When Samuel Harvill was 12, his father talked to him about how it was never too early to start lifting weights, especially if he hoped to someday play college football.
Harvill’s father bought his son a bench press, a leg press and a few other pieces of workout equipment. Harvill began by lifting around 100 pounds, then kept going and the results soon followed.
“I could tell I had big increases on everything, and I just never stopped,” Harvill said. “And I kept progressing.”
He said he can now bench press 545 pounds. He has a broad chest, thick arms, and at 6-foot-1, 262 pounds, the Shiloh Christian offensive/defensive lineman can push smaller players off the line of scrimmage.
For football players, getting bigger and stronger makes sense. And the days of simply spending hours in the weight room and pumping iron without much idea about what they’re doing have long passed.
Three years ago, Bentonville coach Barry Lunney decided to overhaul his team’s offseason workout program, making it so his players spent less time in the weight room and exercised more with weight vests and bungee cords.
Defensive backs now wear weight vests when they back-pedal in summer workouts. Bentonville’s athletic trainers mix up the routine, having players exercise with only bungee cords, bungee cords and weight vests at the same time and sometimes a combination of bungee cords and weighted sleds.
The result: Lunney has noticed that fewer players have suffered hamstring and muscle injuries over the past two years. He has seen more players bench more than 300 pounds than at any other time in his decorated career. And the top-seeded Tigers are 9-1 heading into today’s home game against Fort Smith Southside in the second round of the Class 7A playoffs.
“Was I resistant (to change)? No, I really think I was open about it,” Lunney said. “It scared me a little bit because, just like when I went from the Wing-T to the one-back (offense) and just started throwing it, it scared me to death because I left my comfort zone.”
Of course, it helped that Arkansas track and field coaching legend John McDonnell had told Lunney that his athletes wore weight vests during workouts, contributing to their success.
During Springdale Har-Ber’s inaugural varsity season in 2006, coach Chris Wood saw that his players were at a disadvantage because they hadn’t spent several years bulking up in an offseason workout program like other teams. It was apparent in games that they were undersized, and they got pushed around by bigger, stronger opponents.
“Our kids played extremely hard. It came down to just a physical (advantage),” Wood said. “We got out-bigged and out-physicalled, and it was nothing the kids had done wrong. They just hadn’t had two years of offseason to get them ready.”
It’s no coincidence that Har-Ber has developed into a football power now that its players have had several years in an offseason program that includes lifting free weights four days a week for 90 minutes, followed by another 30 minutes of running.
“We work on core strength,” Wood said as the Wildcats (9-1) prepared to host Russellville at 7:30 p.m. today.
Shiloh, meanwhile, relies on a popular computer program known as “Bigger, Faster, Stronger,” which helps players chart their workouts and know exactly how much weight they should lift. Coaches can track each player’s progress.
The detail-oriented approach has helped the Saints (9-1) develop an offensive line big enough to push back against opposing defenses and give star quarterback Kiehl Frazier plenty of time to stand in the pocket. Shiloh Christian hosts De Queen at 7:30 p.m. today in the second round of the Class 4A state playoffs.
“Right now, our top six (offensive) linemen this year, they all bench press over 300 pounds,” Shiloh coach Josh Floyd said. “When I was in high school (in the late 1990s), we had about one or two guys that could ever get that on the whole team.”
Shiloh’s players lift weights three times a week during the season, and they continued doing so even a few days before last year’s 42-18 win over Dollarway in the Class 4A state championship game. The “Bigger, Faster, Stronger” computer program cuts down on players doing the wrong exercises and the wrong set of weights.
“This year’s class of seniors, they were seventh graders when we first got here. So they’re the first class to really go through (the workout program) the whole time,” Floyd said. “And I think they’ve definitely set a new precedent because it’s definitely the strongest team we’ve ever had here.”
Just ask Harvill. He deadlifts 650 pounds.
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