The BFS Program for ALL Sports

Editor's Note: We recommend that all power sports use the BFS Core Lifts. Auxiliary exercises are then selected by the individual coach for a particular sport. It is unwise to have four or five vastly different weight training programs in one high school. Coaches in high school must share the same athletes for the different sports. For this reason, it is wiser to be united in philosophy. Unity builds harmony and trust between athletes and the various coaches. Coach Dave Steen from KJamath Union High School has written the following information about how training in the BFS Coordinated United Way has effected their sports program.

Weight Training Helps You Throw Harder!

Klamath Union High School Klamath Falls, Oregon By Coach Dave Steen Oregon. Eugene Athletic of Eugene, Oregon, added a great deal by designing our weight room. Our program has changed significantly over the past four years. We began with 15-20 athletes in one class early in the mornings - 7:00 to be exact - with a couple of bars, a universal and some leg stations. We lifted everyday but Wednesday. On that day the emphasis was on running, stretching, and testing. We also started lifting two days a week in our Physical Education classes. The freshmen would lift on Tuesday and Thursday, and on the other three days the PE classes would participate in regular activities.

Four years later we have not only enlarged our room three times but have also increased our enrollment to about 400 students. Our program organization has not changed that much in these 4 years, except for our first period class or early bird class. In this class we work with 60 students, mostly our athletes. They are in the weight class 5 days a week. The class starts at 7:45 a.m. with 5 minutes running, then we stretch for another 5 minutes.

The class is then divided into two groups - A & B, Group A going to the weight room, Group B staying in the gym and doing the following: Two days out of the week they do agilities, dot drill, vertical jump, rope jump and plyometrics, the other two days they do an activity such as volleyball, basketball, or some other type of team activity. We switch after 25 minutes. Our weight room activities consist of the following: Monday and Tuesday - bench and squats, cleans and incline. We work in groups of 2 or 3 - If you do bench and squats on Monday, you do incline and cleans on Tuesday. On Wednesday and Thursday you would do box squats, towel bench, dead lift and incline.

We follow the BFS Program 3x3, SxS, 54321 Special Week thru the whole year. Our PE classes do 3 exercises 2 days a week - Tuesday, bench, squats, cleans; and Thursday, box squats, incline and dead lift. Freshmen do not do dead lift, they do cleans and hang cleans. On Friday we do something very special with our 1st period class. For the first 30 minutes we do a complete stretch then the last 20 minutes we do a body massage technique. I believe one of the most positive things being done is all the coaches working together in getting their athletes into the weight room; our football, basketball, cross country, track, wrestling and baseball players all lift!!!

(The program is adjusted somewhat for our distance runners, otherwise everyone does power lifting.) We are not a large school and we compete against some of the larger schools in the State of Oregon. We feel we must lift to stay competitive. In the following information you will see we haven't done too badly since starting the BFS Program. Yours for better strength, Dave Steen

From BFS Magazine — November/December 1985. Part of the BFS Magazine Archive (1980–2014).