Football team prepares for repeat success in '10

Rocco Dimeco is a student at Norwich University who enjoys working out at the gym. It is a typical Monday afternoon, right around 5 p.m., and Rocco wants to get a great workout in before dinner.

He arrives at Plumley Armory and immediately joins a group of more than 80 students doing dynamic stretches in unison on the basketball courts. This is Norwich University football team's offseason program.

The Norwich football team won its division title this past season, the school's first one in 116 years, but next year's senior class wants to graduate just like their predecessors, as winners.

This effort begins in January.

"I think the lifting program is one of the main reasons for our success, not only for our football team but for the school," said Dimeco, 21, a physical education major from Worcester, Mass.

"Coach Kruger's a one-man show, and it takes a lot of work to be training that many teams at once and he really does a good job with it," Dimeco said.

Offseason lifts for teams are four days a week in Plumley Armory, beginning Monday and ending on Thursday. The lifts run for about an hour, with a non-stop attitude, meaning little to no downtime in between stations.

"It is extremely intense," said Robert Sturgis, 19, a sophomore communications major from Holden Mass.  "We never seem to stop moving or working, we're either on the platforms, doing agility, or getting our abs smoked."
The football workout consists of four stations; each one is run by either Strength and

Conditioning Coach Jeff Kruger or one of his work study students. The teams are split into groups and start at any of the four stations.

Stations generally last 10 to 15 minutes and can start at platforms, where students can do any of their strength workouts. 

These workouts include benching, front or back squatting or power cleans.

"We do a lot of endurance stuff, then the next week we'll do max outs, and get to see how much we've improved in our strength lifts," said Sturgis.

Next, students can move on to dung bells or kettle bells, extensively working endurance on either their arms or legs.

"Kettle bells are a new great work out that really pushes your core muscles and legs to the limit," said Christopher Marden, 20, a junior criminal justice major from Laconia, N.H.

Then there is an abdominal station, where students do a variety of abdominal related workouts, including leg lifts, flutter kicks or planks.

Agility stations vary from dot drills, ladders and cone drills.

"We really work out our footwork and agility, I can attribute a lot of that to my success on the field, speed and quickness is just as important on a football field as strength and power," said Dimeco, a first team ECFC selection at inside linebacker.

All workouts remain optional to these student athletes, but the success in the weight room continues to draw a majority of the team to it as Norwich football looks to go back-to-back in its youngling conference.