PUMPING GRIDIRON : Football Teams Are Getting a Lift From the Weight Room

Dave Elecciri, Capistrano Valley High School assistant football coach, sits in the Cougars’ weight room with the same sense of pride that a young couple has in their first home.

The room is filled with enough barbells, weights and weight machines to satisfy the body building appetites of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Lou Ferrigno. The walls are lined with slogans such as “If There’s No Pain, There’s No Gain” and “Whatever a Weak Muscle Can Do, A Stronger One Can Do It Better.” Rock music blares over a stereo system as the players move from station to station.

It’s here where Elecciri, the Cougars’ weight training and conditioning coach, sets a prescribed program for each football player from the freshman to the varsity level and then supervises all workouts.

But what he is doing is by no means unique, albeit a bit extravagant in comparison to most schools. At Esperanza, weight coach Dave Pendleton also has a specialized program. Almost every Orange County school has given weight training more than lip service.

And for good reason. Weightlifting can be the building block to success. It can develop discipline and strength. It can enhance camaraderie and confidence. But most of all it can turn players into winners.

“The foundation for our success in football was laid by Dave eight years ago with the completion of this weight room,” said Dick Enright, Cougar coach, who has a 45-15-2 record in six seasons.

Elecciri is a curator of Orange County weight lifting records and charts every players’ progress at Capistrano Valley from his freshman to senior season.

The weight program is one of the county’s best. But it wasn’t always that way. Elecciri said the Cougars were physically overwhelmed by Mission Viejo in their first playoff appearance in 1977.

“We were tremendously proud to make the playoffs in our first year of existence, but the team also looked weak and powerless compared to Mission Viejo,” Elecciri said. “We didn’t have a weight program at the school, and it showed.”

During the off-season, Elecciri tested every player in two lifts--the bench press and the power clean. He found that only one player could bench press more than 200 pounds. It was time to go to work.

Elecciri had coached at Los Angeles City section powers Carson and Banning where he had learned the techniques of weight training. He implemented an intensive program that stressed powerlifting, Olympic lifting and body building.

He devised in-season, off-season and preseason programs. Stretching and flexibility routines replaced the traditional calisthenics. Most of all, Elecciri gave the players the motivation to train.

The following season, Capistrano Valley had 25 players who could bench press more than 200 pounds. The new-found strength showed on the football field where the Cougars were 10-2 and advanced to the semifinals of the Central Conference.

“We didn’t get pushed around on the football field,” Elecciri said.

Weight training and conditioning have become an integral part of most successful county programs.

“I go to every weight contest around, and most of the schools I see at the meets are the successful football programs,” Pendleton said.

In the past five years, many schools have added weight coaches to their staff.

“I’ve gone to every clinic and weight contest I could find over the past eight years,” Elecciri said. “I don’t consider myself an expert, but I think I’ve developed a program that works for any athlete in any sport.

“Football is a bone-to-bone contact sport that requires a lot of pre-trauma training. It’s a game where an athlete goes full speed for four seconds and then rests for 25 seconds. What I’m looking for is the best way to simulate that four seconds of explosion in the weight room.

“Balance is so important in football, which is why I stress the free weights to build and improve an athlete’s balance. The hips are the source of power in every sport from golf to football, therefore the squat is the foundation of my weight program.”

Most high school weight programs consist of strength training, power training and body building. Strength training includes three basic exercises: bench press, squat and dead lift.

Power training is a total body exercise that includes the power clean and the snatch. Body building works on all secondary muscles such as triceps and biceps.

The squats strengthen the thighs, including the quadriceps and hamstrings. The bench press isolates work on the large pectoral group and triceps.

In power training, Elecciri prescribes speed repetition in workouts. He has his lifters increase the weight but reduce the number of repetitions as they workout.

The power clean exercise utilizes both upper and lower body parts.

Body building, or secondary muscle development, stresses tricep extension exercises.

“Our program is very similar to Dave’s except that we stress the dead lift and squats a little more because it builds body mass,” Pendleton said.

Both Pendleton and Elecciri begin working with eighth-grade players in neighboring junior high schools who attend night open workouts in the summer. Elecciri has all of Capistrano Valley’s freshmen begin a simple program that stresses flexibility and endurance.

For example, wide receiver Nathan Call was doing full squat exercises at 165 pounds in repetitions of 10 in his freshman season. He bench pressed 125 pounds. Today he lifts 345 pounds in the full squat and 225 in the bench press.

“We’re basically working to build their confidence and not their bodies at that age,” Elecciri said.

Bob Dreifus is the newest member of Huntington Beach football staff where he serves as the school’s weight coach. He is a former manager of the SCAR Clinic, a sports rehabilitation center in Orange. He has trained former Angel outfielder Fred Lynn, Ram defensive back Johnny Gray and two-time world speedway motorcycle champion Bruce Penhall.

Dreifus began weight training when he was 13, but said today’s athletes are more dedicated and disciplined than during his playing days as a blocking fullback for Tony Accomando at Westminster High.

“We have a player, Franco Pagnanelli, who spends 15 hours a week in the weight room,” Dreifus said. “When Franco came into our program, he was a chubby kid who wasn’t much of a prospect.

“He’s made dramatic changes physically, and more than anything else, it was due to weight training. He’s developed into one of the best players on the team.”

Pagnanelli invested 750 hours in the weight room last year in order to play at a peak level for 30 hours in football. How does a coach motivate an athlete to lift?

“I think, in many instances, an athlete is self-motivated,” Dreifus said. “Weight training gives an athlete a sense of worth, a feeling of accomplishment.”

Both Esperanza and Capistrano Valley host weightlifting contests each spring to entice their athletes to lift. Pendleton said his players enter as many as six meets a season.

“It’s a great way to motivate the kids,” he said. “We go to more meets than anyone. The majority of coaches enter one meet because it’s a hassle to drag the kids around to every meet in Southern California.

“Dave and I supervise all of our workouts. The biggest mistake I see in high school weight programs is the lack of supervision. Without supervision, an athlete develops improper techniques. You send the majority of kids into the weight room on their own, and they’ll work on the bench press and do arm curls until the cows come home. But that’s all they’ll do.”

Pendleton said another motivating factor is school records. He tests his players for maximum lifts in weight categories every five weeks during the off-season and ranks them accordingly.

Nathan Call’s Weight Training and Fitness Records

Power Full Bench Vertical 40-Yard Grade Ht. Weight Clean Squat Press Jump Dash 9th 5-9 142 155 lbs. 165 lbs. 125 lbs. 23 1/2 in. 4.91 10th 5-10 154 190 lbs. 225 lbs. 165 lbs. 25 1/2 in. 4.86 11th 5-11 166 215 lbs. 305 lbs. 190 lbs. 28 in. 4.75 12th 6-0 179 235 lbs. 345 lbs. 225 lbs. 31 1/2 in. 4.67

Records Compiled by Capistrano Valley Weight Coach Dave Elecciri.