August 9, 2019 at 12:29 p.m.
Rub for best results
Taking a page from track team, RHS football players adopt unconventional warm-up routine
Rub for best results
You won't find the Hodags doing any jumping jacks, pushups or crunches. Rather each practice begins with the players giving themselves a short massage.
It's a new way to warm up that head coach Aaron Kraemer has brought with him from the Great Northern Conference champion Hodag track team to the gridiron this fall.
The technique is called Reflexive Performance Reset - RPR for short. It looks strange, but Kraemer and some of his players are believers that the exercises are a faster, more effective way to get the body ready to perform at its best.
"It's basically a breathing and manual stimulation of the nervous system," Kraemer explained. "It's a breathing system to get your brain right and your body right. It's basically a way to press manually on their body and get their bodies, their muscles to fire in the proper way."
Different zones activate different parts of the body. For instance, on the first day of practice the team worked to activate what it called Zone 1 - the glutes, hips and breathing. Combined with proper, deep breathing, the players started by massaging their sternums vigorously. Next the players rubbed their torsos, underneath the rib cage. Finally, the team went up to the head and massaged the back of the neck, just beneath the base of the skull.
According to RPR's website, the program was born in the early 2010s as a spinoff of the "Be Activated" program used by South African trainer Douglas Heel. Chris Korfist, a speed coach in Illinois, listened to Heel speak about the program, which was mainly designed for medical professionals, and adapted it to be used in an athletic setting.
The premise behind both programs harkens back to pre-civilization when humans were hunter/gatherers. Both Be Activated and RPR claim the body has two main priorities in order to survive - to breathe and to move. Stresses in athletics and in daily life cause other parts of the body to compensate so that the priorities of breathing and moving are met. These compensation patterns can result in decreased athletic performance. According to both Be Activated and RPR, the purpose of both programs is to fix these compensations and get all parts of the body back to what they are designed to do.
Kraemer went to a clinic where Korfist demonstrated RPR and was sold on the process.
"The reason why I brought it to our track team - and the reason why I know it will work for our football team - is because the right muscle activation will allow for less soft tissue injuries," Kraemer said.
It took the members of the RHS track team a little more time to buy in to the process but, some of those who are both track athletes and football players under Kraemer said they believe in the results.
"We were a little shocked at what it was," said senior tight end Connor Lund, who was first exposed to RPRs last year while on the track team. "All these years we've been in sports, we've just warmed up by running mechanics and stretching. Then we just rubbed our bodies though the new technique that we learned and, ever since then, we've believed in it."
"It's really strange, but it seems to be working," said senior running back Drake Martin, who led the Great Northern Conference in rushing yards last fall. "We don't really warm up that much, but my body feels better than doing a long warmup or whatever."
The biggest challenge, according to senior running back/safety Peyton Erikson, is simply believing in the program.
"A lot of kids have never done anything like this in their lives," he said. "They don't understand it or don't want to do it because it maybe looks stupid if other kids are walking by and are seeing you do it. Buying in is the hardest part but, once you do it, it works."
RPR claims that the exercises will reduce pain, increase flexibility and help the body become more resilient to injury. At present, there is not much hard data available in the form of independent studies to back up these claims and a disclaimer on the RPR website states that the technique is not a treatment for injuries, nor is it intended to treat, fix, manipulate or otherwise replace medical advice and/or treatment.
Anecdotally, the Hodag players interviewed for this story said they have noticed a difference.
"I haven't had any injuries or anything," Martin said. "Before track, I had hurt my hamstring and then coach told me about some certain places to touch and I recovered pretty soon."
Added Lund: "I seem to lift a lot better and work out a lot harder when we do this stuff. My body feels great. We're activating all parts of our muscles - stuff that we really don't activate when we're doing simple stretches every day.
"The most challenging part is just focusing on what you have to do. If you rub your body the right way, you're going to activate those muscles. You kind of feel it as you go and you feel a little tingling sensation."
The Hodag boys' track team used RPRs last spring and won its first conference since 1967 and placed two sprint relays on the podium at the WIAA Division 2 state track meet.
It's been 30 years since the RHS football team has won a conference title. Whether the advantage of using the system is real or perceived, Kraemer said RPR is something he and the team have embraced.
"It's something I believe in to make sure they are mentally prepared and that their muscles are stimulated, too," he said.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
Comments:
You must login to comment.