The University of Kentucky football program and trainer Ray “Rock” Oliver are putting their necks on the line in the gym…literally.
Here is an excerpt from ESPN.com:
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But while cranking out the reps and stacking the weight might be the top priority for some athletes when they step into the gym, Ray “Rock” Oliver, who is in his first year with the Kentucky Wildcats as the director of strength and conditioning, likes to add emphasis to another area when the workouts begin.
The size he’s most concerned about is the girth of is athletes’ necks.
A neck doesn’t help you run faster, jump higher or throw farther, but it does provide some extra safety in the violent game that is football.
“The No. 1 mechanism that’s absorbing a lot of the shock is the neck, so we need to get that bigger,” said Oliver, who joined Kentucky’s strength staff after spending the past six seasons as the associate strength and conditioning coach with the Cincinnati Bengals. “We’re really proud of that. Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have ever been talking about that. Ten years ago, I would have been talking about our bench [press] and our vertical jumps.”
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[URL=”http://espn.go.com/blog/sec/post/_/id/23131/kentucky-has-a-new-emphasis-in-the-gym”]Complete Article[/URL]
