The will to believe is as powerful a human characteristic as there is. It is a right held sacred in every accord as not only important, but essential to the very way we live as humans.

Strength and conditioning coaches are generally men of strong convictions who believe unabashedly in their chosen system. They are left no other choice, as what goes on in their weight room is the ultimate reflection of their philosophies.

But such definitiveness mars lines between systems and prevents communication between not only coaches from different systems, but from the academic side of the argument.

In other words, the discourse on whether or not HIT or Olympic-style mainstream lifting tends to center on the distinctiveness of each program rather than trying to reconcile them or come up with concrete scientific results.

"I don't care what anyone says, neither side has established superiority," says Michigan State strength coach Ken Mannie. "It hasn't been established in the literature. I don't care who says it."

He's right, and the very problem with the debate right now is that, despite failing for well over 20 years, parties on each side continue to promote their techniques as the superior method rather than trying to reconcile the two.

Promising steps have been made in that direction by both Mannie and Nebraska strength coach Boyd Eply in recent years, who are both generally considered the top football minds regarding the HIT and Olympic-style system, respectively.

"What happened was, Ken Mannie came in and spoke to us about HIT at the national strength coaches convention," said Eply. "We wanted to understand HIT and to have a mutual understanding and respect for all the systems. But the first thing he shows is a guy doing squats, and we were all pretty surprised."

The consensus from the meeting was that there were more similarities between the two systems than most coaches had realized.

Eply, for his part, worked with Hammer Strength, a company specializing in exercise machines mostly affiliated with HIT-style workouts, to develop ground-based machines (players stand while training). One such machine, known as the jammer, is currently used by Penn State.

Yet falsities abound about the methods and goals of HIT programs.

"There are a lot of misconceptions about HIT," said Thomas, whose own program does not use traditional squats but replicates the move on machines. "People think it's a codified program where everyone does the same thing."

But it is not, a concept true of every regimen. Not all Olympic-style programs are organized the same way. In some respects, trying to qualify a system as one or the other squeezes the issue into parameters it is simply not ready, or able, to fit into.

Despite all the politics that surround the issue, and all the necessary political grandstanding that accompanies it, the two sides might not be as radically and unrecognizably different as it appears at first blush.

"I still use the high intensity training (HIT)," says former Penn State linebacker Brandon Short, who plays for the New York Giants. "But I don't go nearly as intense as J.T. (Thomas) has them going in there."

Instead, Short arranges his program around some of the principals espoused in Olympic-style programs. He lifts four days a week and employs some aspects of periodization.

"The big difference between here and college is that they guide you along a lot more in college," says Short. "It's all up to you here."

Even though his strength coach is a HIT advocate, players from a strict Olympic-style program are allowed to continue training in that manner.

Short said there were no noticeable differences coming from a HIT background when he goes up against guys who use mainstream techniques.

"It was one of the strongest guys here when I arrived," he said. "Maybe other guys were stronger on the flat bench, but you've got to have total body strength. You're a football player."

LaVar Arrington, Short's mate at linebacker who also left Penn State after '99, was named as having one of football's best physiques by Muscle and Fitness Magazine in 2000, becoming the first rookie ever honored. In the article, Arrington credits HIT with keeping him healthy (he missed just one game during his college career) and for keeping his 40-yard dash time high (he's faster than Tennessee Titans' running back Eddie George). At the time of publication, Arrington benched 450 pounds and squatted 600 while clocking a 4.39 in the 40.

He is also, by all standards, a genetic freak. One theory offered up to as why teams like Michigan, Notre Dame and Penn State could afford to use HIT is that they always recruited the best athletes.

"You look at Nebraska, and there's not as many great athletes to choose from," says Eply. "We've got to develop a kid so he can surpass other players around the country. Those teams bring in great athletes, and then they try to make sure they can stay on the field."

It is a claim Penn State strength and conditioning coach John Thomas flatly denies.

"To say that our talent is so much greater than what they get at Nebraska is really inconceivable to me," says Thomas. "Nebraska gets some great athletes."

Perhaps what is most often lost in the training debate is the fact that no program, no matter how well designed or carried out, can guarantee on field success. Also it is worth noting that competitors for "World's Strongest Man" do not populate the NFL. Strength is nothing without athleticism. And strength training is only one element of a winning football program, a component along with coaching, talent, team chemistry and any number of other factors.

"I think credit going to the weight-room when a team is successful is overdone," Mannie said.

Thomas came under fire when Penn State went 5-7 last year, yet nobody said anything about him when the team went 12-0 in 1994 and had one of the most prolific offenses in history, anchored by a dominant offensive line.

As a greater dialogue is opened between strength coaches, the two sides might find more common ground on which to stand. While programs will always follow a dominant ideology, they may begin to splice parts of not-so-opposite beliefs. An example is Texas, where strength and conditioning coach Jeff Madden runs an Olympic-style program but incorporates elements of HIT in the off-season.

"There are good aspects about both," Madden said, "and when you put the two together you get a pretty good fruit salad."