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This story is part of Men’s Health‘s NFL Strong 2026 package, a series of stories that explore how athletes build and maintain strength for the ultra-physical game of football. Read all the stories here.
PART OF THE beauty of each NFL season is how football reminds us just how versatile strength can be. Because yes, being “strong” can mean dominating the bench press and squat. But to truly apply that strength, you need other traits, too, like the hard-earned spinal mobility of our cover guy, Pats QB Drake Maye, and the hip flexor strength of Rams RB Blake Corum, and the explosive strength that lineman Tristan Wirfs showcases every time he does a 365-pound power clean.
All these strengths (and more!) collide with each other in every single NFL game. And there’s no one single way to train to build all this speed and power and athleticism.
This year’s MH Strong squad is full of muscle – and plenty of training tips that can help you level-up your own workouts, too.
OFFENSE
Quarterback
Drake Maye
Patriots, 6’4’’, 235 pounds
Sure, the MH cover star has muscle, but he’s also proof that strength is most useful on the football field when paired with mobility. Maye added roughly 10 pounds to his frame this offseason while still focusing drills that kept shoulders and spine loose. He used that same blend of skills to finish among the top 5 QBs in both rushing and passing yards in 2025.
Running Back
Blake Corum
Rams, 5’8’’, 202 pounds
Few players can match the training highlights of Corum, who routinely does jumps from a Bulgarian split squat position and often does high-knee runs into a resistance band to build sprint strength. He backs it up on the field, too: Last season, his churned out 5.1 yards per carry, sixth-best in the NFL.
Running Back
Derrick Henry
Ravens, 6’2’’, 252 pounds
So much for running backs declining by age 30. Henry, now 32, racked up 1,595 rushing yards last season, the third-highest total of his career. He relies on a variety of moves to stay healthy, doing proven performance moves like trap-bar deadlifts and mixing in Bulgarian split squats with unstable weights, too.
Wide Receiver
Davante Adams
Rams, 6’1’’, 204 pounds
Adams relies on classic exercises in the weight room, supplementing that work with full-speed route-running on the field. The approach works: He led the NFL in TD catches in 2025, his 13th year in the league.
Wide Receiver
Amon-Ra St. Brown
Lions, 6’, 202 pounds
St. Brown’s racked up four straight seasons of 100-plus catches and missed just two games in his five-year career. The key to that durability: An old-school bodybuilding-style training regimen that includes high-rep sets of moves like biceps curls and leg extensions (and a hearty helping of heavy squats, too).
Tight End
Kenyon Sadiq
Jets, 6’3’’, 241 pounds
The Jets’ 2026 first-round pick has it all, blending a massive, muscular frame with lineman-level strength (26 bench-press reps at 225 pounds) and sprinter speed (4.39 40-yard dash). Oh, and he can jump, too (43.5-inch vertical).
Offensive Line
Tristan Wirfs
Buccaneers, 6’5’’, 320 pounds
Few athletes in any sport can match the explosive power of Wirfs, who hang-cleaned 365 pounds with ease earlier this summer and once jumped directly from pool to deck despite being submerged in four feet of water.
Offensive Line
Lane Johnson
Eagles, 6’6’’, 325 pounds
The six-time Pro Bowler blends size, athleticism, and real-world strength (he’s done farmer’s walks with more than 700 pounds – and he loves the move for grip strength and total-body conditioning). He’s also the ultimate gym rat, constantly evolving his training methods. His newest toy: The Sorinex X-Factor, for total-body strength and power development.
Offensive Line
Dion Dawkins
Bills, 6’5’’, 320 pounds
Buffalo’s ultra-powerful left tackle spent the summer dropping more than 45 pounds to get to his lightest playing weight since his rookie season, but he hasn’t sacrificed power (he benched 405 pounds while training with Lane Johnson in June). He gets plenty of sweat outside the weight room too: Dawkins loves boxing workouts.
Offensive Line
Aaron Brewer
Dolphins, 6’1’’, 295 pounds
Since becoming a starter four years ago, Brewer has missed just one game, and he spends plenty of time each summer training agility and quickness. One ultra-athletic move: Brewer will kneel on his shins, then explosively jump from that position onto his feet, then jump directly onto a box, an exercise that requires explosive hip and glute power.
Offensive Line
Quinn Meinerz
Broncos, 6’3’’, 320 pounds
Meinerz, who made his first Pro Bowl last season, is proof that you can train anywhere. He benched 225 pounds 33 times on his Pro Day in 2021, has done CrossFit workouts – and spent the offseasons of his pre-NFL years often training outside with trees and lumber (and a few weights, too).
DEFENSE
Defensive Line
Myles Garrett
Rams, 6’4’’, 272 pounds
A fixture since we started doing MH Strong All-Pro teams three years ago, Garrett, now 30 years old, is coming off his best season. Garrett’s workouts blend classic strength moves (plenty of squats and bench presses) with explosive exercises done with heavy load (he sometimes does box jumps while holding heavy dumbbells).
Defensive Line
Aidan Hutchinson
Lions, 6’7’’, 268 pounds
How’s this for resilience? Hutchinson notched a career-high 14.5 sacks last season, just one year after a fractured tibia and fibula led him to miss 12 games. His workout key: Explosive lower-body training with trainer David Lawrence at Meca Strong. Hutchinson also does plenty of upper body maintenance work, too, attacking moves like ring rows and face pulls.
Defensive Line
Will Anderson, Jr.
Texans, 6’4’’, 260 pounds
Anderson went viral on social media after a bulked-up photo of him was shared along with the rumor that he had packed on “25 pounds of muscle.” He denied that, but Anderson, who once ran a 4.6-second 40, definitely put in work this offseason, training alongside Garrett with veteran trainer Brian Buck.
Defensive Line
Aaron Donald
Rams, 6’1’’, 280 pounds
After a two-year “retirement,” Donald returns to football at age 35 – and he’s definitely worked to stay in shape. Donald, who has 111 career sacks, builds his training around the basics, doing moves like dumbbell presses (with 150 pounds!) and Smith machine RDLs. He focuses on moving the weight fast, which helps maintain explosiveness.
Defensive Line
Danielle Hunter
Texans, 6’5’’, 263 pounds
Hunter entered the league in 2015 with a unique blend of speed (4.57-second 40) and strength (25 bench-press reps at 225), and he just keeps getting better. Last season he exploded for 15 sacks (the second-best total of his career), and he showed up in Houston training camp looking superheroically muscular.
Linebacker
Demario Davis
Jets, 6’2’’, 239 pounds
Iron man linebacker has played at least 16 games in every season since entering the league in 2012, and he’s gradually evolved a workout regimen that keeps him healthy without always lifting heavy weights, integrating pool workouts and weighted vest training. He estimates he spends close to $1 million on his body every year.
Linebacker
Devin Lloyd
Panthers, 6’3’’, 235 pounds
Blends solid speed (4.66 40-yard dash) with strength (25 bench-press reps at 225 pounds), and an athletic lean, 235-pound frame. With his trade to the Carolina Panthers, Lloyd is looking to pick up where he left off, putting in serious offseason work in Florida doing French Contrast training that alternates between heavy lifts and plyometric exercises to build strength and explosive power.
Defensive Back
Cooper DeJean
Eagles, 6’, 198 pounds
Just how athletic is the Eagles’ 2024 second-round pick? He ran the 40 in 4.43 seconds at his 2024 Pro Day, piled up 93 tackles in his second year in the NFL – and has gone viral several times for highlight packages of his high school dunks.
Defensive Back
Devon Witherspoon
Seahawks, 6’, 185 pounds
League’s highest-paid cornerback has speed (has run the 40-yard dash in under 4.5 seconds), the strength to hang with top receivers like Garrett Wilson and Ja’Marr Chase, and physicality (70-plus tackles in each of his three pro seasons).
Defensive Back
Derwin James
Chargers, 6’2’’, 215 pounds
Ultra-versatile safety was all over the field last season, tying a career-high with three interceptions and scoring a pair of sacks, too. He trains with a mix of techniques, embracing MMA and Olympic lifts, but he still finds time to sharpen bodyweight moves like leglifts, pullups, and dips, too.
Defensive Back
Derek Stingley Jr.
Texans, 6’1’’, 195 pounds
Stingley, who has 15 career interceptions in four seasons, developed his change-of direction ability and speed partly by training on a non-powered treadmill while growing up. By sprinting forwards, backwards, and laterally on the device, he learned to create powerful force into the ground; that’s translated into explosiveness on the field.
SPECIAL TEAMS
Kicker
Cameron Dicker
Chargers, 6’1’’, 216 pounds
No, Dicker won’t break bench press records. His training serves the skill set he needs to improve, which means kicking plenty of footballs throughout the week, and when it comes to weights, he keeps it lower-body focused. It’s an approach that’s working: He’s currently the most accurate kicker in NFL history.
Punter
Ethan Evans
Rams, 6’3’’, 253 pounds
NFL’s most jacked punter has squatted 585 for two reps and can deadlift 800. But he doesn’t just lift heavy: This summer, he hit trap bar Romanian deadlift reps with more than 400 pounds, building eccentric glute and hamstring power, too.
Player headshot credits: New York Jets 2026. Getty Images.
To read other stories in Men’s Health’s NFL Strong 2026 series, click here.
