Purdue's new football weight room characterized by versatility, efficiency
More: Players feel at home in 'new' Performance Complex
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In nearly 21,000 square feet of weight room, Purdue’s new home inside the Football Performance Complex, Justin Lovett couldn’t find room on a wall for strength records.
Because he didn’t want to.
Nowhere are there individual records for squats or bench or power clean, because those numbers, Lovett says, don’t matter.
“We believe in wins as a football team,” said Lovett, Purdue’s director of football strength and conditioning said Thursday during a tour of the new weight room. “We’re chasing those numbers, but we’re not defined by bench, squat and clean numbers; we’re defined by wins and finishing and playing hard and staying healthy.”
Much of that starts with Lovett, his staff and a weight room that Purdue says rivals the best in the nation collegiately and professionally. It looks great, with 22 televisions, four 70-inch video boards, a 165-inch video wall, giant speakers — Lovett said those can turn up loud enough to move pencils on Jeff Brohm’s desk in his office on the opposite side of the building — a fuel station, natural sunlight and much more.
But it’s the functionality that makes it an efficient work environment. Purdue has reserved spaces for cardio equipment and heavy Muay Thai bags, but the rest of the gym is reserved for lifting weights, sometimes heavy weights, like the multiple 24-foot Austin Leg Drives or the 200-pound dumbbells.
“When you hear everybody talk about Tight End U, Wide Receiver U, Quarterback U, we want to be Linemen U,” Lovett said. “We want to develop linemen at a faster rate than everybody else has done in the past. A lot of these (pieces of equipment) are selected for big players.
“We don’t have a lot of guys who can lift those dumbbells yet, but we’ve got to grow into this room ourselves. When you see and hear some coaches and some of our players say, ‘I can’t grab that 45(-pound dumbbell), it’s a little too (much),’ well this room wasn’t built for you. It’s not built for any of us. We’re civilians; it’s built for giants. We have to grow into this room, we know that and our players are excited about it.”
The weight room is divided down the middle, with one side mirroring the other, allowing players to have the space to easily split into position groups. Each of the 24 racks is outfitted to do everything a player would need, whether that’s a wide receiver or an offensive lineman. That’s helpful, Lovett says, because then a strength coach doesn’t have to run his athletes from one place to another to get a complete workout. It can be done in one place, saving time.
“Everything he needs can be compartmentalized right here,” he said. “He can make as diverse programming as he wants and be efficient, because we only have an hour with them (or) an hour-and-15 minutes, so we have to roll. We’re not going to keep them two hours and try to transform the rack, we can do whatever we want and it’s awesome.”
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Technology is helpful too. During Thursday’s tour, Lovett demonstrated what he called “elite form tablets,” that record speed and movement data on a rack, then can be reviewed immediately. So if a player wants to pull a weight, and do it in a certain amount of time without breaking form, he can, and he can also make sure it was all done correctly.
“It’s important to move weight safely, No. 1, and explosively, No. 2,” Lovett said while using himself as an example. “For example, you have an athlete that’s lined up for a clean pull. There’s a 3D camera that’s tracking the bar speed. So I’m going to try to pop a .7 or .8 from a clean pull. ... That was a little faster than I expected. But afterward what is nice is I can see that number and say, ‘You know what, you’ve earned a bump on your weight,’ so you can add a quarter or whatever I want.
“Let’s say I didn’t hit the number, I can press the camera and get instant feedback on why he didn’t hit his number. He didn’t finish his pull; his hips shot out. He put himself at risk. It’s instant feedback, smart, safe, effective.”
The weight room has moveable dumbbell racks, too, in case Purdue wants to get outside into the heat. But inside or out, the place presents a welcoming environment.
“The players want to be in here,” Lovett said. “It has its own presence. You want to come in here and get better, not being forced, so even if you’re not a weight-room guy when you come here, you quickly become one because you feel like you’re missing out if you’re not part of it.
“This is the best gift a strength coach or a football program could have because it’s the guts that drives the engine and it helps us finish.”
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