Bears coach Matt Eberflus shares training plan for players
The Bears may not have any organized practices from now until late July or early August when training camp begins, but that does not mean it’s all fun and games for the players this summer. Head coach Matt Eberflus and his staff prepared individual plans for each player over the next month and a half, and said he and the coaches will be working with the guys throughout the “break.”
The plans are designed by a team within the team: Director of performance Brent Salazar, strength and conditioning coach Jim Arthur and director of sports nutrition Blair Hitchcock. The end result: a target weight and body fat index for each man.
The expectation is that each player returns for training camp at each of their target benchmarks, so that they can get into game shape more easily as practice intensity ramps up. Eberflus describes it as a conditioning “floor.” The ceiling of being in gameday shape won’t change, so if the players follow their plans their floors will be higher and they won’t have as steep of a climb to reach the level of fitness required.
“When it’s too steep at times you get soft tissue [injuries] and those types of things,” Eberflus said.
Guys like Teven Jenkins adjusted their training regimens to compound those efforts to avoid injury. Meanwhile, Justin Fields invited the wide receivers, tight ends and running backs to join him in Florida to workout together. So while the NFL calendar says OTAs and minicamp are done, the work has really just begun.
