Jacques Cesaire Makes Groton His Off-Season Training Ground

Smack in the middle of Poquonnock Plains Park’s bastions of green grass, there was a 300-pound man wearing a yellow and black parachute accelerating at a rapid pace.

It wasn’t a sky-diver landed from a descent off a US National Guard Blackhawk helicopter. It was National Football League player Jacques Cesaire doing a speed and straight running drill with trainer Greg Drab of Advantage Personal Training in Mystic.

Watching the imposing Cesaire, a nine-year NFL veteran now with the San Diego Chargers, trudging down the field is not something you see every day around here. But the site is not unique to a handful of local scholastic and collegiate football players who have trained with Drab.

Cesaire, husband of a Fitch grad, the former Jill Murray, has trained off-seasons with Drab since 2005. He played collegiately at Southern Connecticut State.

“He’s prolonged my career,” Cesaire said. “He puts together a program to get me through a 16-20 game NFL season. Since I started training with Greg in ’05, he’s cut my body fat in half, I’ve dropped 10 pounds and have become more agile with more endurance. We’ve been going good together."

UConn’s All-Big East guard Ryan Hurd of Waterford, a hopeful NFL free agent once the lockout ends, joined the workouts earlier this month. Ledyard’s Tim McNeil, a former Colonel 1,000-yard rusher who is now a fullback at Sacred Heart University, and Denzel Allen, a former LHS football and track standout now at UConn, are also regulars.

Monday’s workout consisted of straight running with a parachute attached to their waists or a 45-pound Olympic weight chained to them. Tuesday includes speed and agility drills with numerous running drills around cones. Thursday offers football specific drills, backs work with backs and linemen with linemen, and Friday is a wild-card day featuring “a whole lot of crazy stuff,” Cesaire said.

As a product of the violent life of an NFL lineman, Cesaire said he has suffered numerous injuries in his NFL career.

“Life in the trenches is tough,” he said. “I’ve had three knee injuries, two shoulder surgeries and two elbow surgeries since ’05. When I come back to the area after the season, Greg and I assess the injuries and work on a rehab program to strengthen them to 100 percent.”

Drab offers weight training and cardio workouts in his Mystic gym studio. He incorporates field work to replicate game-like situations. The 5-9, 210-pound McNeil flunked the Sacred Heart preseason practice conditioning test before he hooked up with Drab.

“Backs had to run 100-yard sprints in 17 seconds or less in 16 attempts with only 45 seconds in between each 100,” McNeil said. “It’s not fun, but I passed it in my sophomore year after an off-season with Greg’s training. I’ve never been in better shape than I am now.”

Cesaire's recent workouts have intensified with the optimistic news surrounding the NFL Labor negotiations. Owners have locked out players from team training facilities since March, making workout sessions such as Drabs the rage all over the country.

“We’re definitely going to be back to work," Cesaire said. "Both parties are negotiating and the lawyers are dotting their I's and crossing their Ts to make sure we’re back on the field soon."

Drab believes reports of an NFL agreement within 10 days or so has elevated spirits within his small group.

"Now it looks like there is a date that Jacques has to be ready by now that the lockout seems to be ending," Drab said. "We love having him training with us. What happens when anyone trains with Jacques, the intensity just moves up another level."

Last week on a 94-degree day, five Fitch players trained Cesaire and Drab. Drab still has openings in the next few weeks for high school players to train in areas usually not covered by scholastic weight training sessions.

"It's a lot easier to be sitting by a pool on a day like that, and it would have been understandable for them to make an excuse not to be there on the hottest day of the year," Drab said. "But the kids pushed it seeing someone who plays on TV work so hard. It was great to see."

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