Bruce Lombard discusses training Penn State athletes in MMA: BWI Daily

The best football players are trying to gain an edge in any way possible. One of the growing sports trends is to train a player’s hands and reaction time with MMA-style martial arts. One of the original trainers for cross-training football players in this area resides in State College. Bruce Lombard of Lombard MMA developed his MMAFx, which means MMA-football cross-training, over a decade ago. Now, with new NIL rules, he’s allowed to talk more freely about the Penn State players he’s trained and who he’s training now.

Today he sits down with host Thomas Frank Carr on the BWI Daily Edition to discuss his story, how he trains and what he thinks of the Penn State players he’s currently working with. Check out the BWI Daily Edition at 7 pm on YouTube to hear the full conversation. Today we’ll pick out two players he mentioned on the show.

Penn State left tackle Olu Fashanu

Olu Fashanu started working with Lombard last offseason. While he describes his attention to detail-style on the show, he reinforces how the Penn State left tackle has progressed since last summer.

“You know, even if they’re similar athletic ability, it’s really about, like I mentioned, going back to kind of being a learner and like a white belt, as we call it. Martial arts was saying slow, as smooth, as smooth as fast. So you start out slow, get it smooth, and then as it gets smooth, then you could go faster.”

And again, put those natural attributes that athletes have, whether it be speed, power. But the key to learning something new or cross-training is to start out slow. You don’t have to go 0 to 100 in a day. It’s a new sport, and you got to go through the progression and getting better. Athletes will pick it up quicker and all those great athletes. So Olu picked it up pretty quick,” he said on the show.

An interesting nugget from Lombard about striking is that it’s not all about pushing. When throwing a punch, there’s as much pulling back rather than just straight, raw power. For Penn State’s linemen, this can help them deliver stronger point-of-contact hits and to recover better.

“So we’re teaching them how to throw with retraction, which just drops more speed and also teaches them how to miss. So boxing is not just about just learning how to hit a target accurately. It’s teaching them how to miss. So if they’re punching somebody or whatever and they miss, they still have good body mechanics and leverage and balance.

Related: Bruce Lombard, MMAFx, make lasting mark on Penn State football

Whereas if you have bad punching ability or you push punch, and you miss, you’re going to fall off, bounce. So it leaves you with one technique, basically, and then you’re out. So we’re teaching them how to have if they need multiple punches or strikes and still maintaining balance. And if they miss, they’re still right there in the game and then get the next shot,” Lombard said.

Dani Dennis-Sutton impresses Lombard

Penn State’s five-star defensive end Dani Dennis-Sutton isn’t just an impressive athlete, his demeanor stands out more than anything to Lombard,

“I’m impressed. He’s only 19, I think. ‘Please.’ ‘Thank you.’ ‘Yes, sir.’ I mean, not even really necessary because we’ve developed relationship, but what a great guy. And I think what he appreciates is the attention to detail. We try to train perfection. And so we’re in a controlled environment. It’s just him and me, you know, nobody’s punch nowadays, there’s no stress. So in that controlled environment, we want to be perfect because we know in any sport, but in particular combat sports or football, everything loosens up.

The best in the world aren’t going to be perfect every play or maybe at all. But if we’re as perfect as we can in in training, then as we loosen up when things are fast, you’re rocked. Fourth quarter tired. You’re still going to be pretty darn good. It’s almost autopilot. So I’m seeing that he really appreciates that tension in detail so when I’m almost correcting him constantly, he doesn’t sulk.”

Check out the full conversation, including how Lombard trains Penn State players and what other players have stood out to him on the BWI Daily Editon.