Local high school football team turns to intense training regimen
Aug 21, 2013, 9:39 PM | Updated: 9:39 pm
After suffering a first-round loss to Scottsdale (Ariz.) Desert Mountain in the Division I state football tournament last fall, Mesa (Ariz.) Mountain View head coach Chad DeGrenier wanted his team to be physically and mentally fit to handle the grind of the 2013 season.
For most coaches, that might have involved more two-a-days in the summer or extra conditioning at the end of practice.
According to Yahoo! Sports, though, the Toros head coach opted instead to put his players through 12 consecutive hours of Navy SEAL training.
The Seal 20x program is designed “to transform and expand your definition of your capabilities as an athlete and human being.” In addition to physical challenges, the program allegedly tests one’s arousal control, attention control, visualization and positivity, decision making in chaos and — here’s the catch for high school coaches — teamwork and leadership.
In order to achieve that, the Mountain View players spent 12 hours undergoing a series of increasingly difficult and demanding physical tasks. Dressed in camouflage pants and a white shirt, the teens started by soaking in an ice bath to drop their core temperature (that’s a physical and mental challenge). They spent hours completing sprinting army crawls, sit ups and pull ups. And, eventually, around midnight they started doing more traditional football drills that incorporated football sleds.
After the Toros completed their football drills at around 3:00 a.m., they were forced to endure the worst part of the 12-hour training program called ‘The Murph,’ a five-event challenge that features two 1-mile runs, 100 pull ups, 200 push ups and 300 squats.
When the program was finally completed at 6:00 a.m., DeGrenier treated his players to a huge breakfast feast — which is a good thing considering they probably didn’t have much left in their stomachs after 12 hours of straight training.
