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Kraemer, WJ, Caldwell, LK, Post, EM, DuPont, WH, Martini, ER, Ratamess, NA, Szivak, TK, Shurley, JP, Beeler, MK, Volek, JS, Maresh, CM, Todd, JS, Walrod, BJ, Hyde, PN, Fairman, C, and Best, TM. Body composition in elite strongman competitors. J Strength Cond Res 34(12): 3326-3330, 2020-The purpose of this descriptive investigation was to characterize a group of elite strongman competitors to document the body composition of this unique population of strength athletes. Data were collected from eligible competitors as part of a health screening program conducted over 5 consecutive years. Imaging was acquired using dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA), providing total body measures of fat mass, lean mass, and bone mineral content (BMC). Year to year, testing groups showed a homogenous grouping of anthropometric, body composition, and bone density metrics. Composite averages were calculated to provide an anthropometric profile of the elite strongman competitor (N = 18; mean ± SD): age, 33.0 ± 5.2 years; body height, 187.4 ± 7.1 cm; body mass, 152.9 ± 19.3 kg; body mass index, 43.5 ± 4.8 kg·m; fat mass, 30.9 ± 11.1 kg; lean mass, 118.0 ± 11.7 kg, body fat, 18.7 ± 6.2%, total BMC, 5.23 ± 0.41 kg, and bone mineral density, 1.78 ± 0.14 g·cm. These data demonstrate that elite strongman competitors are among the largest human male athletes, and in some cases, they are at the extreme limits reported for body size and structure. Elite strongman competitors undergo a high degree of mechanical stress, providing further insight into the potent role of physical training in mediating structural remodeling even into adulthood. Such data provide a glimpse into a unique group of competitive athletes pushing the limits not only of human performance but also of human physiology.

Shurley, JP, Ednie, AJ, and Rudebeck, TJ. Strength and conditioning practices of head coaches of male and female interscholastic sport teams. J Strength Cond Res 34(7): 1894-1902, 2020-In a 1989 position paper, the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) recommended that male and female athletes be trained in a similar manner with regard to modalities and program design. To determine whether that recommendation is being followed, this study examined training practices of coaches of male and female athletes at the interscholastic level. Electronic surveys regarding strength training practices were distributed to head coaches of boys' football, basketball, soccer, and baseball and girls' volleyball, basketball, soccer, and softball in the states of Texas and Wisconsin. Overall, 85% of coaches (n = 85) reported that they require their athletes to strength train. There was no difference in whether strength training was required based on athlete sex (X = 0.16, df = 1, p = 0.69) or the sex of the coach (X = 0.63, df = 1, p = 0.43). The majority (67%) of teams strength trained once weekly during the season and 21% trained twice weekly. In the off-season, only 12% of teams trained once weekly, whereas 44% of teams strength trained 2 times per week and 29% 3 times weekly. The most common types of lift performed for both sexes were "bodyweight exercises," followed by "dumbbell presses," bench press, back squats, and front squats. Both female and male athletes trained most commonly at 4-8 repetition and 9-12 repetition ranges. In contrast to previous studies and in accordance with the NSCA recommendation, it seems that the high school coaches surveyed in this work largely train male and female athletes in a similar fashion with regard to training frequency, intensity, and modalities.

Shurley, JP. "Stronger is better": Gale Gillingham, the weight-trained Green Bay Packer all-pro. J Strength Cond Res 34(5): 1201-1212, 2020-In the 1960s, many sport coaches advised their athletes not to lift weights, with some going so far as to threaten to dismiss or punish any who were caught engaging in such training. Their advice or threats were well intentioned as both were prompted by fears that weight training would make an athlete less flexible, slower, and less coordinated, known more colloquially as "muscle bound." Nonetheless, some athletes took up barbells despite that conventional wisdom and helped play a vital role in dispelling the notion that weight training would hamper athletic performance. Gale Gillingham was one of those athletes. He began weight training as an adolescent and continued to train throughout his career in intercollegiate and professional football. The size, strength, and speed he developed through long-term strength training enabled him to become an all-conference player in college, first-round draft pick in the National Football League, and a 6-time All-Pro offensive lineman. In addition to his dedication to regular training, Gillingham was innovative in the way he lifted, incorporating very high intensity and partial lifts as regular components of his workouts. Despite his many accolades, Gillingham has not received the attention he deserves for his pioneering role in demonstrating the utility of long-term strength training to enhance athletic performance. This article seeks to correct that oversight and discusses his career, training, and contributions to the field of strength and conditioning.

Shurley, JP. Investigating "A Consensus of Uninformed Dogma": C.H. McCloy and Strength Training Research at the University of Iowa in the Mid-Twentieth Century. J Strength Cond Res 33(12): 3201-3212, 2019-Into the 1960s, many coaches advised their athletes to avoid weight training, fearing that lifting weights would result in their becoming stiff, slow, and "muscle-bound." By the early 1970s, however, some teams had begun hiring specialists to devise and supervise strength and conditioning programs for their athletes. This paradigm shift in the understanding of the relationship between strength training and athletic performance was precipitated by numerous factors, including the exposure of many soldiers to barbells during World War II, Cold War-era concerns about soft living, athletes who trained despite their coaches' advice, and scientists who investigated the effects of strength training. C.H. McCloy, a Research Professor of Anthropometry and Physical Education at the University of Iowa from 1930 to 1954, was one of the first in the field of physical education to encourage and promote research on strength training. Although an advocate of various forms of training throughout his career, McCloy began to encourage investigations of the relationship between strength and performance by Iowa graduate students in the late 1940s. When those studies indicated that barbell training actually enhanced jump height, swimming speed, and more, McCloy publicized those results in the classroom, at conference talks, and in both professional and popular press magazines. Some of those investigations became part of the foundation on which later strength research was based. Owing to his backing and promotion of scientific investigations of strength training, C.H. McCloy was a key figure in making strength training an integral element of sport preparation.

Shurley, JP, Todd, JS, and Todd, TC. The science of strength: reflections on the National Strength and Conditioning Association and the emergence of research-based strength and conditioning. J Strength Cond Res 31(2): 517-530, 2017-The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) formed in 1978 when a group of 76 strength and conditioning coaches banded together to start an organization whose goal was to facilitate the exchange of ideas on strength training for sports. At the time, very little research existed regarding strength training protocols or their effects. Members clamored for scientific information, however, and by the group's second meeting, they moved to establish a research committee and a professional journal. In the years that followed, more members with experience both as practitioners of strength coaching and training and as scientists joined the organization. As membership demographics shifted, the NSCA's mission changed from exchanging ideas about strength training to creating research on its effects. The group sought to "bridge the gap" between scientists and practitioners, and to that end, the NSCA Journal published features like the "Sport Performance Series" and "Roundtable" articles containing applied science and investigations of claims made by strength equipment manufacturers about the efficacy of their products. In 1987, a second journal, The Journal of Applied Sport Science Research, was established to provide more access to research-based publications, now renamed the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. With over 400 articles published in the JSCR in 2014 alone, the science of strength has advanced dramatically since the NSCA's founding.

Boyd Epley was hired as the first full-time strength and conditioning coach at the University of Nebraska in 1969. Epley's hiring was the result of his extensive knowledge of strength training, an injury, and several disappointing seasons for the Cornhusker football team. An enterprising young coach, Tom Osborne, recognized that injured football players who trained with Epley, then an injured varsity pole-vaulter, returned to the team stronger than when they left. Osborne and Epley were able to convince head football coach and athletic director, Bob Devaney, that his belief that weight training was detrimental to athletic performance was unfounded. After starting the Husker Power program, Epley consistently worked to make it more scientific and specific to the demands of football. The results of Epley's work speak for themselves, over a career that spanned 35 years, football teams under his tutelage recorded 356 wins, 5 national championships, and a host of national player of the year award winners. In addition to his work as a practitioner of strength and conditioning, Epley also played an integral role in organizing a disparate group of individuals into a recognizable profession. He was the driving force in founding the National Strength and Conditioning Association in 1978. The organization would go on to fund and disseminate research in the field, resulting in the highly skilled practitioners of strength and conditioning practicing today.

In the latter years of the Second World War, the number of American servicemen who had sustained orthopedic injuries was overwhelming the nation's military hospitals. The backlog of patients was partly because of the sheer number of soldiers involved in the war effort, but it was exacerbated by rehabilitation protocols that required lengthy recovery times. In 1945, an army physician, Dr. Thomas L. DeLorme experimented with a new rehabilitation technique. DeLorme had used strength training to recover from a childhood illness and reasoned that such heavy training would prove beneficial for the injured servicemen. DeLorme's new protocol consisted of multiple sets of resistance exercises in which patients lifted their 10-repetition maximum. DeLorme refined the system by 1948 to include 3 progressively heavier sets of 10 repetitions, and he referred to the program as "Progressive Resistance Exercise." The high-intensity program was markedly more successful than older protocols and was quickly adopted as the standard in both military and civilian physical therapy programs. In 1951, DeLorme published the text Progressive Resistance Exercise: Technic and Medical Application, which was widely read by other physicians and medical professionals. The book, and DeLorme's academic publications on progressive resistance exercise, helped legitimize strength training and played a key role in laying the foundation for the science of resistance exercise.