Without access to state of the art athletics and training facilities, many college football players around the country are doing what they can to stay in shape during the coronavirus pandemic. In the case of some, resorting to some homegrown training techniques has players channeling their inner-Rocky Balboa.
Michigan State walk-on Nick Hunter has molded what he refers to as the “Farm Boy Workout” by crafting exercises using parts of a barn with a former high school teammate.
“We took an old tractor tire and some sledgehammers and hit it for 20 reps as the warm-up one day, and a warm-up a different day was a truck push for 30 yards, do like three or four reps of that,” Hunter said in a story published Monday by Detroit Free Press. “Then we go into the barn, where he’s got the bench and squat setup and we either do bench power clean or squat. Then we take some different, smaller tires and tie them around our waist (with hay twine), kind of like a parachute to have resistance and do some sprints with that.”
How are football players staying in shape? Here is a quick peek of @Ndhunter28’s workout he goes through 4 times a week at former Grayling High teammate Eli Jackson’s family farm. Hunter is a walk-on at MSU, and Jackson will join Alma’s football team this fall. pic.twitter.com/NucmIVRxX2
— Chris Solari (@chrissolari) April 20, 2020
This is all great and all, but what we really need are more college football players trying to catch a chicken.
If this all sounds like something ripped right out of a Rocky training montage, well, it sort of is. Cue the epic “Rocky IV” training montage...
Odds are there are plenty of other stories like this around the world of college football, and collegiate athletics overall. Student-athletes looking to stay in shape may not have access to a home gym or local gym right now, so it may be imperative to make do with whatever is laying around the house... or the farm.