TEMPE, Ariz. – When Kyler Murray returned home to Texas after his rookie season with the Arizona Cardinals, he took two weeks off to rest, recover and recuperate, then it was off to the daily grind of preparing for Year 2.
Waiting for him was his longtime trainer, Stephen Baca.
The two started working together when Murray was a sophomore at Allen High School and Baca was just beginning at Performance Course, the gym in Allen, Texas, that Murray has worked with in one way or another for the past seven years.
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Together, while executing the training plan put in place by Cardinals strength and conditioning coach Buddy Morris, Murray and Baca replaced the weight Murray lost during the season, kept his legendary speed and added bulk that Baca hopes will make him more durable. Murray added somewhere between 7 and 9 pounds of muscle, Baca said. He also increased his flexibility and range of motion meant to prevent injuries.
Few, if any, know Murray’s body like Baca. The two have developed a brotherly bond, all the way down to the smack talk in the weight room. Baca isn’t afraid to call Murray a “prima donna” to his face but said it’s all in good fun. In reality, Murray is as far from that label as anyone Baca has come across. Murray spends time at Baca’s house, eating dinner with his family, playing with his infant son and regularly beating Baca at chess.
“He’s like my older brother to me, family,” Murray said. “As far as off-the-field, on-the-field issues, I can go to him with anything. He’s family.
“So working with him, I’ll probably work with him ’til I’m done.”
And when Murray, the reigning NFL Rookie of the Year, showed up at the Performance Course gym in mid-January, Baca knew this offseason was going to be different.
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To build his leg strength, Murray used a pit shark, a smaller, shorter machine used for belt squats around the waist instead of a traditional back-loaded bar squat. The pit shark “doesn’t load your spine” and instead allowed Murray to squat with a hip-loaded action.
By lifting lower weights quickly, Murray was able to keep his reps in the four-to-six-second range, which is about the time of an average NFL play. Then his recovery between sets was about 40 seconds – the time of an NFL play clock – so his workouts mirrored what his body would be going through on the field during a game.
But Baca’s best method for keeping Murray fast this offseason was to have him run fast. And to have him run fast a lot.
Depending on the week, Murray would run sprints totaling 100 yards, broken up into about eight sets – so four 15-yard sprints and four 10-yard sprints, for example. Murray intertwined those with what Baca called “tempo runs,” which were longer distances – 50, 60, 70, 80 yards – at 75% to 80% that were focused on working on his stride techniques. He also went through single-leg exercises, plyometrics, hopping, jumping, leaping and bounding workouts with Baca.
The ultimate goal, Baca said, is to make sure Murray will be as fast in the fourth quarter as he is in the first quarter.
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“He’s always had really tight hamstrings, but that shows because he’s so explosive,” Baca said. “With somebody as explosive as him, you’re going to have hamstring issues just period, because you’re asking a lot of your hamstring to do.”
To get Murray’s hamstrings in proper condition to be the brakes he needed them to be, Baca had him do single-leg slides, glute bridges, band hamstring curls, single-leg RDLs, which is bending at the waist and lifting one leg in the air, and unilateral leg work.
Baca compared Murray’s hamstrings to a Ferrari. When the sports car is going 100 mph, it takes more effort to slow down than when a regular car is going 65 mph.
“So when he does hit on the brakes, it’s gonna require a whole lot more from him on the back side,” Baca said. “So there’s always been an emphasis for him to make sure that his hamstrings were strong and were able to handle the explosiveness.
“And his hamstring since the moment he’s been explosive, they’re playing catch-up. And I feel like they’re finally caught up, because we’ve had an entire, you know, block of six months.”
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Murray’s teammates noticed when he showed up in Arizona looking bigger. And pass-rusher Chandler Jones understands why.
“Yeah, Kyler is definitely bulked up,” Jones said. “His arms and shoulders look a little bit bigger. He also has a tan. I also make fun of him, ‘You have a tan,’ but Kyler is definitely bulked up, and that’s gonna be good for him, especially in this league.
“There’s no quarterback that doesn’t go through games without getting sacked. That’s just the way it goes. He’s fast, but when he has a little bit more meat on his bones, he can take hits, so that’s going to be good for him.”
“I saw him, and he looked a little buffer,” said safety Budda Baker. “He’s definitely thicker. … He definitely seems faster, stronger arm.”
Murray’s teammates hype him up in the weight room because of his new bulk, wide receiver Christian Kirk said. But they’re also impressed that a quarterback is willing to put his body through that type of weight training.
“It’s good to see him because most quarterbacks aren’t willing to go in there and bench and do biceps and whatnot,” Kirk said. “But he’s all about it. He gets after it in the weight room.”
“I’ve always been a hard worker,” Murray said. “I didn’t try to go in the weight room and put on weight. I think it’s just the maturation of getting older, working out.”
