Starting as a 16-week intern for Athletes’ Performance training company, 2004 Emporia High School graduate Randall Coburn is in Waco, Texas training an unnamed athlete for the upcoming National Football League draft combine.
Even before graduating with a bachelor of science in education degree with an emphasis in exercise science/pre-physical therapy from the University of Kansas in 2009, Coburn began training athletes of all ages with the California based company. This is his first year to train athletes for the NFL combine.
“This will be my first time with the NFL combine program and training,” Coburn said. “I have worked with collegiate football players, high school football players and then collegiate, high school and professional baseball players. ... I’ve done any sport you can probably think of.”
Coburn could not reveal any names of the players he has worked with because of confidentiality agreements.
Starting his own business in 2008 named Alpha Sports Performance, Coburn gained experience as a personal fitness trainer before building a reputation as an athletic trainer around Lawrence.
“I first started out as just a personal trainer doing more of the fitness with the goal and the idea of moving into the athletes because that’s where my passion lies,” he said. “The more in Lawrence my name got out as a good trainer for athletes the more athletes I started to bring in and it’s really taken off in the last two years since my internship.”
When an athlete begins training with Coburn, he or she undergoes tests of mobility and stability. From there, Coburn analyzes what type and how intense of training the athlete needs.
“I take them through series of tests to determine that,” Coburn said. “Once I determine that, I know what phase of programming I can begin them at. Surprisingly enough, some professional athletes, their mobility and stability is worse than some of my high school athletes. Just because they’ve never focused on it. They’ve focused on let’s get bigger, faster, stronger. They’ve never looked at the body from the inside out.”
That’s what Coburn starts with — looking at how the body works from the core out and uses exercises to develop the mobility and stability.
“A lot of pillar and plank stability,” Coburn said. “Exercises like front plank, side plank, glut bridge. A lot of focus on how to stabilize the core from the spine out, but still breathe and still move and make sure the pillar and core is stabilized through every action and motion that we are doing.”
Working from the core out to improve mobility and stability helps to improve athletes’ movement efficiency. This was evident in a couple of high-level Kansas high school athletes Coburn has worked with.
“When they came to me, they were top of the state,” he said. “When I started breaking them down, they had a lot of extra inefficient movement while they were running. They were running straight ahead, linearly they were getting a lot of side-to-side movement, a lot of pillar and torso movement. In the span of six to eight months, I really broke them down and made sure that we eliminated all that movement.”
Through training with Coburn, the Kansas athletes moved from top of the state to top 25 in the country. Some have received scholarships from top Division I schools, Coburn said.
Athletes can begin training with Coburn at any age and many undergo training year round. When an athlete comes to him at a young age, he doesn’t start intense training immediately.
“I’m more focused on creating good habits, making it fun for them and making sure we can get a little coordination development going,” he said. “ ... It is very important for them to train year round and not take a substantial amount of time off so their bodies digress and get de-conditioned.”
A normal training session for Coburn lasts approximately an hour when working with younger athletes but as the level gets higher, the workouts become longer and more intense.
“Down here in Waco, I’m taking my athlete through anywhere from two- to four-hours of training a day,” he said. “That’s going to be split up into two training sessions.”
Coburn has never been to the NFL combine because only NFL personnel are allowed inside the facility during the evaluations, but he has done some video breakdowns of the athletes.
The opportunity to work with a NFL prospect is a dream come true for the young trainer from Emporia.
“It’s an incredible feeling,” Coburn said. “I love helping athletes obtain their goals and their dreams. This is really the peak of it. What better position to be in to have an effect on a young man who is trying to realize his goals and dreams.”
spensanity (anonymous) says...
Way to go Randall!!
January 19, 2012 at 3:13 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )