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AFM Magazine


Speed Report – Weight Training for Speed in a High School Environment

by: Dale Baskett
Football Speed Specialist
by: Fred Eaves
Strength and Conditioning Coach, Battle Ground Academy (TN)
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Football has become a game of speed. High school football strength and conditioning coaches across the country are constantly searching for ways to improve the speed and explosiveness of their team in order to produce maximum results. Training for speed in the weight room is paramount for coaches and teams to reach their desired results. Focusing on Olympic movements in the weight room can be very beneficial in increasing a player’s speed.

Why Use Olympic Movements?

The reason most often given is it is the fastest way to increase the speed and explosiveness of your athletes. Olympic lifts do this through increasing the athlete’s ability to apply force to the ground. Force application is one of the most important factors in an athlete’s ability to run fast and jump high. There are countless examples of Olympic lifters who post phenomenal vertical jump and 40-yard dash times without any jump or speed training other than their work in the weight room. I watched former U.S. Olympic team alternate and world team member Matt Bruce jump a 42 inch vertical and run a 4.5 forty without any jump or speed training. Another example is former U.S. Olympic lifter and WWE wrestler Mark Henry who could dunk a basketball at 6’3” and 385 pounds.

Olympic lifts are multi-joint movements that teach athletes how to produce power from the ground up. Using multi-joint movements also teaches the body how to perform well as a single unit. Our body has to perform as one unit in both the weight room and on the playing field in order for success to be achieved in each of these areas.

Olympic lifts also teach change of direction through the receiving position of the power clean, power snatch and split jerk. The body must change direction in order to properly drop under the bar in a receiving position for all of these lifts. This is of great benefit in football. It is a sport with constant change of direction, and Olympic lifts are an excellent way to train for that.

Olympic lifts have been scientifically proven to have great value, but many coaches are afraid to use them due to a lack of knowledge or fear of injury. Everyone in the field agrees that these lifts should only be taught by a strength and conditioning professional that is properly trained in these movements in order to maximize their safety and effectiveness. We would encourage anyone who does not have a background in Olympic lifts to take one of the USA Weightlifting certification courses. They are very practical certifications, and they will greatly improve any coach’s knowledge and understanding of teaching these movements.

We currently use all of the Olympic movements in our program at Battle Ground Academy. Movements include the clean, snatch, jerk, and use all of the different Olympic assistance exercises in order to help increase the speed and explosiveness of our athletes. This may not be ideal for your individual situation. We’ve learned that no two high school environments that are exactly the same, and each coach must adjust accordingly in order to maximize their results in the weight room. As a coach, it may take years to feel comfortable incorporating the snatch and the jerk into your weekly plan.

The Power Clean

The power clean is the most popular Olympic lift. The power clean should be taught in a progressive manner. Often, coaches rush this lift because they feel they need immediate results. We have to remember that every movement pattern we establish with our kids is being recorded. If we do something wrong with poor technique, it is being recorded by our athletes as they process the movement. The same is true for performing the exercises correctly.

We want our athletes to establish proper movement patterns. Freshmen can start the Olympic lift progression with broomsticks. We teach our freshmen that we do not care about lifting heavy weight at their age. The major focus of the program with young athletes is to move the bar extremely fast with great technique. Moving the bar fast at this age is teaching their neuromuscular system how to fire quickly. We not only work on great technique with this type of progression, but we also get the added benefit of increasing the rate of force development for these young athletes.

A coach should never use over three reps in the power clean periodization with high school students unless working on technique. Anything above three reps could cause a breakdown in technique due to the taxation of the central nervous system during the session. This is the outline of a teaching progression for the power clean:

Power Clean

1. Free Standing Squat
           
2. Front Squat
           
3. Back Squat
           
4. RDL’s
           
5. Hang Shrug
           
6. Hang Shrug Jump
           
7. Hang Clean
           
8. Clean Pull
           
9. Power Clean
           
(Next month – the focus is on the Squat as an Olympic movement that will help the speed of your players).

About the Author: Fred Eaves is the strength and conditioning coach at Battle Ground Academy in Franklin, Tennessee. He has 16 years of experience that includes coaching at LSU, Tennessee, and Tennessee-Chattanooga. Eaves has been the strength and conditioning coach for three Tennessee state champions.

Coach Baskett began his career as a football speed coach in 1979. During the last 34 years he’s consulted and trained hundreds of coaches and thousands of athletes nationwide. In the last year he has worked directly with high schools in California, Texas, Minnesota, Kansas, and Pennsylvania. Over the last few years he has also consulted with Texas Tech, Ohio State, USC, University of Washington, and the University of Mount Union. You can reach him directly for more information or if you have specific questions on your training program. Coach Baskett is at dbspeedt@hotmail.com and 858-568-3751.






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