Monday, January 06, 2003

Fit. Fitter. Fittest.

Dan Loney, CyberSoccerNews
http://www.cybersoccernews.com/columnists/loney/030107loney.shtml

January 7, 2003 (CSA)—It’s called the “screamer,” and, as fits the philosophy of CATZ, it’s deceptively simple. Three pushups, then one jump, high as you can. Then six pushups and two jumps. Then nine pushups and three jumps. Then twelve pushups and four jumps. Fifteen pushups, five jumps. And then back down the scale.

The screamer is the coup de grace of Jim Liston’s workout, the day after New Year’s. A selection of Southern California’s most prominent professional players - Brian Dunseth, Simon Elliott, Brian Mullan, Dan Calichman, Kylie Bivens, and Notre Dame sophomore midfielder Sarah Halpenny - have just finished the good side of an hour and a half of strength and conditioning exercises.

Although Petco is only a few yards away, CATZ has nothing to do with pets. The acronym is Competitive Athletes Training Zone. And if you stop by on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, about a mile north of where the 110 freeway becomes Arroyo Boulevard, you’ll see some of the biggest names in American soccer being put through hell.

That was more or less what I expected to see at CATZ. What I didn’t expect was a company that, if they have anything to say about it, will change the face of sports training in America.

I also didn’t expect to see an autographed Cobi Jones 1997 San Jose Clash jersey. Look that one up, trivia fans.

CATZ was formed in 1996 (a portentous year for American soccer, of course) by Jim Liston and Kevin Wentz. Wentz is a physical therapist for Professional Orthopedic and Sports Care, and Liston since 1998 has been the strength and conditioning coach for the Los Angeles Galaxy.

This past year was a banner year for Liston, of course. You might have read Galaxy midfielder Peter Vagenas in Soccer America telling Ridge Mahoney, or someone within Mahoney’s earshot, “It’s been staple of this team because of our coaching staff and their mentality that no one will outwork us…. No one is going to be fitter than us. That’s something that we instill in preseason and keep the entire season that no matter what happens, we’re going to be the fittest team.”

It’s not as if the rest of the league wasn’t out there training, though. Okay, the MetroStars. But that still leaves eight other teams who were also out there trying to be the ball. How did the Galaxy achieve that goal?

Here’s the training program, as it was listed on January 2, 2002. Four sets each of the following:

Tug of war, x10. This isn’t actually a full on tug of war, with Dunseth pulling Bivens or Halpenny across the room like the proverbial dead cat. It’s the motions of a tug of war, alternating from “winning” to “losing.” As with most of the CATZ exercises, it encompasses a full range of body movements. This will become important later, so underline that for future reference.

The box jump, x12. Three boxes are lined up - one foot high, eighteen inches, and two feet. You jump onto the first two, and jump over the last.

Dolly jump and ducky walk, x2. It only sounds like Eric Cartman’s tea party. Your feet are on a dolly (a little more sophisticated than a Federal Express box mover, but accurate for the purposes of this discussion). In the walk, you pull yourself forward for about ten yards, then push yourself backwards the way you came. The jump part is a sort of push-up that propels you forward. It sounds like a wonderful way to live out the lyric “Excuse me while I kiss this floor,” but no one introduced cartilage to carpet while I was there. Another common thread of these exercises is that there’s a reason these are done by professional athletes instead of ordinary civilians.

Golf squat, x30. Get into a squat - closer to the floor, the better. Keep your back straight. Grasp a dumbbell in front of you, lift it over one shoulder, then the other.

Frog jumps - 4 laps. A rope ladder about a foot wide and five yards long (I suppose it doesn’t have to be a rope ladder, but this is what they used) is placed in front of you, and you simply jump forward and over the ladder. Land on your outside foot, jump from your inside foot. No frogs were harmed in the course of this exercise.

Water buckets, x24. Much like the golf squat, only you place one leg in front of the other, you hold a dumbbell in each hand, and you turn your hips as you bring the weight upwards. No water was harmed in the course of this exercise.

Squat stance hold tricep extension, x15. This is an exercise that is crying out for a nickname, in my opinion. [Liston suggests “sumo stance tricep blaster.” I wonder how Musashimaru would do in a CATZ workout. Maybe Jack Edwards could announce it.]

Dumbbell push jerk, x12. So, you’re in a squat, and you have weights in each hand. Jump upwards, lifting the weights over your head, and land with one leg extended in front, and one leg extended behind. Probably the calisthenic equivalent of walking and chewing gum at the same time, but I felt relieved that I didn’t inadvertently brain myself while working out which leg was supposed to go forward.

Burpees, x12. An old standby - down into a squat, thrust legs back, do a pushup, bring the legs back, jump up, repeat.

Then the screamer.

There. Was that hard?

As for how I did…well, let me tell you a little story. When George Orwell wrote “Road to Wigan Pier,” he actually had to be carried out of the coal mine the first time he went into the pit. Even the simple act of getting to the coal face - let alone the work of digging out the infernal stuff - was too much for him.

George, I’m Dan. Nice to meet you.

Okay, so I didn’t need to be carried out into the Pasadena sunshine. But I only lasted half an hour. (“Half an hour? That’s pretty good!” lied Dan Calichman considerately). When Liston asked for a volunteer to complete the screamer, I made certain I was busying myself with note-taking.

But then, MLS Cups aren’t won by the feeble. I should point out that the real athletes there were very kind - maybe someday our prominent players will get to the stage where they spit tobacco juice on the shoes of reporters and fans, but lucky for me they’re not there yet. They must not read this column.

The basic philosophy behind the CATZ program is to prepare the body for the chaos on the field. As Kevin Wentz put it, “Everything we do is in a full body pattern. We teach the body to change direction and control its center of gravity without having to look.” It’s one thing to tell a player to land with the knee pointing in, Wentz points out, but in the chaos of real-time sports, the player will be thinking of many, many other things at once. So body movements have to be transferred “from the volitional to the subconscious.”

And that’s where CATZ comes in.

The idea sprung out of research into rehabilitation of ACL injuries, which has done for soccer what heroin addiction has done for alternative rock. What Wentz and Liston discovered was a close relationship between rehabilitation and prevention. “The two are so interrelated,” said Wentz, “there’s not even a gap.” Wentz described a continuum between someone going through rehab, someone entering training for the first time, and an elite athlete. The exercises are basically the same—something I would have had trouble believing about the time I was dizzy and seeing two of everyone. The speed, intensity, and complexity of movements increase, but the idea is the same. “All you need is yourself and gravity,” says Liston.

Which itself runs counter to some cherished viewpoints. “We’d go to NCAA conferences, and they would have these terrific speed and agility programs, but when you got to strength training, they’d just talk about their machines,” says Wentz. “If it doesn’t take into account the motion of the body, you have to question how effective it is.”

Gyms and training centers full of shiny weight machines don’t impress the guys at CATZ. When it comes to machines, they’re somewhere between the Luddites and the Amish. Amado Garcia, the regional director for Professional Orthopedic and Sports Care, describes the issue. “People think the purpose of the quadricep is to extend the leg. And it does. But it’s also to absorb the shock when the leg hits the ground.” So working out on a leg machine doesn’t really do very much when it comes time to put that muscle to work.

Liston, Wentz and Garcia are perhaps most proud of their ACL risk reduction program. The fundamental process begins with “the star.” It is a mat about three foot square with, amazingly enough, a star on it. Face towards the top point. (Well, okay, a top point. For you Wiccans out there, think pentacle instead of pentagram.) Reach towards each point of the star. There are three different levels of reach: shoulder height, waist height, then down to the floor. There are three different stances: feet square, leg forward, and standing on one leg.

It’s an exciting enough concept that, almost as you read this, there are plans to have USC do a study on CATZ’ ACL risk reduction program. The grant proposal process being what it is, nothing is official yet, but the plan is to videotape six year olds before and after the CATZ program. The theory is that after six weeks, the kids will be more coordinated, and less likely to hit the ground in painful ways. We’ll see what becomes of this study.

Liston and Wentz have high hopes for CATZ, as well. They hope to have an office in your town soon, but for the moment it’s a Southern California institution. So far everyone who has walked through their doors has come via word of mouth, which is something they hope will change in the upcoming year.

If you wish to contact them, you may call Jim Liston at 626-793-3867, until such time as they expand nationwide. The Galaxy will play their games next year in Victoria Street this summer, but those games may be won this winter on South Arroyo Parkway.