Notre Dame head football coach Marcus Freeman shares his workout.
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00:00I train heavy just one it's my ego right I want to always be able to bench 315 and squat 315 but
00:05the other thing is I want to be able to show my players that hey man no matter how old you get
00:10you can still put some weight on the bar that's a lot of my motivation too.
00:13Hey I'm Marcus Freeman head football coach at the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
00:18Today we're going to get into a little bit of what my workout looks like.
00:30I've always been a guy that's worked out from the time I was little. My father used to wake me up
00:35early in the morning me and my older brother and make us work out. For me as I played sports I
00:40realized working out is so beneficial to seeing you have success on the football field or on the
00:46track or on the wrestling mat as those different sports that I did and it's something when I got
00:50done playing football that I continue to do and it's for setting a good example for your kids
00:54your players but more importantly it's for personal health. I never train with our players
00:58I don't want to embarrass myself and I don't want to give them the pleasure of knowing they
01:01might be stronger or faster than me but I always train when they're in here it's really important
01:06for me that they see me in here training. I might not be able to do their workouts but they're going
01:10to know that their head coach is in here early in the morning and he's training right with them.
01:15An average day of practice for the Fighting Irish is we'll have them in here early about 7 30 in the
01:19morning they'll be in here lifting weights and then they go to class and then they come back
01:24after class and we have meetings in the afternoon then we're on the practice field for about two
01:29hours if not a little bit more and we come back and they have training table and a lot of them
01:34have to go to study hall after that and so our players their days are pretty filled around here
01:38but that's what it takes to have success here at the University of Notre Dame. The philosophy
01:42behind my workout depends on the time of the year and how much time I have to work out. Right now
01:46it's more of a heavy period so I'm trying to get some type of mild warm-up jog in and then come in
01:52here and do supersets so like today we'll do chest and legs then tomorrow I'll come in and do
01:58shoulders and back the next day I'll get I'll take a day off and just do cardio but the whole
02:03philosophy is to maximize the time that I'm in here and get as many exercises completed that I
02:08can. It's time to get going we need to go out here and get this warm-up jog in get back in here and
02:13start moving some iron it's time to go to work. Starting to do a little mild jog a little warm-up
02:17jog and we'll see if you guys can stay up with me. My workout when I was a player I was a linebacker
02:28and you know everything was calculated you were trying to hit a certain speed or a certain number
02:33or a certain number of reps whereas now I don't do those type of workouts for me now it's more I
02:38want to get a jog in and hit a certain amount of body parts a day and make sure I'm just staying
02:43healthy and I finish and I say a quick prayer right here in front of Jesus Christ for my
02:48gratitude to be alive and so I say a quick thank you prayer I head back and let's get to work.
02:59All right we're gonna get ready to do a superset between heavy squat and dumbbell RDL which is
03:06Romanian deadlift basically the the benefits of the squat to try to keep your heels on the ground
03:10stay flat get as low as you can big chest squeeze your lower back I'm often a guy that says do as I
03:15say not as I do you know as I get older man it gets harder for me to get parallel and below but
03:20I'll get as low as I can today and then we'll go right into the dumbbell RDLs where again it's
03:27mostly your your hamstrings but again it's so good for your posture especially for me and athletes
03:32that get out of playing sports you know this is a great exercise for your back half but also
03:38for your posture and then I usually go 225 for 10, 275 for 8 and then 315 I usually go for about
03:556. They challenge you a little bit this this weight makes you fight gotta fight a little bit.
04:13My current training goals is just to really lift five days a week you know get enough cardio in
04:18to stay in shape and that's why I'm in this weight room so that's my current training goals
04:22they change depending on the time of the year if we're in the middle of season I won't have as much
04:26time as I have now to spend in the weight room so I have to adjust my workouts accordingly.
04:37All right we're going to move on to our second super set basic barbell bench press
04:41which you know obviously it focuses on the chest but I think it hits
04:44so many other parts of your upper body muscles 10, 8, 6 and usually I try to get about 4 to 5
04:54with 315 probably 4 and then we'll super set that with leg press and again leg press the
05:10benefits of that are are true again they're focusing on your lower half and it's actually
05:15a great quad exercise too but also the importance of the the leg press is your seat position right
05:22where your seat is making sure it's in the right position that you can get the full range of motion
05:27but also where your feet are positioned and and making sure that you breathe throughout the
05:31the entirety of of the exercise and then I'll probably go 12, 10, 8 usually with the leg
05:37press and then I finish with a calf raises I'll go 10 straight 10 with my feet out
05:54and then 10 with my toes pointing in all right we're going to go into our third super set this
06:00super set will be dumbbell incline bench press the benefits of this exercise is to truly work
06:09more the upper chest but also you're getting the frontier part of your shoulder tris
06:14again a great upper body lift to coincide with the bench press that we just finished up
06:20and then we're going to superset this with a glute ham exercise which is is really an exercise
06:26for your hamstrings we're really contracting that hamstring instead of like the RDLs when
06:31we did the RDLs was lengthening the hamstring now we're contracting it right you're really
06:34lengthening your back your glutes and then you're you're squeezing right you're you're
06:40contracting your lower back to this point then you take a just a breath right about a half second
06:46point right so as you think about this entire exercise you're starting here in full range of
06:51motion position you're lengthening your back your hamstrings your glutes right you're pulling to
06:56here which is your lower back you're you're flexing and contraction lower back and then
07:01you finish the exercise contracting down your glutes and your hamstrings and your glutes
07:06and your glutes and your hamstrings and your glutes and your hamstrings and your glutes
07:11and then you finish the exercise contracting down your glutes down into your hamstrings
07:17in this position and then back to the start. Now Celessa this is the last exercise dumbbell
07:22chest fly we'll go uh three three sets of ten on the dumbbell chest flies with uh dumbbell
07:29chest flies and we've done four legs we did three upper bodies and i want to get the fourth chest
07:34in and we start off with the compound exercises the squad but of the bench press and as you look
07:40at the dumbbell bench press um you know again working your chest your frontier your shoulder
07:46your shoulder your triceps now you're truly isolating the chest right is is chest flies are
07:51truly an isolated exercise again really stretching out the muscles and controlling the dumbbells as
07:58you go down and then you want to explode and squeeze as much as you can when you come up
08:04and contract your muscles the weight room can challenge you in ways as an individual that
08:12you aren't challenged all the time and no matter how much sleep you get no matter how you feel
08:17it's a chance for you to accomplish your goal some days you're gonna lift more than others
08:21some days you're gonna feel better than others but the accomplishment of waking up checking off
08:27working out off your list is to me for me personally so important and it's a must do every
08:32single day i want to be the best version of me i want to be the best father the best husband the
08:36best football coach i can be and that means for me i have to come in here every day and challenge
08:40myself and so i thank you guys for joining me on my workout this is marcus freeman again head
08:46football coach at the university of notre dame always and forever go irish