Question: You have been working with many top draft prospects. Which results are you the most proud of? Clay, Los Angeles CA

That’s a lot like asking a parent, “Which of your children are your favorites?” (laughs) We have been so fortunate to work with some of the most gifted athletes in the world here at CES, and we’ve had dozens and dozens of PRO Bowl players here over the years. But for us, it’s really all about those personal relationships. There is nothing in the world more personal than someone’s dreams and goals. Each guy that comes in here has a dream. And when you know that you have the knowledge and tools to help that player realize his dream, it’s about the most fulfilling thing in the world. Of course, there are certain guys who are just physically gifted. We see tremendous improvements in those guys as well, but cutting two-tenths off a guy’s 40 time is not really what makes us tick around here. It’s seeing a guy who is projected to go in the 5^th or 6^th round in December coming in here and working his butt off, and then getting drafted in the 2^nd round 3 months later. Then having that same guy come back in the off-season and work even harder, and watching him have a successful 6-7 year career in the league. He may never make the PRO Bowl, but knowing we have had something to do with him being the best possible player he can be…that’s the real measure of success in that business. If you come into our facility, you see hundreds of pictures and jerseys and balls we have on the walls and say “Wow, CES trains a TON of pro guys!” and that’s correct. But go around to each one of those items on the wall and read the personal notes from each player, and you’ll know what we mean when we say “It’s all about relationships!” Now we have been doing this long enough that we are starting to see the children of some of our clients beginning to train for their careers here at CES. That’s when you know you are doing something right. When you have trained fathers at the highest levels, and then you see their sons getting the same results…that’s really something to be proud of.

Until next time, keep training hard!

Coach Smith

Question: What do the NFL teams think about the draft preparations these draft prospects do at a place like CES (do they think it is positive or negat

The NFL is a very small world. We maintain very close relationships with every NFL Franchise. We’ve been doing this for several decades now…so we’ve been around a while. NFL General Managers and Coaching staffs know us and they are very aware of what we do and the results our players get for them on Sundays. And the bottom line is, that’s really all they want…that’s to win! If you take a Brian Urlacher, a Champ Bailey or an Albert Haynesworth…these guys are performing at PRO BOWL levels year in and year out. NFL Teams know what we do down here in Atlanta, and they know when we have their players here. We are in almost daily contact with them. These guys represent significant investments to them, so I don’t think we’d be in business very long if the league did not generally support who we are and what we do. But when you break it all down, the true measuring stick for us and for each team is how each guy plays on Sunday. As long as we continue getting results, we will continue to get support from teams and their players.

Until next time, keep training hard!

Coach Smith

Question: How physically demanding is CES training?

(Laughs) Well, that may be a better question for one of our players. During the first week, most of them say it is the most difficult training they have ever done. But as their bodies adapt to what we are doing, it gets much easier for them. After the second week, they start to see the incredible results and then they are hooked. For our pro guys getting ready for their respective seasons, it will take about 6 hours a day to get through the entire regiment. Each specialized, high protein diet we design for each individual player is also critical. We basically turn these guys into efficient, fat burning machines. They will add about 10-15 pounds of lean muscle mass, and see improvements of 15-20% in their testing skills over a 9 week period. But the real difference is the effect they see on the field. Because our training is specific to the movement, position and sport of each player, they go back to the field, court or diamond (baseball field) and see the fruits of their hard work show up on the field. That’s probably why so many of our pro guys come back to CES year after year for their off-season training. The players understand that we train like they play, and the only thing that matters for a professional athlete is seeing results that translate into their game on Sundays.

Until next time, keep training hard!!

Coach Smith

Chip Smith answers your questions!

You once said that your training is the combination of explosive running and lifting based on Russian training principles. What do you mean by that? Scott, Lubbock, TX

Well, I was fortunate enough to be a part of a small group of Americans in the 1980s that was invited to be part of an education exchange during the “Glasnost” period between the former Soviet Union and the United States. We did post-graduate work at the world-renowned Soviet Sports Institute, where the Russians were developing athletes a lot differently than anything I’d ever been exposed to in the West. It was basically the flash-point of the basic ideas for what has become the CES Proprietary Training System today, and the real secret to how we get the incredible results we get at CES.

Of course, it is now common knowledge that there was a lot of doping going on during that era…so I’m not referring to that aspect of what the Soviets were doing differently (chuckle). But I am referring to the basic differences in our approach to strength and speed training. In the west, we were putting all of our athletes through the same basic conditioning and strength training. We were creating better all-around athletes, but we never got specific as to the sports, position and movements we were asking each individual athlete to execute. The Soviets started with the opposite approach. They started with each movement, and developed each individual athlete around the exact movements, position and sport they were trying to dominate.

In equating that to football, we would take an entire team and ask them all to run three miles and put them all through the exact same weight lifting routine, regardless of what position they played. We were training defensive tackles the same way we trained wide receivers, despite the fact that those two positions require distinctly different athletic skills to be successful. The Soviets were training to get specific results on the playing field. When I saw their approach and began to apply it to western team sports like football, baseball and basketball, I really realized that the generalized approach we were taking in the West made no sense whatsoever. That was the birth of the CES proprietary training system. When we began applying those principles, we started seeing phenomenal results that were actually measurable on the field. We weren’t just making better athletes anymore, we were making better players! That influence and the overall direction of our program was a direct result of my experience in Russia.

Until next time, keep training hard!

Coach Smith