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For the non-athletes, the University has built an impressive facility that Bennett says has much more of a health club environment with leverage machines and high-tech aerobic equipment. <br>Bennett says that he developed his approach to training athletes by researching strength programs that were doing well and assimilating their best methods into his overall system.  I work on what you might call a  scratch where it itches basis, says Bennett.  If our leg strength is not as good as it needs to be, I'll find out whose program is doing well in that area and apply their ideas to our program. Bennett also credits his many mentors and co-workers at Ole Miss, Clemson, Virginia Tech and Marshall for teaching him the ABCs and XYZs of strength coaching.<br><br>Building the Foundation<br><br>Bennett says his core lifts for the football team are variations of the squat and the Olympic lifts, plus basic heavy-duty upper body exercises such as the bench press.  We perform back squats, front squats, power cleans, snatches, push presses and bench presses--to name just a few. It sounds like we do it all, and we eventually do in a year-round program, but the key to success for our athletes is developing a good foundation of strength. If your strength foundation is there, your speed and your power are going to improve. But, number one, you've got to have a strength base. <br>Although there are still skeptics who preach about the dangers of performing Olympic lifting exercises and squats, Bennett has found that the myths surrounding strength training are not as prevalent today as the public has become more educated about the field. The key to safety, he says, is a proper teaching progression.  I don't think that training younger athletes with lighter weights and teaching them how to move their body in a natural way is dangerous at all. <br>One important component of Bennett's conditioning system is a focus on plyometric training, which he says comprises about 10 percent of his total program.  When you put plyometrics in at the right spots, after your strength base has been built, I think it can be an ultra valuable asset to your program. But you've got to have a good foundation of leg strength, especially when you get into those  high dollar plyometrics such as depth jumps. If you're legs are not strong enough, you're just not going to be able to get that pop you need when you jump off a box. <br>Another key component of Bennett's program is box squats.  We teach our athletes to box squat right off the bat. Besides taking a lot of stress off the knees because you don't have such an acute knee-joint angle, it teaches you to sit way back. And because the box is going to gauge your depth, going deep enough never really becomes a problem. Obviously when we take the box out from under them there is some adjustment because your knees have to go more forward to make it more natural, but our technique just seems to be picture perfect. <br>Bennett got hooked on box squats through powerlifting guru Louie Simmons, one of the most accomplished powerlifting coaches in the world. Coach of the famous Westside Barbell Club in Columbus, Ohio, Simmons has trained dozens of world champions and world record holders.  I competed in powerlifting when I was at Virginia Tech, and at that time I read Louie's articles and visited him quite a bit, says Bennett.  I got involved with what Louie did, which included using box squats, and started doing them myself. They worked, and they worked well without beating up my body when I was doing rep testing.