That can’t be David, the legs are too big.
I think some of these statements are half-truths. I know Poliquin trains following fairly standard periodization plans with intense supplementation and nutrition (the idea of a magnesium drip from an iv after a workout, intense!). Elite athletes (especially in speed-power dominant sports) often have the ideal muscle fiber composition for their sports and may also experience hypertrophy in mX strength training (as poliquin has stated happens to him also) in even as few as 3 repetition sets. I think saying that he trains them to look good is partially true, given his experience as a bodybuilder first, but I think sometimes hypertrophy occurs as an after-thought. My main problem with poliquin is his inability to work with a separate coaching staff to assist his player(s). It seems as if he doesn’t want to work with the other coaches that boston must work with, and this has caused problems with boston. I also don’t understand how he can not limit the amount of hypertrophy that occurs in his athletes. I think he should have known that the chargers put 240 pounds as the ceiling for weight in wide-outs. In the end, there are still a lot of questions on what exactly is happening in arizona? See the link:
http://insider.espn.go.com/insider/story?id=1628275
In addition, the point of heel lifts is an attempt to artificially lengthen the tibia to positively affect the shin angle. In short, Boston is not built to be able to do a full-depth squat, but the heel lift allows him. I don’t train athletes in this manner (i’m not saying it’s wrong, i just don’t feel it’s right). We match structure with function and avoid any unnecessary stress. Way too much distraction at the knee for me already without the load.
Boston’s lifts didn’t seem that impressive for his size. What was impressive though is that he kept his speed and lowered body fat.
I thought Poliquin basically used a body building split. push, pull, legs. Second daily session being strongman stuff. Balancing out muscle imbalances.
i think the size factor is an afterthought with athletes, its just wit the conditions and genetics they just continue to grow. As well he does advocate attempting to move the bar as fast as possible in the concentric movements. As far as the split there are multijoint exercises you can classify for bodyparts, and as well this allows exercise cycling to occur more frequently and more intense weight sessions because of lowered frequency of the “body” part.
ie
Day 1-Chest and Back(this could qualify as any press, pull up, row, DB version, etc… and hits the entire upper body)
Day 2-Legs and Abs(legs, wow what a wide range, d/l’s, pwr snatches, pwr cleans, squats, trap bar deads, good mornings, rdls, etc the list goes on)
Day 3- off
Day 4-RC, Arms and Shoulders(arms and shoulders could again include pull up type movements or DB rows to lower intensity possibly, dips, close grip bench press, jm press, and RC i think would be a good idea for athletes to help with balance)
So you see multi joint movements can still be used with this split and “athletic” movements/set and rep ranges could be used too. As for limiting the hypertrophy i think its because he does no kind of endurance work what so ever, just very very short sprints, weight room(both with full recovery and for sprint si think i saw 90 sec recoveries) and strongman exercises but those are mass builders as well. So before we turn him down at 260, lets see what he can do with a good quarterback to throw him the ball, a little more conditioning(possibly tempo runs?) and if the ball is thrown to him more than 3-4 times a game, and i mean he didnt do too bad, 13 ypc with only one other threat in passing situations and on a new team with a new QB to build chemistry with? Cmon and did you not see his 100 yard plus game? he absolutely tore it up, so dont write off being big yet, remember at one time weight training was frowned upon for athletes, and now size is, not saying bigger is always better but it may be working out for him so let him have it. As well because he works upper twice a week i think that would explain his upper body lifts being better than lower and a 405+ incline is not bad at all even if he is 260, plus a 405 power clean for someone who only works leg training exercises in once a week isnt to shabby either.
I’m going to give, Poliquin and Boston the benefit of the doubt.
If given the right conditions isn’t almost anything possible? He has the money to have a trainer with him 24/7 and can buy the best foods and supplements.
Remember what Clemson did in his ‘boy to beast’ article in 10 weeks?
Charlie and Ben.
Perhaps CP just got it right. 240 runs a 4.3 thats special!
But numba56;
With CP i don’t think the size was an afterthought. I think it was deliberate.
What i want to see is him slim down to 230 or so, and see how fast he can be.
You’re just a little off. Boston was always a 4.3 guy, the question was if he could be a 4.3 guy at 240. now that he’s done it, he should probably slim down a little to enhance recovery. i’ve discussed this with numba56 in depth, and he’s fairly right on. I’ve said before that the training boston has been doing is still speed-power and not hypertrophy work, but given his god-blessed genetics, he can still achieve hypertrophy in as little as 3 repetition sets. Anyone can achieve hypertrophy in any training phase given the right muscle fiber type. Is it really that unbelievable that boston (a definite fast-twitch athlete; extremely explosive, fatigues quickly, takes longer to recover) didn’t train for the extra 20 pounds he put on, just that it kept coming on.
I agreeing with everything you’re saying, except the size issue.
I also think the size was intentional. If Boston & Poliquin didn’t want some of that extra weight, my thinking is that they would have adjusted things accordingly. I have no idea if i’m right, but thats what i’m thinking.
Where does it say he powercleans 405lbs? I thought it says 315 or something.
405lb Powercleans are usually associated with olylifters and much stronger athletes like throwers.
Boston’s strength levels don’t seem to indicate a potential for a 405lb powerclean, and he probbaly doesn’t have a “greased” groove of olylifters
I’m not sure how slimming down is going to enhance recovery? However, the thing that everyone is missing here is that football is not played in a straight line. Running a 4.3 at 240 is impressive, it helps with running over other guys if you have time to build up a head of steam and for blocking and your straight arm moves etc. Great stuff for a fullback.
But Boston plays wide receiver and he needs to make cuts in space and get into the clear to be successful. That extra weight may inhibit his ability to make cuts. Since power is a function of mass, for every pound you add, it takes proportionally more force to stop yourself from going in one direction and proportionally more force to start yourself going in the new direction. This doesn’t show up in a 40 time.
As long as strength levels are improving faster than mass, this is not a problem because you have more power to put into the ground (functional hypertrophy) but it seems to me that given Boston’s demonstrated strength levels (and his play on the field), this is not the case. In addition, it is even worse than that because most cuts and change of direction moves are done with one leg, so in effect, strength gains need to be at least 2:1 to mass gains. Third, he already has blown out his patella tendon once, adding the extra weight and stress seems risky.
didn’t train for the extra 20 pounds he put on, just that it kept coming on.
C’mon…I find it beyond belief that someone who would control every aspect of his training to the level of detail described in those articles cannot control for excessive hypertrophy. The reason why he is so big is because he wants to be that big. Boston is no more genetically gifted with respect to explosive fast twitch fiber than that fastest guys in the world (such as Ben or Mo) but they managed to keep their weight below 185. Even Linford who was 6’3 stayed around 200 lbs. Boston wants to be big, ripped and muscular, so he trains for it (even if it is to the detriment of his on-field performance.)
Having not participated in our earlier discussion (and obviously didn’t happen to read some of it) you missed the part where it was stated that boston’s mass is going to increase the amount of time it takes for him to recover. It’s easy to pick apart half of an argument, especially if it’s not a fully balanced argument. In the NFL, additionally, it is necessary to possible have more mass and definetly have more strength because it is necessary to be able to get off the line of scrimmage against very aggressive defensive backs in press coverage. We’ve already said that his extra weight just places more stress on the body. congratulations for agreeing with the ones you’re arguing with. When I said the extra 20 pounds, I meant after the initial 39 pounds he gained. So I guess you’re half right. And of course slimming down affects his recovery. It takes more time for a body to pump blood and hence nutrients to a larger body than a smaller one. This would explain why women can take less stressful training sessions with more frequency, and men can take more stress with less frequency. This is not my opinion, this is a fact. You can positively affect recovery while adding mass, but only so much. We haven’t even discussed what weight loss would do to his cutting ability and change of direction, but yes it would help but if boston doesn’t want to slim down, he won’t. And it’s clear you’re taking the pessimistic route on the 40. We’ve all said that the 40 is over-rated as an assessment, but we were discussing his abilities as a sprinter as well. But by the way, boston’s agility tests are all through the roof too, with the added mass. You’re also forgetting that boston is not a sprinter, and even jerry rice still weighs in at 190-200 pounds and is nearly 2 inches shorter than boston. His body needs protection from the hits he takes consistently.
He still got too big. If you read the ESPN article, he’s talking about wanting to get even bigger. It does seem like he’s more concerned with size. It’s been diminishing returns for awhile. After gaining the 39 pounds initially, he had plenty of size to deal with the 5’11 190 corners. Now it seems like vanity.
Where did it say he cleaned 405? I saw 315 in that article which is not much more than average for elite athletes of his size or smaller.
First off, peace. You seem a bit bent out of shape over this…relax, it’s all good.
Second off, don’t assume that just because I haven’t posted that I haven’t been reading the thread.
Saying that decreasing his mass will improve recovery time and saying that increasing his mass will slow recovery time is just saying the same thing in two different ways, I was looking for an explanation of why. You provided that below…thanks (but I still think you are off on that 
In the NFL, additionally, it is necessary to possible have more mass and definetly have more strength because it is necessary to be able to get off the line of scrimmage against very aggressive defensive backs in press coverage. We’ve already said that his extra weight just places more stress on the body. congratulations for agreeing with the ones you’re arguing with.
First off, I’m not sure I was trying to argue with you. My point was that the balance of mass versus functional strength for the position that he was playing had tipped too far to the mass side, not only because of the extra stress on his body but ALSO because of the demands of his position.
When I said the extra 20 pounds, I meant after the initial 39 pounds he gained. So I guess you’re half right. And of course slimming down affects his recovery. It takes more time for a body to pump blood and hence nutrients to a larger body than a smaller one. This would explain why women can take less stressful training sessions with more frequency, and men can take more stress with less frequency. This is not my opinion, this is a fact. You can positively affect recovery while adding mass, but only so much.
OK, so you contradict yourself in the this paragraph, first you say that because it takes more time to pump blood and nutrients into a larger body than a smaller one, recovery time is longer, then you say that “you can positively affect recovery time while adding mass but only so much.” Why only so much? According to your logic, why would any extra muscle mass contribute to recovery? Where is the cross over point?
In any case, there are really two types of recovery to worry about. The first is within-session recovery, for example, how much time it take Boston to recover between plays (which is what I thought we were talking about.) The second is between session recovery (which is what you mention above.)
First, let’s tackle within-session recovery. If the muscle mass that Boston is adding is functional, that is, it contributes to his performance on the field and improves his ‘ceiling’, then the concept of speed reserve comes into play and it should actually be easier for him to recover from each play. The only time that this would not be the case is if the mass is not contributing to his performance. Then it is simply along for the ride and can add to recovery time.
As far as between-session recovery, muscular recovery is not the limiting factor for elite-level athletes. Instead, it is CNS regeneration. I would make the argument that perhaps more muscle mass increases between-session recovery because it allows an athlete to put out more CNS energy in a session, but the regeneraton time for the muscle is not the problem. In any case, between session recovery was not what we were talking about. We were wondering why Boston needs to take off plays during a game.
We haven’t even discussed what weight loss would do to his cutting ability and change of direction,
That’s why I brought it up. We are talking about his performance on a football field and this is a factor that was overlook in the discussion until now.
but yes it would help but if boston doesn’t want to slim down, he won’t. And it’s clear you’re taking the pessimistic route on the 40. We’ve all said that the 40 is over-rated as an assessment, but we were discussing his abilities as a sprinter as well.
Perhaps you need to read the discussion again. Nowhere did anyone say anything about how Boston would do as a sprinter.
But by the way, boston’s agility tests are all through the roof too, with the added mass. You’re also forgetting that boston is not a sprinter, and even jerry rice still weighs in at 190-200 pounds and is nearly 2 inches shorter than boston. His body needs protection from the hits he takes consistently.
Sorry, but you have the facts wrong here. Go to www.nfl.com. Jerry Rice and David Boston are both listed at 6’2". Rice is listed at 200, Boston at 240. And given Rice’s vs Boston’s injury records, it seems that more mass is not necessairly better in this regard.
In any case, I don’t think we are disagreeing…Boston is probably too big but seems to think it is good and is unlikely to change (at least in the near term)
No big deal. I somehow got switched on what side of the argument I was on like bugs bunny in that cartoon with elmer fudd. I think his added mass is a negative. When I say only so much, i meant that if someone was to add size with zero conditioning (interval training) than they would not recover well. Even with conditioning, it still takes him longer to recover. There is not an argument here. But there is another post titled “speed reserve” that we discussed other topics on boston. Of course muscular recovery is an issue because in football it is not entirely neural, and it is not entirely metabolic, so the recovery is not just neural or just metabolic, but along the neural-metabolic continuum. Comparing apples and oranges with jerry rice and david boston, unless they have the exact same genetic make-up, which they don’t. But seriously, peace.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/chargers/20030809-9999_1s9chargers.html
In this article it says he does 40 yard sprints with 90 sec recoveries so I am going to assume it is all he does as far as sprinting. How can this be effective in building speed? Is the rest not too short because isnt the rule at least 1 min per 10 m for short acc(so 36 m, at least 4 min rest?)?
ESPN Classic had the Arizona State vs. Ohio State Rose Bowl from 1997 (actually for the 1996 season). Boston was sooooooooo much smaller just 6 years ago.
yes he was, about 50lbs smaller than this year, so you see 10lbs a year isnt so bad.
I went to an Ohio State game in 1998, his last year there, and the program said he weighed 207 lbs which was probably overestimating because the article said David weighed 209 when he showed up to Poliquin’s door. I doubt he only gained 2 lbs over 3 years. But anyway, just look at the article too. It said he gained 39 lbs. in one offseason. Not 10 every 5 years.
Yes, Boston gained that weight all at once.
I’ll be interested in seeing how he trains and what he looks like come next year.
What ever happened to him?
busted for steroids i thought