Penn State Sports Magazine
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essentially gutted the weight room and installed dozens of free-weight stations. Now all but two of the team's weight exercises are performed standing – "as much as you can do on your feet," he said, "because that's how the game is." There's also a giant sand pit – possibly the largest in the country, he said, at 50 yards by 20 yards – at the outdoor track. That allows players to strengthen their ankles and the rest of their legs as they run. Fitzgerald learned about strength training when he played at Maryland, where his strength coach was Dwight Galton. He later worked for Galt (and Galt's son, Dwight IV, known as "Deege," worked for him at South Car- olina and followed him to Penn State). Football coaches may once have worried that too much muscle would hinder speed, but Fitzgerald has always known that muscle is necessary for speed. "I think the people who were on the cutting edge, the people who knew what they were doing, always felt like weight training was the way to go as part of a speed program," he said. "Not the only thing. … They go hand in hand." Penn State's players didn't have much John Beale said Hunter, "was 'Do you want to be a thoroughbred horse or a draft horse?'" Not until the 1970s, he said, was weight training – with barbells and other free weights – common for football teams. Then, late in the decade, Arthur Jones invented the Nautilus machine and introduced his philosophy of high- intensity, slow-movement training. Nautilus machines had new technol- ogy, specifically a new cam and a vari- able resistance apparatus, that Jones said allowed a muscle to be worked through its full range of motion like never before. He also said that by working slowly through the range of motion – raised in two seconds, lowered in four – muscles would get stronger and bigger than ever before possible. "He said you only had to do one set to exhaustion, and you're Superman," Hunter said. "They really sold a bill of goods to strength coaches." That wasn't apparent at the time, and coaches embraced the machines. Need- ing to work only one set of each exercise allowed players to spend more time practicing and studying the playbook. But research began to show that old- fashioned weight training – barbells, free weights, Olympic-style lifting – did a better overall job of building strength. Or, as Hunter put it: Nautilus was "all a bunch of hogwash." The trend moved to "functional" train- ing, which mimics everyday movement and not only increases the size of a muscle, but increases a muscle's ability to work with other muscles. Machines still have their uses, but not to achieve peak performance. Fitzgerald won't comment on Penn State's previous weight training regimen. "I don't know what they did," he said. He's happy to talk about his own, though. When Fitzgerald arrived, he experience with free weights, so Fitzger- ald and his staff started slowly, per- fecting technique before adding weight. Even now, Fitzgerald stresses that technique is vital by making sure that the first set of every exercise is with the bar only. The second set has only a light weight. "We work up to top weight, but we don't try to max out every day," he said. "A good day for us is to get them in there and working hard, get good weight on the bar for working sets – and to be able to train hard and train well the next day, too." Each week follows basically the same pattern: Monday is "speed and power day." Or, as Fitzgerald also calls it, "training for pro combine, really." He thinks if players improve in the 40-yard dash, the shuttle, the three-cone, and the broad and vertical jumps, they'll be better football players. SEE STRENGTH PAGE 61