TRAIN LIKE A FOOTBALL LEGEND
"MY BODY IS LIKE AN ARMY"
Position: RB
Height: 6-1 Weight: 225 lbs.
College: Georgia
Herschel Walker was a highly celebrated and highly regarded college football player in the United States. He turned pro, having a career in the NFL playing for the Dallas Cowboys amongst a host of other teams before returning to the Dallas Cowboys where he retired. The most amazing thing about Herschel Walker from a fitness standpoint was the way he trained. Going against all conventional wisdom, the Herschel Walker workout is the most intense body weight workout I have ever heard of. Legend has it that Herschel Walker didn't touch weights at all until he arrived in the NFL - Instead he performed an intense body weight workout EVERY DAY since high school (as well as sprinting)! In College and the NFL, he was known by most players as being the best conditioned athlete. Apparently, Walker didn't always show signs of being genetically gifted. He mentions being a tubby kid who, more often than not, was picked last for teams. He even tells how his sister constantly beat him in races! And it was through his determination and hard work that he did everything to overcome these challenges.
"Herschel was 12 when he came to me wanting to know how to get big and strong," High School Coach Jordan says, "and I told him what I told the other kids who asked me. 'Do push-ups, sit-ups and run sprints,' I said. He just thanked me quietly and walked away. To be honest, I didn't give it much thought. Herschel was short for his age [about 5'3", 100 pounds], and he wasn't particularly fast, even though he had some older brothers and sisters who were excellent athletes.
"The next time I paid him any mind was that coming fall. I hadn't seen much of him during the summer and when I saw him in September I was amazed at how he'd muscled up. I asked him what he'd been doing and he smiled and said, 'Just running, Coach, and doing my push-ups.' He was getting faster, too, but back then I mainly remember how strong he was for a boy his age. Later that year, when he was 13, we had the tumbling mats out one day and he and I got to wrestling, and damned if he didn't flip me once, big as I was." But though young Herschel had grown larger, stronger and faster, he was still shorter than most of his classmates, weaker than his father and two older brothers and slower than not only a half dozen or so of the boys his age at school but also slower than one of his sisters, Veronica, 18 months his senior, who's now a sprinter for Georgia. Yet he was not discouraged, because he was gaining on them, and because he felt he knew how to gain still more. Coach Jordan had told him how, a year before. Push-ups, sit-ups and sprints. Push-ups, sit-ups and sprints.
But though young Herschel had grown larger, stronger and faster, he was still shorter than most of his classmates, weaker than his father and two older brothers and slower than not only a half dozen or so of the boys his age at school but also slower than one of his sisters, Veronica, 18 months his senior, who's now a sprinter for Georgia. Yet he was not discouraged, because he was gaining on them, and because he felt he knew how to gain still more. Coach Jordan had told him how, a year before. Push-ups, sit-ups and sprints. Push-ups, sit-ups and sprints.
During that first year Walker had done these exercises every day, unless rain kept him from sprinting along the road leading from his house down to the highway. Jordan had never said how much to do, just to do those three things, regularly. To Herschel, "regularly" meant every single day, and by the end of that critical first year he had done more than 100,000 push-ups, more than 100,000 sit-ups and had sprinted nearly half a million yards. He almost always did his push-ups and sit-ups in the evening, while he was either studying or watching television or, more usually, both. During every commercial break he would pump out a quick 25 push-ups and 25 sit-ups or would alternate the push-ups and sit-ups, doing 50 push-ups during one break, then 50 sit-ups during the next, until he had accumulated approximately 300 of each.
As for his running, throughout each summer and on almost every school day in clement weather he would run series after series of short sprints, most of them 30 yards or less, most of them up the hill to his house.Walker also trained with a tire that was a device rigged up by Jordan; it involved putting a 16-pound shot inside a truck tire and attaching the tire to a 15-foot steel cable, which was then tied to a leather belt around the runner's waist. Dragging the tire developed Herschel's leg and hip power, as did his run-without-ceasing assault on the slight grade leading 110 yards up to his house from the highway. "I wish I had a dollar for every time Herschel ran up that hill," his mother says. "Him and Veronica and the other children would race and race. Even me and my husband would get into it. Later on, some of the time when Herschel couldn't get nobody to race him, he'd go out back to the field and chase those horses around. Herschel wanted to be good mighty bad."
Throughout junior high Herschel was to follow this remarkable regimen every day, every year. He grew taller, and by the ninth grade he stood about 5'10" and weighed 185 pounds, and the muscles of his chest and shoulders and thighs were thick and full. But a couple of boys in his grade still could outrun him. And he had yet to beat Veronica. The prescription? Push-ups, sit-ups and sprints; push-ups, sit-ups and sprints. And prayer.
"One of the things I used to pray for every night was for God to let me beat Veronica," Walker recalls. "I promised that I'd train hard and live a Christian life if only He'd let me get faster." Finally, after his sophomore year in high school, he (and maybe He as well) raced Veronica for perhaps the thousandth time, and this time Walker beat her. And then he beat her again.
And, of course, as everyone knows by now, in his junior and senior years Herschel out-or overran everybody else in Georgia. But even during the heaviest workouts of his track and football seasons, he never failed to do his push-ups and his sit-ups and, when he had the time and the light, his sprints. He never lacked the will. Later on, he even added a little distance work. Says Jordan now, "I remember telling him one day early in his senior year that we were concentrating so much on his sprinting, he'd have to get any distance work on his own. Then, a few months later, I called out to his house late one evening and his mother told me he was out for his after-supper run—about four miles. He'd been doing it for months, she said. And all I'd done was mention it."
When assessing the path to his present eminence, the one phrase with which Walker is most comfortable is Hard Work. "I keep hearing and reading about all this talent they say I've been blessed with," he says, "but I don't see it that way. For a long time I never understood I was blessed, except for having such a good family and all. But I do see I have been blessed, though not in the way people think." He pauses, then points to his head. "This is where I've been blessed. Not in my body. People can't believe how little and slow I was. But I was, and I remember. And I know Coach Jordan showed me the way and God gave me the strength to carry on through all those years.
"My mind's like a general and my body's like an army. I keep the body in shape and it does what I tell it to do. I sometimes even feel myself almost lifting up out of my body and looking down on myself while I run sprints. I'll be coaching myself from up above. 'Come on Herschel,' I'll say to myself out loud, 'pick up those knees. Pump your arms.' If an army stopped training it wouldn't take long for it to fall apart. An army needs discipline, just like a man does."
One of the ways Walker trains his almost frighteningly disciplined mind is through the practice of karate. "I got into it from watching those Bruce Lee films, just like everybody else," he says, "but once I began reading and thinking about it, I saw it as a way to discipline myself, my power. Sometimes I train with a local instructor in Athens, but I always do it for an hour or so every night in my room, by myself. I never miss. I think it helps me in sports as well as in my studying. At first I did it because I wanted to be tough, but I think I can say I'm beyond all that now."
If Walker has gone beyond the "get tough" stage—and both his subsequent behavior and his face, which in repose is so very still as to seem somehow Oriental, would tend to support his assertion—he is one of the few Westerners to have so quickly internalized the Zen foundations of karate and transcended the initial generative hostility of most American boys to whom the activity appeals.
He's amazingly disciplined. He always sits in the exact same chair in our team meetings and he sits up straight and doesn't fidget. He pays close attention to everything that's said and he never forgets a thing. Also, he's often the first one to the workouts, and he always does more than he's asked to do in practice or in a game.
"I think that what happened back in Wrightsville when he was a boy—being outrun by Veronica and being small and everything—might have been the best thing that could have happened to Herschel. That feeling he had of not being the best may have given him just enough of a complex to instill that powerful drive to succeed."
The idea gives pause. Physiologists and sprint coaches agree on one thing—the ability to run truly fast is a natural gift; training is said to only marginally enhance performance. A physically mature individual can expect training to provide little more than a 5% improvement in sprinting speed—from a 10 flat 100-yard dash to a 9.5, for example. So, unless the experts are all mistaken. Walker was born with a genetic predisposition for extraordinary speed. Other premier sprinters almost without exception remember having always been faster than their age-mates.
To lift or not to lift, that's the question for Walker, free to choose his own training program. His answer is startling. "Nobody ever really asked me why I don't lift. They only ask me how I got so big without lifting. The truth is, I knew weights would help me. I've seen them help too many football players and too many track men. But up to now my body's gotten stronger and faster every year on my old program, and what I reckon I'll do is to try and see how long I can keep improving without the weights.
One thing's sure. Soon as I don't make gains, I'm going on a good weight program. The way I figure it, all the other guys my age have lifted for years and they've already just about reached their physical potential. I figure that when I kick in with a weight program, it ought to add some solid weight and really give me a lot more power." He smiled as he finished this distinctly thought-provoking statement, made at least partly to himself. Scores of defensive players can testify to the percussive force Herschel already produces, especially when he has the time to take a step or two. When those opponents are either overcome by, or forced to gang up to contain, the shock of a head-on hit by Walker, they at least have the satisfaction of knowing they were bested by a man whose combined size and speed—whose power—is unmatched in history. And is growing, because of a continued genetic flowering and further refinements, zealously pursued, in his basic exercise program. To his regular push-ups Walker has added hand-stand press-ups and push-ups done with someone on his back to increase the resistance. During the past summer he also has included sprint swimming in his routine of upper-body work. The swimming was added when Walker, in the pool by himself one day, noticed that a modified form of the breaststroke, in which his body surges more upward than forward, gave his chest, shoulders and upper back a terrific workout. This past summer he swam every day he was able to get to a pool.
THE PHILOSOPHY
Walker’s philosophy on working out is simple: start every day very early in the morning before the distractions of the day come around, and do that work out without quitting every single day, 365 days a year, 366 on leap years, no matter what. What Walker’s freakishly difficult workout regimen shows is that dedication is the absolute most important part of any workout program. When Herschel Walker was an NFL player he never lifted weights, but still performed at a high level. How many tailbacks get strong enough in “old age” in their thirties to effectively play fullback? That’s exactly what Walker did in his last season with the Dallas Cowboys. Dedication and mental toughness are the hardest parts of Walker’s workout plan. He is adamant that these two factors will do more to insure your success than anything else, and he’s lived the life to prove it. For nearly thirty years he has done the same workout, and he’s never skipped a day.
Of course, it is true that body weight exercises, such as push-ups and sit-ups can do a lot for the human body but these are exercises that need to be respected by those who are going to do them intensely. Doing too many push-ups can easily lead to over training injuries and a lot of muscle soreness. If you do them smart, however, you can really grow your strength and even your size, without ever lifting any weights. That is the magic of the Herschel Walker workout routine, the fact that it allows you to gain the size and strength that you want without having to spend all of your time at the gym.
Just get on the floor every once in awhile and do sit-ups and push-ups until you are at failure. Some people even set their watch to go off every 30 or 60 minutes to remind them to do these exercises. It’s an excellent way for you to get in shape and to do so without ever stepping foot in the gym.
HERSCHEL WALKER’S WORKOUT
Push Ups
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2000 reps
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Sit Ups
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3000 reps
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Pull Ups
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1500 reps
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Dips
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1000 reps
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Herschel Walker: I didn’t grow up with a lot of money. My high school didn’t have a lot of money to afford a lot of the expensive weights. You know all this stuff. They used that as an excuse. I started doing push-ups and sit-ups during commercials as I was watching TV. And started doing about, sometimes 2,000 push-ups, 3,000 sit-ups, 1500 pull-ups, 1000 dips, or different things like that. I started creating different hand positions for all that, and I learned that could work you out.
Below is a more realistic workout to begin with and then increase as your body adapts to this intense daily training.
Push Ups
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1000 reps
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Sit Ups
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1000 reps
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Pull Ups
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1000 reps
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Squats
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1000 reps
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Don't ever underestimate what you are capable of doing...challenge yourself always. Try Herschel Walker's Workout...for fun or to test your mental and physical strength. Just be and if you want to try something..then just GO FOR IT.
