ITS RIGHT OUTSIDE Hip didn’t fire. And Travis Kelce didn’t have it.
It was a hot June morning in Kansas City and the close end of the Chiefs was in the middle of training. Minutes earlier, Kelce had stormed five meters into the field, put his right foot on, and walked across the field to catch a catch. Now he was walking exactly the same distance, but this time he took two small steps before his cut and followed with another catch.
The catch didn’t matter; Kelce thought only of the sleepy right outer hip, which stabilizes the knee when changing direction, prevents injury, and helps explode. He went to his trainer, Alex Skacel, and pointed to his hip. He was done running tracks. Kelce finished with 45 second side planks with his thigh raised. “Here we go,” he said to Skacel. A day later he was back on the running tracks. “I really focused on the little things that keep the big picture in mind,” says Kelce. “The rehab, the preheating and what you can do to stay on the field and achieve your top athletic performance.”
Arturo Olmos
It’s all these little things (yes, really) that made Travis Kelce the six-five, £ 255-pound manner he is now, a player named best tight with over 90 catches in three consecutive seasons End of the NFL in the 2021 season and six Pro Bowl appearances. He’s also one of the NFL’s finest real-life athletes in a position finally getting the recognition it deserves. Sure, receivers have more pure speed, offensive linemen are bigger and stronger and cornerbacks can change direction immediately. But from Kelce to Tampa Bay legend Rob Gronkowski to the hyped Atlanta Falcons newcomer Kyle Pitts, modern tight ends have all of these qualities – and more.
“I really focused on the little things that keep the big picture in mind.”
Every Sunday, 31-year-old Kelce needs enough speed to run past the defensive backs and enough lateral speed and brute strength to block huge defensive line men. He needs the core rigidity to shake off would-be tacklers and the jumping ability to pluck passes out of the air. “Ask yourself, ‘What is a tight end?’” Says Kelce. “It’s not just a position or a thing. We are like the provider. Whatever you have to do, we have to be able to have that quality or just be successful. ”
It’s the toolbox that any man can use. Think about it: you don’t need the speed of an Olympic sprinter every day. But you need a dose of explosive energy to catch the train you’re about to miss, a boost of agility to keep up with your kids during a catch game, and the power to pick up the Amazon box in front of your door. And Kelce’s cerebral, nuanced approach to fitness can help you build it while protecting your body from injury.
KELCE STARTED HONING his approach to fitness long before catching passes from Patrick Mahomes and pushing the Chiefs to back-to-back Super Bowl appearances. In the fall of 2005, when he was sophomore at Cleveland HeightsHigh in Ohio, his gym personality, Trainer Trav, was born. Kelce failed the previous year at French lessons, which automatically prevented him from playing football.
Except that Kelce’s father convinced him to work with the team behind the scenes. So trainer Trav glued the ankles and spread water on the edge of the game. “That was the beginning of my appreciation for the anatomy of the body, the understanding of being healthy and being athletic at all times,” he says.
It blossomed when Kelce started playing at the University of Cincinnati in 2009. He suffered a shoulder injury at an early age and was assigned to a physiotherapist. Instead of doing the rehab movements, Kelce mentally cataloged the exercises that would build the muscles around his shoulder blade and protect his shoulders. He realized that he needed strong diamonds and rotator cuff muscles. “I locked her up to protect my shoulders if I catch a tall, 300-pound guy and he throws me around like a rag doll,” he says.
When he was in the NFL, Kelce wanted to focus on training his stabilizing muscles. That fit perfectly with Skacel, who he started working with in 2017. Sure, he did exercises like squats, lunges, and rows. But he was also getting a heavy dose of lighter movement. (See “Real NFL Muscles” below.) “We don’t want Travis’ body to rely on the bigger muscles only,” says Skacel. “All of the things that make him great come from this solid foundation that he’s built.”
Arturo Olmos
A pair of coaches – Skacel, who calls himself an “exercise physiotherapist” and Tony Villani of Florida – are helping Kelce with this, and the tight end adds to those discussions by analyzing every single pass pattern he runs, just like he did that June morning. But he refuses to do it on a 24/7/365 schedule. After the Chiefs fell to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in February, it took Kelce more than a month to do anything but fitness, an off-season tradition that he says will prepare his body for optimal performance as soon as he gets back in Training starts. “The thing is, that is what you focus so much on in the six months of the season,” he says. “That’s a big part for me, just rewinding and regrouping and just relaxing.”
Once Kelce begins his off-season, he focuses intensely on those shoulders that have been a hotspot for him throughout his career. (He had shoulder labral repair surgery in 2017.) Trainer Trav happily comes out to speak about this, too. “I was very big biceps, chest and deltoids – I’ve been very closed my whole life as an athlete,” he says. “So that puts the AC joint in a very vulnerable position if I’m hit in the wrong direction. I do a lot of trap stuff, scapula stuff, lats, and really triceps. . . pulls back more so that your posture is better and your overall athletic structure is in a safer position. “
Skacel complements these exercises with consistent cupping and dry-needling sessions to relax Kelce’s strongest and strongest muscles, both in season and in the off-season. Dry-needling and cupping promote blood flow to the muscles to speed healing. But instead of relaxing after each round of therapy, Kelce gets up immediately and works with a slight movement for ten to twelve repetitions to encourage even more blood flow. So when Skacel dry-needlepins the front shoulder of the narrow end, Kelce can push overhead with no weight or lift sideways to stimulate the joint even more.
It all made him one of the longest-lived players in the league; He has only missed two games since 2014. “He invested in his body and really, knock on wood, didn’t have to deal with anything big,” says Skacel.
ALL THE LITTLE ONES Movements prepare Kelce’s body to train anything. He does that in three phases. At the beginning of each off-season he trains his “exit”, exploding from an immobile position. Then he trains “instant acceleration” and concentrates on getting faster while running distances. Eventually, he’s going to teach his body to stop and start, something it has to do, whether it’s driving a route or blocking a giant lineman.
Once he has started his off-season training, he never misses a training session. Skacel recalls traveling with him to Paris Fashion Week in 2019 and realizing at 12:30 p.m. after a day of shows and events that they hadn’t exercised. Kelce’s Fix: You went to a bridge that spanned a canal and ran eight 400-meter sprints. “I don’t know anyone who would spend a whole day at these catwalk shows and then say, ‘It’s 1:00 AM; Let’s run and do sprints and speedwork, ”says Skacel. “It was so important for him to know that he is using every moment to get better.”
Sometimes that just means his right outside hip is firing.
Arturo Olmos
REAL NFL MUSCLE
The strongest, most durable NFL bodies come with more than squats, lunges, and deadlifts. Add these stabilizing muscle movements from Alex Skacel to your workout to help you stay healthy (and get fast and strong too).
source https://www.bisayanews.com/2021/09/19/travis-kelce-shares-his-offseason-workout/
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