Athletic Training

IT is 4:01 a.m. The red glow of the digital clock is clearly visible through the clear plastic walls surrounding my bed. It is mid-March, and the Boston Marathon is more than a month away. If everything works as planned, I will finish it in less than three hours. For several nights now, I've been sleeping in a giant plastic bubble as part of an unscientific but increasingly common experiment on athletic performance.

John Manoogian surveys the line of scrimmage, the noise rising to ear-splitting decibels. He motions to his left, correcting a receiver lined up in the wrong spot, then cups his hands around his mouth and barks orders to the running back on his right. "Red 13!" Manoogian yells, simulating a change in the play. "Red 13!" More than 1,000 pounds of USC defensive linemen, some of them bound for next year's NFL draft, are poised to pounce at the stocky quarterback. But Manoogian receives the snap from center and, as cool as the early-morning mist that shrouds the field, sidesteps the onslaught, throwing the ball downfield just like Oregon quarterback Darron Thomas.

Gail Weldon, a pioneer in athletic training for women who was chief trainer and director of physical therapy for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, has died. She was 40. Ms. Weldon died Wednesday at UCLA Medical Center after a long struggle with liver cancer, her close friend and publicist Sydney Weisman said Thursday. In 1975, Ms. Weldon became the first woman hired by the Amateur Basketball Assn.

It's a Saturday morning in a quaint and sunny corner of Orange County, and I'm sitting down with Damon Wells for a purse-sized omelet breakfast of champions. Thirty seconds later — thirty grunting and messy seconds — breakfast is over. "I'm still hungry," he says, patting his taut midsection. "I'm always hungry. " You want an athlete with fire in his belly? This guy once competitively ate 19 burritos in 10 minutes. "You're either completely sickened by it or completely intrigued by it," he says.

Memo to parents with children entering the world of competitive sports: It's not the way you remember it. A plethora of organized sports teams and the resulting competition has bred an industry of supplemental training: private coaches, sports camps and now private training facilities such as Velocity Sports Performance, which opened its first California branch in Irvine three weeks ago.

The boxing world was knocked senseless when George Foreman became heavyweight champion for the second time in one lifetime--on Nov . 5, 1994. "I never would have been able to do that without the criticism I'd gotten for coming back at a later age," says Foreman, 46, who first won the Big Belt in 1973. "Everybody was saying--he's fat. Yep. He's old. Yep. He can't do it. No."

Like so many dreams that come and go here, this one began with the harvest under a brutal sky. It was a late afternoon in August, 103 degrees outside, and the boys from the McFarland High cross-country team had been at it since 5 in the morning. They had spent the day in long sleeves and bandannas working without words alongside their parents deep in the fields. They were spread across farms for miles around, but the toil did not vary. They stooped and crawled.

At a recent Southland figure-skating competition, Alicia skims along on her skates and prepares to jump. As her slender preteen body leaves the ice, ponytail flying, her mother hides her eyes. "I'm just a wimp, really," she apologizes. "I know it means so much to her." Flashing through her head though is not just fear for her daughter's safety, but thoughts of everything that goes into landing this jump.

A small, airless gym smelling of sweat and urine. An old, shuffling fighter-turned-trainer whose study of strength and nutrition stopped in junior high health class. Think Burgess Meredith in "Rocky" or Clint Eastwood in "Million Dollar Baby." That was Phil Landman's image of boxing gyms and the men who worked there when he was recruited out of a West Los Angeles fitness club to work with world champion Miguel Cotto three years ago. And he hasn't seen too much since then that has changed his mind.

Kelly Garrison knew the risk every time she ran down the runway toward the vaulting horse. She knew that proper timing and accuracy were a must in international gymnastics and that the slightest slip could mean the difference between winning and losing, or between winning and injury. But while training at the University of Oklahoma for the 1988 Olympics, Garrison decided to take an extra risk. Her hopes of making the team had been sinking, along with her vaulting scores.

Mr. Afghanistan is doing his best not to break the leg press as he flexes his toned calves, pumping away under the fluorescent lights of Iron Men Gym. It's a small basement facility in a strip mall off one of the city's many dirt alleys. Written on the concrete walls above the mirrors in Dari script are the house rules: "Please refrain from talking about politics and laughing. " Iron Men is among about 200 gyms that have sprouted in the capital since the time of the Taliban government, which allowed bodybuilding to reemerge as one of the country's favorite pastimes.

It starts now. In December, on snowy mountain roads around Tucson with his graying, balding posse riding shotgun, Lance Armstrong is back at it, all in, no doubts, head of a new cycling team but with the same goal as always -- to win the Tour de France. Seven-time Tour de France winner Armstrong, 38, has gathered seven of the men who rode with him in last year's comeback. He also has a dynamic young nemesis, a Spaniard named Alberto Contador, a 26-year-old who has won four Grand Tours, including the Tour de France twice, and who is unafraid to say that he's not a fan of Armstrong the man or the teammate.

A small, airless gym smelling of sweat and urine. An old, shuffling fighter-turned-trainer whose study of strength and nutrition stopped in junior high health class. Think Burgess Meredith in "Rocky" or Clint Eastwood in "Million Dollar Baby." That was Phil Landman's image of boxing gyms and the men who worked there when he was recruited out of a West Los Angeles fitness club to work with world champion Miguel Cotto three years ago. And he hasn't seen too much since then that has changed his mind.

The young quarterback rolled out and found himself, quite suddenly, alone. No linemen blocking, no receiver breaking open, only tacklers bearing down. At that point, UCLA freshman Richard Brehaut realized he had turned right when the play was supposed to go left. It was only practice, but coaches pulled him off the field, yelling. "I screwed up," he said. "They got on me real good."

Karla Diaz first picked up a golf club when she was 13 and has spent much of her time since then dreaming of a spot on the LPGA Tour. But no matter how much she plays or how hard she tries, the Mexico City teenager is resigned to the fact that she can't get there from here. "If you're thinking about the big leagues, you have to look toward the United States," Diaz says after her regular Saturday morning practice session at the Club Campestre, Mexico's oldest golf course.

Welcome to Dodgers spring training 2009. Please discard any lingering lamentations about tradition and Florida. Arizona awaits, with a shiny new $100-million stadium complex, beckoning fans to forget the economy for a few days and take refuge in the primal pleasures of baseball. Think heat, not humidity; saguaro cactuses in lieu of swaying palms; fajitas instead of fried fish. Think Camelback Ranch in Glendale, the new spring home of the Dodgers. Unlike the expensive schlep to Vero Beach, Fla.

Dale A. Rudd, the head trainer at Pepperdine the last two years, was named UCLA's coordinator of athletic training and rehabilitation.

What enables some basketball players to soar whereas others remain ground-bound? Is is heredity, environment, luck, pluck, fate or what? Theories abound. "You'll notice there's a prototype body for leapers," Wilt Chamberlain said. "Strong haunches, thin toward the ankles. They're race-horse thin, like whippets. "Jumping wasn't something I taught myself, it was something I was born with. You're either blessed with a certain amount of jumping ability or you're not."

The Los Angeles Dodgers may be leaving behind 60 years of history in Vero Beach, Fla., but the Arizona Cactus League they're joining has a rich history too. The New York Giants and the Cleveland Indians, for instance, set up their spring operations in Phoenix and Tucson, in 1947, well before major league baseball moved west. With the arrival of the Dodgers and the White Sox in Glendale, Ariz., and the return of the Indians, 12 of the 14 teams are now playing their home games in the Phoenix area.

Don't be surprised to see people break out of the pack this spring by wearing satin shoes in step class or reflective-foil marathon jackets at the mall. Several designers are infusing fashion into clothing and accessories that are meant for the street, but inspired by sport. The result? Multipurpose pieces that make a chic transition from running on the treadmill to running errands and maybe even fill the bill for a casual business meeting.