“I remember when I trained football at Cincinnati and we did it for about three weeks,” Ivkovich said. “Finally, all the coaches and I said, ‘Listen, this is turning into a disaster.’ The guys weren’t buying into it. It just turned into a mess-around session.
“The same thing happened when I did it at New Mexico State with my basketball guys. That lasted about a month.”
Players contort their bodies on mats while listening to New Age-style music under the guide of a female instructor. It’s not the typically macho, “no pain, no gain” workout they’re accustomed to, which makes it a tough sell.
“This is the first time it’s really worked out well,” Ivkovich said. “When you bring in somebody from outside the program to run anything like that, the kids can lose interest in a real hurry. And it can be kind of tough to monitor. But we’ve got a real good group of kids when it comes to that stuff. They’re respectful of people from the outside. They’ve all bought into it.”
The Flyers have been doing an intermediate program for a couple of months, and UD head coach Archie Miller said yoga is ideal for “preventing injuries and building core muscles and flexibility. It’s big in the NBA.”
Jordan Sibert, a junior guard who transferred from Ohio State, has seen the benefits in building strength in his left leg, which he fractured before his senior year at Princeton High School in Cincinnati.
“My biggest improvement is my jumping ability,” he said. “Since I broke my leg in high school, I haven’t been able to jump off one leg like I’d like to. But now, I can do everything I did in high school again.”
Sibert was known as a high flyer during his prep days, but he never displayed that athleticism in two years at OSU.
“A lot of people didn’t see that at Ohio State because I was still recovering,” he said. “Now that I’m here, people will see it again.”
Of course, the bulk of what the Flyers do under Ivkovich is weight lifting, and he’s seen several players make big gains.
Sophomore forward Dyshawn Pierre, senior guard Vee Sanford and Sibert have all put on eight or more pounds since the end of last season while improving the maximum lifts.
Sibert could only practice with the Flyers last season after transferring. And while he also trained with Ivkovich three times a week to make up for missed games, his workouts with the team this offseason are much more intense than those solo sessions.
“When he finally got into that group setting again, he made a really, really big jump,” Ivkovich said. “For a kid his size — 6-3 or 6-4 as a 2 guard and weighing 200 pounds — he’s a hell of an athlete. He’s about as strong and powerful a kid as I’ve had in a while.”
Matt Kavanaugh, who missed last season because of a school suspension, has been slowly rounding into shape. The 6-foot-10 center weighed nearly 270 pounds when he rejoined the team six weeks ago, about 20 more than he did as a starter in 2011-12.
“He came in kind of heavy, which was expected,” Ivkovich said. “We’re starting to melt him down pretty good. Since he came in on day one of the summer, I think we’ve melted off between eight and 10 pounds so far. He’s got about another 10 or 12 to go before he’s at fighting weight.
“But the kid will train as hard as any kid I’ve had. He’ll do anything you tell him to do. If you say, ‘Matt, you’ve got two weeks of conditioning on an extra basis, he won’t bat an eye. He’ll show up and go as hard as he can every time.”
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