Barry Sanders Workout Routine

Barry Sanders is a former professional American football player that had a hefty career. He played as a running back in the National Football League, from 1989 to 1998 for the Detroit Lions. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest running backs in NFL history and that showed throughout his whole career, earning him multiple awards such as the NFL Most Valuable Player, Bert Bell, NFL Rushing Champion, and more. In addition to his football journey, Barry Sanders was also known for one other thing, and that’s his impressive physique. With that being said, how did he manage to get so big? In other words, what was Barry Sanders’ workout routine?

Barry Sanders’ workout routine mainly consisted of classical strength training using compound exercises such as bench presses, parallel squats, and power cleans. Additionally, football training also played a huge role in his physique.

In this article, we’ll talk about the main reasons that allowed Barry Sanders to reach his physique including his workout routine.

Barry Sanders Stats

Before getting into his actual workout routine, let’s first establish some of his latest basic stats (as of 2022):

• Age: 54
• Height: 5’8”
• Weight: 208 lbs
• BMI: 31.6
• Body fat percentage (during his prime): 13 to 16%

As you may have noticed, Barry Sanders has an average height of 5’8”. This allowed him to appear extremely big, especially with the amount of weight that he packs. In addition to that, during his prime, he has a body fat percentage that was low enough to make him look lean and pop out his muscles. 

Barry Sanders Body Transformation

In this section, we’ll talk about how Barry Sanders’ body progressed over the years to see how he managed to build such a physique.

Ninth Grade

During ninth grade, Barry Sanders stood at an even five feet tall and weighed about 105 pounds. Throughout those years, he was always encouraged by his father to pursue his football dreams. With this, Barry ran and lifted weights with serious effort. Since he was short at that time, he had to make up for it with even more hard work. At this time, his bench press was about 95 pounds.

Sophomore

During this time, Barry was 5’3” and weighed only about 125 pounds. As you can tell, his progress was really slow. His bench press rose slowly from his ninth-grade max. 

Junior Year

With Barry’s work ethic, by this time, he managed to reach 5’6” in terms of height and weighed about 160 pounds. His bench press increased to about 270 pounds which was amazing for his age. He also improved his speed and his explosiveness so he managed to reach 34 inches in terms of vertical jumping. Throughout this year, Barry Sanders was also obsessed with playing basketball which was adding spring and muscle ligament-tendon strength to his legs. 

Senior Year

During this time, Barry Sanders grew even more in terms of size and height. He was 5’8” and weighed about 175 pounds. In addition to that, his bench press increased to 300 pounds. The main reason behind these drastic improvements was the fact that he started playing for his high school’s football team.

Before joining Oklahoma state’s potent offense, Barry didn’t increase in terms of height, but he saw a massive gain in terms of weight, standing at about 195 pounds. With this, he was able to bench press about 360 pounds, parallel squat about 556 pounds, and power clean 365 pounds.

Barry Sanders Workout Routine

Before talking about his workout routine, let’s see what Barry Sanders said in this matter(source): 

“I’ve been lifting a long time. I try to work out as hard as I can. I wouldn’t be where I am now without weights. They’ve made me fast and quick, with a bigger body weight. Also, I’ve never been hurt. Flexibility is a big part of my training. Some people neglect stretching, but it’s important. I do it for running style. I see some backs tighten up when they break open, and they get caught. The greater your flexibility, the more relaxed you can be when you race for the goal.”

As you can see, Barry Sanders’ workout routine mainly consists of classical weight lifting. Additionally, and from the looks of it, he focuses on heavy compound exercises that target multiple muscle groups such as bench presses, squats, and power cleans. This allowed him to improve his lifts drastically throughout his body transformation journey and change from a scrawny 105-pound kid to a 195-pound beast. He also emphasizes stretching and flexibility and considers them to be just as important as weight training.

Football training also played a big role in his physique as well as his love for basketball since he played them ever since he was a kid. 

Conclusion:

If Barry Sanders is someone that you look up to, or if you’re an aspiring football player and want to achieve the same physique that he had, here is what you need to do:

• Join the gym and focus on compound exercises such as bench presses, squats, and power cleans, lift heavy, and shorten your reps (6 to 8 reps max to work on strength rather than endurance).
• Give importance to stretching and flexibility just as you do to your strength training.
• Practice some kind of sport such as basketball in addition to football.
• Stay consistent even if your progress is slow.