Suppose you were the general partner of a family owned business and one of your jobs at the end of the year was to write an annual report to your aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters.
Furthermore, suppose that every year you were forced to say something like "Once again the ESC company kicked our ass. We cannot match their prices or quality because of correctable deficiencies in our manufacturing processes and we cannot match their sales force.
How many years in a row would that be acceptable?
SEC Football conference
Those of you who watched the bowl games and the talking heads analyzing the games: How many times did you hear "University of FillInBlank could not match AnySECTeam's strength on either side of the ball"
University of FillInBlank may have been the big-dog in their own conference but got kicked around like rag-dolls when playing an SEC team.
This happens year-after-year.
Let's talk about "strength"
Within broad parameters, strength and weight-training is settled science. You will get stronger if you lift weights. If you have a bigger frame you can carry more muscle and you can lift more weight.
What is clear is that strength training is not "settled science" at the top-end.
The evidence suggests that the weight-room coaches outside the SEC are delusional if they think they know everything the weight-room coaches at Alabama and Georgia know. Those non-SEC coaches have defective manufacturing processes and are in denial.
What can a fat, 62-year-old blogger know about weight-training?
Fair question. I hope to get corrected by John and T.B. for any points I make that are wildly erroneous.
I believe that our bodies respond to stimuli. If a muscle gets challenged then it signals the body that it needs more resources. It recruits more muscle cells. It commands more blood flow.
I believe getting stronger and faster involves a challenge-heal cycle.
I believe that part of the effectiveness of steroids is that they reduce delayed muscle pain so the athlete pushes harder in the weight room. Let's be honest here. A brutal workout can leave you sore for days. Not just a little bit, "gonna feel great to hit the rack tonight" sore but straight-up pain.
I believe that most delayed onset muscle pain is due to the eccentric portion of the exercise. That is when you are lowering the weight and the muscle group you are working on is extending under force.
It is not uncommon to hear "You need to lower yourself slowly when doing pushups to get the maximum benefit." The implication is "...maximum benefit per-pushup"
Some of this is a natural outcome of how experiments are designed. Take two groups of ten students. They all do ten push-ups a day. One group of ten lowers themselves slowly the other group is the control and they do it any way they want. Measure the gain in strength at the end of a month.
That is basic science. Keep everything the same except the one thing you want to measure.
What if...
What if one of those brakes used to keep wall climbers safe was attached to the weights or to the person doing push-ups? What if the full weight was apparent on the "up" stroke but only a third was apparent during the eccentric portion of the exercise?
"But Joe, the athlete will not get the full benefit of the exercise"
Look longer term. Maybe they will get less benefit per push-up or bench-press, but they will be able to do more of them in the first session and they will be less battered (muscle pain) for the following sessions. They will skip fewer sessions. They will be more eager to add weight or reps to their routine because they will not hurt as much.
Classical conditioning works. The problem is that the behavior we want to promote (being an animal in the weight-room) is "punished" with pain. Some people with extraordinary discipline keep going to the gym (John and T.B., for instance) it but the question remains, would they be even more of an animal if they didn't hurt so much?
The goal is not to "hurt". The goal is to gain strength and to avoid injuries in practice and on game-day. The goal is to win games. The goal is to get rejected by the goblins when they are hunting for victims.
I'm going to disagree with the premise. They are all probably doing about the same things in the weight room. Honestly, I would bet it's more likely not only are they doing all the same things, they are doing the same outdated things. If you took Bill Starr's The Strongest Shall Survive and wandered into a college football program it wouldn't look that different, despite being drafted for a completely different set of players. You also wouldn't see much in the way of blood flow restricted training, velocity controlled training or many of Louie Simmons's innovations in training for explosiveness.
ReplyDeleteWhat you would see is that there is a good correlation between time-averaged recruiting rank and wins/end of season rank accounting for schedule. (e.g. https://watchstadium.com/analyzing-college-footballs-relationship-between-recruiting-class-rankings-and-wins-07-01-2019/ although this analysis isn't as deep as some I've seen, it's all I can find at the moment).
For a variety of reasons certain conferences and teams have recruiting advantages. Many of these things work against the Big 10. Many of them are changeable, but not easily. Regardless of the explanations for why, treat it as a black box, and you can still explain/predict differential outcomes based on recruiting.
Possible explanations include:
Lower skilled natural recruiting base vs South/Southwest because those areas are playing 7v7/other variations of low-impact/high-skill (and high speed) football year round.
Non-favorable population density distribution vs South/Southwest. 2 of Texas, California and Florida are all within striking distance for quick recruiting drives for many of the best recruiting teams. Bama driving to Florid/Texas, vs Big 10 having to fly (e.g. Bama to Austin is 10 hours drive, Bama to Orlando is 10 hours drive, East Lansing to Orlando is 17 hours, East Lansing to Austin 16 hours.)
More favorable transfer/acceptance rules than many Big 10 teams (e.g. Umich (Ann Arbor Delenda Est) essentially deletes over half of a transferring in players credits, meaning if they want a degree and don't go to the NFL a transferring in Junior is playing 2 years, but looking at 3 or 4 years for a degree).
Failure to commit to maintaining coaching talent (although the Mel Tucker contract, based on very little time, might show Big 10 teams/booster clubs are getting serious about not being the talent farm leagues for the SEC).
I love lifting/training and think more people, and more athletes should take it seriously, but I'm not sure it is a current issue in college football. Especially with the rise of crossfit and the resurgence of powerlifting's popularity following the death of equipped lifting more people, including more HS/MS football players are training with barbells earlier than ever.
Thanks for the well thought-out response.
DeleteYour comment on explosiveness is great. Many times one player will look stronger than another because they are quicker and can get under their opponent.
Do you remember the game "Flinch" where you would try to slap the tops of the hands of your opponent? Great game.
We called it slaps, but a great game under any name. Surely banned from schools now though :)
DeleteSince weight training regimens are pretty much standard across most/all college football programs, you're right about recruiting from the big schools being an advantage.
DeleteThat being said, coaching and game prep for specific opponents has a lot to do with winning and losing. Everyone knows 'Bama is the creme de la creme of the SEC and a perennial national championship contender.
But let's not forget that in the last five years, three other teams have won the CFP besides Alabama, those being LSU and Clemson twice. In four out of five of those years, Clemson played in the final game for all the marbles.
What that has done for the ACC is give the whole conference a boost in their recruiting efforts. This past season was an indication of that. Clemson had an off year offensively, but their defense was/is still in the top three in the nation.
You can also look at Deion Sander's team in the HBCU, Jackson State, who just recruited the top player in the country. Also this year was the first during the CFP era where a Group of Five school made it to the championship series.
With their current head coaches, Nick Sabin at 'Bama and Dabo Swinney at Clemson, those two teams are going to be the ones to beat just about any year. Their ability to recruit top talent is amongst the best in the country.
Disclaimer; Clemson is my local university.
As an asside, now that you are 62 I would point out that you are getting to the age where your muscles are stronger than your tendons. I was 64 when I ripped a tendon in my knee putting a plow on the tractor. Then it was the right shoulder with a follow up operation, then the left shoulder, and the right one agin trying to favor the left one. The engine might have lots of H P left but the drive train is getting worn out and will break when you don't expect it. Jacks and tractor loaders are easier to use. ---ken
ReplyDeleteERJ - What I do feel reasonably competent in commenting on are some particulars that my own coach, The Berserker, has drummed into me.
ReplyDeleteYour basic premise - challenging the muscle to grow the muscle - is correct. What makes this a more robust process is actually varying the program. Our bodies can get in a rut (my term) where they become accustomed to weights and sets - "Oh look, here comes a 4 x 240 lbs dead lift again, same as last week". In order to the challenge the body, I will get a variety of programs: max of 5X, followed by a program of working up to 60% of 5x then 5 sets. This constantly means the body and the CNS are having to adjust and adapt.
The other item - alluded to - is that there is a genetic maximum that any weight trainer can hit. Yes, you can do some things with illegal substances to get that higher, but if you are just muscling through the weights - and the iron never lies - every person will hit a maximum based on body frame and ability to gain muscle mass. I am hitting this myself right now, and it can be frustrating. A larger frame will (generally) get your more muscle mass (see HalfThor Julius Bjornson; being almost 7' tall can do a lot for you). So who you recruit in terms of not just skill level, but genetic potential could make a difference on how "strong" your team could be.
Explosiveness can be very important in all kinds of sports. Sadly, I am the least explosive person on the planet, so not quite the best person to comment.
Try eating more beans.
DeleteIf you cannot be explosive in one way...
58 years old here. I believe that the eccentric portion of the exercise is essential for building the tendons that attach the muscles to the bone. In fact, when I got tendonitis, I did eccentric exercises to heal it. Neglecting the eccentric portion of the exercise might help build the muscle but might result in damaged tendons.
ReplyDelete