By BFS

BFS clinician Ray Cosenza (left) with Tottenville’s head football coach, Jim Munson.

Since adopting the BFS program, the football team at Tottenville High School (Staten Island, New York) has built a 41-6 record. BFS clinician Ray Cosenza, Jr., has worked with head coach Jim Munson and his Tottenville Pirates, and here is what Cosenza has to say about this great program: “I had the pleasure of doing a two-day clinic at Tottenville High School in June of 2009 for 90 athletes. After doing the clinic, I wrote in my notes, “This is a school you will be hearing about over the next few years.” It all starts with the leadership of Jim Munson, assistant principal of athletics/physical education and head football coach. Jim is a dynamic coach and leader who truly cares about kids.

It was evident that the staff, coaches and teachers I worked with at Tottenville all want to do what is best for their student athletes. Following the clinic Tottenville incorporated BFS into the physical education curriculum, and subsequently the football team has amassed an impressive 41-6 record. “I returned to Tottenville in May, 2010, to do a Be an 11 clinic, and the experience confirmed my belief in this school, its coaches and its athletes. The commitment to excellence from everyone I came in contact with was inspiring. I found a school full of true Elevens, starting with Coach Munson.

“The Pirates have just concluded an amazing season, finishing with a heartbreaking loss to Erasmus Hall in the championship game, 15-14. I attended the game at Yankee Stadium and was impressed with the skill, toughness and preparation of the Pirates football team. Tottenville was in the process of overcoming the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, which hit the New York area in late October. During this tough time I emailed Coach Munson to see how they were doing, and he responded, ‘Ray, thanks for your thoughts and prayers. We are good. The community has responded with food and clothes. I have been at Tottenville for four days helping at the evacuation site and coordinating relief efforts.

We talk about how times have changed for the worse, but after witnessing the people come out to assist people they don’t even know gives us reason to believe!’ “Well, my experience from what I have observed at Tottenville is that it all starts with Coach Munson. I said it in 2009 and I will say it again: Tottenville High School is a school you will continue to hear about. I have had the pleasure of doing clinics all over the country over the past 12 years for BFS, and Tottenville High School is one of my favorite places to visit. It is a truly special place with special people!” MARCH/APRIL 2013 BOOK REVIEW:

Bones of Iron: Collected Articles on the Life of the Strength Athlete When bloggers and freelance writers accumulate enough interesting material over the years, they often take their best work and put it into book form. Although this material may have been available for free on the Internet, it’s convenient to have these writings available in a collection. If you belong to the group of coaches who like this convenience or simply are old-school and prefer a physical copy of such books, Matt Foreman’s Bones of Iron (www.cathletics.com) is worth a read.

In 1988 Forman broke the Arizona State High School deadlift record, but after two years of training in powerlifting he switched to the Olympic lifts. As a super heavyweight, Foreman has “walked the talk” with best competition lifts of 341 pounds in the snatch and 407 pounds in the clean and jerk; he medaled three times in the Seniors Nationals and competed in the 2004 Olympic Trials. Bones of Iron is divided into short chapters designed to be read quickly – some are only a page long. The book has three sections: 1) Training, 2) Competitive Experience, and 3) General Athletic Experience.

In the training section, one chapter of interest to anyone who has ever secured themselves under a heavy barbell and done a deep knee bend is “Push It Real Good: Another Look at the Squat.” Foreman was interested in seeing how much he could increase his squat by changing to a powerlifting style and using supportive equipment. When he could do an Olympiclifting squat of 562 pounds for 1RM (1 repetition maximum), he switched to a powerlifting style for two months. He found after this period that his best lifts were the squat with belt only (606 pounds) and with knee wraps (661 pounds), and the squat with belt, knee wraps and Inzer squat suit (714 pounds).

Bottom line: He improved by 152 pounds in two months. Says Foreman, “Many world-class powerlifters have told me that 152 pounds is merely a fraction of how much supportive equipment can add if you really maximize it. I would not hesitate to guess that if I had bought one of the mega-powered squat suits and squatted to a higher depth, the 1RM would have jumped considerably.” The competitive experience section of Bones of Iron has many interesting stories, such as when Foreman got the opportunity to compete against Russia’s Andrei Chemerkin, a gold medal winner at the 1996 Atlanta Games, who once was quoted as saying, “The dream of everyone is to defeat me.”

In the general athletic experience section the chapter “Out with the Old, in with the New” offers many insightful coaching tidbits. Foreman makes the point that sometimes kids simply don’t know how to act: “…maybe they DON’T know better than that. Maybe nobody has ever told them the difference between acting right and acting wrong…. They need some guidance.” In trying to be honest about his feelings and beliefs, Foreman includes some “edgy” language that makes this book inappropriate for younger readers.

Further, Foreman could have spent a little more time editing out phrases that remind us this material was published elsewhere, such as, “…over the last few years I have been writing for this magazine.” But those faults aside, Bones of Iron is a good read for coaches who would like a behind-the-scenes look at the sport of weightlifting from the perspective of a serious athlete.

(lt to rt) Al Vermeil, Zygmunt Smalcerz, Tommy Kono and Jim Radcliffe Mid-Illinois Strength Symposium a Big Success On January 19-20, 2012, weightlifting coach Marty Schnorf sponsored the Mid-Illinois Strength Symposium in Mattoon, Illinois. Among the notable coaches who presented were Jim Radcliffe, Al Vermeil, Tommy Kono and Zygmunt Smalcerz.

Radcliffe is the head strength coach at the University of Oregon, Al Vermeil won world championship rings with the 49ers and Chicago Bulls, Tommy Kono is a two-time Olympic Games weightlifting champion, and Zygmunt Smalcerz is a former Olympic Games weightlifting champion who currently serves as the head coach at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. The event was so successful that Schnorf is considering holding a much larger event next year. Schnorf says all the presenters were excellent and Radcliffe was “a real find…a jewel.”

Since 1985 Radcliffe has been the head strength coach at the University of Oregon, which last season finished 12-1 and was ranked second in the AP Poll and Coaches Poll. University of Oregon star running back De’Anthony Thomas is considered the fastest man in college football and was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated (he runs the 40 in 4.38 seconds, and in high school he ran the 100 meters in 10.57 and the 200 in 20.61). The University of Oregon was featured in the September/October 2006 issue of BFS magazine, which you can download for free from the magazine archive As for the organizer of this event, Coach Schnorf was featured in the Summer 2003 issue of BFS magazine.

Schnorf has known BFS Editor in Chief Kim Goss for more than 30 years, and has some interesting ideas about how to train young athletes to achieve physical superiority.

The hamstrings are involved in flexing the knee and extending the hip. Leg curls are one type of isolation exercise that is especially effective for working the knee flexion function, and strength coach Charles Poliquin has a unique training tip to increase the muscle contraction of the hamstrings during these exercises. Coach Poliquin says that when performing leg curls, you should pull your toes towards your shins (dorsiflexion) during the concentric contraction and extend your toes (plantar flexion) during the eccentric contraction.

He Dorsiflexion Plantar Flexion says that because you are stronger when lowering the weight in leg curls than when lifting the weight, the hamstrings will receive a greater overload because the gastrocnemius will be inactive in the plantarflexed position. Poliquin adds that you may experience some cramping when you first perform this technique, but that the condition is only temporary.

Coming Next Issue It’s time to begin the selection process for the 2013 BFS Male and Female High School Athletes of the Year. These annual honors are awarded to high school athletes who have used the BFS program to help them fulfill their athletic goals, along with representing the ideals of the Be an 11 program. Features on both athletes will appear in BFS magazine. If there is an athlete you would like to nominate, please contact Kim Goss at kim@bfsmail.com.

From BFS Magazine — March/April 2013. Part of the BFS Magazine Archive (1980–2014).