By Dave Tate

Published - Late 90's - PLUSA



I just returned from a consulting engagement with a Division I football program. I was contracted to review and provide insight on their strength training program. This university had one of the best facilities I’ve ever seen. They must have had 15 power racks, 15 power bench racks, and 15 lifting platforms plus all of the latest machines and dumbbells that you would ever need. The first thing I thought was, “Man, you could really make a team strong here.” At least that is what I thought until I looked up at the wall. They had a list of standard goals to be met by each position. The linemen’s’ goals were to squat 500 lbs, bench press 385 lbs, incline press 325 lbs, and power clean 300 lbs. I was amazed at how low the numbers were for linemen who weigh between 260–300 lbs. But I thought at least they had standard goals for each of them to strive for. This was fine until I looked further down the wall and saw a chart for all of those who had reached this status. I stood in disbelief because there were none listed. Now, I was determined to figure out how this could be.

As I stood there in disbelief, I overheard two people passing by who were in town for a coaching conference. They were also very amazed at these numbers. I was about to comment when I learned that they were amazed for different reasons than I was. They thought the numbers were great! Now, I was beginning to wonder what was wrong with this picture. After some thought, I figured out what it was. People need to view strength for what it really is.

Strength training simply means the pursuit of being stronger. Somewhere down the line this theory has been lost. Many times there is too much emphasis placed on maintaining strength, not on creating it. How can two people look at the same board and one be amazed at how low the numbers are and another be amazed at how high they are? To answer this, we must look at what I call the personal paradigms of training.