College GameDay Presented on US Sports Net By BBcom Featuring: The evolution of the college football strength coach

 

Strength coaches are the worker bees of every college football program. They build more than muscles -- they build character … which makes sense, since most of them are characters themselves. Gene Wojciechowski explores the evolution of the strength coach, and why they terrify every college football player. #CollegeGameDay  (Video below)

What Is The Best Workout For A Football Player? from Bodybuilding.com members

What is the best workout for a football player? Our forum members have put together powerful proven workouts for those interested in furthering their football training. Check it out!

TOPIC: What Is The Best Workout For A Football Player?

The Question

Football can require strength, speed, agility, endurance and explosiveness. To achieve all these different qualities one needs a complete workout.
What is the best workout for a football player looking for maximum strength, speed, agility, endurance and explosiveness? Be specific.
Is this workout too intense for the average person?
Who else would benefit from this type of workout?

Bonus Question

How does football training differ from other sports training? Which sport has the most similar training to football?
Show off your knowledge to the world!

The Winners

1. Veeshmack View Profile
2. EAGLES56

1st Place Veeshmack

Workout

What Is The Best Workout For A Football Player Looking for Maximum Strength, Speed, Agility, Endurance, And Explosiveness? Be Specific. Football players require all around athleticism no matter what position they play. Certain aspects may be more important to one position than another, but still plays a large role in the abilities of a player.
Everyone always say things like linemen are all about size and strength (both defensive and offensive), but when you see a big play by a lineman it's usually because they show what they can do with other talents as opposed to simply using size.
Football is played as an explosive sport; plays often last between 2-and-15 seconds. In most cases all the strength and power is put out in a few shots then you get a chance to rest up and do it again.
For this reason, the best system to use is a 5x5 program allowing the body to exert maximum force in multiple sessions. In addition, I aim toward getting between 20 and 40 seconds of rest between each set. It is important to make sure you work every muscle, when athletes avoid this they often end up seeing injuries and torn muscles.
The following workout is what I used over the past off-season and I also plan to use this year to prepare myself for semi-pro football tryouts. I would not suggest doing this routine during season as it may be too taxing on your body and CNS, which would result in overtraining.
Before beginning, I always suggest doing a proper warm-up consisting of dynamic stretching to get the muscles warmed up and running; and also, always workout with a partner.
The basic set up of this workout is to incorporate 3 days of weight lifting, upper body, lower body and full body/explosiveness, one day of plyometrics and another day for speed and agility work.

Upper Body

• Flat Bench Press
• Incline DB Press
• Rows
• Shrugs
• Military Press

Click Here For A Printable Log Of Upper Body Workout.

Lower Body

• Squats
• Front Squats
• Deadlifts
• Leg Curls
• Calf Raises

**Every few weeks, alternate front squats with lunges, and deadlifts with stiff-leg deadlifts.

Click Here For A Printable Log Of Lower Body Workout.

Full Body/Explosiveness

• Push Press
• Power Cleans
• Snatches
• Abs (You can throw in your own abdominal routine here)

Click Here For A Printable Log Of Full Body Workout.

Speed/Agility/Acceleration

Warm up with a 5-minute jog and dynamic stretching.
**It is important to have proper rest between sets when working on speed and acceleration. Always rest until you can run the sprint again between 90-100% of what you accomplished on the previous run.
We first start with acceleration sprints; these focus on shorter distances focusing to hitting top speed.

Acceleration

• 3x10m Sprints
• 2x25m Sprints
• 2x20m Uphill Sprints

Now we focus more to maintaining that speed and trying to build on it. I don't really suggest using more than 60-meter sprints, because realistically, it's not everyday you will be running the length of the field at full speed.

Speed

• 4x40m Sprints
• 3x60m Sprints

Agility plays a large role in many positions. Agility is the ability to make cuts and run side to side on the field, and preferably without losing balance.

Agility

• 4x20m Shuttle

Never do multiple speed and agility training one day after the other as it will be very taxing on your body. Also, refrain from doing cardio after a speed workout as they are opposite working forms of running, and doing long distance cardio may slow down the progress of your speed training.
Click Here For A Printable Log Of Speed/Agility/Acceleration Workout.

Plyometrics

Finally, plyometrics, this can be done on the same day as another workout, just not the same day as the speed training, nor the day before or after. So what can plyometrics do for you? Plyometrics help build elasticity within the muscles; they play a large role in improving strength, explosiveness, speed and jumping ability.

• Depth jumps
• Vertical jumps
• One leg jumps
• Power skips
• Double leg jumps
• Squat jumps

Click Here For A Printable Log Of Plyometrics Workout.
*One thing to note with plyometrics is to not perform them until failure. Also just as in speed training, do not perform cardio after a plyometric session.
The best way to set up this routine is to do upper body on Monday, lower body on Wednesday, full body on Friday and speed training on Sunday.

Intensity

Is This workout Too Intense For The Average Person?
I personally believe there is no workout too intense for the average person. The only situation is, can the average person benefit from this entire workout? Probably not, because the average person is not concerned with speed and agility.

Who Would Benefit

Who Else Would Benefit From This Type Of Workout?
Any athlete can benefit from a workout like this. Almost every sport will require most of these abilities, some may be based more on strength, where others would be for speed, but it definitely offers a variety of core abilities.

Bonus Question

How Does Football Training Differ From Other Sports Training? Which Sport Has The Most Similar Training To Football?
The biggest difference in football training in comparison to others is that most other sports will require more training in the endurance department. Although a football game often can last 3 or more hours, there are not only 20-second breaks between plays, but times when you are on the bench while the opposite part of the team (offense vs. defense) is on the field.
The sport with the most similar training style to football would be rugby. I play both the sports, so I have always looked for a way to train for both sports, and it did not take me long to find that almost everything I did to prepare for rugby prepared me for football and vice-versa.
Vivak P. (AKA Veeshmack)....keep reading.....