Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey reveals his secret to increasing strength and power without putting on more muscle mass.
Christian McCaffrey is something of a physical outlier in the NFL. Standing at 5’11 and weighing just 207 pounds, he’s definitely one of the smallest pro football players. But his small stature hasn’t stopped him from carrying the Panthers through an all-star season and cementing himself as one of the greats of the sport. McCaffrey talked about his fitness journey and revealed his number one workout trick: the Trap Bar Deadlift.
The trap bar deadlift is, essentially, a modified squat. The trap bar refers to the type of bar, which splits the weight more evenly in comparison to a traditional barbell. The deadlift part of the name means, you guessed it, he drops it straight down after a lift rather than placing it there:
McCaffrey’s trainer Brian Kula spoke with Stack MVP about this fitness philosophy: “We just feel like it prevents any type of back injuries and allows [Christian] to get into really good positions that he’s going to hit on the field. It also allows us to pull really heavy weight, which is what we’re after.”
In this type of exercise, you really increase your power by concentrating on a high amount of weight with low amount of reps. This could be an important lesson for shorter bodybuilders with frames similar to McCaffrey; if you’ve already maxed out your muscle mass, it’s better to work smarter, not harder. This is what gives McCaffrey such an incredible edge on the field and allows him to outperform athletes that sometimes have 50 or 60 pounds on him. Even though football and bodybuilding are very different sports, it’s nice to see how much each sport — and the athletes participating in them — can learn from one another.
