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!
Commercial gyms. The bane of my existance. Sure, most of you know that 99% of the strength trainingof my football players and I takes place in my home gym/studio. But, occasionally, I’m forced into training someone in a regualr 0l’gym. Just today I was in one of these creep joints and what I saw amazed me.
Guys training their friends like the typical old, 3 x 10, isolation based, um, “strength” workout. No surprise that the trainees were as weak as a malnourished kitten…and their mentors were my size…when I was in 8th grade!
Unfortunately, of all the strength training related questions I get, the majority are about Benching. I love the Bench, I really do. I’ve always been a gopresser and, who among us doesn’t just love to be asked “yo, whatta ya bench” by some 125lb idiot with his hat turned to the side.
