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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


Postion-Specific Training

by: Danny Arnold
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When you lose your keys, you’ve often left them in the last place you’d think to look. Coaches and trainers, in search for a competitive edge, do the same thing. Typically, they look outside for answers when the secret ingredients for a successful training program might already be right under their noses.

In all my previous articles I mention the importance of making all your speed, agility and quickness drills to be sport-specific. In fact, I’ve even mentioned the importance of going as far as making your drills position-specific. In this article, I will again illustrate the importance in sport-specific and position-specific training; however, rather than concentrating on speed, agility and quickness, I will concentrate on weight training.

Muscle development is obviously a vital part of any training program for any athlete of any sport. But which type of muscle, which type of lifts, and which type of programs we use is extremely important because just as weight training can be positive for athletic development, it can also be very detrimental for an athletes development if the wrong type is done. Often, we tend to waste so much time in our weight training programs that could have been used for other developmental drills, but in order to make sure we avoid this, we must first truly understand the sport and the position the athlete is training for.

In an effort to understand this, we can start by either watching film and or just simply studying the movements that take place in a given play by the athlete or athletes you are creating this program for. After numerous plays, you’ll then realize what muscle groups are truly used and in what resistance manner those muscles are used while the athlete executes a play. This will give you the first stage to developing your weight-training program.

The second stage of our understanding would be to find the lifts and machines that help to duplicate the movements that where learned about in the stage one. This can become somewhat challenging for trainers and coaches because so many of us are so set on lifts (e.g.: bench press, squats, power cleans, etc.) that we have used for many years as our only determining factors for muscle development and success in the weight room. With some of the new lifts you start using, because of what you learned in stage one, you are going to have to start from scratch on the marks in determining factors for muscle development and success in the weight room.


Photo 1.



My advice for making changes is never to completely change your program all at once but rather make changes gradually. However, I do emphasize that these changes are very important to your program because it will give you a better perspective of which athletes are truly getting better for their sport or position rather then just getting stronger in lifts that don’t really pertain to their sport or position.



The third and final stage is to implement the new movements into your program. Be patient, the first time will always take longer to put into place simply because you have to explain the movement and how the lift is done to the athletes. Like I mentioned before, this is an investment to your program so take the extra time and explain it to the athlete how and why these new movements will help them improve in their game. It is a fact that the more they understand, the harder they will push themselves.


Photo 2.



The following are some basic examples on how this three-stage system works and why the traditional program of only using the bench press as a gauge of progress is not good:

Offensive Lineman:
Stage One: Observation



Observe the movements besides the ones for speed, agility and quickness training that take place during the execution of a play that you will need to duplicate in the weight room. Some of those movements include: pushing off with one and two hands at a time to an uneven surface (opponents body), pulling with one hand at a time, delivering the initial blow to defensive lineman, at given times grabbing and maintaining a tight grip on opponents jersey, and doing all of this while maintaining hips in a low and well balanced centered position.


Photo 3.



Stage Two: Duplication


• Duplicate those same movements in the weight room with some type of machine drill or exercise.

• Pushing off with two hands (uneven surface) = Push Ups with an uneven surface / (See photo 1)

• Pushing off with one hand = Dumbbell Bench Press (with only one moving at a time) / (See photo 2)


Photo 4.



• Initial blow to defensive lineman = Punching Drills (low number of open hand punches but hitting hard to any type of soft surface) (See photo 3)

• Pulling with one hand at a time = Seated Rows or Pull Downs made into a PlexLifts (with only one moving at a time) / (See photos 4 and 5)
Maintaining hips low during the play = Ball Squats (one or two legs at a time) /(See photo 6)


Tight grip = PlexLifts (lifts that emphasize the importance of the grip by using a towel) / (photos 4 and 5)

In conclusion, look at your needs and create programs around those needs. Just like every year you change or design plays that better fit the players you have now, design weight training programs and measurements to better fit your current program and positions. Sure it will require a little bit more work, but the investment is well worth it.

Below are examples on how to we make lifts into PlexLifts. You can do this to almost all lifts that with just an addition of bunched up towels. (See photos 7, 8, and 9).




Photo 7.

Photo 8.

Photo 9.


About the author--Danny Arnold

Danny Arnold is the director of all operations for Plex Sports & Rehab. Along with his staff, Arnold is recognized as one of the leaders in providing innovative training and Transitional Sports Therapy (TST) to help athletes reach their fullest potential. A graduate of Texas Southern University, Arnold played football and ran track and later coached both sports. You can reach him at danny@plex.cc or calling 281-240-0253






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