JOHN DOHERTY: Safety a weighty issue when conditioning

Imagine 200-plus pounds across your throat. USC senior running back Stafon Johnson doesn't have to, having had a loaded weight bar fall across his throat eight days ago at his school's Heritage Hall.

He's fortunate he'll have the incident as a just another bad memory instead of his last one. Seven hours of surgery were needed to save his life and reconstruct his voice box and airway.

Being spotted by an assistant strength coach, Johnson still lost control of the bar when it slipped from his right hand while he was bench pressing.

What exactly happened to 36-year-old Lisa Pattison of LaFontaine, Ind., on July 2, may never be known. Her estranged husband, Scott, claims he found her unresponsive at home with a weight bar across her throat. A Wabash County grand jury didn't buy it and indicted him for murder on, ironically, the same day as Johnson's mishap.

Both incidents offer ample evidence of how dangerous a weight room can be.

"The proper technique of spotting is most important," said Munster native Ken Croner, a conditioning specialist with Athletes' Performance in Tempe, Ariz. "If you're spotting from behind, your left hand should be underneath the bar and your right hand should be over the top. If you're spotting through a general (set) of five repetitions or more, then one spotter is fine. If it's a set of only one, two, or three reps, then you need two (spotters)."

Croner is particularly concerned about safety for teenagers.

"On the bench press, especially in high school, there should be no forced reps," he said. A "forced rep" is where the weight and/or number of repetitions is so great, that the athlete's muscles begin to fail and the bar starts to go down even as the athlete is trying to raise it.

"The bar should always be going up," Croner said. "It should never stop. Once it does, the spotter should start helping to raise it and get it on the rack."

Safety is also the responsibility of the lifter.

"I teach squeeze the bar as tight as you can," Croner said. That means fingers over the top and thumbs coming from underneath.

"The bench and the squat are extremely dangerous," Croner warned. "You've got to teach it and then stay on top of it, especially with kids."

John Doherty is a certified athletic trainer and licensed physical therapist.

This column reflects solely his opinion. Reach him at ptatcsport@sbcglobal.net.