At my high school, the football weight training (mid to late 80's, next-to-largest class, not too far from Houston) focused exclusively on power lifting. Under what could be described as a sort of Cro-Magnon era regime, we did bench, squat, and dead lift, almost exclusively. Incline and military press were tolerated. All other lifts (and especially bicep curls) were considered "pretty boy" lifts better suited for body builders or Hollywood actors. Machine weighs and anything high tech were looked at with much suspicion. Olympic lifts were regarded as just that--something for the Olympics, not football training. All weight lifting was done with long barbells. Dumbells were not used.
Like many high schools of that era, there would be big poster board charts for the whole male student body to see in the locker rooms with all the football players' current bench, squat, and deadlift maximums. It became rather competitive. Fortunately we weren't those dorks that would walk around the malls with shirts printed by the athletic dept that said "I bench press X lbs", etc.
Three times per week, we would do 4 sets of 5 reps of bench, squat, and deadlift at 80% of current maximums. Then we'd get new maximums once a month. Linemen would also pull big truck tires with ropes and harnesses.
If you compared us to that Rocky movie where he fought the Russian (with the Russian using fancy high tech training and Rocky using old-school equipment and techniques), we would be Rocky in our training methods.
Last edited: Jun 13, 2019