What Was Your Lifting Like in High School?

I lifted drumsticks and joints…not much else i’m sorry to say. We did ‘weightlifting’ in gym class; anything to stay inside during an Iowa winter! I do remember having to do the Peg-Board thing, up on the wall? Over-35 guys might remember; not sure if these still exist.
At 5’10" & 140 ish, I played baseball and ran track until senior year when I had ‘blossomed’ over the summer to a thick 160lbs. !!
You couldn’t touch me on the roller skating rink though, unless of course, it was a couples skate.

ERIC D.
This is a fun read, hope more folks share a bit.

I played three sports (baseball/football/basketball) but didn’t like to lift because at the time, I thought if I got heavier I would get slower (I was a CF and WR, and also not as smart as I thought, apparently). I was probably 185/275/315 b/s/d at 155 lbs as a senior. When I got to junior college, I started getting stronger and wished that I would have worked harder/had more knowledge when I was in HS (don’t we all).

These days, I teach PE at a high school and help with the baseball program. Since we are a new school, we only have freshmen and sophomores, so a lot of the students who are either in weights class or are lifting after school for a team are still newbies and finding their way. It’s a lot of fun to get to teach them and see them grow. Maybe they will post on this thread one day.

[quote]denver z-man wrote:
I do remember having to do the Peg-Board thing, up on the wall? Over-35 guys might remember; not sure if these still exist. [/quote]

I’m working at a school that still uses them, the dumb peg board actually was the bane of my existence as the engineer couldn’t figure out how to anchor it to the wall and the P.E. teacher was adamant that she needed it.

I was actually quite fortunate in high school. My dad had enough knowledge to know he didn’t know anything and had me workout with the local A baseball coach starting in 8th grade. He put me on a workout plan that served me pretty well through high school. I also trained at Nike World headquarters during the fall of my Sophomore-Sr. years. I was always pretty big at 6’3" 215lbs my freshman year and 6’5" 235 my Sr. My best lifts were Bench 205x3, Squat 315x5 (They probably were just above parallel though; it was HS, 3 plates was a big deal!) and I really didn’t deadlift until I was 21. I did light speedwork with 135lbs in HS, but that was rare. I do remember being the strongest freshman on my basketball team being able to bench 135lbs

For some reason there was a lot of broscience among baseball players and coaches that any form of pressing was bad and that cables and bands were good. I, of course, didn’t listen, but If anyone saw me pressing, I got an ear full about how I was going to ‘blow my shoulder out’.

One of my good friends was a big linebacker and was deadlifting mid 4’s and squatting high 3’s.

I know the wrestlers were putting up big weights, but no one wanted to wear a leotard and hug other boys so we ignored them. We were really immature.

Hmmm… not as many football folks as I thought there’d be.

I played offensive line and went from 185 freshman year to 285 senior year, despite a horrible cut my sophomore year where I listened to the advice of a guy on the team that used to be fat: “cut out all the meat and dairy from your diet.” I actually did end up losing like 15 lbs, though, but probably the bad kind. I’d down 2 bowls of cereal for breakfast, a chicken or 2/3 footlongs for lunch, a sandwich and junkfood after school, and 2 large pizzas or the equivalent of what my mom made for dinner without even really trying.

I did the coach’s plan for lineman, which consisted of squats, leg press, squat machine, power cleans, DLs, pulldowns, bench, push jerk, BTN OHP, the neck machine, box jumps, and the dot drill, though I don’t recall ever going over 12 reps on anything except the neck machine. I adjusted it quite a bit, though: I squatted pretty much every workout, threw in some tri ext and some really sloppy db curls. I tried to avoid the bench because I sucked at it. I did a lot more neck machine for some reason. I would also lift at lunch and after school in the off season, sometimes squatting both sessions, normally in the 8-12 range.

I want to say I hit 385 for 12 on the squat, but I really can’t remember; I want to say it was the rep max equivalent of 485, but that might be complete BS. My coaches used to tease folks about skipping legs and refer to me. I was hovering around the all time squat record, but they used some sort of machine to gauge when you hit parallel, and it was easy to cheat by shaking your legs. I’d see guys that, while naturally strong, never really lifted, come in and shake their legs to hit a record… which left me w/ 0 motivation to break it. I also had the fastest dot drill time in my weightclass and was better than most RBs/WRs. I was all conference for my position… whether this was due to strength, skill, size, or a weak conference, we’ll never know (prolly the latter).

Once I graduated, however, I didn’t do JACK. I ended up getting to about 340 over the next 6-7 years w/ no workouts, despite hardly drinking.

im a junior

i weigh 200

my best deadlift is 385 for 3 deadstop

my best squat is 375 (good morninged it)

my best bench is 200 (lol)

im working on all these and i wanna make some drastic improvements in the next years

nice military press, i cant even push press that, and you are younger than me

my buddy who is a football player is the same weight as me but like 10% bodyfat squats 425 highbar, has deadlifted less than 5 times and can hit 475 easily, benches in the low 300s, shoulder presses the 90s for 12

hes a beast, but he looks like 5+ years older than me
im really immature, my bone growth is that of a 13-14 year old when im almost 17… people always tell me i look like a bigass 7th grader

[quote]dchris wrote:

[quote]denver z-man wrote:
I do remember having to do the Peg-Board thing, up on the wall? Over-35 guys might remember; not sure if these still exist. [/quote]

I’m working at a school that still uses them, the dumb peg board actually was the bane of my existence as the engineer couldn’t figure out how to anchor it to the wall and the P.E. teacher was adamant that she needed it.

I was actually quite fortunate in high school. My dad had enough knowledge to know he didn’t know anything and had me workout with the local A baseball coach starting in 8th grade. He put me on a workout plan that served me pretty well through high school. I also trained at Nike World headquarters during the fall of my Sophomore-Sr. years. I was always pretty big at 6’3" 215lbs my freshman year and 6’5" 235 my Sr. My best lifts were Bench 205x3, Squat 315x5 (They probably were just above parallel though; it was HS, 3 plates was a big deal!) and I really didn’t deadlift until I was 21. I did light speedwork with 135lbs in HS, but that was rare. I do remember being the strongest freshman on my basketball team being able to bench 135lbs

For some reason there was a lot of broscience among baseball players and coaches that any form of pressing was bad and that cables and bands were good. I, of course, didn’t listen, but If anyone saw me pressing, I got an ear full about how I was going to ‘blow my shoulder out’.

One of my good friends was a big linebacker and was deadlifting mid 4’s and squatting high 3’s.

I know the wrestlers were putting up big weights, but no one wanted to wear a leotard and hug other boys so we ignored them. We were really immature. [/quote]
Oh, that’s pretty cool that your Dad actually got you to see someone who knew what they were doing. I personally really didn’t have anyone to show me what to do other than the internet, luckily I found T-Nation (as funny as that sounds now, but the old articles taught me a lot about the basics), Louie Simmon’s articles, Rippetoe’s form videos, Dave Tate’s videos, etc.

I ended up from being a 5k runner (my best time was in the 19-20 minutes if I recall correctly, but I was also auschwitz level skinny) and literally asking “Hur durr, does 5X5 actually work guise?”, aside from the hurr durr, to being more than 50 pounds heavier while still being lean and having impeccable form and a solid base of knowledge.

Oh, that’s interesting about the bro science with pressing. These days I see a lot of baseball players at my school benching so I don’t think it’s that prominent anymore.

[quote]Captain Wheels wrote:
im a junior

i weigh 200

my best deadlift is 385 for 3 deadstop

my best squat is 375 (good morninged it)

my best bench is 200 (lol)

im working on all these and i wanna make some drastic improvements in the next years

nice military press, i cant even push press that, and you are younger than me

my buddy who is a football player is the same weight as me but like 10% bodyfat squats 425 highbar, has deadlifted less than 5 times and can hit 475 easily, benches in the low 300s, shoulder presses the 90s for 12

hes a beast, but he looks like 5+ years older than me
im really immature, my bone growth is that of a 13-14 year old when im almost 17… people always tell me i look like a bigass 7th grader[/quote]
Nice lifts, do you happen to be tall? Also, thanks for the compliment on my press. The press is a really natural lift for me, and before I focused on powerlifting my press was only about 15 pounds less than my bench. lol

After I compete this March, I think I am gonna go do about 6-8 weeks of mostly hypertrophy work to try to get a solid 5 pounds (I’ll probably just lift as a really light 198 lifter) and try to fill out the 198 weight class. After that, I think I am going to give strong man a try. I think I could get an amazing press if I actually trained it like I do with my bench.

Also… Why do you only bench 200? o_o

[quote]Destrength wrote:

[quote]Captain Wheels wrote:
im a junior

i weigh 200

my best deadlift is 385 for 3 deadstop

my best squat is 375 (good morninged it)

my best bench is 200 (lol)

im working on all these and i wanna make some drastic improvements in the next years

nice military press, i cant even push press that, and you are younger than me

my buddy who is a football player is the same weight as me but like 10% bodyfat squats 425 highbar, has deadlifted less than 5 times and can hit 475 easily, benches in the low 300s, shoulder presses the 90s for 12

hes a beast, but he looks like 5+ years older than me
im really immature, my bone growth is that of a 13-14 year old when im almost 17… people always tell me i look like a bigass 7th grader[/quote]
Nice lifts, do you happen to be tall? Also, thanks for the compliment on my press. The press is a really natural lift for me, and before I focused on powerlifting my press was only about 15 pounds less than my bench. lol

After I compete this March, I think I am gonna go do about 6-8 weeks of mostly hypertrophy work to try to get a solid 5 pounds (I’ll probably just lift as a really light 198 lifter) and try to fill out the 198 weight class. After that, I think I am going to give strong man a try. I think I could get an amazing press if I actually trained it like I do with my bench.

Also… Why do you only bench 200? o_o [/quote]

im 5’11 with a 6’3 wingspan

i neglected bench when i first started training and it messes me up now… my goal is at least 275 by april 2015

ill be gaining a shit ton of weight since idc about being fat so all my lifts will keep going up

[quote]Captain Wheels wrote:

[quote]Destrength wrote:

[quote]Captain Wheels wrote:
im a junior

i weigh 200

my best deadlift is 385 for 3 deadstop

my best squat is 375 (good morninged it)

my best bench is 200 (lol)

im working on all these and i wanna make some drastic improvements in the next years

nice military press, i cant even push press that, and you are younger than me

my buddy who is a football player is the same weight as me but like 10% bodyfat squats 425 highbar, has deadlifted less than 5 times and can hit 475 easily, benches in the low 300s, shoulder presses the 90s for 12

hes a beast, but he looks like 5+ years older than me
im really immature, my bone growth is that of a 13-14 year old when im almost 17… people always tell me i look like a bigass 7th grader[/quote]
Nice lifts, do you happen to be tall? Also, thanks for the compliment on my press. The press is a really natural lift for me, and before I focused on powerlifting my press was only about 15 pounds less than my bench. lol

After I compete this March, I think I am gonna go do about 6-8 weeks of mostly hypertrophy work to try to get a solid 5 pounds (I’ll probably just lift as a really light 198 lifter) and try to fill out the 198 weight class. After that, I think I am going to give strong man a try. I think I could get an amazing press if I actually trained it like I do with my bench.

Also… Why do you only bench 200? o_o [/quote]

im 5’11 with a 6’3 wingspan

i neglected bench when i first started training and it messes me up now… my goal is at least 275 by april 2015

ill be gaining a shit ton of weight since idc about being fat so all my lifts will keep going up[/quote]
Oh, okay, I can understand that. I have long arms too. Lots and lots of tricep and back work I have found for me made up for it.

Threads kinda dying but I just read the entire thing so whatever I’ll say something. I just graduated last year.

I was 430/315/510 going into football season at 220. I’ve never competed so those are all gym lifts btw. During wrestling season I switched from back squats to front squats cause I recover faster from front squats and I didn’t feel like having noodles for legs during wrestling. My best for front squatting was 295x8 I think… My press has actually always been a weak point for me though haha my best is 185x2. But thanks to wrestling my shoulders are pretty fucked so any overhead work results in excruciating pain and I doubt I can hit anything near that now.

Anyways after wrestling season I tried out the 20 rep squat program, plus 5/3/1 on the off days for upperbody work, and went from 205 all the up to 230. It was awesome lol i ended it early though cause I got sick and couldn’t keep up anymore. My final workout I squatted 320 for 17 reps though which was pretty cool.

I’m curious what you’re lifting now though at what? 15? 16? I had just started actually working out then.


My HS had 2 weight rooms, one for the football players and wrestlers and one for everyone else including the gym classes. I was varsity CC, swimming, and track for 3 years and probably spent less than 5 hours in the weight room over that time. We had 3 old Universal multi-station machines and a couple pull up bars bolted into the wall. And there was a neck machine in the corner that looked like it had been made from scrap after WWII.

For CC and track, gym time consisted of 15 minutes at the end of practice every other week or so. My legs were too fried to do any lower body and I didn’t see how doing upper body would help my running, so I would do a couple dips, a pullup and call it a day. Being 6’ and 135 isn’t a great look on anyone.

Our swim team weight room was in the pump room of the pool area. There were 2 old dry land swimming machines that were slowly falling apart from the constant humidity and chemicals in the air and we weren’t allowed to be in the room for more than 10 minutes at a time due to the overwhelming chlorine smell.

I’ve used one of those weight stations!

[quote]Yogi wrote:

[quote]theBird wrote:

[quote]Sutebun wrote:

[quote]theBird wrote:

[quote]Yogi wrote:
dude, you really can’t see how having a good squat would make you better at American football?[/quote]

Like I said, I don’t want to start an internet war. I was just trying to make the point that for younger high school athletes, I think that practicing their actual sport and relevant skills is more beneficial than spending heaps of time in the weight room. Although I do agree that been that little bit stronger would help performance on the sporting field.

[/quote]

You’re probably just comparing the needs of American football too much to soccer and or have different assumptions about the players and logistics. You said skill work > weight room, so here is some food for thought directing that point:

Some football players (positions) simply require size. Technical skills won’t mean too much if the other guy is just plain bigger. I bet you could compare it to lacking conditioning as a soccer athlete. Your feet skill with the ball won’t matter too much if you can’t keep up on the field.

Football players don’t tend to play year round. Quite a few at my school did some wrestling after the football season, and then some even track in the spring. Off-seasons is a chance to lift weights and add more mass as well.

And they aren’t spending heaps of time in the weight room even if they are spending some. The 80-20 rule is quite applicable here. Spending 100% of your time on skill work won’t be as beneficial as taking a small amount and dedicating it to other training to enhance your athleticism. My school also offered weight training classes (even one as a “zero period” class from 6:30 am!), so it is likely that they could be very dedicated and simply doing more work on top of their skill work.[/quote]
Thanks for pointing that out to me.

I thought all positions in American Football would require a high level of skill.

tweet
[/quote]

I’m sure they probably do, but you still need to be big and strong[/quote]

Yes. American football players going into College, and even to a large degree into the pros, are judged on metrics. The Combine is a great example of that. There are both skill-based drills and simple drills that measure physical ability. Athletes do a 225 bench press for max reps. I’ve heard of athletes being recruited to play college football who never even played in high school, simply because of their physical gifts.

So Bird, the real answer to your question is that both strength and skill are important in American football. Linemen on both sides of the ball HAVE to be very, very strong. Receivers and DB’s are skill-players who can get away with not being very strong. RB’s have to have very powerful legs, and they have to be skilled at cutting… unless they would prefer to be used as battering rams. Then they can just be powerful. I could go on, but you get the point.

And as to the original question of the thread… I looked like this when I graduated high school. I weighed about 125. The first time I touched a weight was in my last semester of high school, and I didn’t actually start a weight lifting routine until College.

I’m a freshman in highshool weighing a little under 170. I’ve been training for about 3 to 4 months in my school without an actual coach so I would like to get o a gym but there are none in my area. I can do about 205lb clean and jerk and only a 145 lb snatch. Trying to get to teen high school competitions

My lifting age 16,17,18 was almost completely retarded (I did db curls every day with too much weight & 240 sit ups every day) LOL!!

It wasn’t till I hit 18/19 or so that I started a least a slightly less retarded routine which include occassional deadlifts & ohps etc.

30 odd years ago, in Australia virtually nobody lifted at school, maybe only the guys that had Rugby league contracts, coming up through the juniors, and a few wannabe bodybuilders(like myself).
When I started virtually no one could bench over 200lbs in my year, not even the big tall guys that thought they were naturally strong.(one big fat guy could bench over 200lbs but I never saw him do it) A lot of guys that started to lift got bad shoulders from trying to break the 200lb barrier. Absolutely no technique, no coaching.

My friend eventually broke the 200lb bench before I did, but even though he was stronger than me with weights, and arm wrestling I could push him around at will in stand up wrestling, just brute strength no tricky techniques.

I probably started “lifting” (doing curls) when I was 13 with my dad’s weight set. I started playing football freshman year, so I got access to the school weight room. We followed a really basic strength program (high weight, low reps: 5x5, 3x3, ect.) focusing on the bench and squat, but were allowed to choose our own accessory lifts afterward (rows, military press, curls, haha). We were a small school, so there wasn’t much equipment to choose from. It was enough though; I was able to bench and squat 300 lbs by senior year. Unfortunately, I never got very big because I had no idea about proper nutrition in high school. Oh well.

I’m also a sophomore. I started lifting in 7th grade. I started with doing the stuff that everyone does. Bench press bicep curls let pull down and leg press. I did that for a whole year. And because I was 13 years old i gained about 10 lbs or mass doing that. Then I started using like a real program. I Started using a power bodybuilding type program because I wanted to get bigger and stronger because i play football. You can pick any program you want based on your goals. My advice to you is get form down befre anything and th4e only supp that works is creatine

Luckily I have always been a big researcher. I may have been way off on a lot of things but I knew compound movements were king.

Download a copy of Dan Johns ‘From the Ground Up’ (its free!) and full of gold.

Even better, also get his book before we go