- The LA Rams' Von Miller won his second Super Bowl. He previously won Super Bowl MVP in 2016.
- Despite being six years older and coming off a torn ACL, Miller played to his vintage MVP form.
- Miller credited a long-distance, full-body workout near the Golden Gate Bridge for his performance.
Von Miller reminded the world he was once a Super Bowl MVP on Sunday, and an intense circuit at the Golden Gate Bridge helped him get there.
The 32-year-old linebacker recorded two sacks against the Cincinnati Bengals and helped the Rams claim their first Super Bowl championship since returning to Los Angeles in 2016.
That was the same year Miller won his first Super Bowl ring and MVP award with the Denver Broncos. But then he missed the playoffs each of the next four years and suffered a season-ending leg injury in 2020 at the age of 31, which some speculated would lead to retirement.
But Miller came back in 2021, and after a mid-season trade from Denver to Los Angeles, he got his chance to be a Super Bowl hero again.
He says he might have never gotten that chance if it weren't for a long-distance, full-body workout he does every year in San Francisco, California, under the instruction of highly exclusive trainer Frank Matrisciano, known to his clients as "Hell's Trainer."
Miller is not alone — Matrisciano's clientele spans from active military service members to NBA stars like Blake Griffin. Would-be clients clamor to get his number through word of mouth (he has no publicly available contact details) to join his program around the Golden Gate Bridge, according to SFGate.
Still, Matrisciano, a life-long Rams fan, told Insider that Miller is his favorite client, and has trained him six months a year for the last four years.
The full-body cardio circuit is designed by "Hell's Trainer"
Miller has been working with Matrisciano since 2017.
Miller said he does a cardio circuit that starts at the sand hills near the Golden Gate Bridge, and he carries a medicine ball or other weighted object all the way to the top of the bridge's tower, and then brings it all the way back down to where he started.
"We would run up these sand hills, and the sand hills would be like 60 yards at an incline and I'd have a 20-lb weight vest on and I'd be holding a 20-lb ball in my hand," Miller told Insider. "And then we would run up the stairs."
"It took us about 45 minutes to go up there, we would walk all the way up, and we still took the medicine ball, run the trails, run the stairs, and then go all the way back down."
Matrisciano added that the workout doesn't just help Miller's endurance — it's a full-body workout that builds muscle in every part of his body.
"I say 'pick up something heavy' and then your shoulders, your biceps, your chest, your back, your legs, everything is working, because you're climbing up this steep steep incline," Matrisciano told Insider. "It also builds the mental side, because you have to carry it on the way down, because on the way down you have to control that weight ... you have to balance your body with momentum bringing you down."
Miller said it's the hardest workout he's ever done, but the thing that makes it effective and do-able because of the focus that Matrisciano instill in his trainees, by not updating them on their progress throughout the whole thing
"The things that make his workouts unique is he doesn't give you that, he just tells you to go," Miller said. "That is important for me because you never know how long a game is going to last, you just need to go, go, go!"