Tereshinski: 'We are attacking where we've been weak'

Last week I had a chance to sit down with Joe Tereshinski, the newly-elevated strength and conditioning coordinator for the Georgia football team. The story is now posted at Macon.com, and here's an excerpt:

“So I do see where we were getting beat. I do see where our weaknesses are,” he said. “And so that’s what we are attacking. We are attacking where we’ve been weak.”

So what does all that “attacking” entail? Tereshinski doesn’t want to get too specific because he wants to keep the training habits in-house. After his first workouts in January, players started tweeting about how strenuous the workouts were. Backup quarterback Hutson Mason tweeted, “I call this a good hire! Hard work aint enough!”

But Tereshinski told the players to cut out the tweeting. He also scoffed at the players reacting to how tough the first few workouts were.

“That’s how it’s supposed to be,” he said.

At first I was told Tereshinski would only have 20 minutes, but it turned to a bit more as he got going. The man loves to talk about his craft, and is obviously excited about the job.

“When (Mark Richt) asked me to go into strength and conditioning, that’s where my passion is," Tereshinski said, in a quote that didn't make my story. "I love working with young men.”

There was one other thing that couldn't make it into my story that I wanted to pass along. Tereshinski says one factor that hasn’t gotten much notice is that because of construction, the team has been moved to a different weight room, and for the previous 18 months had been largely operating out of trailers. They didn’t have much room for equipment: No dip bars, no incline presses, and some other machines.

“Last year’s team was very limited, really because of the facility, of what they could get done," he said. "So we were very weak in our triceps. We were very weak in our upper chests. So what happens is now that we have our full weight room capacities we’re really going to be able to develop our bodies fully. ...

“That did affect this team. Because Georgia did not have anything that it was used to having. Now we have an unbelievable weight room, and we have everything we need.”