[quote]Airtruth wrote:
he’s crippled either mentally or physically.[/quote]
I just shit myself from laughing.
[quote]Airtruth wrote:
Another piece of added confusion. It seems some people KBC and Oboile are talking about what the average person can do, then you have others Tveddy and heavythrower talking about what average genetics can allow you to do.
The average person may not be a college level athlete at the moment. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the genetics to be at a college level and bench, squat heavy weights.
We weren’t trying to rip RJ’s athletic ability, he is trying and he has some. We’re just saying you can’t qualify your genetic ability above average because most peoples genetics will allow them to do that if they tried.[/quote]
I think you give the average person too much credit. Some people are just never going to jump 35" or run a 4.7 40. Some people are naturally skinny runner types as I was - 5’8" and 135 lbs. at 19 one of my good friends is 5’11" and 130 now *at 28) and he certainly makes no effort to keep his weight down. Some people are really uncoordinated and will never develop good throwing/shooting/hitting mechanics.
Playing college sports is a solid accomplishment. The average person may be able (with a lot of work) to play a sport that just happens to suit their physical abilities (likely an obscure one like babminton), but I certainly don’t think the average person could crack the starting lineup of a college football team.
I do think that just about anyone can lift some solid weight if they work at it for a few years… but that is very different from being able to master sporting technique.
[“It seems from what he said that the coaches were very concerned with how much their players lifted. A 5-5 record is what happens when people get too concerned with weightroom numbers. They really don’t matter all that much. Obviously you need some basic strength, but in the end speed and quickness is what it comes down to, even for linemen.”
that’s true #'s aren’t everything, from powerlifting meets I have a pretty good idea what #s other teams were doing, and our lifts were pretty much middle of the pack for that district, about what you would expect for a 5-5 team, just about every team in the area had a good strength program,
one of the fullbacks in our district actually totalled 1800 at 220 at the regional highschool meet (he did it again at NASA nationals a few weeks later so it wasn’t because of judging) there were some freaks there, we just didn’t have anything other than solid average lifters and players, so It’s not like we were so much stronger than other teams that we coudl physically impose our will on them, our lifts and our record were fairly typical .
Guys, can I ask, what age does the typical US high school kid start training with weights?
And how long is it before they start to hit 315+ benches and 500+ squats and deadlifts?
I assume the average weight of these guys is 250+??
If you tell me the grades I won’t understand it cos we use a different system here in Ireland.
Thanks all. If the kids we’re talking about are guys with 3 years of training I wouldn’t find it so hard to belive. But when you say a HS kid did it, for some reason I assume they’re hitting it with like a years training becauese around 17 is when we start to learn about and use weights over here typically.
[quote]tveddy wrote:
Airtruth wrote:
he’s crippled either mentally or physically.
I just shit myself from laughing.[/quote]
Ya he’s weak, but he isn’t crippled in any form at all, he’s very smart and looks like an average person, however he couldn’t even bench the bar when he started…and my point was that not everyone is cut out to lift, you guys give way too much credit to the average person.
here’s another example, I had the misfortune of spending 2 years at an engineering only campus and let me tell you if I saw someone moving half the weight I could move on any exercise I was impressed, the majority of them struggled with 95lb benches.
[quote]Hanley wrote:
Guys, can I ask, what age does the typical US high school kid start training with weights?
And how long is it before they start to hit 315+ benches and 500+ squats and deadlifts?
I assume the average weight of these guys is 250+??
If you tell me the grades I won’t understand it cos we use a different system here in Ireland.
Thanks all. If the kids we’re talking about are guys with 3 years of training I wouldn’t find it so hard to belive. But when you say a HS kid did it, for some reason I assume they’re hitting it with like a years training becauese around 17 is when we start to learn about and use weights over here typically.[/quote]
Usually around 14-15. That is their first year of high school and when they would start training for football or other sports. Some kids do start training earlier, but it’s not too common.
As for the 315+ benches and 500+ pound squats, there aren’t as many legit ones as people are making it out to seem. I just finished high school 2 years ago and our team was ranked 4th in Florida 5A. For those that don’t know, Florida probably has some of the most competitive high school teams behind Texas and California. Where do you think the Gators get all their players? 
Anyways, back on topic. The point I’m trying to make is that I was on a very good high school team, and we had guys that “benched” 400+ and even had guys that “squatted” 700+. I put the lifts in quotes because they can hardly be called real lifts. I never saw anyone bench more than 315 without someone’s hands touching the bar.
In fact, most kids had two maxes: one without a “spot” (read upright row by the “spotter”) and one with a “spot”. Everyone’s ass was three feet off the bench as well.
The squats were even worse. I doubt anyone even went halfway down. For reference, I “squatted” 465 at 185lbs when I was 16 years old. I’m now 20 and most definitely stronger than I’ve ever been. Now that I squat to proper depth, I barely got 405 last week (I did take two years off from lifting after high school for those that will say I should be doing more).
If I had to go to parallel in high school I doubt I would’ve squatted much more than 315.
I did see someone power clean 315. He was the only person on our team that could do more than 250. To put it in perspective, he was the #3 most recruited player in the nation our senior year. He is now a star linebacker for Mississippi State as a junior and will most likely be playing on Sundays in two years.
His name is Jamar Cheney if anyone wants to look him up. Anyone who says a 315 clean in high school is commonplace needs to get their eyes checked.
You should definitely take any numbers you hear about high school kids with a grain of salt. For this reason, Mike Boyle says that when he asks a high school kid how much they squat, he divides that number in half to get a more accurate idea of how strong they are.
[quote]k1t0r5 wrote:
Hanley wrote:
Guys, can I ask, what age does the typical US high school kid start training with weights?
And how long is it before they start to hit 315+ benches and 500+ squats and deadlifts?
I assume the average weight of these guys is 250+??
If you tell me the grades I won’t understand it cos we use a different system here in Ireland.
Thanks all. If the kids we’re talking about are guys with 3 years of training I wouldn’t find it so hard to belive. But when you say a HS kid did it, for some reason I assume they’re hitting it with like a years training becauese around 17 is when we start to learn about and use weights over here typically.
Usually around 14-15. That is their first year of high school and when they would start training for football or other sports. Some kids do start training earlier, but it’s not too common.
As for the 315+ benches and 500+ pound squats, there aren’t as many legit ones as people are making it out to seem. I just finished high school 2 years ago and our team was ranked 4th in Florida 5A. For those that don’t know, Florida probably has some of the most competitive high school teams behind Texas and California. Where do you think the Gators get all their players?
Anyways, back on topic. The point I’m trying to make is that I was on a very good high school team, and we had guys that “benched” 400+ and even had guys that “squatted” 700+. I put the lifts in quotes because they can hardly be called real lifts. I never saw anyone bench more than 315 without someone’s hands touching the bar.
In fact, most kids had two maxes: one without a “spot” (read upright row by the “spotter”) and one with a “spot”. Everyone’s ass was three feet off the bench as well.
The squats were even worse. I doubt anyone even went halfway down. For reference, I “squatted” 465 at 185lbs when I was 16 years old. I’m now 20 and most definitely stronger than I’ve ever been. Now that I squat to proper depth, I barely got 405 last week (I did take two years off from lifting after high school for those that will say I should be doing more).
If I had to go to parallel in high school I doubt I would’ve squatted much more than 315.
I did see someone power clean 315. He was the only person on our team that could do more than 250. To put it in perspective, he was the #3 most recruited player in the nation our senior year. He is now a star linebacker for Mississippi State as a junior and will most likely be playing on Sundays in two years.
His name is Jamar Cheney if anyone wants to look him up. Anyone who says a 315 clean in high school is commonplace needs to get their eyes checked.
You should definitely take any numbers you hear about high school kids with a grain of salt. For this reason, Mike Boyle says that when he asks a high school kid how much they squat, he divides that number in half to get a more accurate idea of how strong they are.[/quote]
Great post.
[quote]k1t0r5 wrote:
jtrinsey wrote:
Those lifts were requirements to make varsity? And you were 5-5?
Hmmmm…
It seems from what he said that the coaches were very concerned with how much their players lifted. A 5-5 record is what happens when people get too concerned with weightroom numbers. They really don’t matter all that much. Obviously you need some basic strength, but in the end speed and quickness is what it comes down to, even for linemen.
Once you get a guy squatting 1.5-2x bodyweight, there’s really no need to make getting him stronger the primary focus. At that point plyos, speed, and quickness drills should be the main priority.
In a study I mentioned in another thread (I could find the name of it if anyone really wants it), they looked at all the weightroom numbers for every Nebraska football team in recent history.
In every year they looked at, more often than not the guys with the highest squat and bench for their position were 2nd or 3rd string. With the emphasis everyone puts on these lifts you would think it would be the exact opposite.[/quote]
Yeah that’s basically what I was implying. I’m a college athlete as well and getting stronger has made a great improvement for me. When I got to school I couldn’t squat 135 properly and now I’m squatting more than 3 times that. Not great numbers but decent.
With that increase in strength my vert has gone up almost 7" and I jumped well enough to be invited to USA National Development Camps (volleyball) in high school. However, what I have noticed is that when I have made my best strength gains, my vert has actually gone down a bit.
When I back off strength work a bit and switch to power work, my strength goes down a little but I make progress in my vertical and speed work. Kind of a side rant but I think a lot of coaches get too caught up in the weightroom work. You don’t get points for how much you squat.
Respect on the 400 pound benches being average or whatever (which I highly doubt but that’s besides the point), but the bottom line is, while I’m very impressed in powerlifting terms, how was it helping their play?
I too have seen that Nebraska study. I’ve also seen that the highest correlation to playing time of all the weightroom indicators was vertical jump. Not that a football player necessarily needs to train to jump higher; it just shows that explosive power is the name of the game.
[quote]jtrinsey wrote:
Respect on the 400 pound benches being average or whatever (which I highly doubt but that’s besides the point), but the bottom line is, while I’m very impressed in powerlifting terms, how was it helping their play?
I too have seen that Nebraska study. I’ve also seen that the highest correlation to playing time of all the weightroom indicators was vertical jump. Not that a football player necessarily needs to train to jump higher; it just shows that explosive power is the name of the game.[/quote]
Yes, but at this point we’re venturing into chicken-egg territory. The 2nd stringers who had the highest bench adn squat numbers probably weren’t sceond stringers because they had put too much focus on the bench and squat -
they probably had good benches and squats because a) they werent as naturally talented as teh starters and thus had to work harder to get onto hte team and b) because they weren’t playing on saturdays they were able to push their weight room work all throughout the season whereas teh starters probably had to back off during the season.
Additionally, I love it when people take the study that correlates VJ and starting and say “well, we have to train our vertical jump then” completely ignoring the fact that teh guys who started probably hadn’t trained their vertical jump at all.
The bottom line is this: Just because I squat 400 and my teammate squats 300, that doesnt make me a better player than him. But if you take that 300 lb squatter and make him a 400 lb squatter, and you make the 400 lb squatter a 500 lber, they will both be better players than previously. Now of course theres a point of diminishing returns.
If you lineman squats 500 but runs a 5.8, I would not suggest that training his squat be his priority.
[quote]Hanley wrote:
Guys, can I ask, what age does the typical US high school kid start training with weights?
And how long is it before they start to hit 315+ benches and 500+ squats and deadlifts?
I assume the average weight of these guys is 250+??
If you tell me the grades I won’t understand it cos we use a different system here in Ireland.
Thanks all. If the kids we’re talking about are guys with 3 years of training I wouldn’t find it so hard to belive. But when you say a HS kid did it, for some reason I assume they’re hitting it with like a years training becauese around 17 is when we start to learn about and use weights over here typically.[/quote]
I’m a high school, student adn ive been training for 2.5 years and i 17 so i satarted training when i was 14.5. I hit 300 pounds at 16 a few weeks before my 17th birthday and im now 17 and hit 315 as a PR about a month ago. I weigh 213. My deadlift is around 450 now and idk what isquat because i workout at home and im afraid to max out because of safety concers.
[quote]Joe84 wrote:
tveddy wrote:
Airtruth wrote:
he’s crippled either mentally or physically.
I just shit myself from laughing.
Ya he’s weak, but he isn’t crippled in any form at all, he’s very smart and looks like an average person, however he couldn’t even bench the bar when he started…and my point was that not everyone is cut out to lift, you guys give way too much credit to the average person.[/quote]
I’m sorry, but I don’t believe this at all. I’ve lifted with quite a few people over the years, and I’ve never seen a healthy, adult male fail to press the bar. Hell, I think every chick I’ve ever seen can do the bar.
[quote]KBCThird wrote:
If you lineman squats 500 but runs a 5.8, I would not suggest that training his squat be his priority. [/quote]
Exactly. The problem is that most football coaches, especially high school, would say the solution is to bring his squat up to 600.
[quote]KBCThird wrote:
Yes, but at this point we’re venturing into chicken-egg territory. The 2nd stringers who had the highest bench adn squat numbers probably weren’t sceond stringers because they had put too much focus on the bench and squat -
they probably had good benches and squats because a) they werent as naturally talented as teh starters and thus had to work harder to get onto hte team and b) because they weren’t playing on saturdays they were able to push their weight room work all throughout the season whereas teh starters probably had to back off during the season. [/quote]
This is true, but I didn’t mean to imply they weren’t starting because they put too much emphasis on bench and squat. I mentioned the study because it goes to show that bench and squat numbers don’t have much to do with how well someone will play.
Whatever the reason for 2nd stringers having higher numbers, it proves that there are other factors that are much more important than how much a player can lift.
It just annoys me that most people fail to realize this. If these numbers were as important as people make them out to be, those 2nd stringers would have taken the starting job when they got stronger than the starters.
[quote]KK66 wrote:
Powerlifting in Texas is a highschool sport, so it was really stressed (check out the records on thspa.org[/quote]
I was in awe of some of those numbers (especially squat). I almost thought it was a joke, but then I realized that they are geared lifts. Still very impressive lifts, I just had a hard time believing that a high school kid squatted 735 raw.
Again, very impressive though. I saw a few totals over 1800lbs. Geared or not, that is strong for 17 and 18 year old kids.
[quote]malonetd wrote:
Joe84 wrote:
tveddy wrote:
Airtruth wrote:
he’s crippled either mentally or physically.
I just shit myself from laughing.
Ya he’s weak, but he isn’t crippled in any form at all, he’s very smart and looks like an average person, however he couldn’t even bench the bar when he started…and my point was that not everyone is cut out to lift, you guys give way too much credit to the average person.
I’m sorry, but I don’t believe this at all. I’ve lifted with quite a few people over the years, and I’ve never seen a healthy, adult male fail to press the bar. Hell, I think every chick I’ve ever seen can do the bar.[/quote]
Well it’s true according to him, he is from the middle east, and from what I’ve seen most of them are quite weak…not sure why, maybe cause they’re all nerdy engineers, maybe their lifestyle, maybe genetic, probably a combination of all.
Last time I saw him benching he was doing 115 for 3 or 4 HALF HARD reps, his workouts consist of mostly upperbody machine work and ab work - he’s been trying to lose his little gut forever, and he thinks I’m crazy because of what I do in the gym so I couldn’t be bothered helping him out.
[quote]KBCThird wrote:
But if you take that 300 lb squatter and make him a 400 lb squatter, and you make the 400 lb squatter a 500 lber, they will both be better players than previously. [/quote]
See I’m not so sure that’s true. It might be, but nothing exists in isolation. What does it take to get the 300lb squat to 400? If it’s at the sacrifice of more important qualities, it may not be.
Now of course, for a lineman, I think you get closer to where absolute strength becomes important. But how many times do you hear the phrase “speed kills” get thrown around? Maximal strength and speed aren’t always correlated. Maximal strength is important and can help lay a foundation but I don’t think it is the holy grail that some make it out to be.
[quote]jtrinsey wrote:
See I’m not so sure that’s true. It might be, but nothing exists in isolation. What does it take to get the 300lb squat to 400? If it’s at the sacrifice of more important qualities, it may not be.
Now of course, for a lineman, I think you get closer to where absolute strength becomes important. But how many times do you hear the phrase “speed kills” get thrown around? Maximal strength and speed aren’t always correlated. Maximal strength is important and can help lay a foundation but I don’t think it is the holy grail that some make it out to be.[/quote]
Even for linemen, absolute strength isn’t that important. Once you reach an acceptable standard of strength, it’s a much better use of an athlete’s time to work on quickness, agility, explosiveness, and, most importantly, football technique.
I read somewhere that an NFL strength coach believed that NFL linemen needed to bench 400 lbs, but didn’t need to worry about it past that. After that, football technique will determine who’s the better player.
[quote]jtrinsey wrote:
KBCThird wrote:
But if you take that 300 lb squatter and make him a 400 lb squatter, and you make the 400 lb squatter a 500 lber, they will both be better players than previously.
See I’m not so sure that’s true. It might be, but nothing exists in isolation. What does it take to get the 300lb squat to 400? If it’s at the sacrifice of more important qualities, it may not be.
Now of course, for a lineman, I think you get closer to where absolute strength becomes important. But how many times do you hear the phrase “speed kills” get thrown around? Maximal strength and speed aren’t always correlated. Maximal strength is important and can help lay a foundation but I don’t think it is the holy grail that some make it out to be.[/quote]
I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy this. “IF it’s at the sacrifice of more important qualities…” That is a pretty big ‘if;’ it feeds into an outdated notion of weightlifting doing what? Making you slower, musclebound, etc? I dont think any of us are arguing that any athlete’s prep work should consist solely of weight room time - I know I’m not.
[quote]tGunslinger wrote:
Even for linemen, absolute strength isn’t that important. Once you reach an acceptable standard of strength, it’s a much better use of an athlete’s time to work on quickness, agility, explosiveness, and, most importantly, football technique.
[/quote]
Yes, football technique. And how much time can you spend from December - August (when the HS athletic associations dont allow them to practice with pads on) on football technique with an offensive or defensive lineman. Footwork is nice and pretty, but the game is just changed when there are pads on (now there’s an understatement)
[quote]
I read somewhere that an NFL strength coach believed that NFL linemen needed to bench 400 lbs, but didn’t need to worry about it past that. After that, football technique will determine who’s the better player.[/quote]
Well, i think thats teh general consensus, that a certain level of brute strength MUST be achieved and after that point, you’ve reached diminishing returns. Whether a 400 lb bench is that point or not isnt really the question, and any debate we had on that would all be theory, anecdotal, etc anyway
[quote]malonetd wrote:
I’m sorry, but I don’t believe this at all. I’ve lifted with quite a few people over the years, and I’ve never seen a healthy, adult male fail to press the bar. Hell, I think every chick I’ve ever seen can do the bar.[/quote]
the reason I laughed is that even the mentally handicapped people whom I taught when I was teaching high school could get at least 200.