Pro Bowl left guard Steve Hutchinson was honored Thursday when he was named to the inaugural USA football/NFLPA's all-fundamentals team.

Hutchinson was one of 26 players who were recognized for their fundamentals on the field and their involvement in the community. Hutchinson has been named to six consecutive Pro Bowls and he's very involved with the University of Minnesota Children's Hospital. Hutchinson talked about the importance of fundamentals and how much he works on them every week. "It's hard, especially at the end of the year," he said. "Your body is sore, it's tired. It's a lot easier to just bend at the waist than it is to stay low with your knees and come off the ball and place your hands. All those things that as a fan you really don't get to see on TV because we're not really the big focus of the network cameras, the interior line and the guys up front. It's stuff when you are at practice here and you're doing the things day-in and day-out those are the things you want to focus on. Really it's the same game you played when you were 10 years old. It's just bigger guys that you are going against." Hutchinson said sound fundamentals have played a major role in his success as a player. "Pretty much any guy can attribute his success to what he has learned and that's a lot of what we do," he said. "The whole off-season, OTAs and the mini-camps there is no game planning. It's just working on fundamentals and technique and that is what a big part of training camp is. It's something that every year you have to get back into. We kind of joke about it but you go into a bye week and you take the week off and you don't play a game. You come back that following Monday or Wednesday and literally it feels like you haven't played a game in three months. It might as well be a whole summer. That's how quick it goes. You have to really focus on getting back into the fundamentals and like I said earlier, bending and doing all the little things that don't come natural. It's stuff you have to force yourself to do." Hutchinson was asked what message he would deliver to kids about the importance of learning proper fundamentals and what drills he specifically works on in practice. "We start out every practice with at least 10 minutes of individual period which you guys (media) see," he said. "Little mundane stuff, we have a chute over there. I think kids in pee wee use chutes as an offensive lineman. It forces you to get in there and stay low. There are all kinds of ridiculous looking drills that you are punching and moving your hands. You look like you're about to teeter over. A lot of these drills are with the purpose of making it look silly but a lot of offensive line play is reaction and being able to recover. You are going to get beat and somebody is going to knock your hand down and you have to recover. There are a lot of things we do. I would say for the young guys playing, that's the foundation you want to set. In pee wee football and of course when you get into high school and if you're fortunate to make it to college, that is the stuff that you want to learn early and try to retain as you go to the next level."