Alternative Strength Training Article-Keg Toss, tire flip

[xcjetta]

From my local newspaper. One of the top-competing football schools in the State. Kind of like Rocky Balboa training

Good year for BC
Wednesday, July 21, 2004

By DAN ROSEN
STAFF WRITER

ORADELL - When Brian Cushing mapped out his summer training regimen, the Bergen Catholic senior never envisioned throwing an empty beer keg over his head, let alone on school grounds with his football coaches watching and encouraging.
Yet there is Cushing, one of the nation's top recruits, tossing a keg over his head every week at Crusader Stadium, flipping tires near the end zone, pulling a metal sled with 500 pounds resting on it, and zigzagging his way down the field while holding 200-pound "tor****es" in each hand.
"I thought it would be interesting," Cushing said, "but I never thought I'd be doing it at football practice."
Bergen Catholic strength coaches Ben Tonan and Dave Cavalluzzo, along with speed and strength trainer Joe DeFranco, have devised a new brand of strength training for the Crusaders, and it's quite an amusing sight.
Just imagine the World's Strongest Man competition with renowned train pullers and keg tossers such as Magnus Ver Magnusson and Svend Karlsen, cut out a few events and pounds, and you have the Crusaders' summer program.
"Your arms are burning, and your legs are tired from your last event, but you have to push it because you know it's going to help," Cushing said while taking a breather. "It's a combination of strength and athletic ability, something that will help us on the field more than just lifting weights. The best weightlifter in the world just goes in the weight room and lifts, but a lot of weightlifters can't do this."
The concept is centered around building strength, but using strongman technique is unusual for a high school football team. Tonan said the Crusaders are the only team in the state who work out this way, which they do once a week to get out of the weight room and "down and dirty" on the field, coach Fred Stengel said.
"It's true functional strength, and it's man strength," said Tonan, who added the strength coaches at Ridgewood are thinking about devising a similar plan. "These kids have been working out four days a week in the weight room since the season ended, and that gets redundant."
The four stations include a tire flip, where the players have to get low to lift the tires, which range from 300-575 pounds. The keg toss is quite simple: The players lift the empty kegs, which Tonan got from a friend who owns a bar, and throw them over their heads.
In the middle of the field is the farmer's walk, in which players carry what are called tor****es - which hold 200 pounds of weight plates on a bar at least 4 inches thick - and carry them 50 yards while zigzagging between cones laid out on the field. In the back corner of the field is the sled drag, which they pull backward for 40 yards.
The Crusaders finish their morning workout with a tug-of-war competition. Not once do they toss a football. In fact, the balls remain packed away until August, when training camp begins.
"The funny part of it is it's so low tech, yet so effective. It deals with the basics of strength training and football," Stengel said. "When you flip the tires, you're getting low and exploding. Over there on the farmer's walk, you're working on grip strength. On the keg toss - and that even sounds funny just saying it - it's obviously explosiveness. And, the sled is just pure brute strength and power. In the end there is competition with the tug-of-war."
The players say they love their latest challenge.
"Granted we have all this great stuff [in the school's new weight room], but going out and throwing stuff around in the backyard is more fun," said senior running back Wolfver Jean-Pierre. "And, we're getting stronger doing it, so you can't get any better than that. We have a bunch of jokesters here who just want to have fun."
Occasionally, Cushing says, they'll measure throws to see whose goes farther, or they'll time each other to see who is faster and stronger.
"We've got a bunch of meatheads on our team, so anything that has to do with weightlifting to get our minds off football, and will make us 10 times stronger, we're all for it," BC senior Jim Dray said. "We're always competing, and just to let loose and have some fun is the best for us."
Stengel, who lords over the workouts while Tonan, Cavalluzzo and DeFranco work with the athletes, gets a kick out of just watching. However, when the strength trainers, all former players under Stengel in the early 1990s, approached him with the idea of strongman training, Stengel had no clue what they were talking about.
"I thought they were out of their minds," he said. "I'm like, 'You want me to do what? Buy what? A farmer's walk implement? And, how much does that cost? What does it do? What does it look like?'
"When they were delivered to the school, I'm making out the purchase orders and the lady in the business office looks at me and goes, 'And, what exactly are these?' I said, 'I don't exactly know, but they say they're good.' "
Good enough to give the Crusaders an edge on the rest of the state, and a reason to ice down their bodies.
"The first time I was doing the tire toss, it was so hard, and my back was killing me," Jean-Pierre said. "I see it on Strongest Man competitions, and you think it's easy, but out here I'm struggling to pick it up. Even the tor****, it's so heavy, and zigzagging for 50 yards doesn't make it any easier."

[RiNgMaSteR]

Sounds tough.

[trem0lo]

Sounds fun!

...and by fun I mean horrible.