Bret Bielema, known for his tenures at Wisconsin and Arkansas, has not only made headlines for his coaching career but also for his commitment to personal transformation through diet and exercise. This article explores Bielema's approach to fitness, his past struggles with weight, and how his dedication to a healthier lifestyle mirrors his efforts to rebuild football programs.
Bielema's Weight Loss Journey
Bielema has openly discussed his weight struggles, particularly during his time at Arkansas, where he admits the pressure of the job led to poor diet and exercise habits. However, in recent years, Bielema has embarked on a significant weight loss journey. After the Citrus Bowl upset of South Carolina, Bielema told the Sun-Times he’s down 75 pounds. He’s taking walks and doing cardio twice a day. He’s hoping to shed another 50. He has emphasized the importance of diet and exercise in achieving his goals.
Diet and Exercise Regimen
While specific details of Bielema's current diet and exercise plan are not extensively outlined, he mentioned incorporating grapefruit into his morning routine. “In the morning, I start off with one grapefruit. I’ve had 14 days of that now,” he said. “I loved grapefruit 14 days ago. I don’t know about that now.” He also incorporates walks and cardio twice a day into his routine.
Parallels to Program Building
Bielema's commitment to personal fitness reflects his approach to rebuilding football programs. Just as he identifies and addresses areas for improvement in his own life, he applies the same principles to the teams he coaches. This involves instilling discipline, fostering accountability, and creating a positive environment where players can thrive.
Rebuilding the Hogs
Bielema's impact extends beyond the football field, influencing the overall culture of the programs he leads. At Arkansas, he inherited a program with disciplinary issues and academic struggles. The rebuilding of the Hogs links back to Bielema’s extensive off-field cleanup. A program with an average of one arrest every 45 days in 2012 has experienced one arrest every 483 days since his hire. To address these challenges, Bielema implemented a comprehensive approach that focused on academics, discipline, and personal development.
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Instilling a Winning Culture
Bielema opened the doors of his program for two days this spring to provide a glimpse of the intricacies of instilling a winning culture. From bringing kale into the weight room to teaching lessons about Steph Curry in the meeting room, a belief in paradoxical core philosophies-discipline and fun-emerged. They’re the same tenets that allowed Bielema to capture three straight Big Ten titles at Wisconsin, and he plans on using them to win an SEC championship at Arkansas. “I don’t know if it’s gratifying as much as I just knew,” Bielema said in his office in June.
To fix that, Bielema infused the program with the same duo of strict discipline and positive energy that helped him churn out victories at Wisconsin. He ratcheted up the importance of academics and roamed around practice in flip-flops. He cranked up the intensity of off-season conditioning and also the volume of reggae music in his office. He made players grind to improve in the weight room, but also made a sincere effort to get to know them. His players found his office mentality mirrored his preferred method of driving-doors open. “The coaches were like, ‘Why don’t you come in our office to talk?'” Williams said.
As he enters his third season, the culture has embraced accountability: those 21 F’s dwindled to five last semester, and the team GPA in summer sessions was 3.0.
The "Hoganese" Philosophy
Smith also introduced the concept of teaching a program’s language like it’s a three-credit college course. At Arkansas, the team adopted “Hoganese,” which is essentially a glossary of Bielema’s football beliefs and sayings. Twice a week this summer coaches met with players for an hour to teach “Hoganese.” “What I want them to understand is we have an opportunity to create our own culture,” Bielema said.
Lessons from Adam Brown and Steph Curry
To reinforce that line of thinking, Bielema assigned his team some summer reading: Fearless, a book about Adam Brown, who overcame an addiction to crack to become a Navy SEAL. Finally, Bielema talked about the underdog story of reigning NBA MVP Stephen Curry, who was lightly recruited coming out of Charlotte Christian School.
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“We’re a little bit like Steph Curry here at Arkansas,” Bielema said. “Not everyone thinks we can do it. The only one that’s going to make that decision are the ones that are in here now.
Overcoming Past Challenges
Bielema's experiences at previous coaching positions have shaped his understanding of program building. He acknowledges that he learned valuable lessons at Arkansas, particularly regarding the importance of recruiting and developing depth on both lines of scrimmage.
Since getting fired, Bielema has thought a lot about what worked so well at Wisconsin and what didn’t work at Arkansas. The biggest difference between the two, he believes, was how well he understood the Badgers’ program before he took over as the head coach after spending two years as Barry Alvarez’s defensive coordinator. “I want to go into a situation where you know everything that’s going on,” Bielema said. “I didn’t have to worry about uncovering land mines halfway into the job.”
Bielema estimates that he’d spent about 24 hours in Arkansas in his entire life before taking the Razorbacks job. At Wisconsin, he knew exactly what the program’s strengths and deficiencies were. Plus, Alvarez had provided a spectacular blueprint for success. At Arkansas, Bielema had to learn all that on the job. The fallout from Bobby Petrino’s firing and a disastrous season with John L. Smith as the interim coach necessitated an overhaul, but if you examine Bielema’s record, he actually came through that part O.K. The 2015 season, when the Razorbacks went 8-5 overall and 5-3 in the SEC, seemed to indicate a turning of the corner.
But Bielema admits he didn’t initially realize how deep a team needed to be on both lines of scrimmage to succeed in the SEC West. The Razorbacks didn’t have that competitive depth, and it became apparent in Bielema’s final two seasons. That isn’t an issue that can be fixed immediately through recruiting, either. The big guys require several years of development.
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