Inside Nebraska football’s newly built weight room within the Osborne Legacy Complex, the Husker coaching staff has everything they need to develop a bigger, stronger football team. Rows of massive metal lifting racks span the entire room with red “Ns” emblazoned on plates and benches alike. One side of the weight room contains an adjustable turf hill used for incline training, while the other overlooks Nebraska’s outdoor practice field.
Within the sea of benches and lifting stations, head strength and conditioning coach Corey Campbell has enough space to conduct a roster-wide training session if he desired — something which was not possible in NU’s previous weight room within North Stadium. “Being in the one previously, we kind of saw the holes, the gaps and the things that we needed to equip our players with to be able to train in the way we want them to,” Campbell said. Because of his focus on the small details and finer techniques of lifting, Campbell opts not to do so.
However, he said that NU’s new weight room is an “advantage” for the program on account of its size and scope. The capability is there for Nebraska coaches to improve physical performance — so how do they make it happen? For Campbell and his staff, everything goes back to the hierarchy of athletic development. The performance model can be visualized as a pyramid where different basic skills must be mastered first before the training stacks up and leads to overall growth.
At the base.
