Ben Herbert breaks down some of the strongest Michigan players he trained
Michigan Wolverines football head coach Sherrone Moore was asked at a satellite camp this summer to describe his program is one word.
“Physical,” Moore said in front of high school prospects at Wayne State in downtown Detroit.
Moore played offensive line at Oklahoma, and served as a tight ends coach as he rose up the ranks and came to Michigan in 2018. He was promoted to offensive line coach in 2021, and he has confidence that line play will be a strength of his teams now that he’s the head coach.
“We’re going to be violent,” Moore said. “We’re going to be physical. We’re going to be tough, relentless, all the things you want.”
That’s how Michigan has played for some time under former head coach Jim Harbaugh (with the help of Moore and others), flipping the college football world upside down by becoming the first Big Ten team to win the national championship in nearly a decade.
Harbaugh called former strength and conditioning coach Ben Herbert the program’s X-factor. Herbert followed Harbaugh to the Los Angeles Chargers, and one of his staff members, Justin Tress, has taken over the strength and conditioning department in Ann Arbor.
In an interview on the ‘Pardon My Take’ podcast this week, Herbert discussed the pride he takes in watching his teams run the football on game day, putting the training he directs into good use.
“There’s no better feeling. It’s incredible,” Herbert said. “Those type of scenarios, it’s incredible. And I learned it at Wisconsin, when I got there as a player and what we took pride in doing. And then it really became instilled in me to run and pound the rock. Yeah, it’s amazing.”
Michigan ran the football on 32-straight non-penalty plays in a 24-15 win over Penn State last season, with Moore at the helm while Harbaugh was suspended.
“To do it like we did it this year, especially that Penn State game, there’s no better feeling,” Herbert said.
Ben Herbert on some of the strongest Michigan players he coached
Michigan’s strength and conditioning department has been regarded as one of the best in college football, and the Wolverines have been well-represented on The Athletic‘s annual ‘Freaks List,’ which ranks the most elite athletes in the sport. Michigan has had a top 10 ‘freak’ in six of the last seven years, thanks in part to Herbert’s direction.
Herbert was asked about some of the strongest players he’s coached, to which he replied, “Strongest in what?”
“If you said, Turkish Get Up … . I’d describe that to the guys as a movement that challenges and stimulates the body from the tip of the finger, when your arm’s extended, to the tip of your toes,” Herbert said. “It could be a dumbbell, it could be a bar. Standing up with it and then coming down with it, as well.”
Defensive tackle Kris Jenkins, who’s now a rookie with the Cincinnati Bengals, is near the top of the list.
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“Kris Jenkins, D-tackle at Michigan, did it with a 170-pound dumbbell,” Herbert said. “And it was silky smooth. It was incredible. You can see when a guy’s out of control, and you can see when he’s rock solid.”
Former Michigan defensive end Aidan Hutchinson put on a perhaps even more impressive display in the Turkish Get Up, using a barbell with 45-pound plates and no clips at the end.
“Aidan Hutchinson had did it with a bar and he had 45-pound plates on each side with no collar,” Herbert said of the Detroit Lions star. “Because if the wrist … doing it with a 2.5 on each side is one thing. OK, if the plate slides off, if it’s not perfectly stable and it slides off, big deal. They can still stabilize it. If a 45-pound plate slides off one end, the other side is going the wrong way quickly. So the demand [is high].
“I don’t like things that are high reward and high risk. My favorite things are things that are high reward, low to no risk. However, there’s a sliding scale with every movement I choose for the guys. But when Hutch was getting ready to do that, he literally started with a bar, then a bar and 2.5s on each side, 5s and then he worked his way up.
“I knew that if I captured that, it would just give him another feather in his cap of what a freak show he was and what a freak show he is.”
Former Michigan defensive tackle Mazi Smith, a second-year Dallas Cowboy, put up absurd weight and reps on the bench press.
“Mazi Smith, he took 325, I mean, he hit it for 20 reps,” Herbert said.
Current Michigan junior defensive tackle Kenneth Grant also earned a shout out for his speed and agility at his mammoth size (he’s listed at 6-foot-3, 339 pounds on the 2024 roster).
“We had Kenneth Grant, 360-pound D-tackle that ran down that back from Penn State, he went up there,” Herbert said. “We had plyo stairs at Michigan — he went up at 360 pounds. He went up those in like 2.79 seconds.”
