remember I say, ‘We may not be blessed.’ It's a blessing. This adversity is a blessing to us all. And I want them to see it like that.

“But I'll never forget: You find out on the plane at Penn State, and I'm coming down the stairs and there's some people standing at the bottom. And I was talking to a few people and then see some guys coming down the stairs. And I'm just looking. I just look right in their eyes. Look at them and they just give me this smirk — like this little smile. And I'm just smiling back, just a subtle smile. And we just know.

“I'm sitting with some guys at dinner that night and we just got this grin on our face because we've been blessed with this opportunity — what people call adversity. This uncomfortable, potentially detrimental circumstance that now we get to overcome. And it's an incredible opportunity. And then to go and do what we've done, there’s no better lesson learned that will pay dividends for us with the young men in this program into the future. It's incredible.”

‘Coach Harbaugh is the toughest man in the building’
According to Ben Herbert, the culture of toughness starts at the very top.

“Our head football coach, Coach Harbaugh, is the toughest man in the building,” he said. “There's no disputing that. He's proved it. How he still trains with pain or without pain, the type of player he was, the type of collegiate player he was, the type of pro that he was. That toughness and that mentality starts at the top. And then everybody else, it's the rest of our jobs to keep up and to represent ourselves in a way that's reflective of our head football coach.”

Herbert has worked with Michigan since 2018. He added the role of Associate Head Coach prior to the 2023 season.