Dobson tailors training to game

LINCOLN — Nebraska strength coach James Dobson unveils his philosophy so bluntly, like it should be common sense.

He trains athletes to become better football players, he says. It's really his only goal.

“We're not training body builders, power lifters, Olympic lifters. We're not training track athletes,” Dobson said, sort of downplaying the complexities of his job. “You look at the game of football, what are the demands? We try to mimic those in how we train.”

But when Dobson is encouraged to elaborate, that's when he starts unleashing his expertise.

The way Dobson sees it, every aspect of his required regimen, every movement, every lift, every exercise, has a direct correlation to football. Each time the players step into the weight room, they're readying their bodies to play, building the proper muscles that they'll ultimately be relying on during a game.

When they weight train, Dobson wants his players doing ground-based movements, where their feet apply force against the ground, simulating the action of running or jumping. He wants them working more than one joint during exercises. He wants them moving three-dimensionally — forward and backward, left and right, up and down.

When they run, they sprint short distances. Rest. And do it again.

“You're not going to go to the health club and do some of the movements that we do, just for the fact that life doesn't require it,” said Dobson, the second-year head strength coach. “Playing the game of football requires certain things. We're going to train that way.”

Maybe a coincidence, or perhaps a sign that Dobson's theories have merit, his sport-specific approach to weight training sounds a lot like what the Green Bay Packers' strength and conditioning coordinator has been practicing for some time now.

Dave Redding, who joined the Packers in February, stresses multi-joint, ground-based movements. His athletes are running, stopping, planting and jumping, he said. They're pushing against the ground and against gravity, exactly the types of things they'd do on Sundays.

And according to Redding, it's surprising how many strength coaches are still off base when they're designing their football workouts.

“Too many programs are about performing better in the weight room,” said Redding, a former Husker who finished his career as a Nebraska defensive lineman in 1975. “If I can make them perform better on the football field, I don't care what they can bench press.”

Redding said he doesn't know Dobson, and he isn't familiar with the Husker coach's philosophies.

Redding, though, couldn't hide his pride when he spoke about Nebraska, a school once notorious for its weight-training strategies.

Boyd Epley and Mike Arthur were the standard setters. Even Dobson remembers reading the Nebraska football training book decades ago.

“In the '80s or '90s, when you thought about strength and conditioning, you thought about Nebraska, no question about it,” Dobson said. “They always had something new. They were always evolving into something different. They were always ahead of the game, and everybody was trying to follow them.

“It'd be nice if we can do that now, but it takes a lot of work.”

The Husker players say this strength staff has made strides.

Last summer, midway through an eight-week training program, Zach Potter said Dobson was introducing a new exercise almost daily. “You wake up the next day feeling muscles that you weren't sure you had,” the former defensive lineman said.

Then on the field last fall, the Huskers felt quicker and more agile, according to Joe Ganz. It was obvious that Dobson's plan had a positive impact, Ganz said.

And that's why Ganz and about a dozen Huskers stayed on campus last spring, instead of flocking to expensive weight-training facilities that specialize in preparing potential professional athletes.

“We liked what he did,” Nebraska's 2008 starting quarterback said of Dobson. “We like the results that we got, so we put our trust in him to train us.”

Dobson won't take the credit.

He says he still relies on his mentor, Iowa strength coach Chris Doyle. He bounces ideas off Doyle any chance he gets.

Epley left Nebraska in 2006, but Arthur is still the school's director of strength and conditioning. Dobson pops into Arthur's office regularly.

Dobson also has three assistants, Tyler Clarke, Chad Wade and Willie Jones, who're only responsible for helping him train football athletes.

And everybody is always reading, watching instructional tapes or attending seminars, in hopes of picking up the latest innovative ideas. The field is ever-evolving.

The goal never changes. Mold athletes into better football players, Dobson says.

But as simple as Dobson may make it sound, deep down, he and his staff know it can be complicated to carry out that relatively straightforward philosophy.

“We've got to keep a beginner's mind because if we don't, we're never going to get better,” Dobson said. “It's easy to get comfortable. You can't be comfortable if you want to get better.”

Contact the writer:

402-473-9585, jon.nyatawa@owh.com