NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The big speakers on the black, rubberized floor thumped and Zach Wood emptied the tank throwing a flurry of fists at the two targets that took a beating and kept coming back for more.
“Yes!” shouted Keith Director over the din of the mid-aughts rap playlist, “That’s what I want!”
There was 20 seconds left. … then 10.
Director pushed the pace while Wood, the New Orleans Saints’ long snapper, grimaced and kept up. Pop, pop, pop - Director replacing the mitt in front of Wood’s face every time he’d knock one down, like a game of Whack-a-Mole, but the whacker is drenched in sweat and exhausted.
Time! Wood dropped his fists and put his hands on his knees, sucking for air. A few feet away, Saints kicker Wil Lutz didn’t look like he was faring much better after going through a similar drill. Director, the owner and lead coach at Director Boxing & Fitness, monitored the clock for the next round. In about 20 seconds, they’d trade places and start back up again.
This year has been challenging on countless fronts. For Lutz and Wood, whose livelihood is closely connected with their fitness, one of the difficulties has been finding a way to prepare for the season when the coronavirus pandemic disrupted their usual routine. Lately, that has included weekly sessions at Director Boxing, ramping up the intensity with full team practices set to begin in about a week.
Lutz missed out on a couple months of weight training he otherwise would have gone through. To stay in shape when he couldn’t be in a gym, he purchased a Peloton. At Director Boxing, he found a sort of physical tuneup at the precise time.
“Everyone has had to adapt,” Lutz said. “… (Director) allows us to make up for lost time.”
Director opened his gym in the Irish Channel about three years ago. He offers classical boxing training there - a red, white and blue regulation-size ring sits in one corner of his warehouse - as well as high-intensity fitness classes to small groups. Director styles them after a boxing fight, with each sequence of exercises designed to mimic a round in a fight.
Lutz and Wood heard about his gym through social media. Director works with coach Sean Payton, as well as several of their teammates’ wives, and Lutz followed their activity on Instagram.
Though his facility is a fitness home to plenty of high-profile clients, Director makes a point out of treating everyone who walks through the big bay door the same.
“I don’t care who you are,” Director said. “Everybody’s the same to me.”
Director stood a full head shorter than the two professional athletes. He showed up to the session with a Saints ballcap pulled low over his bearded face, and his form-fitting T-shirt tucked neatly into his shorts. He began the workout and rarely stopped moving, keeping the energy high throughout. He is the kind of person who sounds like he talks with his hands.
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“He said, ‘You kind of have to have a screw loose to do this,’” Wood said. “And I said, ‘You certainly do, man, but in all the best ways.’”
They started with plyometrics then worked their way into boxing drills, with Director and his fellow trainer Emmett “Scooby Doo” Wilson urging Wood and Lutz on. Director described Wood as someone with “cement hands” and he meant that as a compliment. When he worked with Lutz, Director goaded him into hitting harder.
They took the gloves off and rolled into more high-intensity interval training (HIIT). The exercises still felt tailored to boxing, movements focused on transferring power from the lower half of their bodies into the upper half.
“You’re using your whole body in everything you do, and I think that’s the best way to train,” Wood said. “Especially in what we do. He needs his whole body to kick, I need my whole body to snap, and if we can work on that at one time, strengthen all that up to make everything work as one unit? That’ll translate to the field way better than anything else we can do.”
The tempo was merciless, short intense bursts of energy followed by what felt like even shorter rest periods.
Lutz has a phenomenally low resting heart rate - he shared a photo a few weeks ago showing his resting heart rate at 38 beats per minute. He believes that helps him in high-pressure situations, but he said he also sometimes struggles to keep his heart rate high during cardiovascular exercise.
This knowledge is part of why he’s liked going to Director. He was wearing a WHOOP heart rate monitor during his session at Director Boxing, and over the course of an hour his average heart rate was 143.
When offseason gatherings were canceled earlier this summer, Payton challenged the Saints to show up for training camp in peak physical shape.
Drenched in sweat after an hour in Director’s gym, Lutz said, “I can honestly say I’m in the best shape of my life.”
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