Strength and conditioning coach Will Stephens, entering his 12th year at Duke, plays a critical role in the development of our players while running the show in one of basketball’s finest weight rooms. After a voluntary summer workout with a few of the guys yesterday, Coach Will fielded questions about workout keys, lifting in the summer vs. the winter, The Beast, and more…
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How was the workout today?
The guys did a good job, they worked hard. Guys were able to break some barriers they have been working on and get a little stronger.
Tell us a little bit about your approach in the summer versus the winter and basketball season?
In the summer, we do a little bit more, the workouts are a little bit longer, a little more involved, so we are able to do a little bit more volume training. In season, it is a little bit different because we don’t have as much time. Workouts are a little shorter because the guys are doing a lot of basketball training at that time. During the summer, we are concentrating on weight training and the guys are playing a lot of pickup games and things like that.
How has our new weight room helped you prepare the guys?
Well, the weight room is a lot larger than the one we had, we have a lot more equipment. We are able to do a lot more different types of training. Having a lot more equipment, the guys are able to do more. In the old smaller weight room, we didn’t have as much equipment so we weren’t able to train as long or as hard. Now we have so much stuff in here, we can get a lot more work done and our kids have benefited from that so far. We’ve been in here for a year and a half now, and our guys are really starting to see some good results from their work here in this weight room.
Who is the strongest Duke player you have worked with?
Well, there have been a few so I hate to name a certain player or players by name. Nate James was a really strong player when he was here, Shelden Williams was another guy with a lot of strength. Those two in particular come to mind. There have been a lot of guys that have been really strong basketball players. Nate was here when I first started working with the team and Shelden was just a beast in the weight room.
What do you like best about working with our guys?
We have really good kids here, great people, and they work hard. They come in, whether we are lifting weights, doing conditioning or agility workouts, or I am watching them play basketball, they compete hard and take pride in working hard. That is a staple of our program.
Do you have a favorite exercise in the weight room?
Well, today we were working on upper body. I try to work in everything, I don’t have a particular exercise I like over others. We are just trying to build our whole body, getting stronger everywhere. That is what we focus on.
What type of mindset do our players need to maximize their time in the weight room?
As far as your mentality, you have to have a lot of confidence in the weight room. I think in the weight room, you do develop the confidence you need to play the sport you are playing. I think a lot of it starts in the weight room, based on how you are able to attack the weights, come in with a positive attitude, not be intimidated by what you are doing, and just bring a lot of intensity and confidence in with you. Over time, you are able to develop that strength that you need and eventually take that out on the court. So, I think the weight room is a big part of obviously what we do here in basketball but in any sport that you play.
I was walking by earlier and heard you blaring heavy metal with some intense power lifters going hard on the TV. What type of atmosphere are you trying to create with that?
Yeah, I try to create a good atmosphere. I am kind of old fashioned so heavy metal music to me is just music that gets you hyped up and gets you in that mindset of just wanting to go out and tear up something, be aggressive. I am trying to help get the guys in that crazy mindset to come in here and work hard. I am not a big heavy metal fan but it grows on you after you listen to it for a while.
After workouts during the season, I’ve heard some of our guys talk about “The Beast.” What or who is The Beast?
The Beast is that little voice that is in your head when you are getting ready to do something hard telling you that you can’t do it. I just gave it a name. It is an imaginary figure that I named and reference when the guys are working in here. I will say the beast is talking to you, telling you can’t lift a certain amount, you can’t finish a run, little things like that to motivate them to work even harder.
When you see a guy really knock out the beast, how happy does that make you?
It is all about our guys overcoming something they haven’t done before. A personal best — whether it is in the weight room, whether they were able to run, do one of our conditioning workouts and make times they haven’t made — makes you happy as a coach because the kid is growing as an athlete.
So would you say The Beast was defeated today?
I think we got The Beast down, knocked him back down in the basement a little bit. I think he took some good shots and we’ve got another group coming in so hopefully we can get a few more shots in and get him down on the ground again and get him to tap out for us.
Tags: "william stephens" "the beast" "weight room" "k center"
