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Strength Report: Train Like A football Playerby: Jim DavisStrength and Conditioning Coordinator New Trier High School (IL) © More from this issue At the core of all strength and conditioning, there is one unalienable principle: a body is a body. With so much focus on sport-specific training, it is easy for a coach to be enamored with the latest, greatest, custom-built program. The truth is, however, that without a solid base, none of that matters. So, before I explore the methods by which we prepare some of the top football players in the area, I will identify the building blocks to our program. Once we have faith that our athletes are capable in the aforementioned areas, we can get into sport specific training – namely, metabolic systems training. It is absolutely possible to get into “football shape” without a track. This is, of course, an off-season claim – once track and field space becomes available, nothing can replace the performance of game-like exercise, i.e., running routes. In the off-season, we attempt to challenge the threshold of our anaerobic system in a way that mimics our sport, but is periodized so that it corresponds with our overall strength program. Specifically, we use a dual peak, undulating strength and speed program (See Chart 1).
Our program runs four days per week: Day One is a Lower Body Power focus, Day Two is an Olympic/Explosive focus, Day Three is an Upper Body Strength focus, and Day Four is our Transitional Training day. Transitional Training is what differentiates our program. On Day Four, we analyze the specifics of the sport, and incorporate rest/recover ratios into the workout. We look for an approximate 2:1 ratio, accommodating the potential for a Hurry-Up Offense (ten seconds for the offense to coordinate : five seconds of play). To accomplish this ratio we divide our athletes into groups of three – one athlete lifting, one athlete actively resting, and a third athlete spotting or at rest. The interval timing adjusts through the off-season to correlate with our Performance Peaks. Phen we first begin Transitional Training, we highlight the Glycolytic System (also known as Lactic Acid training) with times of 40-60 seconds. As we approach the season, we drop those intervals to highlight the ATP-PC (adenosine triphosphate-phosphocreatine) systems involved in anaerobic training. Our most successful progressions include pairing upper body with lower body in consecutive stations (e.g., pullups and squats), then surprising the athlete with an exercise of high technical difficulty, like a One Leg Burpee or a Medicine Ball Slam variation. It is important to design the workout well in advance, in order to take advantage of facility space and plan your progression:
In twenty seconds, our athletes have been completing between 17-26 Med Ball Slams when going full speed. It would be easy, however, for an athlete to let gravity do most of the work, “drop” the ball instead of “slam” it, and coast through the workout. In order to train the anaerobic system for football, the coaches must pay constant attention to effort, start time, and mood of the room. For example, we ensure all of our athletes are prepared to lift with three seconds left on the countdown clock – “bars up at 3, 2, 1…” – when the countdown hits zero, and the twenty second interval begins, the athletes need to be moving, not preparing to move. Yes, we train football players to be football players by performing exercises which will enhance their performance and keep them safe on the field, and we train them for the pace of a game through metabolic system training, but we train them to be a team through reciprocal teaching and motivation. The coach has to be there for them, and they have to be there for each other. That sort of training cannot be replaced. It’s what makes a good athlete a good football player – and what makes a collection of players a good football team. |
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