May
Vets have the edge at CFL training camps
Courtesy Hamilton Spectator:
Time has done little to help Ben Cahoon make sense of training camp.
The Montreal Alouettes’ slotback understands why players must gather and work on getting their timing down for the upcoming season. But the 12-year veteran openly wonders about the need to do so with two-a-day workouts in blistering heat and long, sometimes tedious, daily meetings that often combine to beat a player down, both physically and mentally.
“I understand the history of training camp and it used to be to get people into shape,” Cahoon said via telephone from his off-season home in Utah. “But now, that’s not the case. If you show up out of shape, you’re gone.
“Everyone is showing up in shape now and I just question the logic. I can’t remember a training camp I looked forward to. Football is fun, the season is enjoyable but I think if you didn’t have to start it with a three-week training camp your attitude would be a whole lot better approaching the season.”
Cahoon, 36, twice the CFL’s top Canadian and a three-time league all-star, isn’t alone.
Montreal cornerback Davis Sanchez — a nine-year CFL veteran who also spent two seasons with the NFL’s San Diego Chargers — and Saskatchewan offensive lineman Gene Makowsky, entering his 15th campaign with the Roughriders, both openly state their dislike of training camp. But Sanchez, 34, and Makowsky, 36, also agree experience has taught them how to better prepare to face the demands of football head on.
“The last two or three years my No. 1 priority is taking care of my body and getting my body right,” said Sanchez. “I do ART (Active Release Technique) with my chiropractor and its mostly hip stuff that helps keep my body in line.
“If my hips or pelvis are rotated a bit, that’s when I’m apt to pull a hamstring or groin muscle or throw my back out. The old thought process was lifting weights to become bigger and stronger but now it’s about being more flexible, doing more cardio and making sure my body is ticking right.”
So while the five-foot-nine, 188-pound Sanchez — a native of North Delta., B.C., and two-time CFL all-star — still regularly goes to the gym, it’s not just to lift weights.
“When I was younger, I would spend five minutes at the end of my workout doing some stretching,” he said. “Now, I’ll spend 30 or 45 minutes stretching and probably do more stretching than I will working out.”
When the six-foot-three, 300-pound Makowsky, a native of Saskatoon who played collegiately at Saskatchewan, first joined the Roughriders, his off-season regiment consisted of a lot of heavy weightlifting. But the two-time winner of the CFL’s outstanding lineman award says that has changed, too.
“When I first started it was heavy weights with the bench press and squat,” he said. “Thankfully for my body the trend has gone more to balance, stability and core.
“It has helped me because I haven’t loaded up the joints with those heavy weights and instead concentrated on moving my feet more. Strength is important, don’t get me wrong, but being able to move that body weight is very important because some of those defensive linemen are really quick and on that wider field you have to be able to move.”
Cahoon has always changed his off-season training regiment but says he’s yet to find one that fully prepares him for the physical challenges of training camp.
“No matter what I seem to do in the off-season, training camp is a bear regardless,” he said. “It’s a challenge in every way.”
So when Cahoon reports to training camp, one of the first things he does is check when Montreal plays its first exhibition game.
“That’s because when you have games they can’t practise you hard the day before and usually they don’t practise you hard the day after,” he said. “The games break up the routine and monotony.
“One year we had a game five days into camp and it was wonderful because we only had three days of two-a-days before we had a game.”
But as much as older players despise camp, they tend to go in having a huge advantage over their younger competition.
Many veterans are starters and have much more familiarity with a team’s schemes and also get the bulk of practice reps. Not only must younger players adjust and learn on the fly, they have fewer opportunities to catch a coach’s eye.
CFL teams only play two exhibition games and starters get the majority of playing time in the second as teams gear up for the start of the regular season.
“A veteran like me is going to have an advantage over a rookie player coming out of the CIS or an American school,” Makowsky said. “I’ve probably learned what to expect from camp and what coaches expect from you more than the young guys but they have the advantage over me of being younger and the aches and pains probably don’t take hold as much.”
But Cahoon says a veteran can’t afford to coast during camp and take his younger competition for granted.
“I’ve probably gone into one or two camps, maybe my third or fourth year, where I felt like I wasn’t fighting for my life,” he said. “But as you get older, you are.
“You’ve got to prove on a daily basis just constantly that you’re good to go, that you don’t need a break and can run with all the other young guys. Nobody is safe and that’s what gets you up in the morning.”
So, too, does the desire to prove to coaches, teammates and fans alike once again that the veteran can successfully stave off younger, faster competition and remain among the best at his position.
“When I line up, it’s the personal pride I have to compete and win my battles,” said Sanchez. “And for me that won’t change until I can’t physically do it or I don’t have the competitive nature to win the matchup with the guy in front of me.
“That competitive urge is what drives me and in doing that also helping my teammates to achieve the ultimate goal.”
