Lawson's lead: Strength coach talks Tennessee Vols' summer

[kamoshika]

Tennessee spent the summer months in the hands of Lawson and his right-hand man, Mike Szerszen, and the two were charged with preparing the Vols for training camp and the season.

"It's amazing what they do in the strength and conditioning program," freshman tailback Jalen Hurd said. "It's different than any other program, I can tell you that. They push us very, very hard, and just going into training camp, I'm so glad that they did, because I really felt prepared."

The Times Free Press caught up with Lawson for a few minutes at Tennessee's media day last week.
Lawson's lead: Strength coach talks Tennessee Vols' summer | Times Free Press

Head strength coach Dave Lawson might be the most important person in the program that is rarely heard from. The Vols made some huge gains in size, strength and speed over the summer and RTI recently caught up with Lawson to get his perspective on the behind-the-scenes work in the weight room.
Q&A with Strength Coach Dave Lawson

 

[Biopsyman]

His money is really earned in the 4th quarter

 

[SDV]

Thanks for posting

 

[Vols4us]

Good stuff, OP. Thanks for posting.

 

[LordVOLdemort]

The ones that needed to gain, gained, the ones that needed to lose body fat, lost it and the ones that needed to get faster got faster.

My favorite quote of that Q&A or the stuff about how Coach Jones supports him. Coach Jones just seems like a really, really good character person. I like him more with each article I read. I hope and truly believe that we will start to see the fruits of his labor on the field more and more. I wouldn't mind a Coach Butch Jones statue to be up in 20 yrs and be able to tell my kids, "You grew up with that man at the helm. You're so lucky!"

GO VOLS! 9 DAYS!

 

[volinbama256]

His money is really earned in the 4th quarter

I like this thought, totally agree. WE will need to play 4 quarters like the first five minutes of every game against all of our opponents and hopefully Lawson has these boys ready for it....

 

[Pro]

Seems like every year our strength and conditioning "improves" 10 fold.

At some point will they become cyborgs?

 

[volum3]

You get a like for providing a quality contribution, sir or madam as the case may be.....

 

[TNHopeful505]

Dave is a good man. Very impressed with what he is doing with the program. Definitely think we'll see a BIG difference this year in terms of physicality and speed.

 

[majorvol]

Thanks for the article .

 

[volroadwarrior]

Does our competition have comparable programs? We need to consider this before we get too confident about ours. The good thing is that is probably an upgrade from the Dooley era and hopefully the better conditioning will offset the lack of depth in the fourth quarter. I look at it as another step forward in the process to make us better but not that it will make us good enough to beat the good teams this year. Still predicting 6 to 7 wins this year.

 

[born-n-raisedvol]

Seems like every year our strength and conditioning "improves" 10 fold.

At some point will they become cyborgs?

Maybe that's because every year 1/4 of our football team are 18 year old kids who are experiencing a college strength and conditioning program for the first time ever.

 

[Pro]

Maybe that's because every year 1/4 of our football team are 18 year old kids who are experiencing a college strength and conditioning program for the first time ever.

Or for us, more than 1/4 are freshman..

 

[orangebloodgmc]

Although numerous guys are said to be bigger and stronger, the two names that popped into his mind first were Crowder (OL) and O. Williams (DL), two places where we really need it.