Dave Stroshine in the business of making athletes faster, stronger

PROVO — Is it possible to make super men and women?

No, we're not talking about the cape-wearing comic-book types or those who juice up on steroids. But can we take athletes and transform them beyond their stereotyped genetic limitations? Can we take elite players in sports and boost their measurables (strength and speed)?

Of course. Happens all the time in gyms and with trainers from California to Finland. In Utah, gyms and trainers hang out shingles all the time. It's a science. Ask Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Take Dave Stroshine, for instance. He's a former Mountain View High and Weber State athlete who experienced a firsthand body transformation. Now he has dedicated his life to taking the ordinary and making it special.

Stroshine is passionate about getting young people to envision and reach their dreams. More than 200 of his pupils have earned college scholarships, and he's worked with NFL and NBA talent from Utah's former Mr. Basketball, Tyler Haws, to Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James. He has been published in Stack Magazine.

"It's an unbelievable feeling to talk to kids and convince them they can do things they don't believe they can do, then see it happen," said Stroshine.

When he was 14, Stroshine came home in tears after failing to make an all-star baseball team, "I was devastated and remember my dad consoling me by telling me by the time I was 16 I would pass all those kids."

"I don't know if that came true by 16, but I was the only athlete from that team to play professionally. My father saw my potential, and my strength coach saw it later in college."

Producing that vision is the first stage of making a change.

When Stroshine enrolled at Weber State in the mid-'90s at 185 pounds, he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.8 seconds. With the help of conditioning coach Mike Jenkins, he started lifting weights, running hills, doing sprint work. Five years later at his pro day, he was 238 pounds, ran a 4.53 and signed as a free agent for the Tennessee Titans in 1999.

An injury ended his NFL career in 2000, and he started coaching at Weber State before moving to Ohio to work for Speed Strength Systems under Eric Lichtner and Tim Robertson. There he worked with James, Nate Clements, London Fletcher, Ted Ginn Jr., and Troy Smith.

While many training philosophies center around bench, squat and clean weight room maximums and just running miles to condition, Stroshine's philosophy is centered around movement.

"It's about enhancing movement and making movement more efficient. To some, at first, it sounds a little odd," said Stroshine, "because many think training is pushing weights around and there's a genetic ceiling to running fast, that fast people are fast people, that people just run in a straight line to try and get faster."