To improvise, adapt, and overcome. That’s what the football team was told to do.

To give credit where credit is due. That’s what I now want to do.

Before you learn why this article features those three words, let it be known that when his players were faced with a rather daunting task, Palmerton Area High School head football coach Chris Walkowiak told them to “improvise, adapt, overcome.” They were preparing to play a Friday night football game that seemed to be an even match — except the Bombers had been so banged up and sick on Wednesday afternoon only 23 had practiced.

Worse, only five of those able to practice play offensive line, the number of lineman needed on every offensive play.

One player able to practice was Dawson Takkerer, a 180-pound junior who had never played for Walkowiak before. Normally a wide receiver, Takkerer suddenly found himself learning how to play offensive tackle — and then played about half the time at that position in the game two days later.

Talk about improvising and adapting.

As well as a prime example of what Walkowiak meant when he told TN’s Justin Carlucci “the kids bought into” those three words. The buying in lead to all sorts of “big moments ... they’re going to remember the rest of their lives,” and a game that culminated in a one-point win so satisfying that it makes anyone who has ever sung “We Shall Overcome” and meant it sit up and take notice.

While I’m not much of a singer, I did sit up and take notice to what was being said in a four-person roundtable discussion about exercising for longevity during “The Peter Attia Drive podcast” that dropped on Sept. 22. I heard so much good stuff, in fact, I probably could write a month’s worth of columns, but here are the words Attia said that made me recall Walkowiak’s.

That when it comes to their own workouts, all four “do a lot of self-experimenting [and] make a lot of mistakes.” As a result, they’ve all been injured more than you’d think.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, for instance, is currently battling a nasty hamstring injury as well as chronic hip dysplasia. So in her training, the author of Forever Strong and creator of Muscle-Centric Medicine ®, now does what Walkowiak says in the ongoing game of training her body.

Since you’re probably playing that game, too, keep in mind that Attia believes the name of that game is never getting out of it. Which is why he no longer does The King of Lifts, the barbell squat.

For despite doing everything imaginable to ensure perfect form (Attia videos all his weight training sets and reviews them as he recovers before the next), he found himself getting injured far too frequently (about once every eight times he estimates) while doing barbell squats. So “almost through necessity,” Attia started doing single-leg movements to work his quadriceps and hamstrings.

This change, I believe, is just another example of doing what Walkowiak told his team to do. I also believe you should be doing the majority, if not all, of your resistance training for the muscle groups in your legs including the calves one leg at a time.

Mike Boyle thinks so too.

He’s another roundtable participant, and the guy the NFL called upon in the early 1980s to select the series of athletic tests used in their annual evaluation of college football players called the Combine. He later worked as the Boston Red Sox’s physical conditioning coach for two years and has a World Series ring for his efforts.

Boyle says if you read the research, you’ll learn “you have more strength capability on one leg than two.” Moreover, he believes you’re “neurologically” hard-wired to work best one leg or one arm at a time.

Which is hard to dispute after he offers this: that if you’re asked to throw a baseball, you won’t give any thought about how to do so. Yet, he says, “If I ask you to throw two baseballs at once, your first thought is going to be ‘I’m not really sure how I’m supposed to do this.’”

But if you’re like many of Attia’s clients — still not sure you can achieve muscle growth in your legs without doing barbell squats — be aware that the fourth member of the panel, Jeff Cavaliere, built the weight training program he devised in 2006 for the New York Mets around single-leg movements like lunges and step-ups. They won their division in each of the next three seasons.

That his personal favorite exercise to work his quadriceps is the reverse lunge and for a really good reason. Cavaliere has flat feet, so when the creator of the 90-day workout program ATHLEAN-X™ does any type of barbell squat, his knees and back hurt afterwards.

Despite the pain, he kept telling himself, ‘You have to squat. You have to squat.’”

Then Boyle told him to do the reverse lunge instead and the pain stopped.