The name Zac Woodfin will sound familiar to many of you reading this. First of all, he played a pivotal role in helping UAB improvise from a two-win team in 2013 to a 6-win team in 2014, bringing home the FootballScoop Coach of the Year Award that was voted on by his peers. Woodfin's work in the weight room also helped turn around Southern Miss, from 3-9 to 9-5 from 2014 to 2015.
Woodfin even served a short stint as the interim director of athletics following the departure of Bill McGillis at USM.
Now in his first season leading the strength program at Kansas, players have noticed an immediate difference, starting with how much dynamic stretching they do. KUSports notes that players feel much different leaving the weight room, and even how they feel sitting around. Gone is the soreness, and daily aches and pains that are often associated with off season gains.
Under Woodfin's leadership in the weight room, he and his staff focus on four pillars of improvement with each player on the Jayhawk roster: mindset, movement, nutrition, and recovery.
The one area's approach that really resonated with me is how Woodfin approaches building a mindset and mentality in the weight room with his guys by focusing on three categories; belief, overcoming adversity, and positive energy.
Woodfin explains that he and and his staff often put Jayhawk players in adverse situations in the weight room to see how they respond, and they're also spending time getting their guys to truly believe in themselves and what they're capable of. Belief is really the root of success that sets the stage for everything to follow, as he explains.
“You have to believe not only in yourself but in your team’s ability to have success and to win championships. If you truly, truly believe that you can be great and your team can be great that will set the stage for the movement, for the nutrition, for the recovery. If you believe you can be great then you are going to fight to get to greatness. You’re going to do all the little things that greatness requires.”
The purpose of their training program at Kansas isn't about bench or squat numbers, or the fastest 40-time. Woodfin has something else in mind with his approach.
“That’s the only reason we train, to be better at football. Not for numbers. Not for looks. To help Kansas football have success.”