Photo Credit: Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

Photo Credit: Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

Jay Glazer is a small and terrifying man. He’s an NFL and MMA reporter, sure, but he’s also 5-foot-7 ball of mass and strength and intimidation. So it makes sense that pro athletes who want to toughen up (or learn some on-the-field tips and tricks inspired by MMA) would go to Glazer. And that’s exactly what they’re doing, en masse.

In a profile on Glazer’s off-season NFL training sessions at MMQB, Robert Klemko says that all of the players doing the workouts say they are “unlike anything they’ve done.” Among the players who have become regulars at Glazer’s gym? Lane Johnson, DeMarco Murray, John Moffit, and Zach Ertz. And what are they doing?

A typical day at Unbreakable consists of an unorthodox hip-focused stretching session with David Honorel (inspired, he says, by the movements of bears, crocodiles, frogs and gorillas), speed training with Liggin, weight training with an emphasis on safety, MMA work including boxing, wrestling and hand fighting with Glazer, Evans, Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner John Lewis and former UFC stars Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture. Glazer co-owns the gym with Brian Urlacher and Lindsey Berg, an Olympic volleyball player who now plays professionally overseas. Their faces are painted on a gym wall with the word “Unbreakable”, but it’s Glazer who runs the show, transforming fighting drills into football drills. Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham showed up this summer to work on beating press coverage.

And Glazer himself gets in there. He “participates in the Greco-Roman wrestling inspired pummeling drill with players like Lane Johnson … arms grasping at each other’s shoulders, they methodically fight for leverage with alternating shoulders digging into the other man’s sternum. When it’s finally over after several five-minute rounds, he stares up at Johnson with that contagious neutral scowl, then welcomes the next group.”

The whole thing is a good read not only for what some Eagles are up to, but for just how insane and intense Glazer is. I’m actually impressed that Lane Johnson can keep up with him than the other way around.

Kyle: Soooo…. this is how you get scoops– by training players you cover. I need an academy. Kyle’s Pasty Blogger Social Media Camp for athletes who want to learn how to not look like a dick on Twitter. Our inaugural class features DeSean Jaccson, LeSean McCoy and Jonathan Papelbon. Pap isn’t on Twitter, but if he was, he would be a gigantic A-hole. We like to get them early.