Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker LaMarr Woodley shows off his off-season workout at Athletic Republic in Auburn Hills, Mich. and explains how the training has helped him reach Pro-Bowl status.
About the Video
LaMarr shares a view into his NFL off season training. LaMarr builds his leg muscles a lot more during off season because during the season he gets too tired in his legs.
TRANSCRIPT
LaMarr Woodley: It's a lot of work I did out there today. When the camera's rolling I can't give up everything, I can't show everything. So I want to give you just a little sneak peak because I don't want the competition to see everything that I'm working on but what we did today was we did a trail hill workout. We run for five seconds, hold for five seconds on a steady elevator. It's like going uphill. The only thing about this hill when you go up it is this hill keeps moving so if you stop you fall off.
So it allows you to keep your speed going when you're running for a long period of time. Then we did
ab workout and
lunges to try and build up strength in the legs as far as explosion, as far as extension, as far as explosion when lifting up your leg lifting 225 pounds with that explosion: kind of like coming out of your stance a little bit. That's part of training we work out. So it all ties in together.
During the off season you're kind of building everything. You're building up your legs, upper body, lower body, kind of working on everything. When I get in the season I don't like to work on my legs too much because I'm constantly on my feet whether it's running, whether it's walking. In the football game you're constantly on your legs.
So you don't want to do as many leg workouts but you want to do enough to maintain strength in them. But I do do a lot of
upper body workout because I'm not walking on my arms and everything. So maintaining upper body strength but my legs not pushing them as hard as I do during off season.
A lot of players come out there and start fast but it's not how you start it's how you finish when it's crunch time. That's when the players really show up, that's when the endurance kicks in. You need to fight through when your tired when you need that big play and that's what I work on, fighting through when you're tired and go out there and make that big play.
When I was able to actually play going to the Super Bowl, we won the Super Bowl and I made the play. I was able to come out of nowhere and I was able to make a big play at the end of that game last year against the Baltimore Ravens. I got back to back sacks in the fourth quarter. That's when the endurance kicks in, that hard work, fighting through the pain, fighting through the fatigue shows up. That's when the big time players really come to play.
For more with Lamarr Woodley, check out
How Lamarr Woodley Develops Speed 
