Weighting for a Winning Season

After attending summer basketball clinics, Crenshaw High School Co-Coach Greg Cobbs thought it would be a good idea if the Cougars girls’ basketball team began a weightlifting program.

His team thought different.

“Are you crazy? I’m not going in there!” was the typical reaction Cobbs and the other Cougar coaches heard when they led a group of leery girls into a weight room once inhabited by muscle-bound football players.

When the girls discovered Cobbs was serious, they suddenly developed mysterious injuries and ailments.

“They tried to talk their way out of it,” Cobbs said. “No one wanted to do it. They couldn’t picture themselves lifting weights.”

But with a little coaxing and prodding, the girls were soon banging the plates on the school’s Universal weight machine.

This was no Jane Fonda-type workout. Just women and heavy metal.

For an hour a day, three days a week for the past two months, 45 varsity and junior varsity basketball players have worked out.

Their routine consisted of three sets of 12 to 15 repetitions of bench presses, leg curls, leg extensions, squats and military presses.

“After a while, they got to like it,” Cobbs said. “I want the kids to get stronger and better.”

The workouts have paid dividends not only in the mirror, but also on the court.

“I noticed I could jump a little higher,” Cougar junior forward Andrea Craig said. “I also wasn’t getting tired as easily.”

Cobbs noticed a difference too.

“Now when a girl gets bumped going for a layup, she takes the blow and makes the shot,” he said. “They shouldn’t be getting tired in the fourth quarter like they used to. Their legs should be stronger, and they should have an easier time getting off their jump shot.”

Crenshaw isn’t the first area girls’ team to try weightlifting. Two years ago, Fremont Coach Matthew Taylor began experimenting with it.

“They love it, they really do,” Taylor said. “Once they get over the initial fear that they were going to develop muscles like guys, they really liked it. They noticed the development in their game.”

But weightlifting doesn’t fit into every basketball program.

“We don’t have time to work out with weights,” Manual Arts Coach Jack Mitchell said. “We need all the time we can get to work on our fundamentals.”

Crenshaw long ago nailed down the basics and wants to step up to a higher level of competition.

Last season the Cougars beat North Hollywood to win their first City Section 4-A title, wrestling the crown from four-time champion Washington. Crenshaw was bumped by Buena of Ventura in the State Regional semifinals; Coach Joe Vaughan’s Bulldogs have been weightlifting for years.

“Weightlifting is the best thing in the world,” Cobbs said, “if you do it right, give the girls proper supervision and not try to do it in excess.

“I wish we had a pool--because that would mix in great.”

Swimming, anyone?