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Alvin Kamara working on “controlling random multi-directional external forces” for balance and core stability pic.twitter.com/5s1HNplDQV
— Chris Haddad (@chrisvIQtory) April 23, 2020
When you’re a special athlete like New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara, you have to get creative to train and condition yourself to play at a high level.
Last year, Kamara’s offseason workout routine featured a unique challenge centered on catching batons while balancing on a medicine ball. The summer before that, he spent his time preparing for the NFL hauling a squat rack and his Jeep uphill.
Now, Kamara’s leveled up again. The running back went viral in a video showing him working out on a basketball court, but he wasn’t there to hoop. Kamara tied a pair of kettlebells to a barbell and took staggered steps from one end of the court to the other. Not something you see every day.
The point of this workout is to challenge Kamara’s core strength — one of his best athletic traits. Kamara’s ability to stay balanced through contact (in other words, remaining upright with someone runs into him) is very rare, and it’s something he’s cultivated through hard work like this. The shifting weights stress his body laterally, making his muscles put in extra effort to keep steady.
With social distancing measures in effect around the nation, Kamara probably can’t visit his usual gyms and clinics. So he’ll be working out with maybe-unusual techniques like this until the coronavirus pandemic is behind us. Hopefully it pays off after a down year in 2019.
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