A former college strength coach offers his thoughts on the Iowa football situation

I got an e-mail Thursday night from Adam Blalock, the co-director of Performance Sport & Speed in Coralville, part of Performance Therapies. The business includes physical therapy and athletic training. They help some area high schools in recommending and setting up workouts and weight programs.

Blalock was offering his thoughts about the situation that led to 13 University of Iowa football players being hospitalized for rhabdomyolysis, the breakdown of muscle fibers resulting in the release of muscle fiber contents (myoglobin) into the bloodstream.

He was the assistant strength and conditioning coach at Murray State before moving to Eastern Iowa to be the head strength/conditioning coach at Coe College from 2005 to 2009. He then left the collegiate sector for Performance Therapies, because strength coaches at Division III schools aren't making Big Ten money.

So I called him, and here are some of the things he said:

"I don't have any deep insight on the exact cause of the illnesses. It's really odd. I'm leaning toward a bunch of kids took something. I don't think the workout alone would have done that."

"This protocol (100 squats at half the maximum body weight, followed by power sled pushes) has been used in similar variations at other schools, even throughout Iowa. I've heard Central College uses the same workout. They didn't have the same problems. Jake Anderson (the strength and conditioning coordinator for Central athletics) was a right-hand man to (Iowa S & coach) Chris Doyle at Iowa. "

About the workout itself:

"Science tells us you need to put 70 percent (of one rep max) on the bar to build strength, a heavier weight with much-fewer reps. The purpose of (Iowa's Jan. 20 workout) was not building strength or explosiveness or speed."

"One of the trends you're seeing in Division I football is the line changing between sports-coaching and training for performance. Two-a-day practices in camp are a team-building effort. Now that's kind of carried over to the strength-and-conditioning side of it. You're seeing beating those athletes down to see how tough they are and what they can overcome. That's become a fundamental of the first week back after winter break. Iowa's not alone (in doing that)."

"I'm an Olympic-style weightlifter. I'm not international-caliber or anything like that, but I'm proficient. I'm technical with my lifts (here is his video on how to properly do a back squat). I do some pretty darn hard weightlifting. I may be walking a little funny the next day. But I was never to the point where I needed to go to the hospital."

On the 13 hospitalized players:

"Maybe it was a group of players doing something dumb and taking something. It's entirely possible. At Coe, kids were always asking me about taking this or that. My answer was always 'Don't take it.' "

"It's like when military personnel when they go through the appropriately named "Hell Week" in basic training."

Blalock said he's never directed a workout like the one being analyzed right now at Iowa for one of the football teams he helped at Murray State or Coe.

"A lot of people I work with, physical therapists, people who have been strength and conditioning coaches in the past, have asked 'What's that (workout) accomplish?' It's not the norm as far as strength-power workouts go. It sounds like more of a team-building, team-suffering, back-in-school, let's-go moment. You go to a traditional "Hell Week," so to speak. You try to build mental toughness, see who is competitive, who can compete. It may have been counterproductive. Nobody's got all the specifics yet."

On Doyle:

"Other than this one instance, the way he's run his program is ideal. When you want a job in this business, you put Doyle as a reference. If someone on the East Coast calls him about a strength coach and he says 'Hire this guy,' they hire him."