Strength Coaching in America

A History of the Innovation That Transformed Sports

Jason P. Shurley, Jan Todd, Terry Todd

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN:
  9781477319819
• Print ISBN:
  9781477319796

Shortlisted for the North American Society for Sports History 2020 Monograph Prize

It's hard to imagine, but as late as the 1950s, athletes could get kicked off a team if they were caught lifting weights. Coaches had long believed that strength training would slow down a player. Muscle was perceived as a bulky burden; training emphasized speed and strategy, not "brute" strength. Fast forward to today: the highest-paid strength and conditioning coaches can now earn $700,000 a year. Strength Coaching in America delivers the fascinating history behind this revolutionary shift.

College football represents a key turning point in this story, and the authors provide vivid details of strength training's impact on the gridiron, most significantly when University of Nebraska football coach Bob Devaney hired Boyd Epley as a strength coach in 1969. National championships for the Huskers soon followed, leading Epley to launch the game-changing National Strength Coaches Association. Dozens of other influences are explored with equal verve, from the iconic Milo Barbell Company to the wildly popular fitness magazines that challenged physicians' warnings against strenuous exercise. Charting the rise of a new athletic profession, Strength Coaching in America captures an important transformation in the culture of American sport.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. Before Barbells: Strength Training, Athletes, Physicians, and Physical Educators from the First Olympic Games to the Twentieth Century
• 2. Building the Barbell Athlete: Bob Hoffman, Joe Weider, and the Promotion of Strength Training for Sport, 1932–1969
• 3. The Science Connection: Thomas DeLorme, Progressive Resistance Exercise, and the Emergence of Strength-Training Research, 1940–1970
• 4. Pioneers of Power: Strength Training for College Sports before 1969
• 5. An Emerging Profession: Boyd Epley and the Founding of the National Strength and Conditioning Association
• 6. Bridging the Gap: The National Strength and Conditioning Association and Its Impact
• 7. Strength Coaching in the Twenty-First Century: New Paradigms and New Associations
• Appendix. In Memoriam: Dr. Terry Todd (1938–2018): Pioneering Powerlifter, Writer, Sport Promoter, and Historian Who Changed the Cultural Paradigm for Strength
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index