LeCharles Bentley and Josh Hansen argue that loaded steps, a popular offensive line drill, actually slow players down. Shifting weight to one side before moving forces extra effort to initiate movement and reduces velocity, Bentley says. He warns coaches against following coaching fads without biomechanical evidence.
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Welcome back to O-Line TV. I'm LeCharles Bentley. I am joined by the one and only Mr. Josh Hansen. You don't see it right now, but there's some other cameras around and we're shooting this live as well on Facebook. So if I mess this up, then I can't edit it. Everybody is seeing it as I'm kind of going through this. But I want to discuss something that we're seeing becoming relatively popular. In the coaching community, and that's what's called loaded steps. And that's the idea of your player shifting their body weight to either side in order to move more effectively. Well, we've discussed this at length with the OLP team, and I'm not going to try to allow my emotion to come out on this because I feel very strongly about it. There's so much that we see in the coaching community that's monkey see, monkey do, and oftentimes it hurts our player development processes. And this is one of them. It's one of those things that we've talked about at length over the years and it just fundamentally makes no sense. But I think the best way to approach this is always through facts, not emotions. Too much emotion in this O-line community as it is. So let's just keep it 100. Ain't that what y'all say nowadays? Keep it 100. Emoji 100. Let's keep it 100 right now. So where we're going to go is this way. The fact is, in order for your players to move and we get Josh down here in the stance and he say, you know, we're going to take a pass set to the right. So he suddenly shifts his weight. To the left. He's now shifted his center of mass. That's not good. Why is that not good? Because we all— and I can say this because I believe this to be true— we all want our players to play with speed and/or a high level of velocity. That's what we're looking for. This is why you see so many coaches doing plyometric training or even sending their kids to speed coaches to be faster, more explosive, more dynamic. We agree, right? Because I think that gives us the best chance to be successful. But when we shift our weight, so Josh is now going to have to take a pass set to his right. He has more of a loaded stance or a loaded step on the left side. This means he's going to have to apply more force through this left leg in order to get his body to move. The more force your players have to apply to achieve movement, that dampens their velocity. That means it lowers it. So you can't play with a high level of velocity or speed if your center of mass is not even. Furthermore, if your weight is off balance or your center of mass is shifted to one side or another, the fact is you're going to have to apply more— I say that clearly— more force to move your body. That application of more force hurts your athlete's ability to then play with speed. So I ask you this question, coaches. If you're one of those people that subscribe to the idea of shifting weight in one direction or another because you believe that it gives your players the best chance to play with more power or more speed, that is factually incorrect. I hate to burst your bubble and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I'm very proud of myself because I didn't get emotional about it. I just gave you the facts. And you can do with facts whatever you want to do with them. Just, you can turn them to what you want to be, but they'll always remain this, facts. And if you want your players to be put in situations to be as successful as possible, I beg of thee, work in a world of facts. Not opinions, not emotions, not in ideals, not in the cult of O-line play where I believe what this guy says or I believe what this guy says. Let's all kind of just remove that element and get down to the bare studs of what true player development is about. And that's the facts. So now you got it. Heard it firsthand. I hope this helps you. Keep working hard. Keep working to be the best you can be. And we're going to keep working to provide you the best opportunity to achieve what you're looking to achieve with your player development. Thank you very much.
