Author: Vernon Gambetta
Evolution of Strength Training – A Personal Perspective – 51 Years of Experiences (Part Four)
Another key milestone in the evolution of my ideas on training in general and strength training in particular was the 1972 AAU Learn by Doing track & field clinic in Sacramento, California. Many of the top track & filed coaches in the country were in attendance. The opportunity to interact with them was invaluable. Two of the “Learn by Doing” stations were devoted to Plyometric training that was new and revolutionary at the time. Each evening there were presentations by Polish triple jump coach Tadeusz Starzynski who was the coach of Joseph Schmidt, three-time Olympic Gold medalist; he presented the whole spectrum of his training program for triple jumpers. It obviously involved a lot of jumping exercises, but it included medicine ball work and some very specific weight training and virtually no heavy lifting. There was nowhere near the extent of weight training we were having our athlete do and the weight training that was done was much more specific. This experience had profound influence on my thinking going forward and how I trained my athletes for explosive power from that time on. I immediately incorporated his concepts and ideas in my personal training, as well as with the athletes I was coaching. The results were a tremendous increase in explosiveness and speed. In 1973-74 while attending graduate school at Stanford University I also had the opportunity to coach the jumpers and decathletes. This gave the opportunity to apply what I had learned with more mature male athletes. It was also the opportunity to work with Payton Jordan, the track coach at Stanford who was a pioneer in weight training. He had worked with a man named John Jesse who authored many books on strength training for sport. Jesse was way ahead of his time in the application of strength training to prevention and rehabilitation of injuries. Doctor Wesley Ruff, my adviser, encouraged me to do research in the area of strength and power training, which I found very helpful. This helped me to better understand the scientific reasons for the things that I was observing as a coach and experiencing as an athlete. In 1975 –77 at Santa Barbara high school was my first experience working with female athletes. I did not make distinctions as to gender, they were all athletes, the girls strength trained with the boys. In fact we learned that the girl’s derived even more spectacular benefits than the boys and that they needed to continue their strength training throughout the season or the drop off would be dramatic. The strength training was an important part of the program regardless of the event. Before the late 1970’s there did not seem to be the distinctions between all the styles of lifting. You just put together an eclectic program, you were not labeled a free weight guy, an Olympic lifting guy, a Crossfit or a HIT guy – you just trained athletes. Two things changed this: 1) Olympic lifting ascendancy in the late 1970s, which I believe, resulted from misinterpretation of the spectacular gains made by the Bulgarian weight lifters. The Bulgarian methods were thoroughly detailed by Carl Miller in his book Olympic Lifting Training Manual (A book I still find a good reference today). The Olympic lifting movements had always played a major role in weight training for improving sport performance, but things seemed to change in the late seventies. There was an attempt to blindly copy Olympic lifting training protocols without any apparent regard to it’s relationship to the whole training program. Just because an Olympic lifter, who does nothing but lift, is able to lift up to five times a day does not mean that a football player or a basketball player who has to run and jump and do other training should attempt multiple lifting sessions in a day. Olympic lifting for sport performance is a means to an end. If you are an Olympic weight lifter then it is as end in itself, because those lifts are the performance standard. 2) In the mid 1970’s a new machine oriented system was invented by Arthur Jones, the Nautilus system based on slow eccentric loading and one set to failure. It was not that these were the first machines, but they were the first machines that were marketed with a training system and philosophy to back them up. It appealed to the American mentality of instant gratification. It was hard work, but it was over rather quickly. In addition because of the eccentric emphasis it was possible to gain hypertrophy rather quickly that appealed to American football.
Evolution of Strength Training – A Personal Perspective – 51 Years of Experiences (Part Four)
Another key milestone in the evolution of my ideas on training in general and strength training in particular was the 1972 AAU Learn by Doing track & field clinic in Sacramento, California. Many of the top track & filed coaches in the country were in attendance. The opportunity to interact with them was invaluable. Two of the “Learn by Doing” stations were devoted to Plyometric training that was new and revolutionary at the time. Each evening there were presentations by Polish triple jump coach Tadeusz Starzynski who was the coach of Joseph Schmidt, three-time Olympic Gold medalist; he presented the whole spectrum of his training program for triple jumpers. It obviously involved a lot of jumping exercises, but it included medicine ball work and some very specific weight training and virtually no heavy lifting. There was nowhere near the extent of weight training we were having our athlete do and the weight training that was done was much more specific. This experience had profound influence on my thinking going forward and how I trained my athletes for explosive power from that time on. I immediately incorporated his concepts and ideas in my personal training, as well as with the athletes I was coaching. The results were a tremendous increase in explosiveness and speed. In 1973-74 while attending graduate school at Stanford University I also had the opportunity to coach the jumpers and decathletes. This gave the opportunity to apply what I had learned with more mature male athletes. It was also the opportunity to work with Payton Jordan, the track coach at Stanford who was a pioneer in weight training. He had worked with a man named John Jesse who authored many books on strength training for sport. Jesse was way ahead of his time in the application of strength training to prevention and rehabilitation of injuries. Doctor Wesley Ruff, my adviser, encouraged me to do research in the area of strength and power training, which I found very helpful. This helped me to better understand the scientific reasons for the things that I was observing as a coach and experiencing as an athlete. In 1975 –77 at Santa Barbara high school was my first experience working with female athletes. I did not make distinctions as to gender, they were all athletes, the girls strength trained with the boys. In fact we learned that the girl’s derived even more spectacular benefits than the boys and that they needed to continue their strength training throughout the season or the drop off would be dramatic. The strength training was an important part of the program regardless of the event. Before the late 1970’s there did not seem to be the distinctions between all the styles of lifting. You just put together an eclectic program, you were not labeled a free weight guy, an Olympic lifting guy, a Crossfit or a HIT guy – you just trained athletes. Two things changed this: 1) Olympic lifting ascendancy in the late 1970s, which I believe, resulted from misinterpretation of the spectacular gains made by the Bulgarian weight lifters. The Bulgarian methods were thoroughly detailed by Carl Miller in his book Olympic Lifting Training Manual (A book I still find a good reference today). The Olympic lifting movements had always played a major role in weight training for improving sport performance, but things seemed to change in the late seventies. There was an attempt to blindly copy Olympic lifting training protocols without any apparent regard to it’s relationship to the whole training program. Just because an Olympic lifter, who does nothing but lift, is able to lift up to five times a day does not mean that a football player or a basketball player who has to run and jump and do other training should attempt multiple lifting sessions in a day. Olympic lifting for sport performance is a means to an end. If you are an Olympic weight lifter then it is as end in itself, because those lifts are the performance standard. 2) In the mid 1970’s a new machine oriented system was invented by Arthur Jones, the Nautilus system based on slow eccentric loading and one set to failure. It was not that these were the first machines, but they were the first machines that were marketed with a training system and philosophy to back them up. It appealed to the American mentality of instant gratification. It was hard work, but it was over rather quickly. In addition because of the eccentric emphasis it was possible to gain hypertrophy rather quickly that appealed to American football.
Evolution of Strength Training – A Personal Perspective – 51 Years of Experiences (Part Three)
That spring, in my first track coaching assignment, I got the opportunity to coach one of the best athletes I have ever coached, Sam Cunningham. He became California State Champion in the Shot put that year and also an All American football running back. He was 6’3” tall, weighed 225, he could run the 100 in 9.7, but by my thinking he was “weak, “ because he could not lift much weight in the weight room. Yet he had tremendous explosive power. This led me to begin to ask the question: How much strength is enough? A question I continue to ask. In the fall of 1969 I began training for the decathlon. I did all my strength training with Curt Harper, a world-class discus thrower. Working with Curt we trained on a varied strength-training program that involved Olympic lifting and power lifting. I got very strong in the weight room – 330 Bench, 250 Clean & Jerk and 365 full Squat for five reps at a bodyweight of 188 pounds. The only problem was that the work in the weight room was not transferring into performance on the track and in the field. Once again I begin to question the whole place that weight training had in the program. Three things led me to modify my approach: 1) The writing of Ken Dougherty in his books Modern Track and Field and Track and Field Omnibook, especially the latter. In these book he talked about concepts that would latter evolve into my thinking on special and specific strength. 2) Training for the decathlon in Santa Barbara gave me the opportunity to train with some of the greatest athletes in the world. I saw how they trained. It also gave me first hand exposure to the European methods of training that up until that point I had only read about. This exposure to the Europeans let me to question the traditional approach that we were taking. They spent less time in the weight room, when they did go to the weight room they were not to be as strong as we were, but they seemed to be able to do a better job of expressing their strength. They engaged in more varied activities like jumping and all types of throws. 3) In the fall of 1971 Pat Matzdorf, from University of Wisconsin, moved to Santa Barbara to train. He had broken the world record in the high jump that year. His strength training was different. Bill Perrin, the track coach at Wisconsin, and a real innovator designed his program. It involved simulation training, which consisted of specific strength training exercises that worked on various parts of the whole jump using a variety of methods including weights and rubber tubing. He also utilized depth jumps in his training. This was my first exposure to a systematic application of Plyometric training. From 1969 to 1973 I coached at La Cumbre Junior high school in Santa Barbara, California. It was first hand experience working with growth & development in the pre-pubescent and pubescent male athlete. There was not much equipment, even free weights. The strength program consisted primarily of push-ups, pull-ups, dips and rope climb. At this age, with the tremendous linear growth that was occurring body weight exercises were very appropriate loading. I felt that we the key objective was to lay a base of athletic fitness that they could harness when they went to high school. Although at the time I felt somewhat shortchanged that we did not have more weights, in retrospect I was on the right track.
Evolution of Strength Training – A Personal Perspective – 51 Years of Experiences (Part Two)
Through articles in Strength and Health and watching the track team at Fresno State weight train I quickly realized that the sport of track & field was very advanced in the use of weight training. Herb Elliot, who dominated the mile up through the Rome Olympics, and his coach Percy Cerruty made extensive use of strength training. Perry OBrien, the first man to throw sixty feet in the shot put was an avid weight trainer. He was fast enough to lead off a sprint relay, so it obviously did slow him down! Dallas Long, the first man to throw over sixty five feet and Randy Matson, the first man to throw over seventy feet were all avid weight trainers. Lynn Davies, the 1964 Olympic Long Jump champion, was able to significantly improve his speed. Russ Hodge, who broke the world record in the decathlon in the early sixties, made extensive use of weight training in his program. Chuck Coker, the coach at Occidental College in Los Angeles was a pioneer in the implementation of weight training in Track & Field. In college it was the track team, especially the field event people under the direction of Coach Red Estes who extensively used strength training, not the football team. Larry Alexander was a high jumper on the track team who had thoroughly studied the Russian high jump training methods used by Valeri Brummel, who was the world record holder at the time. Larry was kind enough to share his training ideas with me. Brummel’s program made extensive use of a variety of strength training exercises and jumping exercises that we would latter call Plyometrics. Larry also introduced me Track Technique magazine, a magazine devoted to presenting the latest training methods in track & field. These articles laid out a systematic approach as well as reasons for the drills and exercises. I find the information published in the early to mid sixties as timely today as it was then. It is no wonder that I found that when I worked out with the track athletes I got my best results from my strength-training program. The basic problem with all the programs that I used throughout college was that there was never any recovery. We went heavy on legs as often as three times a week, in addition to running every day, which never allowed our legs to recover. I thought a sore back and dead legs were just a normal part of the training. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, we did not try to lift in season or during spring practice, which actually served as a break. The problem with no workouts in season is that every off-season I was essentially starting over again each off-season. I questioned this because I saw the track athletes lifting throughout their season with no ill effects. In fact the shot putter’s would often lift the day of the meet. Little did I realize that this was a portent of things to come. After graduating from Fresno State I went to University of California Santa Barbara for my teaching certification. While there I was fortunate to take a class from Sherman Button on conditioning athletes. He was ahead of his time with the material and concepts that he presented. It was a great class because of his comprehensive approach to conditioning built around weight training. The two textbooks for the class were especially helpful – Pat Oshea’s book Scientific Principles and Methods of Strength Training and Foundations of Conditioning by Falls, Walls and Logan. As a class assignment we had to design a yearlong comprehensive training program for our chosen sports. I put together a program for track and field that incorporated all components of training. It was an initial attempt at periodization, but most importantly it forced me to look at weight training in a new light. I was now a coach as well as an athlete. I was responsible for other people. I had to teach them skill and have them ready for competition, so I had to pay attention to the big picture. Strength was only one part of the equation, although a most important part.
Evolution of Strength Training – A Personal Perspective – 51 Years of Experiences (Part One)
I will take a personal approach to the evolution of strength training using my experiences as an athlete and coach who has been involved in strength training since 1963. When I began weight training in 1963, it was not commonly accepted as a method of training, in fact most coaches discouraged weight training. There were concerns that you would become “muscle bound,” tight, that it would slow you down, or it would interfere with you coordination. It was considered acceptable to do hard manual labor to develop muscle, but weight training was frowned upon. With all these thoughts in mind at the end of my junior year in high school we had a guest speaker come to my high school to speak to all the athletes. The speaker was Lynn Hoyem, a backup center for the Dallas Cowboys, who spoke to us about the benefits of weight training. He had gained 50 pounds of lean mass through weight training. He gave us advice as to how to start a program, explained some of the basic physiology of muscle growth and strength gain. He offered tips on how to gain weight, as most of us were football players who were trying to gain weight. It was a very impressive presentation that was very different from we were being told at the time. I knew that if I were going to have any chance of playing college football, my sport of choice at the time, I would have to get stronger and bigger. At that time there was not very much information on weight training. Before I started on a I felt I needed to find out more information, because my coaches were very wary of weight training. My best friend and I went to the local university library and checked out every book they had on weight training. The two books that I found most helpful were Weight Training In Athletics And Physical Education by Gene Hooks, who was the baseball coach at Wake Forest University and Better Athletes Through Weight Training by Bob Hoffman, who was the owner of York barbell company and a pioneer in weight training. The books were very good and gave us the information we needed as to selection of exercises, set, reps, and overall construction of weight training program as well as reinforcing that weight training would help us be better athletes. In addition Strength and Health magazine, published by Bob Hoffman, proved to be a good source, because it contained high-level information on all aspects of strength training, including tips on good nutrition. (In fact in looking back through my files while doing research for this article I found articles from Strength & Health on periodization which people would consider cutting edge today) The information was very good; in fact it was cutting edge, with the latest training ideas from the eastern bloc countries and features on top athletes who made use of weight training in their training programs. It was very informative and motivational, because they were working hard to break down the myths surrounding weight training, myths that I was bombarded with everyday. After gathering as much information as I could, building some basic equipment and purchasing a barbell set my best friend and I started on a program that we had figured out for ourselves. When I began I weighed about 163 pounds. I was so tight I could not touch my toes. I could barely do a pull-up and could only do about 20 pushups, not very good by any standard. Still people were cautioning me that weight training would make me tight and slow. After four months of a program I gained 15 pounds. I could touch my toes, in fact I could put my palms flat on the ground. I now could do ten pull-ups and fifty pushups and was noticeably faster. I could also now also put my hand over the rim in basketball, where before I had been barely able to touch the rim. Naturally I was questioning the myths. In fact everything that the coaches and a lot of experts was saying was just the opposite of what had happened. I gained muscle, got more explosive, more flexible and faster. I realized that I was onto something and I needed to find out more. Thus began a magical mystery tour of trying out new training methods and ideas, which continues today. Following conventional wisdom of the time there was no thought of weight training in season. Since I participated in three sports the only time available to lift was after track ended in the spring until the start of football practice in September. The next off-season, which was before my freshman year in college, I was able to gain another twenty pounds and increase my explosiveness. I realize now in retrospect that some of this weight gain was normal growth and development coupled with the hard work – just biology as they say. The lesson learned for later was: Directed work during a growth spurt when the body is secreting anabolic hormones like crazy is an optimum time to make gains. This is a clear message to all those high school age athletes who are seeking the magic bullet of supplementation. A good sound diet coupled with a well-designed training program during a growth spurt will yield spectacular results. After my freshman football season at Fresno State College there was no formal off-season program. We were instructed to be in shape for spring practice. Essentially we were on our own. We had one of the first Universal Gym multi station selectorized weight machines and a few free weights, naturally since the machine was convienent and easy that is what I used. I found immediately that my “strength” increased rapidly. In fact I remember remarking to a friend that I can lift a lot more because I do not have to balance and control the weight. Second lesson learned: The use of synergistic and stabilizing muscles is very important; hence bodyweight, dumbbells and free weights are preferable to machines. I quickly gained more muscle mass, but now instead of feeling more explosive I felt bulky and slower, but I thought that was ok because everyone else was doing it. The first day of spring practice I pulled a hamstring, my first experience with anything like that. In retrospect it had a lot to do with the type of lifting I was doing, of course I did not relate the two at the time. In setting out to design my program in preparation for my sophomore year I realized that I must get off the machines and do more work with free weights if I was going to develop the strength necessary to be a better football player. I had heard of a man named Alvin Roy who originally had worked with a high school in Louisiana and then with the LSU football program when they had won the national championship in 1958. He had worked with Billy Cannon, the Heisman trophy winner and Jim Taylor who went on to star with the Green Bay Packers, both of whom were very strong, fast, explosive and agile. The things that I read that he was doing made a lot of sense. Through my high school football coach I found out that he was now with the San Diego Chargers, as their strength coach. As far as I know he was the first in professional football. He had a book on their training program, (Gillman, Sid & Roy, Alvin. World Champion San Diego Chargers Strength Program – In and Out of Season) that my high school coach lent to me. I followed the programs down to the letter. It was a varied program that involved squatting, Olympic lifting movements, as well as functional isometric contractions. I saw much improved results in terms of speed and explosiveness. The drawback was that I struggled to gain weight on the Charger program. Looking back it was just too much work for my maturity level. Also it later came out the player on the Chargers player’s had free access to anabolic steroid’s, which greatly enhanced their work capacity. There was no rest or recovery days built into the program at the time I thought was ok because I subscribed to the more is better philosophy prevalent at the time, but I now realize was a big mistake, because I was always sore and had dead legs. The lesson to be learned here is that it is not advisable to blindly copy someone else’s program unless you know all the factors and ingredients of the program.
Where are you looking?
I took liberty to paraphrase this old story that has many versions: A friend saw a drunken man intently searching the ground near a lamppost and asked what he was looking for. The drunk replied that he was looking for his car keys, so my friend helped him look for a few minutes without any success. He then asked the drunk if he was certain that he had dropped the keys near the lamppost. “No,” he replied, “I lost the keys somewhere across the street.” My friend asked him “So why are you looking here?” The drug quickly answered, “The light is much better here.” Where are you looking? Are you staying in the light where it is easy to see or are looking outside the light? Think about this today as you are coaching your athletes. Look in the shadows, see the world with new eyes, you will be surprised what you find.
Reductionist Thinking
Reductionist thinking on movement is mentally convenient. It is very easy to break the body and movements into parts and separate systems and focus on the parts to the exclusion of the whole. It may be convenient and easy but is not right. The body is all about connections, chain reactions and synergies. To optimally prepare the body for the stresses of competition you must focus on enhancing those connections and synergies. Give the body credit for what it can do, it is smart, so coach it as smart. Good coaching is giving the body increasingly complex movement problems to solve and putting the body in positions to solve those problems.
Authentic Leadership – Marcus Mariota
Friday night when I was watching Pac 12 Championship Game between University of Oregon and University of Arizona the commentators were bloviating on and on about the only thing they and NFL scouts had questions about Marcus Mariota was his leadership ability. Why did they question his leadership? Because they felt he was not ”vocal” enough. What does that mean? He does not scream and holler and run around like a madman. He just leads! I would like to share with you what I have seen about Marcus Mariota and his leadership. I have been privileged to attend several Oregon practices, weight workouts and speed sessions and also to be on the sideline of one game over the past three years and what I have seen and experienced is a great leader – an authentic leader. He is solid as rock, a stable force, he is a cool calm and collected presence that his teammates look to. He does not scream and holler instead he leads by example, by a pat on the back and an encouraging word. In practice and training there is no bluster or trash talking just “perfect effort” and focus on making himself and teammates better. In fact last off-season he set up his schedule up to do some of his lifting workouts with the offensive line. How many Quarterbacks would do that? For some reason the classic image of a leader is a screamer, a madman who rants and raves. I have seen too many of these so-called leaders in my 44 years of coaching. They are not leaders; they are individuals who want to call attention to themselves instead of the team. You will notice when the chips are down they tend to blow-up or disappear. This is why Marcus Mariota epitomizes authentic leadership. He is all about making his team better not calling attention to himself; he knows his arms and legs will do the talking. Watch this young man he will go far in football and even farther if life because of leadership abilities.