Announcement
SUMMER FOOTBALL
Raider Football Team Closes Summer Lifting Program With Annual Competition- Weight Lifting Competition, Monday, 6 pm, Madison County Middle School Gym
Expect a gym full of Raiders gunning for the title of strongest Raider to get a little gung-ho.
Or at least that’s what Madison County football coaches hope for on Monday when the team is divided into three weight classes and players are pitted against each other in the Raiders’ annual lifting competition.
“We’ll be disappointed if it’s not,” Madison County head football coach Randell Owens said.
Players’ mettle will be tested in three lifts—bench press, parallel squats and power cling—as Monday’s competition offer a glimpse of the Raiders’ summer strides in the weight room.
In today’s ultra-competitive high school football climate, a large part of a football program’s success or failure can hinge on the quality of the weight training program it offers its players.
“If your kids aren’t buying into the weight program and they’re not lifting, you’re pretty much dead in the water,” Owens said.
The Raider coach can remember a time—mainly his high school football days in the mid-to-early 70s in Alabama—when not everybody focused so stringently on the weight room.
“There was a time when you lifted weights hard, it gave you an edge over your opponent, because not everybody did it,” he said.
Of course, the ones that did it well—working both upper body and lower body equally—were winning championships, he said. Everybody eventually caught on and one would be hard-pressed now to find a sparse crowd in a high school weight room these days.
“It’s kind of escalated,” Owens said. “It’s kind of like nuclear proliferation.”
Months of the Raiders’ voluntary summer weight training culminate with Monday’s lifting competition.
Owens noted that the competition obviously motivates the strongest players, but the weaker ones, too.
“It’s a point of embarrassment for some of the weak folks,” Owens said. “What it does, is it puts it out there in front of everybody, that ‘I’ve got to get stronger,” It puts it out there where you can’t hide from it. Everybody can see it.”
Owens noted that having an audience enhances the competitive nature of the event. The adrenaline gets flowing and lifters tend to pick up a few extra pounds in the heat of the moment.
Owens said coaches like to know the players who thrive in those situations.
“Your real competitors, they’ll give five or 10 more pounds a lot of times just because of the adrenaline rush of doing it in front of a crowd,” Owens said.
Owens noted that juniors and seniors are usually “chomping at the bit” this time of year to out-muscle their teammates in this annual throw-down.
Some he said are already strategizing.
“You’ve got some guys gunning for each other, so to speak,” Owens said. “They’re wanting to out-lift each other.”
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