Ah, the life of a Football Strength & Conditioning Coach. Every single day I get to spend hours reading about strength training, writing football workouts, articles, manuals and programs, and, of course, training both myself and others.
When I'm not reading, writing, or lifting, I'm tackling people....
On this site alone there’s around a hundred articles and I’ve written dozens more for other magazines, journals and websites. Not to mention the thousands of football training articles available on places like EliteFTS.com, StaleyTraining.com, Bodybuilding.com and Josh Henkin’s SandbagExercises.com…all about how to get stronger and faster for football.
Yet, the more I attempt to explain the ins and outs of football training, the more questions seem to roll in. We may be in a situation where there’s too much incorrect info out there and guys are getting confused. I answer all questions you guys email to me, but, over the years, I’ve noticed patterns of questions. A lot of guys seem to be asking about the same things.
Sometimes the confusion is warranted. A beginner is going to need as much info as possible. But, there’s plenty of “well-read” football players out there who are operating somewhere in la-la land. All you have to do is look at the forums on Bodybuilding.com to see the mix of confused newcomers and idiotic self-proclaimed experts.Despite all the good football training info out there, guys are as confused as a group of non-native English speakers listening to Shannon Sharpe talk.
And, of course, the all time Classic…”Bro, whatya Bench, bro?”…
Yes, yes, if you look like you’ve ever lifted even one weight, you’ll get asked this question at least 5 times a week. America went bench crazy back in the late 80’s – early 90’s and it’d only gotten worse. Most football strength coaches have a love/hate realtionship with the bench press.
It’s a very good overall power builder, but it is far from the most important exercise in one’s football strength program. Many coaches opted to remove the bench altogether. But, after a near revolt by bench loving football players, the bench has crept back in to strength programs.
Now, personally, I like the bench. I’m built to do it, and, breaking the school bench record my junior year certianly helped (thank you, thank you).
In reality, the Incline and Dumbbell Incline are actually better exercises for building football strength. They much more closely mimic the pattern of the arms when blocking or tackling. Also, there’s an odd a carry-over from the Incline to the Bench that doesn’t work the opposite way.
If you increase your Incline, your Bench will usually go up as well. But, as anyone who’s ever watched a bench-only guy try to incline will tell you, it doesn’t work in reverse.
I remember sometime around my junior year of college, I was nearing a 500-lb raw bench. Shortly after I got the big 5-oh-oh, my shoulders started hurting like hell. A sharp, stabbing sensensation in my front delts stopped me from benching for a long, long time. I started to concentrate on Incline because this did not hurt my shoulders.
Well, after having the problem fixed evenutally (rotator cuff problems should be fixed or they’ll never go away), I returned to benching.
However, it had been over 3 years since I last did them. No matter, all that Inclining did me a world of good. The first day back I went up over 400lbs. Not bad for not benching for several years, eh?
So, is the bench worthwhile for football? Many have argued that if you are on your back and need to press someone off of you on the field, you’re not a great player!
I realize that most of you guys are in your off-season, but, as a minor league player in a spring league, I’m actually in my pre-season. This session took place on Sunday, the day after a full-contact practice.
I also realize that usually the last thing most of you want to do after getting pounded for hours on the practice field is do your strength training, but, it’s actually the best thing you can do. Yes, you’re sore as hell and as stiff as a board, but, laying around and restricting blood flow is the best path to prolonged soreness.
Getting a strength workout it the day after a practice is an excellent way to:
Continue getting stronger throughout the pre-season and in-season
Reduce soreness
If you’re sore, you won’t perform well on the field. Let’s not bullshit here, on most teams, even if you’re the starter, all it takes is a few bad practices or even one bad game to lose your job and find your ass on the bench. Performing at less than your best is a great way to accomplish this.
It seems crazy to think that if you’re sore from football practice, you should lift weights. Wouldn’t a strength workout just make it worse?
In part I of How to Get Faster for Football, I told you 4 ways you can start getting faster on the football field immediately. It has become one of our most popular articles ever. Obviously, guys are hungry for real, honest, “this works” kind of football speed training info. The emails have been coming in fast and furious, with about 90% of them being positive.
But, alas, we still have the 10% hater factor.
Well, to be fair, they were more winers than haters. Guys crying that I took away their favorite gimmicks and replaced them with hard work. Switch out a parachute for a gut-busting Deadlift? How dare I do such an atrocicity!
For those of you who missed part I, I’ll give you a quick recap…
If you’re more into running around cones than working hard to build your football speed, please get the hell off of this site…now…gone? Good. For those who actually want to get faster for football…
Train the hamstrings hard
Train for speed in the weightroom
Build Starting Strength
Be flexible in the right spots
Now, in Part II, I’ll address some of the excellent questions you guys had, expand on the points from the first article and let you in on even more “secrets” of getting faster for football.
While high rep stuff is typically thought of as a “bodybuilding” style of training, it is extremely useful for football training as well. Higher rep strength training, when combined with plenty of Max Effort and speed work, can:
Cause huge increases in functional muscle. Most guys, especially high school players, could always use more mass, especially in the upper body…this is an excellent way to get bigger for football
Brings large amounts of blood and nutrients to the muscles, speeding recovery and allowing for more frequent, more intense strength workouts
Increases lactic-acid tolerance
Improves mental toughness
Typically, for us, high reps fall into 3 Categories:
2 – 3 sets of Maximum Reps
Three sets of 8 reps with very little rest
4 sets of 12
In my own case, playing Minor League Spring Football, I’m in pre-season mode, so, I’m looking to bulk the upper body just a bit more. Here’s what I did a few weeks back.
1-Board Bench – 45, 135, 225 x 5, 275 x 2, 315, 365 x 1 … 320 x 20, 18, 11
“I knew as soon as I found you on Facebook, I’d be playing within a week!” This was the first thing I said when I saw former teammate and 20+year veteran, Chris Matsuzak.
Chris has been playing football for at least 20-years, and, whenever I talk to him, I end up playing D-line in some Minor League Football game in NJ, DE, PA, or God-knows-where.
I had been planning on playing this coming fall. But, as I said, I found Tooz on Facebook on Friday and was at practice for the “Spring League” on Saturday.
I haven’t been on the field in 3-years, but, of course, continue to train all year long. Writing, planning, coaching, and performing football strength & conditioning workouts is my job. But, anyone in their right mind would tell you that you need a pre-season…you need to taper down and start doing sport-specific (I almost vomited writing that) work inorder to get ready for an actual football season! As one “coach” once told me:
“Yea, strength training is all-well-and-good, but ya gotta do sport-specific stuff to get ready for a game, man. You don’t have any balance-beam, wobble board or cone drills in your program, that can’t possibly work! If all you do is strength train, you’ll be muscle bound!”
Now you see why so many guys are unprepared.
Listen, your football training should have you ready to play a football game at the drop of a hat, all year round. You should also be able to enter a Powerlifting meet and make a decent showing.
We are athletes. Athletes are ready to perform all the time. Not after 4-weeks of some bullshit balancing on a wobble board.
We talk a lot about how to get bigger, faster, stronger and more explosive for football. And, the vast majority of our readers are high school players and coaches. But, a lot of our work goes beyond just performing better on the football field.
Unless you grew up rich, chances are, you’re parents are all that jazzed up about paying 30,000+ per semester for a non-state school. Hell, even if you go and play for a state school, you’re still looking at around 15,000 when all is said and done. Tution, books, room & board, food, gas, etc all add up quickly. And, again, unless you grew up in Malibu, 15 – 30 grand is a hell of a chunk of change for school.
The solution, of course, is to get yourself a football scholarship. But, easier said than done.
Most believe they’re out of reach…many people believe that you need to have a perfect 4.0 and be an All-American in order to get a football scholarship. Those things help…if you’re as dumb as a doorknob and can’t run 3-yards without tripping, then, yes, you’ll have some trouble getting a scholarship.
However, if you aren’t in either extreme, a scholarship is a very realistic goal…if, you know how to get one…
I was looking through an old stack of pictures from one of the Minor League Football teams I used to play for. It brought back a lot of great memories. Funny how one pic can make you remember every detail of an entire game…anyway, in one of the shots, I saw a guy on the sideline who I had completely forgotten about. This dude was huge…jacked…strong as hell…and never played a down other than special teams. Why?
I mean, if the guy was so big and strong, why wasn’t he dominating? He should’ve been the best lineman on the field, yet he couldn’t crack the starting lineup to save his life…as they say, “Looks like Tarzan, Plays like Jane”
There exists an enormous gap between what goes on in the weightroom and what happens on the field. Yes, strength training is key if you want to be a better football player, but, weights alone can leave out some important elements necessary for success.
How to get faster for football…a question I’m so often asked. A seemingly simple subject that has become harder to figure out than Chinese Algebra. Getting faster for football is actually pretty friggin simple, yet, guys are more confused than ever…
The fact that our “How to Get Faster for Football“ series is one of our most popular group of articles ever shows that guys are just confused about what to do.
Where the hell did we go so wrong when it comes to football speed training?
When did it become acceptable to pass off the hard work that entails training for football speed and replace it with fairly easy cone drills and gadgets? Honestly, how thinks that running over PVC pipes is actually going to make you outrun someone on the field? Please, someone tell me!
And, why is it that it’s always some skinny geek of a coach who pushes this crap?
It’s time to get down to the real deal…to cut through the bullcrap myths that have plagued our sport for so long. It’s time to expose the myths so we can run wild, Hulkamania style! Or, dare I say we drop a proverbial Hogan Leg on these fountains of misinformation?
If there’s one thing that all football strength and conditioning coaches should agree on it’s that running sucks for improving football conditioning. Distance runners, are, for the most part, weiners. And, skinny-fat weiners at that.
Jogging is boring, results killing, and, if you are over 200lbs (and you all should be), it can be hell on your knees and ankles. Yet, no matter what, some football players continue to rely on the dreaded and unproductive jogging as the mainstay of their conditioning programs. Click here to read the whole article!
