Chains, hammers and martial arts

At times this summer, the University of Central Arkansas' weight room looked more like the setting for an action movie at Estes Stadium.

At various locations were sledgehammers, chains and tires huge tires. Often, it came down to one-on-one, hand-to-hand combat, no devices.

Find Jackie Chan. Cue that "Kung Fu Fighting" CD.

It was all part of the summer conditioning program developed by Henry Briscoe, the Bears' strength and conditioning coach.

"Every year, I try to introduce something new to keep things fresh and to give guys a new challenge and they love challenges," said Briscoe, selected the Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year in NCAA Football Championship Subdivision last year by American Football Monthly. "I try to think outside the box before we can be concerned with what's in the box. Every summer, even the veteran players know I won't do the same thing. I'll throw in a different twist or two."

"Henry does a good job of adjusting workouts, being creative and using different apparatuses to keep the players motivated," said UCA coach Clint Conque.

"We show up for workouts, and all of a sudden we're flipping tires and doing all sorts of competitive things," said junior offensive lineman Will Merritt. "It's not what we're used to, but it was competitive and it worked."

"I've had a strength and conditioning coach before, but nobody as tough as coach Briscoe," said transfer defensive back Pieri Feazell. "It's a whole look of new stuff. I'm used to just working on one muscle group. We did things to work on all the muscle groups, and it was pretty competitive."

Briscoe, who has won or placed high in several state and national bodybuilding competitions, brought out truck tires from 600 pounds to 850 pounds (the World's Strongest Man weight level). Players were divided randomly into groups and raced to flip them. Thirty-pound chains were strapped about players' shoulders as they did squats, bench presses and even pushups.

"Somebody gets into trouble, and they've doing 'bear crawls' with those chains," Briscoe said. "That's pretty tough. It gets their attention."

Eight-pound sledgehammers were used to beat and take apart smaller tires in another drill.

"And we had defensive backs who could flip those 850-pound tires," Briscoe said.

"I was one of those," Feazell said, flexing his muscle. "But the chains were definitely the toughest part."

Briscoe also divided the players into groups for some mixed martial arts and boxing competitions.

"Football is a contact, violent sport and the things that work in training for MMA guys, also can work for us," Briscoe said. "The MMA fighting and punching is particularly good for offensive and defensive linemen because when the ball is snapped, it immediately turns into a fight in the offensive and defensive using basic, open-handed punching. The guy who gets in the first punch is the guy who is usually going to win and get the advantage. Line play is a lot about hands and feet. The boxing helps develop working the hands and quickness with the hands and feet better."

"The fighting and other competitions gives you a good workout between the lifting, but it's also great for chemistry," Merritt said. "When we divided into teams, there might be a guy from two states away who you don't know very well and all of a sudden, you're brothers in a couple of weeks. The competitions are different, but we're competitors and it's competition and we want to win plus we're fighting for the other guys on our team that we may not know as well but you want to win for your team.

"It's certainly given new life to the workouts. It made the summer stuff more fun."

"You might be in a group with defensive linemen, offensive linemen, quarterbacks, all different positions," Feazell said. "We learned to work together. We got to learn the heart and dedication of each player. It was exhausting, but it made it exciting."

"We also try to develop leadership and not just from the seniors," Briscoe said. "I want to get across that freshmen and sophomores are expected to take leadership roles also. So we'd have freshmen and sophomores leading stretching drills or agility drills or different things. I don't think a young player can be expected to be thrown in and be a leader in August. We like to start in January or the summer."

The results have amazed the UCA coaches.

Of the players who went through the summer conditioning program, 63 earned "Iron Bear" citations, signifying they attended 90 percent of the voluntary workouts. The UCA team set a record with 40 "Iron Bear" awards last summer.

"We smashed the record we set last year," Merritt said. "It got us pumped to see so many guys show up almost all the time."

"I think that showed this team is hungry to win," Briscoe said.

Merritt, 6-foot-5, 287 pounds, increased his vertical jump from 29 to 31.5 inches.

"I was rehabbing from an injury and I feel I got faster and improved my agility," he said.

Defensive back Anthony Gambles improved his vertical jump from 36 to 39.5 inches. Linebacker James Lancaster went from 409 pounds in the bench press to 444. Defensive end Jamarrio Douglas went from 340 to 395. Quarterback Nathan Brown now bench-presses 250 pounds.

"Those improvements are not just from the start of the spring," Briscoe said. "We measured these in April at the end of spring practice. So, we're talking improving from April to August.

"I work with the players to set individual goals," Briscoe said. "I would say 99.9 percent of the players met or exceed those goals, which is a hard thing to do with the numbers we had."

"The big thing is the increased participation I saw over the summer," Conque said. "The second session of summer school we had mostly the entire team and even some of the freshmen and newcomers. And we set a dozen records in different positions and we just measure vertical jump and bench."

On the drawing board is an 8200-square foot new weight room that will be attached to the PepsiAmericas Indoor Facility.

"The thing that is different nowadays is the conditioning required," Conque said. "Football nowadays is not like duck season where you have a certain season, and it's over until the next season. We give our players a break for Christmas and a break in the spring. The rest of the time they're expected to be in the weight room.

"Henry does a good job of giving each player some individual workouts and goals to address areas they are week. Because of the year-round conditioning, that weight room, once we get it built, will be very important to the football program and the overall athletic program here."

"I had some women's track athletes come asking to borrow our sledgehammers and work with them," Briscoe said.

He didn't ask exactly how they would use them, but he's confident the results were positive.