Kolby Tullier can identify the problem just by watching a little bit of video. He’s been at this long enough.
It could be the way a golfer balances during a swing, or the way a football player cuts left while running the ball. Tullier will be able to tell why an athlete moves the way he does, and more importantly, how his performance can be improved.
“You get kind of good at it,” Tullier says about analyzing the videos clients nationwide send him of their golf drives or their ladder drills. “I can tell what’s weak, and what’s tight, and then I send them a workout.”
Tullier opened his personal training studio, Body Mechanics, in 2002, training everyone from high school athletes and CEOs to those looking to improve their weekend tennis games. Since then, Body Mechanics has become a sweat-filled destination for professional athletes who want exercise programs that focus on specific functions through customized workouts.
“In any sport you can have great athletes who perform and play at a high level, but they can still have imbalances and weaknesses in their kinetic chain,” Tullier says. “I’ll find those imbalances and get them to perform at a level they never dreamed.”
Tullier’s stable of athletes has grown to include NFL players Matt Flynn, Steven Ridley and Terrance Toliver and PGA golfers John Peterson and Andrew Loupe. As Tullier’s interview with 225 was wrapping up, former LSU quarterback Jarrett Lee walked in and started warming up for his workout session.
Word travels fast among pros. Tullier is part personal trainer and part sage.
Recently, he worked with Jared Green, son of former Washington Redskins cornerback and Football Hall of Famer Darrell Green.
“He was a 4.4-[second] kid his whole life,” Tullier says about Jared’s 40-yard dash. “When he came in, I put him through my screen and said, Your glutes don’t function properly, and your calves are over-dominating your quads.’ Darrell looks at me and says, Well, you know he’s pretty fast.’ I was like, He’s not as fast as you think.’ We trained for three months, and at his Pro Day, he went from a 4.4 to a 4.32.”
A Southeastern graduate in exercise science, Tullier was always in the gym and saw the pros and cons of traditional training programs. He was more interested in how bodies move.
“From a functional standpoint, you look at the sport they’re playing, and then you design a program and train the body in such a way that it’s able to perform at the highest level in that sport,” he explains with ease.
For instance, with baseball players, Tullier’s focus is on balance, mobility and speed when turning 360 degrees.
If an offensive lineman needed some work, Tullier would incorporate weight exercises with cables to keep him on his feet while working out, as opposed to lying flat on a bench and pushing up.
“[Peterson and Loupe] were already great golfers, but when they came here, we looked at it from a golf standpoint. You need hip mobility, you need glutes, you need to have core strength, and it’s all rotary,” Tullier says.
Tullier—a Titleist Performance Institute certified expert—helped Peterson add 30 yards to his drive. He takes pride in the fact that none of his NFL guys has sustained injuries yet.
Each knows Tullier is just a phone call or text away. He caters to his players’ schedules. Tullier watches all of his players’ games, and he knows his phone will blow up as soon as the contests end. They’re going to want advice.
“They’ll text me, Man, I’m feeling a little something here.’ So I’ll recommend a stretch. It’s awesome, man. I love it,” Tullier says.
Tampa Bay Rays outfielder and former Tiger Mikie Mahtook connected with Tullier during this off-season. Recommended to him by another major league player, Mahtook says he was hooked on Tullier from day one.
“Core, stability, balance, strengthening different areas that don’t get worked out all the time.He works out the whole body,” Mahtook says. “It was stuff that I hadn’t done very much, and my body responded well to it.”
Mahtook says the Rays concentrated on certain routines that weren’t exactly what he was looking for in a workout. After he met with Tullier to discuss his goals of gaining weight and strength, Mahtook started on a successful five-day-a-week program. Mondays focus on the upper body, Tuesdays are for full-body, Wednesdays are for running and cardio, Thursdays focus on the legs, and Fridays are all about improving flexibility and hip mobility.
Mahtook describes Tullier as “definitely one of the most encouraging trainers I’ve dealt with. They are now good friends. He texts Tullier for workout advice all the time.
“He doesn’t just tell you to do it and expect you to trust him,” Mahtook says. “He’ll tell you to do it, and he explains to you what it does and educates you as you go.”
Professional golfer Andrew Loupe started training with Tullier in December 2012 after seeing the work Tullier was doing with his fellow LSU alum and golf pro John Peterson.
“I saw [Peterson] making vast improvements in his body, and heard nothing but good things about [Tullier],” Loupe says. “The attraction for me—one, he’s located in Baton Rouge, and two, so many professional athletes were having success with him. And Kolby being TPI-certified—he’s been doing this for years and successful for years.”
Tullier performed an assessment of Loupe’s body, range of motion and hip flexibility, and the two got straight to work on improving Loupe’s core, glutes, hamstrings and mobility.
“He’s very, very good at what he does,” Loupe says. “I’m probably 20 pounds heavier than I was when I started with him. My core is really strong, and I’ve actually gained flexibility.”
