On strength, muscle and grinding grist for growth in football and life
One can be very strong without becoming very big. Patience serves as the key to combining both, whether you're an antsy adolescent or elite college football player
My son is built like me. Tall. Lanky. Reasonably athletic. His metabolism at age 14 whirs at the speed of lightning, so packing muscle onto his 6-2 frame is damn near impossible.
For now, anyway.
He’s trying, though, and he’s getting stronger and faster via weight training and pickup basketball games. But gaining mass? Right now that’s a fool’s errand — and I told him so. I even consulted with former Iowa State running back and CrossFit expert Jeff Woody, who never had that particular problem. He confirmed that building peak strength should be top of mind for my son. When the time is right, added layers of muscle will come. If you’re not careful, layers of something else will also form as one’s athleticism and agility fades into middle age, but enough about me.
So why am I sharing all of this with you? Not because I think any of you care whether my son achieves “the look” he wants in adolescence. I sure hope you don’t, anyway.
No, I’m sharing my son’s natural struggle to gain “good weight” in order to highlight the Iowa State football team’s relative ease in doing so.
Case in point: Cyclone sophomore cornerback Myles Purchase. He confirmed he added 25 pounds — 25 pounds! — of muscle to his body since the end of last season. Now, if he were a lineman or even a linebacker that wouldn’t seem so shocking. But Purchase stands 5-11. He officially played at 192 pounds last season and is now listed at 205. The numbers, then, don’t completely add up and I’m guessing that Purchase added considerably more chiseled bulk during summer workouts.
“It’s crazy,” said hulking defensive lineman Tyler Onyedim, who first brought up Purchase’s physical transformation as emblematic of the team’s as a whole. “It’s crazy.”
Maybe. Just ask my son.
“Jesus,” he said after I picked him up Saturday from the gym.
Now, Iowa State’s players have access to state-of-the-art equipment, expert instruction from first-year strength and conditioning coordinator Reid Kagy and his staff, as well as elite nutritional plans and analysis. It would be troubling if they didn’t get bigger, faster and stronger — head coach Matt Campbell’s mantra when it comes to his players’ physical goals.
And meeting those “bigger, faster and stronger” standards doesn’t always translate to on-the-field success. The Cyclones lost six games by seven or fewer points last season and went 4-8 overall. They won seven to nine games in each of the previous five seasons, so in 2023 a near-total mental transformation must accompany the physical one.
My son’s mental approach to building muscle is sweat-based and straightforward. He works hard. He like chips and Sour Patch Kids candy a bit too much, but otherwise eats well, providing himself with the necessary building blocks for his wished-for muscle gains. It simply can’t happen yet. Not much, anyway. And learning to have patience is key to developing the habits one needs to accomplish bot short-termand long-term goals. My son understand this. I think he accepts it, too, albeit begrudgingly.
As for patience with ISU football? The players — no matter how much “good” weight they’ve gained — must practice it. The fans must, too. There’s no quick or cosmetic fix to a losing season. It’s all about the work, which eventually — if performed freely, fully and assiduously — produces the desired look and feel; a “winning” state of being.
Success is never guaranteed, of course, but the people both big and small who are more likely to achieve at least a measure of it know one thing: Looks can often be deceiving.
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