What an NFL Training Camp is Really Like
fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com
fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com
"The players who end up making the team and having a sustained career in the N.F.L. are the ones who can process these details and apply them quickly."
So very relevant to any pursuit. If you can learn and change with agility (pun somewhat intended) you have a much greater chance of success.
Aside from perhaps the boot-camp aspects, the rest seemed vaguely familiar to how other ambitious, high-performance groups work--constantly pushing to improve, an emphasis on getting it right to the expense of protecting anyone's pride, and often very long hours of very hard work.
I wonder how the NFL players would fare at elite military training; P Company or All Arms here in the UK, Ranger School in the US, etc.
F'rinstnace I was reading on Wikipedia just now that at Ranger School soldiers are fed a very restricted diet that results in weight loss of 20-40lbs, I imagine the NFL guys would consider that counter productive.
For an extreme example, consider SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) training. This is an extensive course intended to prepare personnel for everything that can go wrong behind enemy lines--how to survive off the land when separated from friendly forces (downed aircrews, for instance), how to evade capture, and what to do when one is actually captured (the "resistance" and "escape" portions). While the early portions of the course cover comparatively "fun" subjects, the later portions involve being subjected to captivity and abuse. The intent is to train people to resist torture and escape from enemy POW camps.
It's interesting to see how these players experience such highs and lows during a season, they often get to the point where they would just quit but somehow manage to keep going. Great motivational book.
I've never heard of a high school team that didn't have two-a-days and film every day in the pre-season. In fact, judging by this article, my high school's football team spent a lot more time practicing on the field than the pro's do. I'm sure those long practices helped with strength and conditioning, but I wonder if their technique and skills would have improved more quickly with more recovery time.