I’m sure you are sick of hearing me talk about this, but another NFL star has gone down with an injury.  Andre Johnson, stud receiver for the Houston Texans, went down last Sunday with a hamstring injury.  We are a quarter of the way through the season and the NFL injuries keep piling up.  In case you missed it, here is my post on why I think NFL injuries are on the rise this year.

Back to Andre Johnson.  The guy is a beast on the field.  Going into the season, you could argue he was the best receiver in the NFL.  If not the best, then in the top 2 or 3.  The guy has size, speed, and strength plus the uncanny ability to catch the football.  He is a five time pro-bowler, but has had issues with injuries throughout the last several years.  Last year, he only played in 13 games.  In 2007, when he was on my fantasy football team, he missed 7 games.  He’ll play through his injuries if he can, but sometimes that just isn’t possible.

So, last Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers, he pulls his hamstring early in the game.  By now, you must know how I feel about incorporating hamstring work into your exercise program.  It is crucial, but if you don’t know my philosophy here is my post on including hamstring exercises in your speed improvement program.

Last month in Men’s Fitness, they had an article about Andre Johnson’s workout program this off-season.  I’m always skeptical if these workouts are actually the workouts these athletes do use.  A lot of strength coaches are very quirky about these things and don’t like to reveal their secrets.  Not like there are really any real secrets out there when it comes to exercising.  Anyways, his program was put in and I’m going to go over his routine and then discuss if I think this workout plan could have caused his hamstring injury.

Andre did a 4 day a week workout and it looks like he did Day 1, Day 2, then rested a day, then Day 3, and Day 4.  That would take you to Friday to use the weekend for rest.  This program should take approximately an hour and basically, you do the first exercise with all the sets required before you move on to the next exercise.  I don’t know the amount of rest time inbetween each set, but you could probably figure it out based on the exercises, number of sets, and that this should take an hour.

Alright, here is Day 1’s Workout:

  • Bench Press – You do 4 sets with your reps being 10, 10, 6, 6.
  • Shrug – 3 sets of 10
  • Incline Bench press – 4 sets of 5
  • Seated Overhead Press – 3 sets of 6
  • A Shoulder Circuit consisting of the following exercises you do one right after the other: Overhead External Rotation w/plate, External Rotation with Elbows at Side, and Lateral Raise.  Do 1 set of 10 for each.
  • Russian Twist

Day 2:

  • Power Clean – 5 sets of 3
  • Squat – 4 sets with reps of 10, 8, 6, 4 (I assume you’re increasing the weight with each drop in reps).
  • Front Squat – 4 sets of 5
  • Romanian Deadlift – 3 sets of 6
  • Pull-Up – 4 sets to failure each time.
  • Two-Point Dumbbell Row – 3 sets of 10

Day 3:

  • Bench Press – 4 sets of reps with 10, 10, 6, 6
  • Shrug – 3 sets of 10
  • Incline Dumbbell Press – 4 sets of 5
  • Dumbbell Press – 3 sets of 6
  • Dips – 3 sets of 15
  • Plate Raise – 2 sets of 10 (This is like a front shoulder raise).
  • Medicine Ball Sit-Up

Day 4:

  • Clean Pull – 3 sets of 5
  • Speed Squats – 4 sets with reps of 10, 10, 8, 8
  • Stationary Lunge – 4 sets of 4 (Just stand with a bar on your traps and lift one leg to top of the thigh parallel, set it down, and repeat on the other leg)
  • Step-Ups – 3 sets of 6
  • Pull-Up – 4 sets to failure each time.

That is the workout shown in the September 2011 edition of Men’s Fitness.  Look, I’m not Nostradamus, but when I look at this program I see an overdevelopment of the quads and not enough individual work for the hamstrings.  The Romanian Deadlifts (RDL) are the only thing that is hitting his posterior.  I don’t want to beat this to death because I’ve already showed you the link to my post, but when you have a guy who is very fast, the hamstrings need a lot of development so that they don’t give out and snap, pull, or strain.  You also want those hamstrings firing in to help reduce the chances of your knee blowing out.

Even with the RDL’s, I still think you could have added a leg curl type movement on that Day 2 and definitely on Day 4.  You need to mimic the running motion as best you can and the only way to do that is by putting in a hamstring curl movement.  This could be a glute ham machine, a manual leg curl, a standing leg curl, whatever it is get it in to offset the overdevelopment you are doing with your quads.

So now he is out and it is time to rehab the injury.  Hopefully, he will be able to bounce back in three weeks.  Luckily, he isn’t on my fantasy team this year.  I’m sorry that was selfish of me to think like that.  I wish him a very speedy recovery, but we know with these speed guys these hamstring injuries can linger on and on.  I tell you with Arian Foster, their stud running back, coming back from his hamstring injury, their athletic trainer should be very good with the rehab.  Now, maybe they need to hold someone accountable for training these guys so they won’t keep pulling their hamstrings.