49ers' Gore is ready to soar

SANTA CLARA – Step aside, Jenny Craig. Frank Gore has a weight-loss routine that's guaranteed to shed the pounds.

If it doesn't kill you first.

The 49ers tailback, who weighed about 225 pounds during June practices, returned a month later 10 pounds lighter and looking far more fluid. His secret? It involves a truck tire, a length of rope, a steep hill and a murderous Miami summer during which the heat index sometimes soars past 110 degrees.

Kyle Wright, the 49ers' No. 4 quarterback and a former teammate of Gore's at Miami, said he and other Hurricane players would run the same hill in that city's Tropical Park to prepare for the college season.

"It's probably the tallest hill in Miami, and it's not very tall," Wright said. "But it's long and gradual. It's about 180 yards. It levels off and gets a little steeper at the end. It's tough."

While the Miami players might run the hill 14 times in a day and always run up the gradual side, Gore runs it from the opposite – and steeper – side. And he does it 25 times per session … while dragging a truck tire … that's progressively filled with weights.

He has had the same grueling summer routine since high school, and he still commandeers some of his former high school coaches to help him train.

What some people might consider torture, Gore, 25, finds therapeutic. Indeed, everything associated with football – from weight training to watching film – is welcome routine for Gore. Football is his sanctuary.

And that was the problem last season. Gore had no escape.

His terrible year began on the second day of training camp when he broke a bone in his hand. In Week 7, he twisted his ankle, an injury that slowed him for most of the remainder. In between came the hardest jolt, the death of his mother, Liz, who had been everything to him – best friend, inspiration, confidante.

Even on the football field, there was no safe haven.

Runs that Gore routinely ripped for 25-yard gains in 2006 were bottled up in 2007. The 49ers' offense was dull and unimaginative. If the 49ers needed a crucial yard, everyone – the fans, the media and especially the opponent – knew they would try to get them by sending Gore off the left guard.

He finished the season with a respectable 1,102 rushing yards. But his average run dropped to 4.2 yards from 5.4 the year before. His rushing touchdowns fell from eight to five, and he crossed the goal line only twice after Week 2.

"It was tough because, one, the situation with my mom," Gore said. "Then nothing was going right on the field. We kept losing, losing, losing. We couldn't get in a zone running the ball or passing the ball. It was like a black cloud was over us. Nothing would go right. Especially for me."

Coach Mike Nolan, who lost his father last season, sometimes would be working late at his office and find his running back at his door.

Said Nolan: "He was frustrated with his injuries, and he was frustrated with us losing as I would expect any good player to be."

This summer, there's a sense that the black cloud has lifted.

The plodding offense from 2007 is being replaced with a more wide-open attack that offensive coordinator Mike Martz is building around Gore in the same way he built his Rams offenses around Marshall Faulk.

Said Martz: "We use him everywhere we can in the running game, of course, and in the passing game, we'll use him everywhere possible – as a deep threat, as a short threat, as a crossing threat."

Perhaps the best way to illustrate the change is to look at who's leading the way for Gore.

Last year, his lead blocker was fullback Moran Norris, a 252-pounder with boulder-like shoulders who is most effective smashing things straight on. This summer, Zak Keasey – who weighs 15 pounds less than Norris – has gotten most of the first-team repetitions. Martz said Keasey is better at working his way through traffic to deliver blocks. And he's also able to stay ahead of Gore on running plays that stretch wide to the right or left.

"It's tough," Keasey said of blocking for Gore. "You've got to get out there and get off the ball quick. You definitely have to be moving out there when he's behind you."

Gore also wants to answer Martz's challenge.

He said he reported to training camp seven pounds lighter – 215 – than he did last season. And aside from the hill work, which is designed to build power and explosion, he spent hours weaving in and out of cones to improve his quickness.

He also worked on his hands.

While in Miami, he grabbed former Jaguars and Falcons quarterback Byron Leftwich, who also was working out in South Florida, and ran as many routes as he could. When that session ended, he went home and had a younger cousin throw him more passes until the sun went down.

"I've got moves. I've got power," Gore said. "I feel I have the whole package. Whatever they want me to do, I can do it. I just have to keep working."

(sacbee.com)