Who Are the Best Athletes?
Stronger Athletes
April 17 "Never let the fear of striking out get in your way." -Babe Ruth
Mystery Guest
"In his 27th
season [in the NFL], our mystery guest is the dean of NFL strength and
conditioning coaches. A hard-driving coach who still maintains an easy
rapport with his players, he has set up strength and conditioning
programs for a number of NFL teams.
He is known nationwide for his outspoken stance against the use of steroids in strength training. His team’s training program was aggressively steroid-free long before official sanctions against the drugs became a nationwide norm.
Our mystery guest has seen many of his athletes perform impressive feats in the weight room, but that’s not his goal.
"We train very hard, but we’re not training our people to be weight lifters or power lifters," he says. "We always keep the perspective that we’re working with these guys to be the best football players they can be."
An outstanding running back at the University of Wisconsin during his college days, he has worked under all eight head coaches in his team’s history. He joined the club in 1975, Paul Brown’s final season as head coach, and has since coordinated strength training for Bill Johnson, Homer Rice, Forrest Gregg, Sam Wyche, Dave Shula, Bruce Coslet and Dick LeBeau.
PLAYING AND COACHING HISTORY — 1964-66: Played running back at Wisconsin. 1975-2001: Strength and conditioning coach, (Just 1 AFC Team the whole time!)".
**Note** Much of this bio was taken from another website which will be recognized on Friday, as we don’t want to just give away the answer now do we?Who Are the Best Athletes?
StrongerAthletes.com has recently received many comments from various readers, and some of these are coaches, who are Olympic lifting advocates. Many of them maintain, and we agree, that elite Olympic lifters are some of the best athletes in the world. They use this logic to support their use of the quick lifts. Many coaches think that they can make their athletes, (who participate in football, basketball, wrestling), the best in the world as well.
If this were true, why doesn’t the NFL, NBA, and other professional sport organizations get these elite Olympic lifting athletes to play on their team? They’re the best athletes in the world, right? Because these elite Olympic lifters are good at Olympic lifting... period. It is their sport.
We have great respect for the elite Olympic athletes and know that they are very good at what they do. That is the point. These athletes are the best in their sport. That is why they are not brought over to participate in the other professional sports.
So why make our high school offensive linemen, who have enough trouble getting down in a stance, quick lift? Do we think this alone will turn them into football players even though awesome Olympic lifters from Bulgaria have trouble playing football?
It is important to understand that comparing athletes many times is like "apples & oranges." They are not the same and thus cannot be compared. Take Zach Thomas, linebacker for the Dolphins, for example. He is one of the best athletes in the NFL at his position. However, you cannot compare him to athletes at other position such as guards, tackles, wide receivers etc...
Let’s not say that Olympic lifters are the best athletes in the world. Separate the sports then separate them out in positions and you even separate them out by philosophy as well.
The past week or so has been spent discussing Olympic lifting and
defending our position against them. Friday, we are going to post a
supportive
Coach Rody
StrongerAthletes.com
Internship Opportunity
Coach Fred Cantor at the university of Maryland-Baltimore County has a paid internship available this fall. Those interested should send a resume, references and sample workouts that they have developed or used to Coach Cantor at UMBC, Athletic Dept, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore,Md 21250.
Also just released is the Opposing Viewpoints: Traditional vs Non-Olympic Training video. For more information on these products please See Our New Products.