Collegian Magazine: If you had to describe an ideally fit person, what would be some of this person's characteristics?

Chet Fuhrman: It would be someone who is mesomorphic in body type. The chisel, the person you would carve to be the Greek goddess, as far as body shape. . . . There are three basic components of fitness -- flexibility, strength and cardiovascular. If someone had those three elements of fitness and they were mesomorphic, they would be the ideal body type.

CM: Weightlifting has entered a new era in the 1990s, especially in football. How has it changed since you first took the job here in 1982?

CF: Well there's no doubt that the athletes are getting bigger and stronger. But really the basis of strength training is basically the same. . . . You need two things to get stronger. One, you need a force behind the muscle and that can come in the form of any type of equipment from free weights to Universal gym to Nautilus equipment, to many other types. . . . The second thing that you need to do is you need to overload the muscle. You need more repetition than what you did previously. And if you continuously overload for a longer period of time, someone will get stronger. But the bottom line in whether someone actually does get bigger or stronger lies within something that I really have no control over and that is genetics.

CM: Could you describe the Penn State weight program? Do you gear it more towards the individual?

CF: We try to gear it more towards the individual. . . . In our program, we work on total overall body strength. As a football player, if you neglect one muscle group, you're going to find out you are more susceptible to injury in that area. So what we try to do in our program -- that differs from most programs -- is that we develop a broad spectrum of muscle groups as opposed to just specific muscle groups. We try to surround the joints with as much muscle mass as we can, and get someone stronger to where they are lifting with a higher number of repetitions. Football is not a one-repetition contest.

CM: What area of muscle groups do you prioritize?

CF: The most important area that we feel for a football player is to train the neck, because that is where a football player can get injured most seriously. Any time one of our players walks on the field to play, they have the chance of possibly not walking off. And every year there's anywhere from six to 10 neck injuries.

So then from the neck, our players go to the legs. I don't care how much you bench press, and we've had examples of players that have been successful because they weren't great bench pressers. They played here because they had outstanding leg strength. The initial power starts in the legs.

Then from the legs we go to the upper body. Most programs emphasize the pectoral and lateral muscles (rather) than the deltoids. We do just the opposite. We try to do as much as we possibly can to cover the shoulder area with as much muscle mass as possible.

The fourth area that we would train would be the biceps, triceps and the forearms. The game of football has changed to a game of hands and arm strength and we feel the gripping strength is very important for all positions.

The fifth area we work on is the abdominal area to help prevent lower back injury.

CM: Describe an average day for you during the season. Is it a full year program?

CF: It's a year-round program. The busiest time for a strength coach would be in the winter, where in January, February and March our players go through a three-day lifting program and a two-day-a-week conditioning program. . . . We try to individualize our programs to where it's either myself or the staff that I have taking individual players through a workout because we feel that the productivity will be higher if it's individualized. Personal training is the big thing now and we've been doing this since the inception of our program in 1975.

And during the winter months, we try to indoctrinate our freshmen one-on-one. . . . As we get closer to spring football practice, there is a little more emphasis on conditioning and running where we try to condition them to what they actually do on the football field. . . . After spring practice the players go right into our summer conditioning program where the players lift four days a week.

CM: What about during the actual season, let's say at this point of the season?

CF: The most important players that I have to work with during the season are the players that are playing. We have to make sure that a Lou Benfatti and a Mark D'Onofrio . . . that those guys have their highest level of strength during the season. The top priority season to lift is during the season because if you don't maintain your strength levels throughout the season, everything you did during the offseason, really was for naught. . . . In season, we lift twice a week to maintain the strength levels they developed over the summertime.

CM: When true freshmen enter a "big-time" program such as Penn State, how do they adjust? How do you help them adjust?

CF: You find out that surprisingly, a lot of freshmen that we get at this level here didn't do a lot of strength training or conditioning work when they were in high school. But in the past 10 years, more and more high school coaches are instituting strength training programs on the high school level. It's still amazing, how a lot of them never touched a weight in high school and just got by on their natural God-given genetic ability. . . . At Penn State because they're coming into the program when we're getting ready to play the season, most freshmen aren't going to make an impact right away. We give them a basic routine to follow. During the offseason is when we zero in on the freshmen.

CM: Compare your program to a program like a Tennessee. Would you call Penn State's program more demanding?

CF: I wouldn't necessarily call it more demanding. The basis of a lot of other programs is powerlifting or competitive weightlifting, while our program is geared more towards conditioning and lifting specifically for football. Years ago, when they didn't have strength coaches, the experts at the time were competitive weightlifters and body builders. . . . Football is more of a horizontal game. It's not a straight up-and-down game. You're coming off the ball tackling someone or if you're a ball carrier and you're going to try and run someone over you're not going to stand straight up. You're going to get down or you're going to get licked. Someone could get injured a lot faster by putting a greater force or tension on the muscle. Every year you read in the paper that certain athletes were injured in the weight room. We try to make our strength training program as safe as we can.

CM: Do you think that it's a coincidence that so many Penn State players from the past have gone on to the next level, the NFL? Do you think the strength program has a lot to do with it?

CF: I think it's the total program. I believe that number one, it starts out with the type of athlete that we recruit, not only athletically, but academically. One thing I do feel good about, is that most of our athletes that do go to the pro combine (a mini-workout prior to the NFL draft), they do perform in the higher level or the higher norms of the other people that are coming out in the NFL draft.

CM: Who have been some of your better-conditioned athletes?

CF: One of the true genetic marvels was Steve Wisniewski (now a guard with the Los Angeles Raiders). His arms were about as big as most people's legs. Blair Thomas (a running back with the New York Jets) was probably the best-conditioned athlete. When you talk of someone who was chiseled like a Greek god, this guy here didn't have an ounce of fat on him. And for him to come back the way he did from his knee injury was just amazing. A day didn't go by to where Blair did not make himself better.

CM: What about some of the current projects? Do you take special pride in working with these players?

CF: I tell you what, this class here I'm excited about as any one I've ever had. There's so much talent here and it's so raw. There's a lot of big kids that I think can get bigger and stronger and there's a lot of speed and I think they can also get faster. This group here as a strength coach makes me really excited.

CM: What do you preach to not only your football players, but to anybody who happens to come to one of your clinics about the perils of steroids?

CF: First off, I've never seen a steroid. We have a policy here at Penn State. We have a drug policy here with our players, but Coach Paterno gets rather straight to the point that if you have to take anabolic steroids to improve your performance, you're not going to play football here at Penn State. So he has the bottom line, which is really great for me because of that support.

(At clinics) you talk about the things that can happen as a result of steroid use. They do know that there are different side effects that take place and there are other functions that can happen to the other organs that steroids can affect. Whoever I speak to, whether it'd be high school players or coaches, I direct my thoughts to the fact that steroids don't have a part in the game of football. You find that people who are steroid users usually are more prone to injuries and have more muscle pulls and tears. Using steroids doesn't make you catch the ball any better. It doesn't make you scrape in the off-tackle hole.

CM: Do you think that steroids are still a problem among teams in college football today.

CF: I think it starts at the top, it starts in the NFL. There are steroids and certain growth hormones that are out on the market today that we don't know anything about. There's masking agents that take place and there are ways to falsify the test and people do. Even if one person uses them, it's a problem.

CM: Has it ever been a problem here?

CF: Not really. We've had some people that have dabbled in steroids, nothing consistent. There have been three cases in my 10 years that I've been here that I've known that people used it. The three people weren't starters. Usually those people who don't have the genetic potential are looking for "What can give me the edge?" and they say steroids can. Today, players know that they can lose one year of eligibility after you get tested by the NCAA and there have been several players in college football who have lost their eligibility.

CM: Have you ever had any pro aspirations?

CF: I'll tell you what, working with college kids really excites me more than working with someone who's making $25 million dollars and you tell them they have to left weights and they tell you, "Buzz off. I'm not lifting weights. I'm already at the top of my profession."

Being on this level here, it's a little bit more challenge, a little bit more exciting. And the college atmosphere of football, you can't beat it. Compared to professional football, which sometimes puts me to sleep, college football, whether you are playing a top-10 team or a bottom-10 team, college football is very exciting.