Over the last several years, a number of head coaches have endured high-profile health scares, often brought on by their high-stress jobs. Those incidents sparked a number of those in coaching to move their personal health up their priority list and now many coaches, including Urban Meyer at Ohio State, have built in a mandatory one-hour workout period for their staff at some point in the day.
Rich Rod is among those head coaches who finds some time to work out at some point each day, and his workout of choice is the StairMaster...and he doesn't just get on it to breeze through a workout, he's all about torturing himself on it.
Last week, Rich Rod talked about his love/hate relationship with the StairMaster, and how more kids need to use it.
"I hate it, but I can't sleep or function without doing it just about every day. I've got a StairMaster at home, one at my vacation place, and about seven in the weight room. They've got these new ones now that are really fancy, but I prefer the old one, you know, where the stairs disappear and it clangs a little bit with the old-school chain."
"You can hang on to the bar, but not too much. I think the StairMaster's the greatest piece of exercise equipment ever invented, and I hate doing it, but I like to eat. I don't want to disparage anybody about the elliptical, because any kind of exercise is good, but that, to me, is just kinda soft. It's almost like you're skiing on a downhill slope. What the hell is that?"
"Get on some stairs and climb to the top. Put it on level 20 and just torture yourself. I'm all about the health of the country. We've got to get more youth on StairMasters. If they're in shape, they can even play their video games. Just get your ass on the StairMaster."
You heard the man. Get your ass on the StairMaster - the "greatest piece of exercise equipment ever invented" - and stay away from those soft ellipticals.