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.

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.

So, if you have a question, fire away, because chances are that there’s a lot of other guys asking the same thing. Plus, this gives us a chance to fire back at the fountains of misinformation that invade the football training landscape.

Since there are so many related football speed and strength training questions, I’ve decided to do a monthly Q & A, taking the best and/or most frequently asked training queries so that we all can benifit from the answers. So, with that said, let’s get down to business…

1. I want to get faster and jump higher. What’s better for speed and my vertical, Squats or Deadlifts?

This is a great question. For many years the Squat was refered to as the King of exercises, and, in the football training world, Deadlifts were essentially exiled. Many parents and coaches assumed that since they’d injure their backs when they’d bend their fat asses over to pick up a heavy box, that Deadlifts were guaranteed low back injury. And, nothing scares an American over 35-years old more that a potential back injury!

Bill Starr, the origional Football Strength Coach, chose to omit the Deadlift from the “Big 3″ in his all-time classic text, “The Strongest Shall Survive: Strength Training for Football.” He did this because he felt most coaches did not have the ability and knowledge to teach the Deadlift. Most conisder the Dead to be a pure-strength exercise, but, there is actually a great deal of technique involved. Starr later admited that he made a mistake on this one as many took his omission to banish the Deadlift forever.

Now, Squats are great. Box Squats are better. In fact, Squats and Deadlifts work many of the same muscles.

Which is better for your vertical? Which will get you faster for football?

This may surprise you, but Deadlifts have the slight edge

However, this does NOT mean Squats are inferior. They can, should and will be done…or else!

Anyway, the Deadlift (and it’s variations) is great for football for several reasons:

You start the lift from a dead stop, thus building starting strength

It focuses just a bit more on the hamstrings and glutes

You can vary the length of the pull to overload the muscles

Deadlifts train much of the back in addition to the glutes, hams, calfs and hips

They can be dropped after each rep, cutting out the eccentric (lowering) portion which is most responsible for soreness (very usefull in pre and in-season training)

The problem is, Deadlifting too often can be hard on the Central Nervous System (CNS). This is sloved by Squatting and Box Squatting in place of your Deadlifts. And but using Deadlift variations like:

Snatch Grip Deadlifts

Trap Bar Deadlifts

All you have to do to make sure you are getting as fast and strong for football as possible is to do both Deads and Box Squats. NOT in the same workout, it’s overkill.

You can alternate Box Squats and Deadlift variations on your Max Effort Days each week or go 2-weeks on, 2-off. Often, we’ll rotate Deadlift variations each Max Effort Day and use Box Squats on DE days. Then reverse the trend.

Either way, make sure you pull heavy and always, always, always lift the bar with as much force and speed as possible, regardless of the weight.

2. I want to move from Defensive line to Fullback. I’m really fast once I get goin, but I’m not fast at the start. Any exercises I can do to build that quick start?

Unfortunately this is a common problem. I used to have it, big time! You have good speed, but you take a few steps to get going…kind of like a Mac Truck…destructive once going, but slow to get it goin.

Fortunately, this is easily fixable. Well, easily in the solution, but it takes plenty of hard work.

Basically, you have strength (you need strength to have speed) but, you lack starting strength. We commonly call starting strength “explosiveness.” It’s what accounts for that “great 1st step” and what gives backs the ability to hit the hole in an instant.

You need to focus a bit on exercises that build tremendous starting strength.

On your Max Effort days, concentrate on:

Deadlifts

Snatch Grip Deadlifts

Box Squats

Box Front Squats

Box Jumps

Seated Box Jumps

Dynamic Box Squats (with bands or Chains)

Bottoms-Up Squats

You all know most of these. Notice that they all require you to either start from a dead-stop, or, pause and hault momentum (as in Box Squats). Think about a heavy Deadlift.

You are approaching a bar loaded with weights and attempting to rip it from gravity’s clutches with no help from momentum. If you can’t turn on all of your muscles at once (the basis of starting strength), the bar won’t move. Even if it does, if you can’t maintain that speed, the bar will stall and you’ll miss the lift.

Some exercises are excellent for building starting strength to get you faster for football. Not that D-lineman don’t need starting strength…everyone of the field does. But, if you want to impress your coaches enough to make the leap to Full Back, you’ll need to work in these specialized movements. They should be included in everyone’s football workouts throughout the year.

Box Jumps

The basic Box Jump, when done before your heavy leg work, can go a long way to building exposive football speed. All you need is a Plyo Box or stair case (please be careful either way). Stand, dip, jump.

Seated Box Jumps

Same idea, but you start off sitting in a chair or on a bench. Relax completely then explode from the seated positon up onto the box. Don’t rock on the box, it teaches bad habits. If you can train your CNS to propell your big ass out of a chair and onto a box 30+ inches high, you’ll have built some real starting speed.

Bottoms-Up Squats

These are easy to do but oh so brutally hard. Get ready to have your Ego kicked in it’s proverbial balls.

Set up a bar in the power rack at a height that would be the bottom of a normal squat. Now, wedge yourself underneath and squat that sucker up. Sounds easier than it is.

This is a brutal Max Effort Exercise, keep it to singles and doubles. This will teach you very, very quickly to apply max force to the bar and fast.

If you’re looking to move from D-line to Fullback or you just need to build staring speed/strength, use these exercises. Go heavy, for low reps but again, always apply max force to the bar (lift the bar as fast as humanly possible, even though it’s heavy and will appear to move slowly)

3.  I need to bulk up for football, I’m just too skinny. But, I need to get faster too. Someone told me getting bigger for football will make me slow, is this true?

Man, just when you think all the really old myths about football training had been destroyed, the old “bigger = slower” arguement rears it’s ugly head.

This is tied to the billion-year old belief that lifting weights would make you “muscle bound” and unathletic. This is, of course, total bullshit.

In the old, old, old days, guys just looked at what bodybuilders did and tried to emulate their methods. Bodybuilders are good at getting bigger, it’s their job. But, the do so without any regard for getting faster, stronger, or more explosive. If a football player trains the same way, he will get worse.

However, those days are long gone and football strength training has come a hell of a long way. So, that old excuse is out.

All you need to do is look to the NFL where 290-lb D-lineman are as fast as some linebackers to see that bulk doesn’t equal slow.

Now, if you’re goal is to eat like a pig and become a big fat ass, then you’ll probably get slower. But, if you gain weight for football intelligently, then you can actually get bigger while getting faster and stronger for football.

If you need to get bigger for football but still want speed, strength and explosive power, you need to:

Eat a lot of protein rich foods (beef, chicken, fish, pork, wild game, protein powders, eggs, greek yogurt)

Eat 4 – 6 times per day, and shoot for around 22 – 25/calories per lb of bodyweight and 1g protein/lb of bodyweight (a 165lb guy would eat 3630 – 4125 calories and roughly 165g protein)

Train heavy with Max Effort exercises

Train for speed with explosive movements and Dynamic Effort

Train for size intelligently with a modified repitition method

Train football skills and football-specific strength with Sandbags and special tools

This is what we do in our Explosive Football Workouts Manual.

If you follow along with the program for an off-season, I guarantee you’ll gain no less than 20-lbs of muscle and put at LEAST 50-lbs on all your major lifts…yea, it’s that good.

Click Here to check it out.