Coaches take steps to protect athletes during high heat

Weeks away from football conditioning in August, Lee-Davis High School strength and conditioning coach Mike Craven has developed a testing method that identifies athletes who are susceptible to heat-related issues and trains them to increase their resistance.

From 1988 to the spring of 2008, 26 high school or college football players died of heat stroke, said Dr. Frederick O. Mueller, director of the National Center for Catastrophic Injury Research at the University of North Carolina.

In 2000, Anthony Craig Lobrano, a senior at Varina High School, died after he became ill during football practice. In 2006, Highland Springs High School freshman Raymond Winn died after he collapsed during conditioning.

Lee-Davis football coach Jason Meade was an assistant at Highland Springs when Winn died.

"Heat's not something you want to mess with," he said.

Last year, more than 25,000 student-athletes played Virginia High School League football.

Five weeks ago, Craven began using metabolic equivalents of task scores to evaluate Lee-Davis football players. The MET score measures a body's efficiency to deliver and use oxygen.

To determine the score, a player uses a treadmill while wearing a respirator connected to a computer. The test measures oxygen taken in and carbon dioxide exhaled to determine how efficiently a body uses fat for energy.

The test determines the exact heart rate at which the athlete's body begins to produce lactic acid, which is the optimum point at which to improve aerobic performance.

Using MET scores allows Lee-Davis coaches to monitor players who are at risk for heat-related issues when fall conditioning begins.

"You need to be watching a lot. It's the kids that are fat, it's the kids that have biggest body mass-to-surface area, and it's the kids who have the lowest MET score," said Craven, president and founder of True Fitness Solutions in Richmond.

The lower the score, the more the concern.

"It gives us an idea of those kids that are at risk, versus those kids that are more heat tolerant," Meade said.

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After initial tests, coaches got expected results with a few surprises. The scores ranged from a high of 67.9 to a low of 29.1. As expected, most of the large linemen had the lowest MET scores. However, one player who weighed 132 pounds had one of the lowest MET scores on the team.

"That was surprising," Meade said. "But when you watch his workout, he's always kind of struggled and you go back to the old issue as a coach -- you want to push, push, push.

"But if he physically doesn't have anything else to give, and that [MET] score is saying he doesn't have anything else to give, then it gives you a better understanding of what he can or can't do in practice.

"Every time we go to do conditioning with the skill people, he's always last. And being last, the coach is always yelling at him, 'Pick it up. Pick it up,' because the assumption is he has no heart. It's not that he has no heart. He's deconditioned aerobically."

The Lee-Davis football team goes through a cycle of aerobic conditioning three days a week to prepare players for the regular fall sessions.

Lee-Davis bought 35 portable heart-rate monitors that players wear during their smaller group aerobic drills. Using wristband displays, athletes can keep track of their heart rate and maintain a peak aerobic-conditioning level specifically designated for them. The players run laps on the track or conduct bleacher runs while staying within their specified heart-rate zones.

Adapting to the new training principles was difficult for the players.

"It was a little hard to get used to because you had to slow your pace down, speed it up, get your pace," said cornerback Brandon Angus, a rising senior. "Sometimes the zones they have listed for us, it doesn't feel like they work for us, but these guys seem like experts -- and they seem like they know what they're doing -- so I trust them."

"It's been a struggle," Meade said. "The players are used to . . . giving us everything they have. That's not this kind of training. We'll do that phase when we get to the conditioning later, when we get to the stuff on the field, the agility drills. Then we want everything you got. In this phase, your coach is really on your watch."

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Though the players are far from their end result, three players were retested after three weeks of aerobic conditioning and each player's MET score improved.

Meade said the team started the aerobic cycle late this year. He would like to initiate it in late March or early April next year to complete a 12-week cycle before fall conditioning begins.

The testing requires keeping records and buying heart monitors, which could discourage some coaches. Craven estimates he can conduct tests for about $10 per athlete, which could dissuade some parents.

"If they don't think $10 is worth it, I'll do it for free," he said. "I know they'll appreciate it. And I know it will make a difference."

Dr. Douglas Casa, director of athletic training at the University of Connecticut, was co-chairman of a task force of the National Athletic Trainers Association that recommended heat-acclimatization guidelines for secondary school athletics.

"I love the thought that he's making an effort to try to do something about it," Casa said.

Ken Tilley, Virginia High School League commissioner, had not heard about the program but said, "It's something that we could support."

Last week, Craven and Meade presented their testing method at a VHSL coaches clinic in Hampton Roads and were pleased with the response.

On the morning of their presentation, news quickly spread about the death of Western Carolina University defensive back Ja'Quayvin Smalls, who collapsed after voluntary preseason sprint drills.

While team conditioning may be information many coaches won't divulge, Meade's goal is to share it with everybody.

"It doesn't matter to me whether it's Varina, Highland Springs, Hanover," he said. "This is going to give us an edge on Friday night, but we're also talking about the safety of kids. We're going to beat you on Friday night because we are who we are. If this is going to help your kids be safer, of course, come look at it."

Craven says it's time schools across the nation take a proactive approach to training young athletes.

"If we asked that kid to commit to us, then let's commit to him."

Charlie Leffler is the sports editor for the Mechanicsville Local/Goochland Gazette.