Have you ever had a moment when you initially thought something was a good idea but then slowly realized it was actually a bad one?
As I watched Southern Miss strength coach Todd Makovicka work out the Golden Eagle baseball team’s freshmen at 8 a.m. with death metal music blaring, all I could think about was what I had gotten myself into.
As Makovicka yelled at his players like a drill sergeant, I asked an assistant coach if his old college workouts were this intense.
“They were intense,” he replied. “But it was nothing like this.”
Just a day later, it would be my turn.
This is the first of a three-part series that gives an in-depth look at how not only college athletes train but also how an average Joe can do various Division I workouts. The Pine Belt News was granted access to do a workout led by Southern Miss baseball’s head strength and conditioning coach Todd Makovicka — more affectionally known as Coach Mak.
Since Makovicka joined the program, the Golden Eagles have played in Super Regionals in two of the four years in his tenure.
THE SCIENCE
I was challenged with what is simply referred to as the newcomer’s Day 1 workout, which is what freshmen, junior college and transfer portal players will be welcomed with when joining the program.
Several coaches made it a point to mention to me that it’s not uncommon for the incoming freshmen to puke after this Day 1 workout.
“It’s our way of setting the standard of the etiquette of the weight room and attention to detail of how we squat, or how we do certain mobility drills and stuff like that,” Makovicka explained. “It doesn’t matter how physically developed our guys may or may not be. We start them all from square one.”
This workout is used to measure the incoming players and establish some of the team’s everyday routines moving forward. As players get further into the program, different exercises and drills are introduced, and each individual player’s routine becomes more specific.
Here’s the caveat: Due to NCAA restrictions, the team is only allowed one hour and 15 minutes to warm up, explain what they will be doing, and then actually work out — a challenge that Makovica has conquered with a science.
“It knocks out three birds with one stone,” Makovicka said. “It’s not just a bunch of weight movements. It’s mobility drills. It’s core drills. So I get to work on injury reduction protocols while on sports performance protocols and getting conditioning all in one setting.”
In case you didn’t catch a certain detail, Makovicka is a stickler for perfect form when performing any exercise. For me, this adds extra mental stress to already doing workouts outside of my comfort zone. For context, I ran track and cross country in high school, and my daily exercise centers around that, so any kind of heavy lifting is not something I prefer to do.
Just a day earlier, I watched my temporary trainer yell at one of his players like a drill sergeant to ensure perfect form. I did not want that to be me.
WARMING UP
The workout is divided into four segments that typically contain at least three exercises.
The first part is the warmup – which indeed lives up to its name. This is the process that the fans will see players do just before a game. True to the exercise of this story we do all the warmups on the Pete Taylor Park turf field on what was easily another 90-plus degree day.
Each warmup is catered to what specific muscle I’ll be using during the day – hindsight being 20/20, this was a warning for my quads, which three days later were still in pain.
The routine includes lateral lunges, forward lunges, and a single-leg Romanian deadlift (RDL), which was perhaps the most frustrating for me to master and, unfortunately, would come back to haunt me later. Mackovicka mentions that it’s one of the hardest stretches to master properly.
A single-leg RDL requires you to raise one leg with your foot arched forward. You then extend that leg behind you as you bend forward.
After three reps on each leg, I briefly make the mistake of putting my hands on my knees.
“We don’t do that!” Makovicka yells. “That’s your warning.”
Then Makovicka has me do the “world’s greatest stretch,” which like the RDL is challenging but feels amazing. You drop down to a pushup position and then bring one leg level to your hands. After you tap your knee to the ground, you then lock your knee up and then raise your hand and look back as far as you can.
I then hit a squat for 30 seconds – another warning I failed to notice. We then close out the warmups with a brief plank, side plank and then a hip raise.
By the end of the “warmup,” my body is already sweating pretty well, but I mistakenly attribute that to the outside heat.
THE WORKOUT
We immediately jump in the workout, which starts with front squats – something I haven’t done in 10 years.
It’ll be four sets of five reps.
Although I incorporate basic squats into my normal workout routine, these squats create new pain in my lower half. Again, it’s because Makovicka is so precise in ensuring my form is correct. The biggest correction I have to make is to ensure that my elbows remain high as I hold the bar.
The problem I religiously run into is that the more tired I get, the sloppier my form gets. It’s why Makovicka is paid the big bucks as he’s quick to stay on you if you get out of place.
I then do a wall slide which is meant to work out my shoulders. It’s almost like a wall sit but it’s for your back and shoulders. Oddly enough, my shoulders feel sore almost immediately.
“Pairing it with the front squat is not only a great drill to warm up the upper back so you can be more stable on the front squat,” Mackovicka explains as I struggle to keep my lower back on the wall. “It’s also training shoulder flexion and extension of the arm and that is the movement that everyone on the baseball field needs to possess.”
I finally get through the squats, but then there is the prairie stretch, which involves getting on all four knees while you hold a plastic rod. It’s not terrible; that is not until the coming days. For the next three days, my quadriceps and hamstrings will be so sore that using stairs will become a challenge.
At the same time, I also began to pick up an audience of Southern Miss baseball players who happened to come into the gym to get their casual workouts in. I tell starting right fielder Carson Paetow to stick around if he’d like a good laugh.
CALORIE BURNER
The second set, Makovicka says, is easier.
It’s not.
The next set is stop and go between the “good morning” exercise, which requires you to stand on a dense resistance band that you put over your shoulders. Then you hinge at the hip and push your butt back for 12 reps. Doing this after front squats was not ideal.
But then my least favorite exercise returns – the RDL lift (cue the evil villain music). The only difference this time is that I’m using a plastic rod lined up on my back. Struggling to get it right proved extremely frustrating. Coincidentally, I look over and catcher Tucker Stockman is putting himself through the same exercise – just way better than I ever could.
I check my Apple watch that’s tracking my workout, and at the halfway point, I’ve already burned 500 calories. On average, Southern Miss players will burn over 1,000 calories per workout.
“Everyone thinks the strength coach is meant to kick your butt,” Makovicka explains. “It happens, but I don’t write a workout of how I can make you tired. That’s easy, but the challenge is how do I make a program that’s intuitive to the development of our baseball team?”
I couldn’t say it at the time, but Todd was kicking my butt.
THE WALL
As the light of the end of the tunnel approaches at this point I feel I have held my own.
After working out for nearly 50 minutes and dripping in sweat, the final set gets the best of me.
It’s a nonstop workout, as I start with a double bench press. That’s followed by TRX row, which involves straps that are suspended from a single point and use the body’s weight to build muscle. That’s why, earlier in the warmup, I did planks.
To put it simply, these suck.
I was supposed to do the exercise in three sets of 10 reps from a four-way plank position. That did not happen.
“In my program, I have a one-to-one ratio of strength work, stability work, and mobility work,” Makovicka said. “If I’m doing a strength movement, then you best believe that there is some sort of mobility, stability and core parameter with it.”
Between trying to maintain perfect form and not having the strength to do it while drenched in sweat, this was the root of my demise. Instead, I would complete them from a standing position at 10 reps.
I closed out this trifecta of hell with a moving plank. It’s exactly what it sounds like. You place your feet on a pair of sliding plates and then put yourself in a plank. Then, you extend your shoulders out and bring yourself back to the plank position. Again, I was supposed to do this for three sets of 12 reps, but instead, it turned into three sets of five reps.
I close out the day with my final dumbbell bench press. Makovica simultaneously counts down each downward motion to the count of six. Once both dumbbells are aligned with my chest, I anxiously wait for Makovica to say “up,” signaling that the next rep can commence.
With 815 calories now burned, I finish my fourth set of dumbbell bench press 35-pound weights.
Makovicka grades my overall performance with a C+. For a brief moment, I’m proud of that.
But then, I look over and see relief pitcher Ben Riley Flowers doing the same dumbbell bench press, and it’s with 75-pound weights in each hand.
It’s a reminder as to why I never became a college athlete.
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