The Strength Report: Developing the Explosive Athlete: Defensive Linemen

by: Kyle Speer
Head Strength & Conditioning Coach, Sam Houston State University
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The job of the defensive lineman is very complex. He must first engage one, sometimes two blockers, gain position, shed the block and pursue the ball. Sometimes the play is coming to his gap and the process is over almost instantly. Other times once he sheds the block he may have to pursue the play to the opposite side of the field perhaps jumping over players on the ground to do it.

Our basic philosophy for our defensive linemen at Sam Houston State University is to improve each player’s athleticism through several different training methods. Our approach is to implement a simple and effective, sound program that is not overly complicated, that relies on hard work, focus, and determination as its main ingredient for success. Football is a game played on your feet, from the ground up. In the weight room we use free weight, ground based, multi-joint movements with a major emphasis on variations of the Olympic lifts – the power clean, power snatch, and push jerk. We front squat and back squat to parallel or deeper, and do various forms of step ups, lunges, and single leg squats. We also consider the bench press an important exercise in our program. Our speed and conditioning program is divided up based on objectives for that training phase. Days that emphasize speed and agility are done prior to the strength training session. Strength training is performed first on days when conditioning is a priority. Outside of the weight room, we train for linear as well as multi-directional speed. In our linear speed training we want to spend the majority of our time improving our defensive lineman’s ability to accelerate. The ability to accelerate is the type of speed we need to develop to be successful in the sport of football. We will do our resisted and over-speed training on a slight incline/decline outside our stadium. Our agility training consists of drills designed to help our defensive linemen make good transitions when changing directions and include various cone, agility bag, and line drills. Our conditioning falls under two categories, general and position specific, both of which we train year-round.

GENERAL PROGRAM
Before our players begin training with us as freshmen they must go through an orientation process. During fall camp freshmen and transfers will lift everyday for about 20-25 minutes. Most of this time is spent with pvc pipe and empty bars. Most of the players in the group lift differently than the way we want them to. So they have to unlearn some habits and teach them how we want them to lift and try and get everybody on the same page as quickly as possible. Transfers are usually removed from this group if they demonstrate good form and technique. Freshmen will stay in this process until camp is over.

We divide our football players into three different groups, skill, big skill, and line. These groups all have a program that is unique to that group, and in many cases to the individual. Football players have different needs that are both positional and individual and these needs must be addressed. This includes both the weight training and the speed and conditioning program.

We have what we consider to be seven major phases of training in our program; post-season transition, winter off-season, spring in-season, May transition, summer off-season, fall camp, and in-season. Each one has a different goal and purpose and you could write a whole article on each phase. We feel that if any one of these phases is lacking, the whole program suffers. In our winter and summer off-seasons we will typically train a four day split program of Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Our in-season and spring in-season are 2-3 days a week programs depending on our travel schedule, open dates, etc. Our transitional programs are five days a week programs consisting of three lifting days and two running days.

TYPICAL WORKOUT
The sample workout is an overview of what a typical training session during the winter or summer off-season might look like. Every day when our defensive linemen begin a workout we start with a dynamic warm-up consisting of 8-10 movements of 10-15 yards performed twice each. We will then follow that up immediately with 4-6 foot ladder drills. Next, we will do a bar warm-up with 40-60 kilos for two sets of 8-10 reps on various exercises such as snatch squat, squat press, snatch balance, overhead lunge, etc. The total time spent on the warm-up is 10-12 minutes and it is time well spent because it gets our players ready for the day’s training. Next, we will do 1-2 major exercises such as squat, power clean, front squat, power snatch, bench press etc. This is followed by 3-4 supplemental lifts that compliment that day’s major lifts and balance out the athlete’s development. We conclude the lifting session with torso work that includes everything from plate work and med ball exercises to hanging leg raises from the power racks and various forms of bridge work. We will perform partner assisted stretching to end the weight session.

Our running program is complementary to our lifting program in the winter and in the summer our lifting program is complementary to our running program. On our speed days we run prior to lifting. We begin our running sessions with a dynamic warm-up that is longer in duration than our pre-lifting warm-up. This is followed by form running work and some form of plyos such as jumping, bounding, skipping, etc. Our speed and/or agility training would be next and what that includes as far as volume, intensity, and selection would be determined by the training goals of that phase and the day of the week. Typically, our speed training as it relates to defensive linemen would consist of sprints between 10 and 40 yards with full recovery between reps. Our agility training for the D-line would include basic cone drills as well as agility bag and hoop drills. We will also work on our pro agility and L-drill the closer we get to testing. Conditioning would generally include everything from shuttles of various distances and several different forms of gassers, to a more position specific version of pattern running the closer we get to fall camp. After our running for the day is completed, we will do 5-10 minutes of static stretching to end the session.

CONCLUSION
This is a snapshot of what works for us at Sam Houston State University in the training of our athletes and, in particular, the defensive line. The evolution of our program has come through much trial and error. It is based off of many variables that are constantly changing and are unique to our situation. Kyle Speer has served as Head Strength and Conditioning Coach for all sports at Sam Houston State since August, 2003. He previously coached at the Northern Iowa, Baylor, Arizona State, and Abilene Christian. He received his Masters degree from Baylor and his undergraduate degree from ACU, where he played football.

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