Trouble magnet Terrell Owens has tweaked his hamstring, and rather than worry about whether or not he's making a mountain out of a mole hill, sports writers should look into what Owens has been doing - and with whom - to prepare for the season.
When a top-level football player suffers a pulled muscle while running drills during the initial days of training camp questions have to be asked about what the athlete did during their off-season training program.
Bumps and bruises, sprains, breaks, and other traumatic injuries can’t be avoided in football. Football isn’t a contact sport, it’s a cataclysmic collision sport and there’s very little a guy can do to avoid these kinds of injuries. But you have to question what a guy has done in the off-season when he tweaks his hamstring after five practices, especially with a skill position player.
If Terrell Owens followed the same program to prepare for this season that he used prior to the 2004 season – a program that was featured prominently in the October 2004 issue of Muscle and Fitness magazine – you can partially blame this program for Owens’ current hamstring woes.
Here is his program as it appeared in M&F.
Monday: Abs, Back Triceps
Decline sit-up
Hanging leg raise
Hammer-Strength pull down
One-arm dumbbell row
Low-back extension
Cable press down
Seated dip machine
Hammer-Strength chest press
Tuesday: Abs, Chest, Biceps
Decline oblique crunch
Lying alternating leg raise
Flat-bench dumbbell press
Incline dumbbell press
Standing straight-bar curl
Hammer curl
Seated dumbbell curl
Thursday: Abs, Quads, Shoulders
Decline sit-up
Hanging leg raise
Leg press
Hack squat machine
Leg extension
Seated shoulder press
Seated lateral raise
Angled lat pull down
Friday: Abs, Hamstrings, Calves
Decline oblique crunch
Lying alternating leg raise
Standing leg curl
Dumbbell stiff-legged dead lift
Lying leg curl
Standing calf raise
Seated calf raise
I wrote about this routine in the fall of 2004, and this is what I wrote at the time.
“That’s it. No compound movements, no ground based movements, no explosive movements. No squats. No lunges. Mostly machine-based exercises. Three different kinds of biceps curls. This is a joke.As a matter of fact, this isn’t just a joke it is a scam. I’ll go one step further and say that if this is in fact the actual workout, Owens runs the risk of injury by following this program. The leg press, hack squat machine (!), leg extension and leg curls are demonstrably counter-productive and should be avoided by athletes and no-athletes alike.”
Back to the future.
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