Mike Gittleson was the Director of Strength & Conditioning at the University of Michigan for 30 years and was a part of 15 Football Championships in that time. He explains the definition of manual is: “of relating to or involving the hands”, “worked or done by hand and not by machine.” – and with Manual all you need to do is add a little Resistance.

Dan Riley (a former strength and conditioning coach) and I grew up in Manchester N.H., in the 60’s and 70’s. We both attended Manchester Central High. Weight training at the time was often avoided by the fear that many thought it would interfere with one’s movement, flexibility and athleticism. The majority of women feared lifting weights as they thought they would become ‘muscle bound’ a condition which would make them look and become bulky. But as we grew science began to evolve. The literature was confirming that not only developing stronger muscles improves one’s physique, but positively affects fitness, strength, speed and abilities in sport.

When we started training there were no gyms to choose from in town dedicated to strength training. Golds Gym opened 3,000 miles away in Venice beach California in 1965, Powerhouse Gym in 1974, Planet Fitness, Lifetime Fitness not until the 1990s, Anytime Fitness not until 2002. We found a place to lift weights at the local Y.M.C.A. The Y.M.C.A had housing, libraries, reading rooms, a pool, basketball and volleyball courts, wrestling mats, heavy bags and more. There was also a small area for weight training that had a squat rack, a flat back bench, a plate loaded combined leg curl and leg extension, which was totally flat, a glute/ham and a small dumbbell rack. It was the best and only set up in a city of 100,000. The good news: it was never crowded. The equipment was plenty, Dan, his brother and I and a few of our friends trained there.

After High School Dan and I went our separate ways, I was drafted and went off to Vietnam, Dan to College. After the service I attended several Universities and finished my Masters at Michigan. There I began teaching Exercise Physiology with no intention of coaching yet, I unintentionally became the first strength and conditioning coach in the Big Ten.

Riley and I had not stayed in touch and unbeknownst to me having never in our lives discussed wanting to coach anything at all, he became the first strength and conditioning coach on the east coast. After college he started his career at West Point then moved to Penn State and from there the Washington Redskins and Houston Texans. He had a stellar career being part of three Super Bowls and four NFC championships.

When the first National Strength and Conditioning Association convention was held there were maybe 70 people, some being from equipment companies. In 1979 the second NSCA convention was held in Lincoln, Nebraska. The number of coaches were more than in 1978 but only a small fraction of the number of attendees that occur today and many of them in 1979 were not full time employees. 

I needed to be present at the event, the profession was in its infancy and I wanted to find out how others were approaching fitness. I was totally surprised as one of the speakers was none other than Dan Riley, at that time he was the Head Strength Coach at Penn State. I was unaware he was a coach and was also at a major university, shocking for me and a pleasant surprise. Dan’s speech was not only great but was probably the most beneficial speech given in the area of strength and conditioning. He explained how he trained his athletes and most importantly introduced the Nation to the training method called Manual Resistance.

The timing was near perfect as weight training facilities in the 70s had limited square footage and even less equipment. Our room was 2,000 square feet with over 600 athletes on campus. The strength training method of Manual Resistance gave opportunities to train large numbers of athletes performing strengthening movements in which devices were unavailable, especially for exercises, such as neck training. Not only could a coach train large numbers of athletes, but they could include aggressive ‘finishing movements’ to any exercise which they thought necessary.

When I got back to Michigan from the NSCA I wanted to make sure that high school coaches knew how to train ‘Manually’ as there were very few in attendance at the conference. The more student athletes that had access to a variety of strengthening methods the better sports would become. So, motivated I wrote the following rules for Manual Resistance and then mailed them to over a thousand high schools:

Important Manual Resistance Considerations:

• When training manually all athletes must understand the rules of performing each repetition properly.
• The athlete should not only be capable of performing an exercise but have the ability to teach, as well as administer the exercise to others. 
• Once an athlete understands how to execute manual resistance it demands the same effort and motivation as if trying to improve on a bench, squat, clean or any other strength training exercise.
• When training manually to progressively overload it requires a strength measurement to track progress.  Taking a circumference, body composition and other physiological variables allows the coach and athlete to monitor results.
• Remember when training the head and neck manually athletes should have clean hands especially during flu season.
• The rules of Manual Resistance must be reviewed regularly! 

The Rules of Manual Resistance

1). If you use Manual Resistance make sure you and your spotter know and understand the rules.

2). The Lifter begins each exercise with the goal of 6-8 reps. This requires pacing, in other words, the first repetition is not an all out effort. The effort must be increasing for every subsequent repetition.

2a). The Spotter should allow the lifter to perform each repetition at the same pace or speed of movement. This will require different amounts of pressure by the spotter during the rep (because of leverage). The lifter will feel as though the resistance is similar at all joint angles (the resistance will feel smooth).

3). The lowering phase of every repetition should be slower than the raising phase. A guide in learning manual resistance is to raise the involved limbs up in 1-2 seconds or at a 1-2 count and lower them in 4-5 seconds or at a 4 or 5 count.

3a). The Spotter must make sure that they feel more force by the lifter during the lowering phase of each repetition.

4). The Lifter should continually contract their target musculature during the raising phase and the lowering phase of every repetition.

4a). The Spotter must give feedback to the lifter to ensure there is always a constant contraction on every repetition performed. The spotter should identify any relaxation or loss of force by the lifter during the movement.

5). The Lifter should pause with pressure against the spotter’s resistance at the top of every movement. Pausing with pressure and no relaxation is extremely difficult.

5a). The Spotter should insure the lifter is applying force at the top of the movement. The spotter must feel if the lifter is relaxing. The spotter must ease slowly into the lowering phase of the exercise. Slowly easing into the lowering phase or descent is extremely important.

6). The exercise is completed when the athlete reaches momentary muscular failure.

What is interesting is Riley and I growing up and going to the same high school, working out in the same facility and then being selected to coach at major universities could at least be considered surprising. Yet, years later Ryan Day the head football coach of Ohio State, Chip Kelly former head coach of the 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles and Oregon Ducks went to Manchester Central High. Dan Mullen, former head coach of the Florida Gators and Mississippi State Bulldogs was also from Manchester. He played football and went to high school .8 of a mile from Central High. At the time there were roughly 600,000 people in the entire State of New Hampshire making it an interesting part of history for how and why these coaches evolved to such a high level in athletics from this area.