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Strength Report – Maine’s Winter Speed, Strength and Conditioning Program –by: Dan NicholSpeed, Strength, and Conditioning Coach, University of Maine © More from this issue At the University of Maine, we do not get five-star recruits and it is important that we are innovative in the individualized programs we design for our athletes. Our philosophy is to develop a mentally and physically challenging training environment that will allow athletes to maximize their ability. Our programs are designed to decrease the risk of injury through the teaching of progressive strength and power development exercises that use ground-based, multi-joint and multi-directional movements. We go by the method of “not trying to pound a square peg into a round hole”. Although weight training is a critical part of preparing for the game of football, it is important that we understand we are training athletes to become more efficient in the movements that they perform on the field. For example, if we have an athlete with a long femur and a short torso, we will not front or back squat with him but will utilize a 1-leg bench squat to increase strength in the lower body and minimize the risk of injury to the lower back. Due to the athlete’s biomechanics, there is a greater amount of stress placed on the lower back when performing the squat. Our athletes must be able to perform all exercises with the proper form before a load is applied. We utilize a Functional Movement Screen to identify upper and lower body movement deficiencies. The screen is performed at the start of spring football and at the start of pre-season camp. Athletes will follow a corrective exercise regimen prior to the start of each workout to improve upon deficiencies and clean up motor patterns in both the upper and lower body. The off-season training schedule is divided into post-season, winter break, January training, February training and March training. We begin our post-season training one week after the completion of the football season. The philosophy of our program design is similar to that of building a house. The building of the foundation is performed during December and January training periods. The remainder of the structure is built during the February, March, April and summer training periods. Our January training begins with an evaluation week of performance tests and body composition. We will evaluate the players in the pro agility, ten yard dash, vertical jump and long jump. Body composition evaluation is made up of a seven-site skin-fold test. The purpose of the evaluation is to establish a baseline measurement where an athlete should see an improvement when they are evaluated again in April. The training objective of January is GPP (General Physical Preparedness). The training is very similar to the winter break program with the addition of running and pushing of sleds. We train four times per week, with three days in the weight room and one training day in our indoor dome. The sled pushing is performed after our higher volume squat day on Mondays. The sled is loaded with a 45-lb. plate and is pushed ten yards and back (20 yards total) for five-seven repetitions. Our dome workout is performed on Thursdays and consists of total body complex movements combined with running one-two gassers. For the complex movements, we use both dumbbells and barbells with no more than 115 pounds. The exercises we utilize are the dumbbell snatch, Romanian dead lift to high pull, squat to press, good morning and row. After an athlete completes ten repetitions of each of these exercises, he sprints one-two gassers. He then goes to the next yard line and performs the next exercise. Athletes are in lines on both sidelines at every five yards with the weight (dumbbell or barbell) and a sheet with the title of the exercise they are to perform. The dome workout routine is performed for two sets with no rest in between on three different training days. |
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