January/February 2008
Bobby Doyle is the son of BFS clinician Bob Doyle; and despite being only a sophomore, he has already been contributing to the success of the Naval Academy’s football team. This year against Duke, for example, he threw a touchdown pass that enabled Navy to tie the game and eventually win in overtime. And, of course, he was part of the team that ended Notre Dame’s 43-year winning streak over the midshipmen. Doyle’s earlier BFS training had given him a head start in his college career, and his numbers during high school include the following: 300-pound clean, 455 parallel squat, 500 x 10 box squat, and 34.2 seconds in the Dot Drill.
At Chardon High School in Chardon, Ohio, Doyle earned three letters in track and football; and during his senior year as a running back he was named Second Team All-State, and he also set the single-game and season rushing records at Chardon.
Notre Dame Falls!
BFS High School of the Year: Who’s Next? Titusville High School in Titusville, Pennsylvania, was selected as the 2007 BFS High School of the Year, and the school’s story appeared in our November/December issue. Sharing a plaque to acknowledge this outstanding accomplishment are, left to right: Stephanie Keebler, principal; Jim Come, athletic director; Mike Reynolds, assistant football and track coach; Scott Salvo, head football coach; Kevin Dawson, head boys’ swim coach; and Karen Jez, superintendent.
No Cover Jinx Here! Our last two college covers featured Adrian Peterson, Darren McFadden and Felix Jones. Looking back, we at BFS are patting ourselves on the back for making some pretty good selections. Despite being only a rookie in 2007, Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings has established himself as the NFL’s premier running back. Besides leading the league in total rushing yardage at midpoint in the season, he broke the NFL’s single-game rushing record with 296 yards on November 4 in the Vikings’ 35-17 game against the San Diego Chargers.
As for the dynamic duo from the University of Arkansas, 2006 and 2007 Heisman runner-up McFadden finished the season with 1,725 rushing yards and 15 TDS, 164 receiving yards and one TD, and 123 passing yards and four TDs. Jones scored his second 1,000-yard rushing season with 1,117 yards and 11 touchdowns. It will be interesting to see how these two great athletes compare to the standard set by Adrian Peterson.
Cancer Fighter Melissa Hounsel One of the feel-good success stories we were happy to share with BFS readers several years ago was that of Melissa Hounsel, a figure skater who was coached by BFS editor-in-chief Kim Goss. In the summer of 2000, just before her senior year in high school, Hounsel was diagnosed with leukemia. Although her skating was put on hold and she spent three years in chemotherapy, Hounsel was determined to keep up with her life plans. She did just that, graduating with her class and then earning a master’s degree in kinesiology from the University of North Texas last year.
We’re glad to add an update on Hounsel’s career: She is now employed as a personal trainer at the Cooper Aerobics Center at Craig Ranch. “I have worked with various individuals doing one-on-one training, duo training, and kinesis group training. I have also been in charge of the weight loss program’s fitness class, and I am currently working on getting some teen fitness classes started for 2007.”
Sports Injuries Answer Book If you think IT band syndrome has something to do with all the Internet scalpers jacking up Hannah Montana tickets up to $1,000 a pair, then you really need a copy of Sports Injuries Guidebook by Robert S. Gotlin, DO (humankinetics.com). This book is the athlete’s, coach’s and even parent’s basic resource for the identification, treatment and recovery of injuries. Got patella tendonitis? Look it up! Want to know the difference between spondylolysis and spondylolisthesis? Look it up! Dumbfounded by shoeLUMBAR DEGENERATIVE DISC DISEASE CHAPTER 10 lace pressure syndrome? Yep, you Lower-Back Injuries can even find that here too.
Each injury is illustrated and described in simple text that discusses the common causes of the injury, how to identify it, how to treat it, and the estimated period of time to return to action. There is also a convenient “injury finder” table in the front of the book to help identify all the injuries described in the book. Common Causes Degenerative disc disease (DDD) occurs when one of the lumbar discs dries up and deteriorates so that the end plates or bones might rub against each other. This rubbing causes irritation to the remaining disc structures and can cause irritation of the bone. The pain is believed to emanate from inflamed fibers of the irritated disc.
Although sports activities can aggravate the pain from DDD, they do not cause it. There is no specific cause. Clearly, people who have had a prior disc injury are at risk for having that disc deteriorate and become painful.
Athletes with degenerative disc disease experience tenderness in the lower lumbar spine. Pain is dull and might be located on one or both sides of the lower back; it may or may not radiate into the buttock. Pain is generally worse early in the morning, with stiffness and difficulty standing upright, and subsides as the day proceeds and returns at the end of the day. Spinal flexion might be limited by lower-back discomfort. Prolonged sitting is often uncomfortable. The pain is often not specific and difficult to describe. The condition can be confirmed by X-rays.
Treatment of lumbar degenerative disease is similar to treatment for lumbar sprain or strain (p. 152). The most important factor in treating this condition is athlete education and maintenance of a core-strengthening and flexibility program.
The progression of therapy is guided by the athlete’s pain and ability to tolerate activity. The athlete with lumbar DDD is prone to occasional bouts of severe back pain and thus needs to regularly perform core strengthening, lower-back and lowerextremity stretching, and extension-strengthening exercises to minimize recurrence of pain. All exercises for degenerative lumbar disease, including Pilates and yoga, need to be performed with caution. Avoid excesses of range of motion that might lead to aggravation. Modify yoga and Pilates to avoid forceful flexion exercises.
WHAT’S HAPPENING P R O D U C T S P OT L I G H T BFS president Bob Rowbotham (left) goes over sales results with BFS founder/CEO Dr. Greg Shepard.
Record boards are a great motivational tool for athletes, which is why BFS offers custom-made Top 10 Motivational Boards and Depth Charts for your program. However, we have found that these boards have many uses, not just in the weightroom. At BFS, we use the Top 10 Boards to help us keep track of important aspects of our business. Shown is BFS president Bob Rowbotham using the board to go over sales figures with founder/CEO Dr. Greg Shepard.
Whitmore Lake High School was the worthy recipient of our 2005 BFS High School of the Year. We recently received a great letter from Coach Brian Lemons about how the school has been doing since appearing in our January/February 2006 issue. Lemons said that they started a powerlifting team in 2005, and the numbers have grown from 10 to 80 – and 50 of them are girls. “Powerlifting is really just a misnomer; we invite our student athletes (grades 7-12) to train on the BFS program year-round. We begin with the BFS Readiness program until each milestone is met, and then we introduce powerlifting as off-season motivation.
We participate in powerlifting to aid in motivation for our off-season weight training. Other schools probably are training as powerlifters, but here we train with BFS because our end goal is to create better athletes and build character in those who elect not to participate in athletics.” As for their athletics, Lemons says that their sports programs are still going strong. “Since developing our strength training program here we have over 15 student athletes who have graduated and have begun successful collegiate athletic careers, from Division I football to Division III volleyball. These types of success stories all started in the weightroom here at Whitmore Lake.”
Beyond Bats and Balls: Baseball Physics An interesting article that will appear in the American Journal of Physics says that an increase in lean bodyweight of 10 percent increases bat speed by 4 percent and ball speed by 3 percent. The article, by Tufts University physicist Roger Tobin, is entitled “On the Potential of a Chemical Bonds: Possible Effects of Steroids on Home Run Production in Baseball.” Our resident expert Robin Jennings says that even if Tobin’s hypothesis is accurate, that doesn’t necessarily translate into home runs because of many variables, such as ball trajectory. Still, it does make an interesting case for the importance of strength training for baseball.
Although only a junior at North Bullitt High School in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, Dalton Cissell now owns the school record for career rushing yards. His current total is 5,070 rushing yards, averaging 145 yards per game, and he is on pace to finish his career in the top ten all-time in the state of Kentucky for rushing yards. The 2007 District Player of the Year, Cissell is already in the state record book for his 99-yard TD run in 2006. In fact, on his very first touch in varsity competition as a freshman, Dalton returned the opening kickoff of the 2005 season for a 75-yard touchdown.
In powerlifting competition, he won two meets this past winter, being named the Most Outstanding Lifter at a regional meet. His best lifts are a 275 power clean, 365 bench, 410 squat and 555 deadlift. He is also fast, as evidenced by a 4.5 in the forty and a 33-inch vertical leap. Cissell currently has a 3.7 GPA while taking advanced classes.
Reverse Hyper Warning It’s not that we at BFS are against reverse hypers, but now that so many gyms have these machines – and there’s even an infomercial-marketed home model – we decided to offer a warning. Unlike in a glute-ham or back extension, in the reverse hyper the torso remains stationary and the legs move. You can perform this exercise off a glute-ham bench (as shown), on a Swiss ball, or with a special machine designed for this purpose in which additional resistance can be added to the legs. Shown is a technique advocated by many trainers in which the legs are lifted to parallel. For most individuals, this method of performance may cause or aggravate lower back injury.
According to posturologist Paul Gagné, lifting your legs Although demonstrated here, to parallel places harmlifting to parallel is not advised. Reg Bradford photos ful compression forces on the L3, L4 and L5 vertebrae of the lower back. As a general rule, Gagné says you should only lift your leg three quarters of the way up.
COMING NEXT ISSUE Our March/April 2008 issue will announce our BFS High School Male Athlete of the Year. If you know of an athlete who deserves this honor, which includes a major feature story in BFS magazine, please contact BFS editor-in-chief Kim Goss at kim@bfsmail.com.
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From BFS Magazine — January/February 2008. Part of the BFS Magazine Archive (1980–2014).
