Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/568

 Bucking a Wooden Football Line

��PITTING your shoulder to the wheel of opposition and developing strength and power from the strug- gle is an ethical procedure in the gener- ally accepted meaning of the words. But football players have not only re- duced the axiom to practise but have e\'en manufactured a sturdy opponent which is equal in weight and resistance fa Seven human beings.

Heavy oak planks ten feet long, one foot wide and four inches thick are put together in pairs and laid seven feet apart, w'ith one end each rounded like the runner of a sled. Cross-beams of similar material are then fastened in place until the whole resembles the framework of a sled. Seven planks three feet long and one wide are placed in an upright position along the back of the framework and braced by hea\^ tim- bers to the cross beams. The uprights are then hcavilj- tufted

When all this is done you have a "buck ing" ma- chin e that

��is used to train football players in the gridiron sport. This apparatus is really for the line men to use, and its weight is approximately that of seven football warriors who constitute the line of an opposing eleven. Against the tufted ui)rights seven players hurl themselves with as much force as if a game were actually on, and the sledge-like mechan- ism is pushed over the turf sections of the field.

At the opening of the season, when the players arc somewhat tender, the weight of the apparatus is lessened. As the men liecome hardened to the demands of the sport, weight is increased b>' the addition of several timbers and sometimes a heavy stone. The '"bucker" has proven a valuable aid to both trainers and players.

It has been found that the men trained to it are prepared in consider- ably less time than would have been requir- ed with- in "\ out its

���The weight of the apparatus is upproximately that of the seven men who constitute the line of the opposing eleven. As the season advances the weight is gradually increased

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