Calling all FOOTBALL Freaks

Training Powerlifting
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Hello, I am going to be a sophomore in High School next year and am playing football. This year was my first year; thus I am 3 years behind in the Skill of the game. I am very dedicated to getting better and want to catch up knowledge-wise and do as much to catch up skill wise.

What i’m getting at is this: i need reccomendations for the best resources for everything i need to know, (keep in mind i never got the instruction in grades 6-8) and specifically for receivers/corners. (books, internet sites, videos, training techniques, personal experience, advice, all very much appreciated)

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Mmmmmm… Kinda hard to explain on the internet. mmmmmm

As a receiver… Stay low to the ground from the line. You will not be able to break in and out of your cuts without having a low center of gravity to the ground. Your Combacks, curls, posts, and slants will look pretty bad if you are not low throughout the cuts. The best way to learn is when the grass is wet from rain: If you are coming out of your breaks too high you are going to slip and fall. If you are low to the ground you will keep your feet.

Term “Big Box” refers to the alignment of the football in relation to the receiver. If the ball is placed on the left hash and you are lining up on the right side, this is what we refer to as the big box. If the ball is placed on the right hash and you are lined up again on the right we call this the “little Box” Big box… Little Box refers to the alignment of the ball in relation to where the receiver lines up.

Hand position for receiver catching the ball:

Try to catch the ball as if you are cradling a baby at all times when possible. Don’t fight against gravity by reaching across your body and your palms facing toward the ground. Try to catch the ball with the palms facing up in most cases.

Foot Alignment for receiver: Your inside foot needs to be forward in relation to the ball. For example: If you line up on the left… Your right leg forward at the line.

Hand placement: Keep your hands up at the line… that way the corner will not have as good a chance to get his hands on you in press.

Reading a corner: During game play(not on one on one or 7 on 7) The best indicator would be his eyes…

If he plays up on you and is looking at you directly while not peeking in… Its man coverage. Be prepared for a jam and beat him off the line.

If the corner peeks in at the QB and then back at you it is likely zone.

Ankle placement for coming out of breaks in routes: The LAST step in drills at the top of the route or in a full route… turn your toe in slightly angled in when hitting the last step doing a comback to be at a better angle coming out of the break. You won’t round the break and come out of it faster.

“Body Leaning” move for corner: While keeping the same steps (let’s say a post pattern) Lean your torso while you keep running straight with your feet like your leaning to the sideline and then cut. (just learn to body lean as a means of deceiving rather than always cutting…)

Arm action coming out of breaks: Keep your arms pumping when coming out of breaks because the corner back sees your arms still moving and he keeps going backwards.(one of my favorites and funny) I’m stopped and my arms are flying but he keeps moving back.

Catching the ball: Focus on catching the tip of the ball and “accept” the ball by allowing it to take it’s natural path as you guide it in. (Don’t have hard hands)

Finger help: I like taping in-between the knuckles for added support. Do yourself a favor and save your joints by taping between the finger joints. That way you won’t dislocate or break or bulge many joints in the finger.(It will happen eventually with the corners or slopping catching a rocket from the QB)

One other quick thing off the top of my head:

If the corner plays you at the line and wants to Jam you… Move DOWN the line as opposed to up first because he will grab you. If you move DOWN the line shuffling a couple steps quickly he will be forced to move his position to follow you and then you can cut back over him or blast him while he’s off balance.

-Get Lifted

P.S Sneaky Trick:

If the corner back is right on you in your route coming across or over the top… Take your hand and while your running together… push/hit his thigh … (If he can’t lift his knees at all… He can’t run with you.) muuhhhaaaaaaaaaaaa

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Im a FB different position but this is my advice

you need to work on a few things (easier said than done)

  1. speed- the quicker you are the more devasting you will be, for pace you must run sprints sounds obvious but make sure they are position posific i.e. you will be doing a long of 40yard sprints, 10 yard slants etc so run these sprints.

To improve your speed you can do this by improving technique or power. Technique cant explain here power a little simplar- run varrying distances with varrying reistance i.e. with weight tied to the back fo you ona sled, using a parachute. Do this for osme sprints them have a mechnasim where you can release the reistcme and see your change up speed

  1. Hands

Work on catch the ball you need good hand eye co-ordination firstly but secondly practice catching sounds simply but the more you catch thr more yards you will get

  1. Getting free (more 4 recviver, corner its about not letting the reciver get free)

Work on your lateral quick and agility practice the three cone drill running between point practice cutting learn whichl eg o cut when you go to which direction if you can change direction at top speed you will be the corner most times.

  1. KNow your routes

Learn your play book

  1. I dont know how old you start getting stronger if yo can get in the weight room do so if not press ups, chin up dips, sit up all bw exercise do them you see the effect and when you can do weights you will see the advantage on how much more can lift

  2. Vertical jump

if you can jump higher than anyone you will be gettin free ctaches

do plyometrics (jump training) 2 days a week if you need any advise reply to the thread or send me an email

you dont geta 35’ vert by sitting downa ll day

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I’m also going into my sophmore year of high school, so me and you are in the same boat…except I’ve played football since I was about 7 or 8. Basically, if you really wanna play, you just have to go out there during practice and bust your balls. Nothing will impress your coaches more than simply giving it everything you’ve got on every play. I would work on most of the stuff Get Lifted pointed out, If this is only your second year then you really need to focus on technique and the fundamentals of the game. Are you going to be on varsity or JV or what?

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GetLifted: Good advice, but i am not sure what you mean by “bigbox, little box” as i have not heard this term before. also, [quote]If the corner plays you at the line and wants to Jam you… Move DOWN the line as opposed to up first because he will grab you. If you move DOWN the line shuffling a couple steps quickly he will be forced to move his position to follow you and then you can cut back over him or blast him while he’s off balance.[/quote]

I’m not sure i understand this either: which line are we talking about? the line of scrimmage?

Any resources that helped you when you were learning?

Thats a good ‘sneaky trick’; i think i’ll use it sometime :wink:

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49ers fan:
Speed: my 40 time is 4.6… so i’m not doing too bad there, but i can always improve.

Hands: Me and some guys are going to be running routes everyday this summer and working on our hands.

Routes: I am going to be reading my routes religiously until i have them all memorized. I think i am going to try writing them out on notecards and making flashcards.

Strength: I’m above average here, being very high-twitch prone. I will also be working out all summer.

Vert Jump: i havent worked at all on this but i have natural “hops” and i am taking plyometrics at my highschool next year.

–
JAK: Bust my balls i will ;).

I will have the size and speed to be on varsity by the time the season starts, but what i am lacking is the knowledge and experience. Thats why i’m here =).

–
Come on, i know there are tons of football gurus here that can give me tons of advice. Does anyone have instructional video reccomendations? Football-Specific Weight training advice? more “sneaky tricks”?

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I thought of a couple more… You want most of the things done “automatically” You don’t have time to think of these things in game so these must become a part of you without you really having to consciously think it.

When you hear the play call in the huddle I would say you have at best 5 seconds from when he said the play to when you get half to where you line up. Yes, know your plays… these need to become atuomatic. It only needs to take you 2-3 seconds to know what to do on the play and process it. Need to be able to recognize the play as soon as the QB spits it out his mouth.

Once you are that half way point from where you are lining up. Mind you are running to the line to setup and check with the ref to make sure your onside… You need to checking the defense at this point. As a receiver you will need to start recognizing defenses as well. Check the safeties, corners and what “shade” they are lining up on as well as the linebackers. You can pick up on some serious holes in the defense if you can recognize them quickly. In all honesty, I’m learning this myself and it’s difficult. I usually just look quick at safety and check to see what the corner is playing me. But if you can see the linebackers are dropping back quickly you can adjust your route accordingly. Drags and crosses are important for this… trust me… Unless you want to collide with these beasts. AND that means you are not getting the ball or getting open.

Knowing when to sit:

On some drags and crosses you can sit in the holes the linebackers give you. Don’t keep running all the way across the middle because if you make it to the other side a lot of the times the corners duty is flats and you are going to get smacked by him. Keep your eyes on a swivel and WHILR you are running see what’s developing and “sit” in the hiles while running a drag if there are any. You can get the ball quicker and turn up field.

On curls, comebacks, when you are facing the QB coming out of your break you want to get in an automatic habit for something else… Once you catch the ball give a shoulder and head fake to the inside or outside and turn and go back the other way. When the ball is in the air if you faked him out good he will be upset and come screeming behind you while the ball is in the air. You have a split second to catch the ball give a quick duck to inside and hill overshoot and you’ll be free.

BLOCKING: What? you don’t think receivers do that? LOL You can use your hands despite you are on offense. Punch your hands forward into the armpits of the defender and LATCH onto his ass and pull him in close to you (grab him violently and quickly) The better grip you can get on him the better. Once you do this keep your lead leg up under his leg as your leverage leg and and drive him by pushing and pulling him with your hands (because your latched on) wherever you want.

If he is playing off close the gap fast and “punch” him and keep moving while hes got blasted back. Then second step is latch on. #rd step is drive him where you want. This is why T-nation says for athletes you want a 14" grip on bench which is slightly narrower. It’s good for us because we are not “punching” people wide. We want blast them with a narrow punch to get ahold of them.

Also if you can get one hand under the shoulder pad they will fold in half at the waste and you’ll be able to move them where you want.

Another thing you can do is tape your wrists if you have weak wrists. The tape will not allow them to bend back as far when you are blocking. I don’t have this problem but some guys tape their wrists.

Get to the outside of the field when you can because while there may look like a big gap in the middle… It closes faster(especially on college level) If you are at a dead stop(after catching) and have any ideas like I have a tendecy to do about running through the middle because it looks soooooo open… don’t it closes faster than you can say lickity split.

Keep your hands open when you run because they will already been a position to catch the ball. Instead of having to open them to catch the ball they will already be open. Keep your hands open like knives through the air when you run.

-Get Lifted

BRB… Time to go lift of course…

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ahhhh lastly before I go… Join the track team and run some hurdles.(maybe not hurdles but I liked them.)

Anyway, 4.6 is what I came out of high school with. I went down to a 4.4 forty but that was through strength training. I got stronger and bigger and faster. Very weird I used to always be scared of the bigger I got the slower I got. This didn’t happen in my case.

I don’t know but deadlifts, leg press, ladder work, and plyometerics helped me. My feet started to get move faster in the ladder drills and my speed and strength increased.

-Get Liftd

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bunch of stuff on here about lifting, i would start learning technique for all variations of deadlift, squats (DON’T LEG PRESS), olympic lifts, and hamstring excercises. if you have access to a GHR machine or reverse hypers do those alot. there is a bunch of knowledge on here about training and i wish that i would have found this site earlier in my career. learn as much as you can and try alot of different things. my recommendation to you is, get in the best shape of your life. train like you were in a game, sprint for 3-6 sec. rest for 30 and repeat. you can even mimic quarters, half time, etc. i wouldn’t run over 50 yds. get w/your qb and work on routes and timing. good luck

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And to do this, you just look to and point at the ref, true?

What is the Shade?

In what situations do you use this? Is this completely legal? What do i do if this happens to me as a corner? Would it be a no-no to use this in practice? -For that matter, would it be a no-no to use the ‘sneaky-trick’ you mentioned earlier in practice?

There was something we did last year that i never really understood: “Cracking”. Where the receivers basically try to knock the inside linebackers over as i remember. So who can i attack and who can’t i attack as a receiver? and what are my limits as far as hitting them?

thanks!

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Use everything at practice… in the game I mentioned…

The corners “shade” refers to where the corner lines up on you.

“Inside shade” means he wants to force you outside. (most cases) He will line up on your inside of the ball

“Outside Shade” means he wants to force you inside where the big linebackers are so you can get messed up. Although they will pay when you get to do crackbacks for your running back. The linebacker has his eyes on the running back and you come from blind side and you detroy him. He will line up on you to the outside toward the sideline.

Just remember never to run your routes based upon what the corner plays. You own the field and you run your route based upon the play. He is in your territoty and you play him like a puppet.

YES, when you run to the line point at the ref like he better not call anything on you and lock eyes with him otherwise you won’t know if you got his attention. Relax your muscles and at get your hands up so you can fight off the press.

Forget the notion you can not hold on offense. They will call a penalty if your arms are extended. Grab him violently and pull him in close so know arms are extended and it looks as if your locked up.

-Get Lifted

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Cracking the linebackers is a dream for a receiver. All those catches across the middleand you get to literally crack the linebacker for your running back.

It’s a blind side… slightly from the side blast. It will teach him to keep an eye more on you next time then his responsibility.

-Get Lifted

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Lastly, Don’t worry too much… You are in high school and I didn’t know much of this either. Try to learn it as you go along. Print these pages out… put it in an envelope and seal it with the title:

“Top Secret: Open when I have a good grip on the position.”

Hey you are just learning a new position and HS football is somewhat new to you…

Don’t worry too much right now.

-Get Lifted

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When you crack make sure your head is across his chest for miximal position. Then blast him…

-Get Lifted

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Resources-Search for Jerry Campbell’s football site. He has great resources for learing about the game.

As far as the performance aspect goes, go to elitefts and check out the Parisi videos and look at the stuff Joe DeFranco talks about on this site.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

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if you want a football specific weights program PM me il help you sort one out

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I play college football and just finished talking to our off. cordinator who also used to coach wide recievers, he said that when catching the ball:

  1. focus on the tip
  2. grab the fat
  3. snatch the ball out of the air (don’t hold your arms out and wait for ball, keep them in and then snatch it out of the air).
    When you are going to cut always cut with your outside leg, when it is underneath you.
    for grip strength, get a brick (red) and put wrap it with athletic tape. 1.Toss it from one hand to the other
    2.Drop it from waist heigth and catch it before it hits the ground.
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awesome; thanks for the advice guys. I’m really pumped for football to start again, and i’m going to a Camp here at the college (OSU). (Go Beavers).

To the offer for making a football training program: I am planning on using Christian Thibaudeau’s “Easy-Hard Gainer plan”, could you check that out and tell me if you think it is a good idea for football preparation?

-M

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Hey this looks like a good thread to post a question I have!

Ok i need the advice of someone willing to help me out. I’m 20 years old, 6’5, 254.6 lbs., and I need advice on what to buy. Ok Im thinking of buying Power Drive, post workout Surge, and currently im using cell-tech (it was free from my coach…) and i was wondering if i should put anything else on my cart before using my plastic. I’m looking to get pretty fit and pack on some muscle for upcoming football season at Bloomsburg University. I dont want to be huge tho because i need to be fast off the ball(Linemen is my position)…So Whoever can help it would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks

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Good advice so far…what a great spot to talk Football.

I played at 135lbs, bench 255, Squat 375 SENIOR YEAR. I was a Split End and Outside Linebacker

I BEGAN Football…Nevada Union as a sophomore to get a girl who liked jocks…I was a loser turner jock…turned that girl down as a Senior…HAAAAAA

  1. Learn to “Bubble Snot”…get PISSED and go 100%
  2. Do not worry about how big anybody is… Run them straight on AND low.
  3. The more you worry about getting hurt…the more it will hurt.
  4. The harder you hit, the more the intensity… the less it hurts.

This is all you need…and

Have heart and go harder than anyone else.

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[quote]SkuLl_CrUsHeR wrote:
Hey this looks like a good thread to post a question I have!

Ok i need the advice of someone willing to help me out. I’m 20 years old, 6’5, 254.6 lbs., and I need advice on what to buy. Ok Im thinking of buying Power Drive, post workout Surge, and currently im using cell-tech (it was free from my coach…) and i was wondering if i should put anything else on my cart before using my plastic. I’m looking to get pretty fit and pack on some muscle for upcoming football season at Bloomsburg University. I dont want to be huge tho because i need to be fast off the ball(Linemen is my position)…So Whoever can help it would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks[/quote]

You are a hijacker.