Boulware dons the weight vest as an example, Tom Allen wants no part of it

Ben Boulware showed his work by example in the offseason during mat drills.

David Hood - Senior Writer - 2 days ago

Linebackers coach Ben Boulware knows that wearing a weight vest during workouts led to a stellar senior season, and now that he’s coaching, he is once again wearing the vest as an example to his players.

New defensive coordinator Tom Allen is all for it as long as he doesn’t have to wear one.

Boulware moved from a volunteer position to coaching the linebackers during the offseason, coaching alongside Allen’s son, Thomas Allen. Boulware and Tom Allen appeared on a recent episode of the Two Right Turns podcast with Ross Taylor, and Boulware said that when his group started mat drills he wanted them to understand the importance of powering through when times get tough and thought about the weight vest.

“Because I can't ask these dudes to do anything that I wouldn't do. And one of the things that I've challenged our group with over the past couple weeks is when we're in mat drills to wear that weight vest,” Boulware said. “And that's one of the things I've said my entire life, ‘Hey, I want to control the input, not the output.' I can't control if I have 150 tackles, 15 TFLs (tackles for loss), unanimous, All-American. It's kind of out of my control. There's people that vote on that.

“And what I can control is the controllables and making sure that I'm getting enough sleep, I'm putting the right things in my body, staying after practice, 10 to 15 minutes, doing some extra work, making sure I'm watching an extra hour of tape each day.”

Boulware said he realized after his junior season that changes needed to be made and the weight vest played its role in the drama.

“And one of the things I did my senior year, because my junior year I played at 255 (pounds), if you all know me, I'm barely six-foot and a six-foot, 255-pound linebacker? That’s pretty gross,” Boulware said. “So I challenged myself going into my senior year. I have to cut weight, the game's getting so fast, my sweet spot's around 230. And one of the things that I did going into my senior season is one, I went zero dark thirty (cutting off social media). And a lot of guys that are on the team probably can speak to that.

"But within that, one of the things I did was every single workout, whether it's skills and drills, we're in the weight room, we're doing 110s we're doing stadiums, I put that vest on. And for me it was along the lines of input. This doesn't take andy talent for me to put that vest on, it doesn't take technique. It didn't take me being 6-foot-4, running a 4.4 (40), I can be this guy or that guy. And we both can put on that vest and that extra 15, 20, 25 pounds depending on how much weight you got in. It is really just a mental thing that I wanted to challenge our guys with.”

Boulware said he improved his physical conditioning and the mental part of his game.

“I can't ask these dudes to do anything that I wouldn't do, but wearing that vest is something I did 8, 9, 10 years ago. And I think it allowed me to make a lot of growth from a conditioning standpoint, but also just from a mental toughness standpoint because those mat drills suck,” he said. “They're freaking hard. They're hard at 30 (years old), they're hard at 18, 19, 20. But when you add in that extra element of that 10 to 15, 20 pounds, you get deep into that pain cave and there's very few guys that will do it. And there's very few guys that will complete a full mat drills with a vest.”

Considering he’s no longer a young football player, Boulware said it didn’t take long for the hurt to begin.

“So I guess we're on day three and I'm in a bad spot. I'm freaking hurting. Me crossing my legs right now,” he said. “I've switched legs twice now and I think I've torn both of my hips from doing this. So I haven't been this sore in a long time, but I want to be a guy that leads by example.”

Allen laughed at his young coach’s expense.

“There's some extra pounds there that he's put on since he played,” Allen said with a smile. “He actually came to me and said, ‘Hey coach, I think we should all put the weight vests on and do the mat drills together as a staff. And I just looked at him like, dude, no, that's not happening. Not me. I'm past that. I said, ‘I got about 25 years on you.’ But no, seriously, it's impressive that he's able to do it, but I guarantee you there's a bunch of us on this staff that if we did the same exact thing, there'd be some Achilles torn, there'd be some hamstrings torn, there'd be some serious issues that we can't afford to put ourselves in. But the bottom line is that he's out there with the guys straining with him.”