Written by Andrew Walker

Indiana University alumnus and former Indiana football graduate assistant, Aaron Wellman, stepped down from his role as strength and conditioning coach at the New York Giants organization, and right into the same role with the Hoosiers. Wellman’s history with IU begins in 1997 as a graduate assistant, then the assistant strength and conditioning coach. After that, Wellman saw the likes of Ball State, San Diego State, Michigan, and the aforementioned Giants in the NFL.

The 15-year veteran joins the Hoosiers after former strength and conditioning coach David Ballou left the Hoosiers to join the Alabama Crimson Tide. The void left by Ballou had to have someone just as passionate and qualified to fill the role. Wellman’s experience in various college programs and the NFL will surely make for a smooth transition that should show results immediately.

Wellman comes into the Hoosier football program in the middle of some very difficult times in our country. It’s especially hard to make first impressions with a player you’ve never met face to face. As hard as it’s been, he’s been trying to make the best out of the situation, holding virtual meetings and being available 24 hours a day for the players via text, call, or FaceTime.

Wellman’s vision isn’t one to be overstated either. With 15 years in the business, he’s been able to whittle down a sense of what he wants to get done in a program. When asked about a mission statement, Wellman asserted that he has to wait to see what the culture is like, he has to watch everyone train, and he’s got to spend more time in the program.

As for his philosophy or main points of emphasis as a coach? He had some more to say about that. “...we want to maximize the speed, strength and power and the movement efficiency of our athletes and we want to minimize inappropriate orthopedic stress, which means inappropriate orthopedic stress comes from too high a volume, too high a frequency, too high an intensity or poor technique. ...We don't want to allow poor movement in our program. We want to coach hard every day, and that's through hiring a staff of great coaches who subjectively can see those things and can communicate and motivate the athletes and make corrections on the fly.”

Wellman’s experience in the NFL helped him reach a strong conclusion about the way collegiate athletes were being treated. He had the ability to write up a custom strength, conditioning, and nutritional plan for each player individually when he was with the Giants. He’d like to bring that to the college game, partly because he was able to see the players that weren’t able to get that kind of treatment in college. Wellman went on to explain, “...we progress to individual needs based largely on where the window of greatest adaptation is for the individual. In other words, does he have a significant window of adaptation with regard to strength or with regards to speed, and what we do is we just influence his program more so towards those barriers to performance. We identify his strengths, make sure we are still training his strengths but really we shift program to focus on what are those barriers to preventing this individual from achieving top performance, and that's where our program tends to shift towards for each individual.”

Wellman truly believes that Indiana Football is at an all-time high right now. It appears as if Wellman and Tom Allen, together, are approaching this upcoming season like it’s a game changing season. Wellman’s faith in the team is second to none. “I think this university and this athletic program, I know Coach Allen, the commitment level here is as great or greater than any school in the country,'' Wellman said, “and our facilities are second to none from a football standpoint and really from an athletic department standpoint.

The Huddle

New IU Strength Coach Aaron Wellman Wants to Maximize Efficiency and Minimize Orthopedic Stress

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