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For the past two seasons, the State University of lowa "Hawkeyes" basketball team has employed a systematic weight training conditioning program. Here 6'6". 200-pound Bill Schoof practices the riseon-toes for calf strength. Iowa's courtmen placed second in Big Ten competition as sophmores in 1954, won the conference championship this year as juniors. Coached by Frank (Bucky) O'Connor, the Hawkeyes won 19 and lost only seven games against top-flight opposition, ranking among the nation's best. O'Connor has approved the program, saying it "made them stronger in the arms and wrists. It also made them stronger physically for the rugged work under the baskets." (Photo by George W. Black)

WEIGHT TRAINING FOR ATHLETES?

Does barbell dumbell exercise cause "muscle-boundness," slowness? Can it be overdone? Read the opinions of a distinguished educator...

By C. H. McCLOY

State University of lowa

OR MANY YEARS coaches have shied away from weight training for their athletes-"It makes them slow and muscle-bound." When the Naval Preflight School moved into the Field House of the State University of Iowa in the early years of the Second World War, one of the activities included in the physical training program of their cadets was weight training. Many of the writer's university students asked his opinion of this activity: "Isn't it bad for athletes?" The writer, at that time, knew almost nothing about weight training other than that it developed muscles superbly. Not being accustomed to believing old folk tales without evidence, he told his students that he would try to find the correct answers to their questions. As is usual, on such occasions, he combed the literature for scientific studies of weight training, but found almost nothing, certainly nothing that pertained to athletics. Scientists are not accustomed to accept popular literature as scientific evidence. Hence the writer, while reading Strength and Health and numerous popular books about weight training, reserved judgment until some carefully obtained evidence should be available. He did, however, take up weight training very energetically to try it out by personal investigation. Since he was, at that time, 55 years old, he felt that if, perchance, he "became slow and muscle-bound" it would not greatly impair his athletic careerwhich was then at least fifteen years behind him! The result of the personal trial was that he is now 10% stronger than he was at 21 (by the same tests) -and is at least no slower than he was in 1941 when he began to train with weights.

Second, after the war the writer directed a number of studies by graduate students on the effects of weight training on performance in sports, especially track and field athletics. These studies have mostly been reported elsewhere in the physical education research literature, and the results will not be repeated here in detail. Suffice it to say that in every case the trainees improved in speed and in muscular endurance. There was no evidence that they became any less flexible (more "muscle bound") than they were before weight training, though no especial attempt was made to keep them flexible. Results obtained were of the nature of improvements of 31⁄2 inches in the high jump, 22 feet (12 lb.) to 3 feet (8 lb.) in the shot puts, 5 inches in the standing broad jump, 33/100 seconds in the 60-yd. dash, 4 seconds in the 300-yd. run, and considerably more speed in swimming. Certainly the athletes improved in speed. A basketball team, doing very moderate weight training for six weeks before the season, improved on an average of 32 inches in the jump and reach, executed much as it would be done in jumping upward for the ball in basketball.

Let us examine the physics and some of the physiology of these phenomena. First, nobody doubts that progressive resistance exercises result in the increase in force (strength): this has been proven hundreds of times. Most athletic performances are based on the ability to develop power (this is not to be confused with strength alone). Power is the time rate of work: or in other words, the speed with which the work is done. Let us review some elementary physics. Work (in mechanics) is force times the distance over which the force is used: or using algebraic symbols, W Fd. Power is work Fd. But distance divided by time t t (Continued on page 10)

divided by time, or using symbols, P =

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The weight training program used by lowa basketball players was worked out by graduate student Dick Garth, research professor Dr. Charles H. McCloy, Dr. Arthur Wendler and Dr. Frank Sills. It included the repetition clean and press, a variation of the squat, curls, lateral raises and forward raises. At left Bill Logan demonstrates the "walking squat," in which the feet are advanced alternately for each squat. Logan, a 6' 6", 195-pound center, improved his jumping ability by five inches by the completion of his first year of weight training. The average jumping gain for the team was 2.7 inches. Logan averaged 15.9 points per game during the 1955 season. Depending on their strength, Hawkeye players used from 100 to 140 pounds. for squatting, from 75 to 125 pounds for the press. For the upper body exercises, the weight was increased whenever seven repetitions could be completed. For the squats, the Hawkeye squad worked up to 20 repetitions. In the photo at right, McKinley (Deacon) Davis completes a press. Davis, a 6'2", 175-pound forward, improved 2.75 inches in jumping his first season, averaged 10 points per game in 1955. Below (1. to r.) are Sharm Scheuerman practicing the lateral raise, Roy Johnson doing the forward raise, and Bill Seaburg working on curls. Not only do the basketball players at lowa use weight train-

ing, but the barbells and dumbells are also used by wrestlers, swimmers, tennis players, track and field men, baseball players and golfers. (Photos by George W. Black)

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STRENGTH AND HEALTH. JULY, 1955