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Main » 2013 » October » 25 » Squats Are Good, Old School Makes You Great by Gregory Meyers
11:56 AM Squats Are Good, Old School Makes You Great by Gregory Meyers |
Squats Are Good, Old School Makes You Great by Gregory Meyers
Fall of 1972
and as a young coach, right out of college, I get my first coaching job in a
small, Indiana town. I walk into a weight room that was just like so many others
back then. We had a multiple station Universal machine and a quad/ham Universal
machine complete with a wrist roll attachment. The multi-station machine had the
usual stations; bench press, leg press with adjustable seat, a dip station
located on the back of the leg press, a military press, a pull up/chin up
station, a lat pulldown and an adjustable sit up board, complete with ankle
pads. A very impressive weight room for that day and age. No free weights yet
because very few football coaches knew much about free weights outside of bench
pressing and dumbbells. And certainly no football coaches were doing free weight
squats. Squats racks were unheard of back then, at least in high school circles.
Most of the programs being used back then were cleened from muscle mags and body
builders which we all now realize were a completely different world from
football.
The first really good source of strength development for us
came from two areas, track and field and olympic style lifters. The only problem
with olympic style lifting was very few coaches could actually teach it and most
school administrators were scared to death of liability so throwing weights
around and overhead was a real sell. None the less, high school programs
progressed through the Nautilus phase and any number of other isolation machines
and into the free weight programs that became very popular across the country.
Teaching proper technique became a high priority because athletes who got
injured in the weight room were not the end product we wanted. Boyd Epley at
Nebraska began an association of strength coaches called the National Strength
and Conditioning Association, I believe in the beginning, and it became a prime
source, and still is today, for coaches to learn and eventually even get
certified. Now we have all types of certification available which also created
another problem for high school programs because now, if you weren't certified,
administrators might not let you work in the weight room, but that's another
story for another day.
I progressed also with the times and attended as
many clinics and talked to as many strength coaches as I could to make sure I
knew the best techniques and programs for my athletes. I struggled with the
squat and the dead lifts for my athletes as it seemed that is where we had the
most technique problems and sometimes, injuries. We eventually went to dead
lifts off of small platforms to prevent the stress at the bottom of the lift
bringing heavy weight off the floor. The curvature of the spine was always a
problem, forcing athletes to not round their backs. And, with the squats, we
always fought technique, keep the back flat, don't let the chest sink. I think
one of the best coaches for techniques back in those days was Dr. Greg Sheperd
of Bigger, Faster, Stronger fame and who is still going strong today. But it
always seemed to me that when my athletes failed in the squat, it was not
because of leg strength but because of lower back and core strength. "Core
strength", now that became the new catch phrase about ten years ago. Coaches
began preaching, good core strength meant solid overall strength and the trunk
would be as strong as the branches.With good core strength, more leg development
could be achieved. That made perfect sense to me because of my own observations
in my weight room of how our athletes failed. So, I began to focus on core
development and any guru I could find to help me. We eventually developed a good
program and our athletes made significant gains based on extra amounts of core
strength exercises which did indeed carry over into their squats. The only draw
back was the time element. With high school athletes, the vast majority of them
want to get stronger and better but as easy as they can while only about 20% of
your athletes want to spend the time it takes to make those major
gains.
A problem, yes, but one we can usually work out. So, I seemed
pretty set in my ways and we continued to do the extras Charlotte Olympia. Then the holy
grail came my way. I kept watching those world's strongest man competitions and
had the opportunity to meet, on a few occasions, Bill Kazmeier. If you don't
remember, Bill was the first guy in modern times (with great respect to those
old world strong men like Paul Anderson who didn't get the exposure todays
strong men get but were every bit as sensational) to do super human feats.
Watching him lift and pull was outstanding. And when he talked about training he
often times referred to the old methods. Now he still did squats and bench from
what I observed, but the odd object lifting he did was great. I became a fan of
old school training. Old school just means using odd objects such as tires,
sandbags, stones, ropes and logs. All those items that in the old days, were the
majority of tools available to strong men, not to mention the thousands of high
school boys who grew up on farms. I remember spending many a summer getting
ready for high school football and pitching watermelons, bales of hay, sacks of
potatoes and running, jumping and climbing all over the barn and yard. Talk
about strength development. Body weight lifting is still one of the best methods
available to athletes to gain strength and something we can cover in another
story.
But as I got more and more interested in it, I began to implement
it into our work outs, at first as a diversion but later, as part of our daily
routines post by haiyan701. And that made all the difference in the world. I
have always joined my athletes in whatever programs I design for them. I think
the best way to relate to someone is to do the same things they are doing. Now,
I ain't no spring chicken any more, but once I started this training, I could
feel the difference. Talk about those fancy concepts like rear chain development
and cross training and cardio, man, you get it. With my athletes flipping tires
and squatting and lifting sandbags from the ground and stones and logs, oh my
goodness! The back development alone is worth the effort. We now spend more time
in old school methods than we do in the weight room. Using old school, the
entire body gets bombed. When you're training the entire body with so many lifts
and in so many different planes, it blast the body. Your athletes become so much
stronger in every position that injuries are lessened and their athleticism
grows as well as their durability. I like that durability because no matter how
good your athlete is, he can't help you if he's on the bench injuried. I think
this training helps tremendously with that problem.
The other thing
about old school training is the time element, and I have already mentioned that
with high school athletes time commitment can be a problem. With this training,
you can get a lot more accomplished in less time and it can be a lot more fun Charlotte Olympia. We
always make a competition out of something, a tire flip relay race, a stone
carry, a timed hold, whatever. It works. You'll utilize standard techniques also
such as zercher carries, farmers carry, sled pulls, shouldering, "get ups", rope
pulls and more. We have developed many techniques and programs to assist anyone
who is interested. You can check out much more of our program by visiting us at
. There you'll find programs and implements and techniques to your heart's
content. Many of the tools we use you can get for free such as tires and logs.
And, if you happen to be at a school where money is tight, much of this program
can be achieved with those free items and a little ingenuity on your part.
Contact us and let us help you develop the athletes you need or just develop
yourself. This training is also tremendous for first responders, such as police,
fire and emergency personnel. If you guys fail, people get hurt or die. This
training will enable you to be the best you can be (with apologies to the
Army).
Visit us on the web at and see how we can help. We also have some
very first class affiliates on our site. Whatever you need, we'll get it for
you. Thanks for listening.
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