The Cologne Centurions are a physical team. Thanks to their strength and conditioning coach Kevin Speer, Centurions players will have everything in place to level up and attack the last three months before the regular season kicks off.  

Mastering strength and conditioning

„Contrary to the common belief, strength and conditioning is not just about torturing players in the off-season and pushing them to their limits“, strength and conditioning coach Kevin Speer explains. “Even if sometimes there is some truth behind it, our job is rather to improve the physical potential and prerequisites of the players on the one hand and to increase the resistance against injuries and reduce overload injuries/symptoms on the other hand“.

The Cologne Centurions collaborate with Speer’s company Develop Athletes to provide a professional training program for their players. Athletes have the chance to train three times a week with Speer and his colleague Lorenz Petri before the actual pre-season training begins. In addition, players who are not from the Cologne area receive individual training plans that they can follow from home, as Speer explained in an interview.

Applied training methods and techniques

As Speer explained to me, Develop Athletes strives for an athlete-first approach that primarily seeks to develop fundamental athletic performance.

“We focused on building a strength base at the beginning of the season, setting a goal of moving 1.6 times bodyweight in the squat“, Speer explained a basic training technique he implements in Cologne. He proudly added: “While one-third of the team accomplished this at the beginning of the offseason, now in February nearly 86% of the team has met this requirement“.

This jump from 33% to 86% of athletes on the Centurions roster who can move 1.6 times their bodyweight in squat position speaks for the improvement and the athletic development of the players over the last months.

Categorization: training methods by position

 As far as the different positions on the football field are concerned,Speer noted that it is important to differentiate between certain needs and strength levels.

“Team training at scale requires some categorization to allow for organized training activities. Therefore, we have divided players by priorities and worked on their performance in increasingly specific training groups”, Speer noted. He further elaborated: “These focal points are of course also based on the position-specific requirements of the players“.

In our conversation, Speer also pointed towards his basic mantras of training and exercise: “The simplest and most important training elements of our approach are competition, visibility of progress, results, and simply well executed fundamentals.There is no secret or specific exercise - our off-season theme was ‘consistency is key‘ and our players exemplify that“.

Speer: “Louis [Geyer] stands out“

The Centurions already had great players on their roster in the inaugural season of the European League of Football. However, 2021 Rookie of the Year and former Stuttgart Surge wide receiver Louis Geyer recently signed with the Centurions.

„Louis [Geyer] stands out not only for his athletic and physical potential, but also for his work ethic and determination“, Speer explained. He further pointed out Geyer’s potential to make it to the NFL:

„He has a clear goal and is willing to invest far more than necessary to get closer to his goal. Whether it will be enough for the NFL is largely out of our control and will be revealed in the future. The path for skill players to get there is incredibly difficult, but hopefully examples like Marcel Dabo can soon prove that it will be achievable for a European skill player. Even if he doesn't make it int he [NFL in] the next few years, the ‘worst‘ case scenario is that he will grow into a veteran playmaker in the European League of Football“.

Speer also pointed towards other potential breakout-players on the Centurions roster for the 2022 season: „The strongest unit athletically can be highlighted with our linebacker crew showing nearly 100% practice participation and a standout performance in every session with Marius Kensy leading the way“. However, the Centurions strength and conditioning coach noted that each position group on the team’s roster shows great athletic potential with individual players sticking out.

Taking American football to the next level

At the end of our conversation, Speer pointed towards the need of year-round professional coaching and athletic training: “We firmly believe that further professionalizing the sport requires much more than just professional coaching in-season. We want to lead by example and create the conditions that players at this level deserve in order to perform their sport at the highest level as injury free and safe as possible“. He added: “In doing so, we are also in close exchange with other great coaches like Jonas Riess, strength and conditioning coach of the Frankfurt Galaxy, to keep improving our program”.

Passionate coaches and talented football players in Cologne should be a great combination for the 2022 season in the European League of Football this summer.

More news about the Centurions here!

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