Cleveland Browns: Who is Adam Beard?

The Cleveland Browns are taking a new approach to fitness under Adam Beard, one that the club hopes will start to pay dividends on the field this fall.

The Cleveland Browns are going full steam ahead on their latest rebuilding efforts in an attempt to wake the team from a slumber that enveloped the franchise since 1999.

The work has extended from the front office to the coaching staff and a rebuilt roster and, perhaps most interestingly, to the weight room where Adam Beard has taken over as the team’s director of high performance.

Beard is in his second season with the Browns after spending six years with the Wales national rugby team, where he helped transform a squad that won two Six Nations titles and a semi-final berth in the rugby World Cup. He spent his first year with the Browns as an observer to learn the culture of an NFL team.

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“I think with science coming in, you’ve got to find a way of helping that culture and helping the sport without changing the sport.” – Adam Beard, director of high performance

“When I first came over, I was asked by (Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam) to pick the low-hanging fruit, but if I would have picked it too early, culturally it may not have been the right way to assist the sport,” Beard told the team’s website.

“That was the best thing for me to understand things the way they’ve always been and how I can enrich that rather than just changing it for the sake of what I’ve done before.”

Beard’s approach to fitness involves designing customized training regiments for each position group to enhance the skills needed during games.

“Each group is different from the other (and) it just makes sense not just with the science but (within) the football model,” Beard told cleveland.com. “It was right there for us. It just took going around and talking with players and coaches. I think players and coaches have really enjoyed it.”

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In addition to the functional side of training, Beard also is a proponent of the scientific approach as, among other things, he introduced the use of cryotherapy and altitude chambers to help player recover from injuries and help with their training.

While he hasn’t brought that to Berea (yet), Beard is bringing several technological changes to the club. The team is now tracking players’ sleep patterns and has been using computer chips during practice since last season to track each players’ effort, for example.

“Whatever methods we can utilize to get better, we’ll utilize,” Beard said. “It’s having a look at what helps the sport, not what helps us in the weight room. The weight room should help us on Sunday, that’s it.

“At the end of the day, it’s about Sunday. It’s about the game. I looked at those questions, how can we get better, how can we win, how can we train better.”

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As the new approach to just about everything shows, the Browns are making a true commitment to exploring new avenues to finally turn around a franchise that has posted double-digit losses in 11 of the past 13 seasons.

If Beard’s work with the Wales rugby team is any indication, the Browns may be on the right track in at least one area of the rebuilding process.

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