He Aint Heavy - Just Toned

THREE of my grand-children are in their teens; all three are into sport in a big way. The one who runs and the one who plays rugby are both through their club being introduced to weight training and gym work - just light weights at the moment, but they are working out.

The rugby player, given he is already over six feet tall and is just 13, has a real chance of going somewhere in his sport, so it makes sense for him to start developing. The runner is a sprinter, so needs to build-up explosive force.

The footballer - naw, nae gym work and fact just a little above the bare minimum of technical work goes into his training.

Neither I nor their parents are pushy, determined they will be top-flight participants, so long as they enjoy their sport and have fun, we'll be happy.

But, and there should not be a but, why is it football has never bought into strength and conditioning work? Yes, more than rugby and athletics there is a technical element to football, but, the fitter you are, the stronger your body is, the better your conditioning, the better-equipped you are to fulfill the technical part of the game.

Peter Crouch is six foot seven, England has a couple of six foot six/seven rugby players in their national team - a photograph of Crouch, stripped to the waist, alongside his rugby compatriot of the same height would be interesting, since the rugby player would be better-muscled and have more stamina; he'd be more explosive and better able to ride the hard knocks.

Football just doesn't DO gym work. A decade or so ago I covered an SPL club which at that time had what few Scottish clubs had - unfettered access to a well-equipped gym. There then manager also had a back-ground in sports physiology. He decided his players would work out regularly, would become better-conditioned, more like athletes.

He devised gym sessions, he insisted the players participated. The foreign players worked-out religiously, as did, to be fair, three or four of the younger Scottish players, but, since the players' sessions over-lapped with public sessions which saw several young ladies working-out in the gym, the majority of the players simply went in their and posed and chatted-up the women.

Only one of the Scots who worked assidiously is still playing in the SPL.

I ribbed one of the players, a Scotland Under-21 cap: "Is that all you're lifting", as I watched him doing some bench presses.

"I'd like to see you do better", was his response. He was doing sets of eight presses with 100kg - I (at least 25 years older), removed my jacket and did three sets of ten with the same weight. He was gob-smacked.

I hadn't the heart to tell him my rugby team had been working with weights before he was born.

Yes, we have technical deficiencies in Scottish football, but we also have strength and conditioning issues, which we need to address. After all, is 72-year-old Willie Wood, with all his skills and experience, can submit himself to conditioning work in preparation for the Commonwealth Games - what excuse is there for our top footballers to be allowed to report for training at 10am and be finished for the day by noon?

What Bobby Robson called: "Time on the grass" (ball work) is important, but so too in today's game, is time in the gym.