What I was getting at is that ND's strength program really fell off in the past couple years under the previous strength staff. Physicality is part mental. You have to be tough minded and have the will to be physical. Secondly, it is part knowledge based. You have to have confidence in your ability to perform the tasks being asked of you without the hesitancy associated with thinking. We often simplify this by saying "you have to play fast". Lastly, physicality requires the physicals tools to implement your will. Not all guys are born with ideal body frames, but through a high volume of work, over an extensive period of time, they can build their body to be an elite, physical, machine. That means the strength to overwhelm your opponent and the stamina to do so repeatedly over a period of time.
Personally speaking, I'm in good shape. I played college football, have been an athlete my entire life and now work in the military, where I am constantly performing physical tasks. I run roughly 40km per week on my own time (on top of work) and I lift between 3-4 days per week on top of that... With that said, I'm no longer interested in being really big and strong. I no longer take supplements and my work in the gym is primarily maintenance, rather than building at this point... If I were to change my mind and wanted to get really strong again, I would have a great base to do so but nevertheless, it would take time. There was a time that I was 5'11, 210lbs and really strong. Today I stand at the same 5'11, but am a much leaner 185lbs. So how does this relate to what I'm talking about with ND'S strength program?
The point that I'm getting at is that by all reports and we've seen definite physical progress in players to corroborate this statement, Balis is cranking up the ND strength program and the players are making serious physical gains. Those physical gains will also help change the mental attitude of the players as well, but that's another discussion. Let's face it, however, Balis will have had about 7 months of work with these kids by time fall camp comes around. Anybody who has ever lifted extensively on their own or participated in a high end strength program will tell you that you can make substantial gains in 7 months. I can and will attest to that. I've seen substantial gains in 3 month periods. I've seen mind-boggling transformations in 6-8 month periods, but if I'm also being honest, I can tell you that "desired results" almost never occur in under a year. It's a multi year process. Even with the greatest conditioning program in the world, the best strength coaches imaginable and the most borderline legal supplements to aid you along the way, paired with a perfect diet and ideal sleep, time under tension is still the primary factor and to be honest, ND'S players under Longo weren't spending enough time under tension, nor were they lifting heavy enough or in the most ideal ways (from everything I've been told). In simplistic terms, their workouts were not hard enough to really stress the body into getting stronger and more explosive and they weren't varied enough to cause the type of muscle stimulation that causes maximum growth and leads to advanced output... You can't outrun a bad diet and you can't replace a lack of effort in the gym. It's an integral part of modern football.
Under the most ideal conditions a high end athlete can add maybe 1-2lbs of lean muscle mass every month. The rest is going to be fat and water weight. ND had a lot of kids that were "heavy" and their measurables seemed right to be competitive in major college football, but when you saw them in person, it was obvious that the weight they had added wasn't always what you had hoped to see. Balis is changing that. The guys are starting to look like the guys you see in the NFL and at other top tier programs. That isn't by accident. He's working these kids exceptionally hard... But if you really want to see the fruits of their hard work, you're probably going to have to wait until 2018 to get the full effect because it simply takes that long to get the kind of results you are looking for. That is especially true given the fact that many of ND's best players are underclassmen, who had less of a base for Balis to work with than players that had already spent 3-4 years in a college (albeit an average one) weight program.
Hope that answers your question.
