When they aren't busy playing video games as their favorite NBA teams, the players of the men's basketball team have been spending their Summer Break doing strength workouts that begin at 7 a.m. The team began its off-season training schedule two weeks after the season ended in March.
The team weight trains three times a week, starting early in the morning with upper and lower body strength training for more than an hour. In the afternoons, the team works on fundamentals such as post moves and shooting. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, they play full-court scrimmages.
The process to build a successful summer weight training program has been in the making for more than 15 years.
Ball State University's head strength and conditioning coach, Wade Russell, has been leading the weight training program for the Cardinals since 1988.
"When I first got here, we didn't really have any weight room facilities," Russell said. "By my third year here, basketball really got into the mix and kind of picked up momentum."
Each player is given an individual workout routine for the morning that has been designed by Russell and his staff. Individual workouts are designed to help players gain or lose weight or recover from injuries -- which is the case for junior Peyton Stovall, who is recovering from a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.
"We tell them what to do, how much to do and how many times to do it," Russell said. "We'll monitor them and update them on a weekly basis."
The players' training exercises are kept in computer databases that can track the progress of each player throughout the summer. Putting each player in the database also helps the weight room staff members keep tabs on players from the 18 teams they work with.
The way a team trains during the summer can differ from year to year depending on how well the players are conditioned.
"The team we have now, conditioning wise, is pretty good, so we're not going to have to spend a lot of time this summer setting a good conditioning base," Russell said.
This year's team is focusing on increasing the strength and size of its players. Most of the players are needing to gain weight, including senior Anthony Kent, who hopes to reach 220 pounds by the start of the season. He's gained 15 pounds so far this summer.
Part of the plan to help players become bigger is to control their diets. Russell asks the director of Ball State's strength research laboratory, David Pearson, to offer help with player diets. Pearson, who has worked with the 2005 NBA champion San Antonio Spurs, finds the perfect nutrition balance for each player.
"He told me to eat four times a day," Kent said.
Kent was told to drink protein shakes as well as to eat as much as possible.
Intense summer training is an experience most players don't encounter until college. Stovall tries to help along freshmen in the training room.
"We try to keep track of them," Stovall said. "They've just been playing basketball most their lives and not really weight training."
Ball State's weight facilities are considered by players to be some of the best in the area.
"I think our training is definitely up there with the best of the best," Stovall said. "We got Wade, and he's worked with a lot of good people.
"He's one of the one the top guys in the [Mid-American Conference], at least."
In order to keep up with new weight machines, the weight room is updated every year. Ball State releases a new budget each year so new equipment can be purchased.
"If a good piece of equipment comes out that's really beneficial to the players, then we'll get a hold of that pretty quickly," Russell said.
Even though players are together for five months during the basketball season, they still spend most of their off-season together.
"Everybody on the team is real close," Stovall said. "We're either playing video games, eating at a restaurant together or hoopin' somewhere."
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