Penn State strength and conditioning coordinator Dwight Galt welcomed media members into the Lasch Building weight room Wednesday afternoon.

About half of 108 Nittany Lions participating in winter workouts were in attendance, participating in the day’s max-out on the squat as a few others milled about performing solo workouts. So it was that rack after rack saw the Nittany Lions put heavy weights on the bar, then hit as many reps as possible to the delight of the screaming, encouraging teammates surrounding them.

A tried-and-true lift indicative of power and explosiveness, essential elements at every position in football, Galt later revealed the evolution that is taking hold in his world. Asked by Ben Jones of StateCollege.com about the direction of the strength program at Penn State - continuing to build on the total bodies reaching elite “tier three” status or something else - Galt acknowledged the shifts that are already underway.

“We always want to grow. We've done some decent things in the past and we like where we are now, but we kind of said every year there's been a marked change in how we approach it,” Galt said. “The world we live in with the NFL being such a dominant thing, I think we will definitely continue to grow.”

That growth, he continued, has everything to do with the fundamental understanding of what matters most in creating elite athletes in college football.

Breaking it down into two parts, Galt started with the part most directly under his control. Creating and improving speed, not just linear speed but “speed of movement,” Galt examined the necessity of creating quickness that extends far beyond the ability to run faster than your opponents.

“Whether it's how fast you can punch the guy across from you, how fast you can come out of a cut, those are the things that we will probably continue to push even more and find more creative ways for guys to really maximize their potential,” Galt said. “I kind of see that as one area that we're going.”

The second aspect, Galt added, revolved around the implementation of work from Josh Nelson.

Nelson, brought to Penn State following a six-year stint at Baylor, was named assistant athletic director for applied health and performance science in September 2019. Otherwise described by head coach James Franklin as being in charge of the Nittany Lions’ “sports science,” Nelson’s role is best described in his own words.

“We will use data to inform decision making to optimize the health, well-being, and performance of our student-athletes,” he said in his introductory press release. “I view student-athlete development as a long-term process that includes maturation both during sport as well as in the lifestyle decisions that are made away from sport."

Noting the “incredible job” Nelson has done in his short tenure with the program, Galt pointed to those developments as being integral to shaping Penn State’s future in strength and conditioning.

“Giving them this heavy workload and being able to get them to recover in a shorter period of time so you can do it again,” Galt said. “We now have these tools... these methodologies that we use, that we can get them to recover faster. If you can recover faster, then you can train harder the next workout. So it’s the recovery, regeneration, nutrition, all these things are things that we're really trying to embrace so we can put a better product on the field on Saturday.”

Specifically, creating the environment to put the best team on the field as possible on Saturdays goes deeper than weekly schedules.

Wanting to maximize that physical and mental performance down to the kickoff start time, Galt said the area is one of real contemplation within the entire Penn State football organization.

“To be honest, the thing we're working on is making sure when Saturday comes, whether it's 12 o'clock, 3:30, 7:00, whatever it is, that they're at their absolute peak for that week,” Galt said. “We don't want their peak to be on Tuesday at practice. We want their peak to be right before that game. So that's kind of where we're going is really trying to assimilate the sports science into the strength and conditioning and merge them fully together to be able to maximize the team.”

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