Training Brian Urlacher

You had some extraordinary success with Brian Urlacher. How much has he meant to your career? Spence, Chicago, IL

We like to think of Brian as kind of our poster child around here. Obviously, he is a guy who epitomizes what we want to achieve here at CES. Brian and his brother, Casey who also trained with us and lived at my house with me are more than just clients... they are like surrogate sons to me. Brian may not tell you the same story, but he was one of those guys that was going to be great, no matter where he trained.

Every so often, you get a chance to work with a guy who just has it. And it is really the whole package. The natural physical skills, the work ethic, the desire and discipline to take everything you have to offer as a coach and maximize it to his full advantage. That’s what makes him the best to ever play his position.

Sure, the physical tools are all there, but it’s what is inside of him that makes him great. Nobody, and I mean nobody would outwork him in any drill. He’d kill himself every rep from the second he set foot in the facility to the second he crawled out. He is just a warrior. And honestly, CES had nothing to do with that. We just gave him the tools and he made the absolute most of it.

You ask me what he has meant to my career? Well, ask an actor what winning an Oscar means. Ask a musician what winning a Grammy means. It means that you had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to work together with people who are just special... and what you were able to accomplish together is especially defining. There are a lot of guys I feel that way about. But there are not a lot of guys who have all the tools that Brian has... the ones you can measure and the ones you cannot. Every day I come to work, I see guys who have a lot of pieces they are trying to put together to get to that level that Brian has managed to be at for so long. But when you take guys like Brian, Champ, Albert…guys who truly have the ability to be the best who have ever played their position…they don’t come around very often. We are just lucky to be a small part of their success on the field, and honored to consider them a part of our training family at CES.

Until next time, keep training hard!

Coach Smith

Running the 40yd dash:

QUESTION: Let’s say a wide receiver comes to your facility without knowing how to run a 40-yard dash the right way. If he can run a 40 in 4.60 seconds: How much will you then, with the right training, be able to cut of that time? Reggie, Greenville, NC

That’s really the nuts and bolts of what we do during our combine training here…but it’s so much more than that. We understand that getting into the NFL is a very specific process. It’s basically the most in-depth job interview in the world.

And certainly, a guy’s 40 time is a critical part of that process. Generally speaking, we see improvements of about 2 tenths of a second in most guy’s 40 times.

But that’s not all the NFL Scouts are looking for. Testing today is evolving in the same direction CES has been going for the past 20 years. That is to say, scouts are testing more “position specific” now. They want to see linemen who are explosive over 5 or 10 yards. They want to see a running back with quick change of direction. They want to see quarterbacks who can read and react very quickly to what is happening around them. In short, testing is moving into position specific, movement specific areas where reaction is key.

We call that “True Sport Speed”, and that’s exactly what our program is designed to create. Does that show up in a 40? Sure it does. We teach our guys how to execute each drill they will be asked to perform at the combine and at their pro days, and we are training to see those results. But if you take a Brian Urlacher for example, (who is one of the most incredible natural athletes I have ever seen by the way)…the results he got during his combine preparation here at CES were fairly typical. Brian came into CES from New Mexico at 6’4, 230 pounds, and he ran about a 4.69. Nine weeks later at the combine, he ran 4.49 at just over 260 pounds. So it’s not just teaching a guy the techniques around performing the drills, although that is certainly a big part of it. It’s also about maximizing a player’s explosiveness on the way to making him a better player.

The real measurement of our success at CES and the time any player spends with us is not just combine results and draft placement. Sure, that’s where the money is made, so we obviously focus on that. But we also judge ourselves on what kind of season a guy has after he has left us. Trent Edwards comes to mind with the Buffalo Bills. He had a fantastic rookie season after his time with us. This last year, we had Jay Cutler, Brandon Marshall and Albert Haynesworth with us during the off-season. None of those guys were with us for their combine preparations. But as CES PRO Clients during the off-season, we were happy to see their hard work manifest itself on the field. And that’s really the main thing to emphasize here.

Yes, we have a system that we think is very unique and special. But make no mistake: Players are successful and get the results out of our system because they are in here paying the price in blood, sweat and tears every day. They come in here and bust their butts. That’s why they are so good. It’s like anything else. If you come into our facility and just go through the motions, you are not going to see the results. But it’s what is INSIDE Brian Urlacher and Champ Bailey and Albert Haynesworth that make them great players. That’s what we see from our clients that is special. Our program is tough, so guys that don’t come to work every day don’t usually stick around for very long.

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

Chip Smith answers your questions!

Question: How important is it for the draft prospects to prepare for the draft at a complex like CES. -- Cody from Chesapeake, VA.

The NFL is one of the most highly competitive professions in the world. Today, it would be virtually impossible for an NFL athlete to go through the draft process without this kind of specialized training. Just to give you a perspective on the numbers…there are only 32 NFL teams, with just 55 roster spots each year. So if you do the math, there are roughly 1,800 guys involved in the league at any one time when you take practice squads and injury lists into consideration. The average career of any NFL player is less than 3 years, which means that about 1/3 of the league turns over each year. That’s why you will hear guys around our facility referring to “NFL” as meaning “Not For Long!” as a player’s career goes. So saying that the NFL is “highly competitive” is really an understatement.

There are 238 NCAA Division 1A and 1AA Football Programs in colleges and universities across America. Each one of those schools has about 100 kids in each program, so that’s 23,800 guys all dreaming about having a career in the NFL one day. So the odds are that only 7.5% of all college players will ever see the inside of an NFL locker room. And when you take the millions and millions of high school kids playing football across the country into consideration, the odds of ever making it to the NFL for a young player are extremely small. So today, specialized training like we provide at CES is really mandatory…not only for the small group of players going through the draft process, but ANY player trying to climb that ladder at any level.

It is well known that CES has prepared more NFL talent than anyone else in the world…over 20% of the league has been through our doors, but we also train dozens of major league baseball players, and pro athletes in numerous sports. The real growth in the industry is coming from the amateur market. Last year alone at CES, we trained more than a dozen high school All-Americans, and hundreds of high school players transitioning into college ranks in numerous different sports. From soccer to lacrosse, to women’s softball, tennis and golf, we are seeing tremendous growth in amateur training.

Until next time, keep training hard,

Coach Smith