The Strength Report

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I have had the opportunity to be a strength and conditioning coach for 11 years, and had the privilege of working in some great programs with some great head coaches. From Oklahoma, to Minnesota, to Kansas, I have been fortunate enough to work with many great athletes and had the opportunity to learn quite a bit about how to develop not only sport specific strength, but also position specific strength.

Philosophy / Strategy

The game of football is ever-evolving; however. one element that has not changed is the fact that the game is still played below the waist and above the neck. When I refer to “above the neck,” I am referring to how smart a player is, which quite often comes down to film study, and on the field practice. My primary focus as a strength coach is to help with the “below the waist.” I want to make it perfectly clear that I am not saying that upper body strength is not important in playing football. However, I am saying that regardless of a player’s upper body strength, if he does not have the necessary footwork, leg strength and hip explosion, he will struggle mightily in finding success on the field. The reason for this is that all movement on the field is initiated from below the waist; the upper body is just an extension of that force generated from below the waist. The upper body will not work successfully on the field without the feet, legs and hips. Think about an offensive lineman for a moment in a pass set. When he tries to reach and use his upper body without initiating that movement from his legs and hips, he gets overextended and gets beat. The lower body initiates and the upper body finishes.

We have all seen many players that could bench press the world, but could not play a lick on the field. However, I have not seen many that had great feet, could run, and were explosive (regardless of their upper body strength) that could not help their team succeed. Our philosophy in relation to training at the University of Kansas starts with our first priority, training our legs and hips; however, just like the game is played we do indeed finish with upper body movements. I emphasize the word movements because when training athletes we do not train specific body parts, but rather movements.

5 Facets of Physical Development

We work with all of our players in five different areas to help maximize their physical development in order to help them reach their potential on the field.

SPEED:
1. Playing Speed – Training by position to help increase one’s speed of movement relative to what they are asked to do on the field (this will differ by position).
2. Testing Speed – Training to help our players perform better when testing in various “combine drills,” (i.e., 40 yd. dash, pro shuttle, etc).

STRENGTH: Training our players to develop strength of movement relative to what is asked of them on the field (this varies by position). It is great if they test well in the weightroom (squat, clean, and bench press), but what is far more important is that they test well on the field on Saturday afternoon by playing strong.

CONDITIONING: Training the players to be conditioned to perform the movements relative to their position repeatedly with short rest intervals in order to mimic what is demanded of them during the course of a game. We demand different things from an Offensive Linemen than we do a Defensive Back. Therefore, it only makes sense that we condition them differently. One thing that is impossible to train for outside of football practice is contact conditioning. No matter what you do in the off-season, you can not condition yourself for repeated collisions without actually executing them, and there is a definite acclimation period as with any conditioning.

FLEXIBILITY: Training our players to be flexible through the range of movements that are required to play their position. We focus nearly all of our efforts towards dynamic or functional flexibility, moving the muscle or group of muscles through the range of motion that is demanded while playing their position.

NUTRITION/SUPPLEMENTATION: Working with our nutritionist in order to make sure that our players are getting what they need in order to maximize their physical gains throughout the year. Each player’s needs are unique, and therefore what they put in their body to help meet their goals will also be unique.

Off Season Organization

Our off season training is organized in a 4-day split routine in which we train our players 4 days per week, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. We give our players off on Wednesday to rest and recover. We have 2 strength days (squat, and bench, etc.) per week, and 2 power days (Olympic movements) per week. Our running in the off season consists of 2 conditioning days (comprised of change of direction, general agility drills), and 2 speed work days.

Our two conditioning days focus on general change of direction, with repeated quick bursts followed with a short rest interval. These drills are set up to mimic what the players are asked to do on the field. Our two speed work days are set up to focus on increasing our speed relative to playing speed, as well as testing speed. Quite often that can be done by simply teaching our players to be more efficient when they run (running mechanics). In addition, we also focus on plyometrics in order to help them be more explosive when they run. Finally, we work with them on increasing their top end speed through a variety of drills. If you want to run fast, you must train fast.

I have included one of our off season offensive line workouts set up in our 4-day split routine. As stated above, we have 2 power days (Monday and Thursday), as well as 2 strength days (Tuesday and Friday). Prior to each workout, you notice that we also have some sort of active warm-up in addition to some type of core stabilization or strengthening exercise.

Power Days (Mon & Thurs)

MONDAY: Our focus on Monday is our primary pull, in this case the Hang Clean. In order to emphasize speed on the bar with all of our pulls, we start with some sort of quick, or speed related warm-up. In this particular case we are emphasizing foot speed with some various jump rope drills. Following the jump rope we move on to our core work in which we are doing 4-way single leg bridges (this is a progression, and we do not start with single leg bridges, but work up to them). We then move to training our posterior chain with good mornings, focusing on firing our posterior chain as well as scapular retraction. Our final preparatory exercise prior to performing Hang Cleans is the Squat Clean. In this exercise we emphasize speed and explosion by focusing on our hip extension on the clean in addition to our hip flexibility by catching it in a squat position. We then move on to the Hang Clean. This exercise is the focus of our workout on Monday. Quite often we will leave blank sets as you see in the sample workout. These “open sets” are opportunities for players to go up from their previous sets each and every time. They are not optional and the weight is intended to go up each set. We then finish our hip explosive movements with Hang Clean High Pulls. Our final 3 exercises focus on our posterior chain. Monday is a power day and when our players are performing Squat Cleans, Hang Cleans or Hang Clean High Pulls, it is important that they focus on triple extension to generate the most power; extension in the ankles, knees and hips. In addition we are looking for this transfer of power through the bar as witnessed by the speed on the bar regardless of the weight being moved. This is no different from the power transfer that a football coach looks for on the field when a player snaps his hips on contact with a player from an opposing team.

THURSDAY: Our focus on Thursday is not a whole lot different from Monday; however, this is the day in which we perform our secondary pull, the Snatch. Once again we are emphasizing speed on the bar. The warm-up is set up the the same way, as are the exercises. Thursday’s exercises are a bit different, but can be substituted for the similar exercises that are used on Monday because they are emphasizing the same things, speed and explosion.

Strength Days (TUE & FRI)

TUESDAY: This is the day where our focus is on our primary squat and our secondary press. Our warm-up consists of hurdle drills performed on track hurdles to assist with our active hip flexibility as we prepare to squat. We then move on to another invaluable warm-up that we perform on the hill that we have in our weightroom. Certainly the most unique feature in our weightroom is a 20 yard hill at a 15 percent grade which is an invaluable training tool for our athletes. This warm-up helps with the strengthening and stabilization of our core as well as our shoulders. We perform a variety of exercises going up and down the hill on all 4’s forward, backward, as well as laterally. After our active warm-up we move to the Snatch Squat to again help with our hip flexibility. Then we are ready to Squat. There are many different variations of squats, but on our primary squat day, we emphasize full depth squats with the chest up and driving out of the bottom. Following our squats we move on to our secondary press in which we are doing the Bench Press on a Physio Ball. Then we move to Carioca Lunge which emphasizes our single leg movement followed up with our Med Ball work.

FRIDAY: Our focus on Friday is similar to Tuesday, however the focus is reversed. This day we perform our primary press and our secondary squat, and therefore perform the press first. Our warm-up on Friday begins with reconditioning for our hamstrings as well as core strength and stabilization work on the Physio Ball. Our Ball Leg Curl Complex consists of straight leg bridges, leg curls, as well as bent leg bridges. Then we move on to inverted rows to make sure that our upper body is ready to press. Following our Close Grip Bench we move to our secondary squat, the Box Squat, in which we are emphasizing technique and explosion out of the bottom. Our Blast Strap Series is a prehabilitation shoulder routine performed to help prevent shoulder injuries. We then finish with a single leg movement, DB Pitcher Squat, and Dips. Notice that on our primary pressing day we perform Close Grip Bench as well as Dips, two exercises in which the elbows are in, just as they should be when “punching” on the field.

Post Workout Exercises

Following our workouts in the weight room we spend 10 minutes each day focusing on offensive line specific drill work, similar to what they are asked to do on the field. Quite often this includes “punching” drills focusing on their 6-inch punch, partner hand fighting, or various footwork drills focusing on their position specific footwork, be it a center, guard or tackle. This is also a time when you can get the offensive linemen to begin to communicate with one another, as the success of any offensive line quite often hinges on their ability to communicate with one another, and work as one.

Levels of Training

One thing that is critical in training our players is to train them based on their training age. Training age is not relative necessarily to how long they have been lifting weights, but rather how far along they are in their development relative to an athlete based strength and conditioning program. Quite often we try to train the incoming freshmen in the same way that we are training the 5th year senior, and then we wonder why the freshmen are not making gains, and the senior has “plateaued.” One way to resolve this problem is to separate your lifting into various levels. Establishing different levels will give the freshmen something they can handle, as well as something to strive for, while keeping the the more advanced athletes from getting bored. It is also very easy to have your players divided into different training levels and still train them in a position specific manner. We have separated our lifting into 4 different levels.

Level 1: All incoming players begin here. It allows us to establish where they are. The primary focus is on technique of simple exercises and strength development through hypertrophy.

Level 2: Mostly comprised of more advanced young lifters that come from a good strength and conditioning background. Primary focus is on technique of more advanced exercises and strength development through hypertrophy.

Level 3: More advanced lifters that have been in the program for a few years, are technically sound, and have good strength. Primary focus is speed of movement on a variety of advanced exercises.

Level 4: The most advanced lifters, and quite often the most advanced athletes. Often the most advanced athletes are not the best natural athletes, but rather those athletes that are highly trained and understand how to efficiently move in space. The primary focus of this group is speed of movement on the most advanced exercises.

Conclusion

Although our responsibilities are different, the goal of the Strength and Conditioning Coach is the same as any of the other coaches, and that is, to do everything possible to help prepare the players to perform and be the best they can be. I tell our athletes all the time that everything we do is geared towards preparing them to perform better on Saturday afternoon. If they perform better as individuals on Saturday, then we will perform better as a team on Saturday.

We are in the business of continual improvement. Just as the game is ever evolving, so is strength and conditioning. The principles of football do not change, and neither do those of strength and conditioning. How we go about obtaining that continual improvement is always changing. There is no right or wrong way. What is important is that we are always looking for a better way.

Chris Dawson just completed his fourth season as the head strength and conditioning coach for the Jayhawk football team. He previously was the head strength and conditioning coach for Minnesota (the '01 and '02 football seasons) after spending five years at Oklahoma. Dawson played LB for the Sooners from 1991-94 and received both his bachelor's degree and masters degree from OU.

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