NFL players all across the country currently find themselves stranded in their own homes. For many of them, perhaps even most, they live nearby their own teams’ facilities and would have access to their professional-grade workout equipment, not to mention face-to-face and direct guidance from their strength and conditioning staff.
That is currently an impossibility for obvious reasons that don’t need to be explained, but they have been finding ways to stay active. Steven Nelson, for example, recently spoke to Missi Matthews for the Pittsburgh Steelers’ website, during which he outlined some of the things that he was doing to stay fit, including hiking in the nearby mountains of his Arizona residence.
One person you will seemingly never have to worry about staying in shape, even though he is already a couple of years removed from his playing career, is former Steelers linebacker James Harrison, who remains in better shape than virtually any other active player.
Especially toward the latter stages of his career, Harrison became active on social media and got himself trending on a number of occasions by posting some of the outlandish and extraordinary workouts he was putting himself through to stay in peak shape.
He has continued to do that since his retirement, and with so many people around the country being asked or required to remain indoors, it’s not surprising that he is finding time and creative ways to continue to share his workouts.
In what is perhaps his greatest flex yet—metaphorically—Harrison recently posted a video of himself curling a pair of Lombardi trophies. He was a part of the 2005 and 2008 Steelers teams who won the Super Bowl at the end of each of those seasons, although he was a special teamer during the first one (he has said that he gave that ring to his father).
Of course, I would imagine that the dumbbells he is used to curling weigh significantly more than those two trophies. But a lot more work certainly went into earning those trophies than whatever it took to purchase some large dumbbells, and that was, of course, the point.
Harrison’s time with the Steelers ended badly during the 2017 season with head coach Mike Tomlin keeping him on the bench for most of the year behind breakout rookie T.J. Watt, who started at right outside linebacker and continued to play because he was playing well.
It was reported that Harrison began to grow insubordinate, himself eventually coming to indirectly admit he would fall asleep during meetings. It was said that he asked multiple times for his release, but the team only eventually granted it because they had a roster move they wanted to make, and it made sense for them to do so.
Things have cooled off some in the intervening years. I’m not sure how active Harrison is ever going to be in alumni events or anything like that, but regardless of how his playing career with the team ended, he is always going to be a significant part of the Steelers’ history and legacy, as symbolized by his choice of weights during his quarantine.
