What is the main difference between Archuleta, Johny Lynch, Jason Sehorn, and those guys?
From CT’s ‘Super Beast’ article:
“And Jay Schroeder has Adam Archuletta bench press as much as twelve times per week.”
A strength coach is supposed to develop the athlete’s physical capabilities, but must also recognize that this is only one part of being a good football player, not the sole determinant of on-field performance.
It’s great that he’s so physically dominant at his position, but it’s come at the expense of other traits that would make him a much better strong safety. And a strength coach who’s put as much time and effort into an athlete as Schroeder has should recognize this.
[quote]john p wrote:
A strength coach is supposed to develop the athlete’s physical capabilities, but must also recognize that this is only one part of being a good football player, not the sole determinant of on-field performance.
It’s great that he’s so physically dominant at his position, but it’s come at the expense of other traits that would make him a much better strong safety. And a strength coach who’s put as much time and effort into an athlete as Schroeder has should recognize this.[/quote]
Wait a minute, so you’re saying that it’s BECAUSE he can bench press X number of pounds assisted, or not or whatever, that he is lacking in other areas of his position? That’s crazy! Unless he is in the weight room when he should be on the field doing drills, resistance training has done nothing but help him. Whether or not you think he is as good a strong safety as Lynch, Doss, Erik Coleman, Minter, Mike Brown… hell, whomever you want to name, I think it is evident that Adam is not as NATURALLY talented as those guys. In my opinion, what you have here is a self-made player, one who is in the NFL more through dedication and tenacity than through and God-given gifts. I don’t think all that highly of Schroeder (not as highly as some other coaches I could think of anyway) but Archuleta’s performance on the field is not his responsibility, that is the rams’ DB coach’s responsibility.
And just to throw in my $0.02 I agree with Big Martin: nowhere did he say Archuleta sucks as a player. Whether “incredibly strong” should mean “stronger than all but .1% of the population” or “stronger than 75% of the population” is mere semantics, but BM doesn’t deserve to be attacked for adhering more to the former definition.
[quote]KBCThird wrote:
Unless he is in the weight room when he should be on the field doing drills. [/quote]
Not to take away from Archuletta’s work ethic and dedication to achieving his dreams, which are incredible, but that’s exactly what I’m saying.
Half of these “great strength athletes” as some people refer to them can’t tie their shoes. I watched a meet recently, half of them walked around like a bunch of constipated bullfrogs, with lifting outfits that were two sizes too small. Show me someone like Ray Lewis. Now there is an impressive physique. Strength!Power! Speed!
[quote]Johnrn wrote:
Half of these “great strength athletes” as some people refer to them can’t tie their shoes. I watched a meet recently, half of them walked around like a bunch of constipated bullfrogs, with lifting outfits that were two sizes too small. Show me someone like Ray Lewis. Now there is an impressive physique. Strength!Power! Speed![/quote]
What’s your point? Ray Lewis has a great physique? Who cares? Neither Lewis nor powerlifters are bodybuilders, for them function is the key thing. And I’m not talking about BS “functionality” balancing on a wobble board while doing unilateral eccentric lunge to curl to overheard press to skullcrusher to backflip either.
For a powerlifter the function is maximal strength; that is what they do and nobody is better at it then them, just as nobody plays football better than NFL players. Saying that they can’t tie their shoes and they don’t have power and speed is like saying “Y’know, I’ve seen some of these baseball players in a pickup game of basketball and let me tell you, they have no outside shot.”
…
WTF cares?? It’s apples and oranges. You don’t like strength athletes? Then stay off the strength sports forum.
I think the argument stems more from the fact that most coaches today seem to be afraid of strength. They focus more on conditioning. I don’t think that a football player is ever strong enough.
Granted strength isn’t the only concern, but if you take two 300lb. linemen, playing at the same level with similar skill and one squats 900 while the other squats 600, my money is going on the one who squats 900 trampling the other when they collide. I was in the Falcons weight room one day and saw one of their biggest linemen squatting 315… sad…
Most coaches out there are good conditioning coaches and bad strength coaches. They use cute sayings like, don’t forget, we are training football players not powerlifters. Yes that’s true, but football players should be strong, and should continually try to get stronger.
[quote]Scott613 wrote:
I was in the Falcons weight room one day and saw one of their biggest linemen squatting 315… sad…
[/quote]
He probably went to Penn State.
Even when you say strength athletes you have to be carefull since even between Olympic Lifting, Powerlifting, Strongman, Highland, etc. their is a shit load of difference between how they train and what they can do. Why? Because each have different goals. Whinning about what one can do better than the other is nothing more than personal bias since it does not matter. Hell, even some olympic level 100 meter sprinter have as much lateral agility as a powerlifter. Why? Again, they don’t need to dance around like Barry Sanders.
But I do agree with the people who mentioned that some football players aren’t training strength enough, except (at least at collegiate levels) they lack speed-strength training. Training a 350lbs lineman to chase after super-balls, or live chickens and then going into the weightroom and doing 3 sets of 10 curls or squeezing out a triple wit 315 in a back squat and believing doing cleans and push presses are deadly, has me worried as to what will happen when they have to face the 315lbs lineman who back squat 900lbs and clean and push-press 375-400lbs or the just the linebacker who can frontsquat 400 for reps.
Dookie,
That is histerical! My wife is PSU alum. (doesn’t care much about football, just loves State College and PSU) so she gets cranked up when I say stuff like that. I feel the same way. I can’t believe they have someone like Dr. Zatsiorski teaching there, and the S&C staff won’t tap into that incredible source of knowledge. Instead they just keep doing their same ol’ HIT bullshit…
I’ve read all the posts on this thread and would like to make a point to Big Martin.
BM, let’s not forget that 600 and 700 pound benches became “common” in powerlifting only after the powerlifting gear got ridiculous. I just read on Dave Tate’s training logs that he gets 200 lbs. out of his bench shirt!
My point is that how many powerlifters that weigh under 200 lbs. can bench 500 lbs. RAW? If powerlifting banned all equipment, a 500+lb. bench would then become “ridiculously strong” for a guy who weighs under 200!
Think about it.
Steel
[quote]Scott613 wrote:
Dookie,
That is histerical! My wife is PSU alum. (doesn’t care much about football, just loves State College and PSU) so she gets cranked up when I say stuff like that. I feel the same way. I can’t believe they have someone like Dr. Zatsiorski teaching there, and the S&C staff won’t tap into that incredible source of knowledge. Instead they just keep doing their same ol’ HIT bullshit…[/quote]
A shame, isn’t it?
[quote]steel21 wrote:
I’ve read all the posts on this thread and would like to make a point to Big Martin.
BM, let’s not forget that 600 and 700 pound benches became “common” in powerlifting only after the powerlifting gear got ridiculous. I just read on Dave Tate’s training logs that he gets 200 lbs. out of his bench shirt!
My point is that how many powerlifters that weigh under 200 lbs. can bench 500 lbs. RAW? If powerlifting banned all equipment, a 500+lb. bench would then become “ridiculously strong” for a guy who weighs under 200!
Think about it.
Steel[/quote]
Good point, but as stated above, specificity cannot be ignored. Some of the training would be different if gear was not allowed. Sure, the numbers wouldn’t be as high, but they would be high nonetheless (is that one word?).
yeah, and Lance Armstrong wouldn’t win the Tour de France if he was riding his old huffy, I guess bikes are just getting “ridiculous” now a days aren’t they? What’s next, tighter wound baseballs? moving outfield walls in closer? technologically advanced golf clubs? How dare powerlifters, trying to advance their sport through advanced gear…
Lets get off of these stupid arguments. Let football players do what they want to do and let powerlifters do what they want to do. Who cares what a powerlifter can bench raw? I dont give a shit! Just like I dont care what any football player benches with or without a shirt. How many football players have the balls to attempt a 700 or 800lb. bench with or without a shirt. Ill give them mine if they would like to try since the shirt is a magical thing that increases yor bench by 200lbs. just by putting it on. I love watching football players play football and I love watching powerlifters powerlift. I dont give a shit whethter or not Garry Frank could run a 4.4 sec. forty and I dont care to see if Brett Favre could squat 800lbs. Its stupid. 'Nuff said.
I’ve read all the posts on this thread and would like to make a point to Big Martin.
BM, let’s not forget that 600 and 700 pound benches became “common” in powerlifting only after the powerlifting gear got ridiculous. I just read on Dave Tate’s training logs that he gets 200 lbs. out of his bench shirt!
My point is that how many powerlifters that weigh under 200 lbs. can bench 500 lbs. RAW? If powerlifting banned all equipment, a 500+lb. bench would then become “ridiculously strong” for a guy who weighs under 200!
Think about it.
Steel
Let me tell you the truth here…adams rep was a forced rep his coach was pulling on the bar its on video look at it…and adam would be in the 220 class…most the top benches in the wpo range from 600-720…i refuse to comment on your bench shirt crap/…becuase i gurantee you have nver been in a bench shirt and have no clue what your talking about when it comes to using a bench shirt…so arguing with you would be rideculous…all i ask is if wearing a bench shirt and becoming a elite bencher is so easy…buy a bench shirt today any one you want single, double, super neck, denim, rage whatever… and i will give you a year if you can get in the top 50 for your weight class in a year in any fed in any shirt you want i will apoligize…but right now your talking out of ignorance…rb
This thread is still going?
Archuletta is strong, and is getting stronger. Good for him. More guys should train like him and be so committed to training. How is that a bad thing?
The fact that Archuletta is quite strong at his size is no reason for powerlifters to get their feelings hurt.
Why deconstruct the man’s success at lifting weights because someone, somewhere can lift more?
Bolt,
Archuleta has no success at lifting weights, he has success in football. I think this thread is more about the fact that most strength coaches are afraid to let their athletes get truely strong. Schroeder is a great coach and no doubt Archuleta is an amazing football player, but for someone to say he is incredibly strong is ridiculous. A strong football player yes, but incredibly strong, no. That would be like saying Steve Goggins is an incredible football player cause’ he squatted 1102. All Big Martin was trying to do was make the original poster aware that he was speaking out of context. I think BM would be the first to agree that Adam is an awesome football player, but he is right, saying Adam is incredibly strong is too general. Maybe incredibly strong to most BB’ers on this board, but in the world of real strength, he is not incredibly strong. Is all out strength Adam’s goal? I doubt it. He has other abilities he needs to develop, however, I do feel that most athletes and strength coaches give up on strength trianing too soon at the expense of excuses like “we are training football players, not weightlifters.” That is BS in my book. All athletes should be concerned with raising their absolute strength levels as it will allow for improvement in other abilities, however they should not pursue strength at the EXPENSE of their other abilities.
As for this bench shirt nonsense, I would love to see anyone on this thread take up BM’s offer and go elite in a year by using a shirt, doubt it will happen in this lifetime! Bench shirts aren’t the cure to a weak bench, they help ALREADY strong people get stronger.
I would venture to say that anyone who can bench press 500lbs RAW in good fashion, particularly a man weighing in the low 200’s, is incredibly strong. Speaking of using bench shirts is whole 'nother topic.
BM stated that Archuleta’s 523, or whatever it was, was an assisted rep. He didn’t do it on his own. Bottom line, I would like to see how much the guy can do on his own. That would bring a little more “clarity” to this discussion. Either way, I certainly do think we have to distinguish between RAW lifts and lifts done with bench shirts/gear. I’m old school from the time before bench shirts! Powerlifters are currently using bench shirts to up their lifts. Fine. I do sense some defensiveness from some of the Plifters on this board regarding this point.
In my book, and again I’m old school, a legitimate 500 lb bench press done with no supportive gear is incredibly strong. We don’t know if Archuleta can do this because the lift on the video was done with the assistance of a partner.
In the current realm of powerlifting (bench shirts, supportive gear) a 500 lb bench press is not considered “incredibly strong”. So, we are talking about two different things… comparing apples to oranges.
He also had a 93-yard fumble return last night. Most of the powerlifters in my gym would take 30 seconds plus to run 93 yards, if they didn’t collapse first.
I think we should all agree that as an all-round athlete combining strength, speed, agility, etc - Archuleta is in excellent shape. And for a football player, he’s incredibly strong.