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During the spring she went out for track and shot put, and ran the 100-meter for her last meet. She was slow, it was awkward, but she did it.<br>That was the picture when BFS first caught up with Christi five years ago. She was a determined girl fighting the odds, but no one knew if she would make it. Catching up with her now, just beginning her senior year, we re proud to see her spirit still pushing her on the athletic field and to learn she is not only fully recovered from the accident, but stronger for the effort.<br><br>Better Than Ever<br><br>In the summer, only a year after her accident, Christi began running well.  I was doing everything, she says.  If a normal person saw me they couldn t tell anything happened. I was playing volleyball, basketball, track and gymnastics.<br> The doctors actually say my back is stronger because of the bone they took from my hip to fuse my spine. I have no side effects, none. It s amazing. Sometimes I forget the whole accident happened. <br>Pressed on the subject, she admits to some weakness in the right leg.  I need to compensate with the left, she says,  but I m working on fixing that in the run. It doesn t stop me, but it is a technical point I need to work on. <br>Christi attained her present height and weight of 5-foot-3 and 130 pounds early, and gymnastics gave way to track and the pole vault. She began working at Wichita Extreme Athletics with brothers Randy and Darrin Bryant. The center works with dance, tumbling and cheerleading, but because both brothers vaulted in high school, they also coached vaulters. Randy has been to two Olympics and coached in Australia and Mexico. The two trainers are highly technical in their approach, and they believe that Christi has the raw talent and drive to make her mark in the vault.<br>Christi s best vault at press time was 12.1 feet. She feels that won t stand for long as she enters her senior year. With her scholastic achievements, she s confident she ll receive a scholarship in the vault or in basketball. She s spent the summer working hard on both, at the academy with drills, trampoline, push-ups, the high bar and speed drills. At the local rec center she s been able to maintain a three-times-per-week strength-training schedule where her training weight on the bench is 135 and her squat is 180. Power cleans complete her core lifts.<br>Back to school means back to the gym with her coaches for a more aggressive approach. The lifting that sped her recovery and brought her back to the competitive athletic field is first on her list to win her that ticklls or baseballs either.<br>Siff also emphasizes that the danger of weightlifting prematurely closing the growth plates of young girls is exaggerated, since running and jumping can impose even greater loads on the bones and joints. If we were to take this myth seriously, then we would have to restrict all girls and boys to walking and swimming!<br>Another factor not considered by the slow-training proponents is that Olympic lifting can help prevent injuries by properly developing the nervous system. Siff says these same people make the mistake of concentrating on how much weight is being lifted. "The most important thing in regard to injury-proofing the athlete is proper development of the central nervous and motor control systems. From my research and experience, I have found that accidents and injuries often have a lot to do with motor control, technique and skill, and not so much with weak tissues."<br>Siff adds that an understanding of the importance of the central nervous system explains why boxers can take so many hits, hits that would generally knock out even a well-muscled individual. "Boxers knoX g