Brandon Meriweather throwing weight around at Punch Gym

EAST PROVIDENCE — If the NFL’s lockout ended today and training camp opened in a day or two, Brandon Meriweather knows he’d be more than ready to play football.

 If Bill Belichick needs any proof, he can head over to the Punch Kettlebell Gym in Rumford. In a sometimes-intense 60-minute workout on Tuesday, the Pats’ All-Pro safety and a friend, James Roberts, were put through a cutting-edge set of exercises by gym owner Anthony DiLuglio.
 Instead of the traditional strong-guy drills dominated by bar bells, the Punch workouts offer a wider variety of tests that feature kettlebells, ropes, power jumping and even Strongman logs. Meriweather and a growing legion of NFL players are big boosters of the program.

 “I‘ve been ready since April 1,” said Meriweather. “Seriously, I’m ready. I’m about 207 (pounds) now. I’m running, I feel good, I’m strong. All the things I needed to work on, I did. I’m ready to go.”

 Meriweather left Punch on Tuesday morning and headed to West Warwick to appear at a camp run by ex-teammate Ellis Hobbs. Then he planned to fly home to Apopka, Fla., hopefully for the final time before the start of the 2011 preseason. But don’t ask Meriweather for any inside info on the latest lockout news. Like many fans, the four-year veteran has grown tired of the legal back-and-forth that’s dominated the football landscape for the last several months.

 “To be honest, after about two months of the lockout I didn’t pay too much attention to it,” he said. “It seems like everybody knows more about the lockout than I do because I don’t watch TV. I don’t watch (ESPN’s) SportsCenter. I don’t like to get my hopes up and get brought back down the next day. I feel like that’s what SportsCenter’s been doing. They said 100 days ago the lockout should be over and now they’re saying the same thing.”

 While the potential changes to salary structure and free agency could affect players such as Meriweather, he says he has a quick plan if he’s asked to vote on a potential new labor deal.

 “When I get an e-mail saying it’s time to vote, that’s when I’ll call (Matt) Light and Vince Wilfork and Tom (Brady) and the people who I know understand what’s going on,” he said. “That’s when I’ll put my ear to the ground and see what I can find out before I vote.”

 When the Pats do hit the field again, Meriweather will be one of the team’s most important players. Evidence of that came in a recent ESPN poll in which fans were asked to vote for the best possible starting lineup for a team that would play from 2014-16. Meriweather (at strong safety) and kick returner Brandon Tate were the only Patriots to make the cut.

 This is not news to DiLuglio, a Cranston native who’s introduced kettlebell training to not only Meriweather but also Jerod Mayo, Darius Butler and a slew of other Patriots. His first taste of the NFL came when Tennessee Titans assistant strength coach Jason Novak became a disciple and sold the theory to his boss, Newport native Steve Watterson.”

 “This is great for football because we believe in drills to build resilience, lower-injury rates and build confidence,” said DiLuglio.

 Kerry Taylor, a former Patriots lineman, is now an owner and trainer at Punch Gym and sees the gains pro players can make through the program.

 “With kettlebell, it’s your whole body moving weight, not lifting weight,” said Taylor. “It’s a whole range of motion that you’re not used to doing, adding different aspects of training into what they do.”

 While Meriweather and Roberts worked on one side of the gym with DiLuglio, other trainers put a dozen middle-aged men and women through similar drills on the opposite side of the large room that occupies prime space in the renovated Rumford Center. Meriweather seemed to get the most enjoyment out of clean-and-jerking a 210-pound log that looked like it just fell from a redwood forest.

 “We work out with a lot of different tools and weights. It’s not traditional bench press, squats,” he said. “We do different things with weight. You can’t get these things from an ordinary gym. Now I go into a regular gym and am pretty much puzzled because I don’t see that stuff as helping me as much.”

 DiLuglio met Meriweather through Mayo, another Patriot he considers a “lifer” who owns an unbending work ethic.

 “There are guys that do this for a living and guys who do this for a job. This is his life,” DiLuglio said of Meriweather. “Guys like Brandon, Mayo, Brady, it’s in their bones. I can’t teach him a better skill set for the game, but I can give him more confidence and more resilience and we can build on that.”

 DiLuglio says he has a close relationship with Harold Nash and Moses Cabrera, two Patriots’ conditioning coaches who believe in kettlebell training. Meriweather says he’s happy to keep up the drills, wherever they are offered.

 “I took like two weeks off after the season and then I started working out on my own. Then I got into the groove of it, heavy,” Meriweather said. “I feel like the stuff A.D. does you can’t find nowhere else. I feel it separates players from the pack.”

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(projo.com)