FB Player In Need of Workout/Diet

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

I am 17 and a DE/OLB and I feel I am a little on the small size. I have been looking and I cant seem to find a good workout and diet designed for a football player that will increase strength and speed. I am 6’2" and I weigh around 200. I run a 4.7 40 yard dash and I want it in the 4.5 to 4.6 range while adding weight and getting up to 220 lbs. I am a junior and I have until the end of this year (Including summer) to get it. I am willing to bust my ass. (Following maxes are 1 rep) Squat; 385 Bench; 265 Powerclean; 255 Deadlift; 355.

Also I eat a lot of peanut butter, I have a jar and a spoon in my room so I almost always have some protein in me. I take a protein supplement about 45 minutes after every workout and I have creatine but I havent used it yet.

I am in the middle of our offseason workout and they are quite intense we cover main lifts and auxilaries. We workout Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. The main lifts on Monday are bench and squat along with some auxilaries, tuesday we do powerclean with auxilaries and thursday is pure auxilary. Our athletic period is 2 hours long, 1 hour is lifting the other is football. Wednesday we condition. Friday is 2 hrs of football. I dont have the list of all our lifts with me atm but tomorrow I will update this with my complete workout.

So pretty much I am looking for a high intensity workout I can do after school that will complement my coaches workout because I am not going to go against what they say, they are helping me get to college and I take their advice to heart. So yeah, I need a workout plan that will make me faster and stronger and a good low cost diet. Also I’m not a cheater so don’t evern come on here and suggest steroids. I wanna work for what I achieve and the easy way out isnt an option.

(I have a very high chance of going to college, I just want to secure my chances and all i need is size to go D-1, and I only want the best, D-2 isnt enough for me.)

2

To get bigger and build speed, try combining a couple of different workouts by doing a full body split one week, then an upper/lower split the next.

There’s a couple of good articles on here about it: search for “different destinations, different journeys” and “westside for skinny bastards”

Basically here’s what you’ll do: the first week perform complex moves like squats, deadlifts, bench, pullups, power cleans and bent over rows.

Day 1 bench, rows, squats
Day 2 incline press, power clean
day 3 bench, pullups, romanian deadlifts
day 4 push press, deadlifts

You’ll want to do a lot of sets (5-6) but low reps (1-4). On the days with 3 moves, do two of them with 85-95% of your 1rm and do half the reps you are capable of doing with that weight for every set and do the third move with a little more than half your 1rm and do 3-4 reps as explosively as possible. Some moves aren’t great for explosive movement (deadlifts, pullups) so let those determine which you go heavy on and which you do explosively.

The next week do a traditional pull/push/legs split with 4 workouts over the course of the week. Maybe something like pull/press/off/legs/pull/off/legs. For football, benching won’t help your performance the way squats, deadlifts or other back exercises will, so focus on pull and legs the most.

For this week, do complex moves again, substitute one of them per workout with an isolated move and a little bit of arms. Do a 4x8 or maybe a 10/8/6/4. Hypertrophy is the key here.

The first workout will allow you to perform complex shit with super heavy weight over and over again and help develop power and short burst speed without wearing you out since you won’t have a high volume of reps. The next week will help you gain size. You could also do the second workout for the first half of the summer and then switch to the first the second half.

On the first workout, you’ll want to rest about 3 minutes between each set in order to fully recuperate for a quality max effort, but the second workout you should rest for 2 minutes at the absolute most.

The key to all of this is to concentrate on max force production and bar speed on the first workout to build functional strength and improve explosiveness, while the second one is strictly to build size instead of bottom end strength. For football, you can never do to many deadlifts, power cleans and squats.

Oh yeah, and stretch, stretch and stretch.

3

One other thing: take in your protein within 10 minutes of the end of the workout if you can and eat a solid meal 45-60 minutes afterward. And which workout you do more often depends on what position you want to play in college.

If you plan on playing DE, then put more emphasis on gaining size rather than explosiveness (even if you gain 30 lbs you’ll be a bit undersized for a D1 DE)

If you want to play OLB then concentrate on explosiveness more

4

If you wanna get big and strong, up your calories. And follow Ws4sb religiously, get strong on squats,deadlifts and bench press.

Then on your off days get fast through sprints and jumps!

5

[quote]Chrunops wrote:

(I have a very high chance of going to college, I just want to secure my chances and all i need is size to go D-1, and I only want the best, D-2 isnt enough for me.)[/quote]

As a football player who just finished the college process I’ll advice you not to focus on this too much. In the end, the division youre in is just a number, play where you want to play.

As far as a strength/speed workout goes, I would happily post some of my prep schools workout plans. I actually enroll in an all Post Graduate school that plays division 1 college teams like Navy and Brown. I started at defensive end in all of our games and I would be happy to answer any of your questions about the different divisions in football.

6

Actually, i’d be really interested to hear where you’re looking. We have very similar stats, although I weigh around 230 right now.

7

My goal is to play at Tulsa but the ones I have letters from that im interested in are Columbia, Ouachita Baptist, and University of Minnesota. There are others but Im not really interested in them.

Also my weak areas are my triceps and legs, as you can tell by my squat.

Thanks for the advice guys but I need a workout that can coincide with this one

Monday:
Bench- 4x8
Push Ups- 3x20
Squats- 4x8
Box Jumps- 3x10
Glute Ham- 3x10
Close Grip Incline- 4x8
Roman D.L.- 3x10
*Tricep Push Downs- 3x10
D.B. Tricep Kickbacks- 3x10
Calf Raises- 3x10
Bar Dips- 3xFailure

Tuesday:
Power Clean- 4x6
D.B. Military Press- 4x8
Good Mornings- 3x10
Bent Knee Plate Press- 4x8
Up Right Rows- 3x10
*Lat Pull Downs- 3x10
Bent Over Rows- 4x8
B.B. High Pulls- 4x6
Pull Ups- 3xFailure
D.B. Shoulder Shrugs- 3x10
*Attacker Machine- 4x5

Thursday:
Front Squat- 4x8
Close Grip Bench- 4x8
Hvy D.B. Lunges- 4x8
Incline Bench- 4x8
Hvy D.B. Press- 4x8
*Leg Curls- 3x10
Push Press IPC- 3x6
Bent Over Sh. Flys- 3x10
*Lat Pull Downs- 3x10
Pull Ups- 3xFailure
Bar Dips- 3xFailure

  • indicates machine lifts, all the others are free.
8

You need a workout to coincide with this one? Shit, you should just spend fri-mon resting and eating. Each day’s workout is a pretty heavy load, especially for a seventeen year old.

This workout is definitely going to get you bigger, but only if you allow yourself time to rest. Doing additional weightlifting isn’t going to do anything for you with this heavy load. But as far as speed goes, this workout isn’t going to help with that at all. In fact, this workout really isn’t that great for building functional strength period, only size.

To build speed and power thru lifting, you have to use close to 1rm weights a lot. The only way to move close to your 1rm is to use perfect form and to exert max force, thus recruiting all of your fast twitch fibers and training them to fire off as efficiently as possible. The other part of it is to lift moderate weights as fast as possible, but to make sure that you actually ARE moving it fast, not just trying to. This means using less weight than you normally would for a given rep range.

If you could lift 200 6x for bench, then to do it explosively, you’d be better off doing 6 reps as fast as possible with about 150lbs. This way, you are only using your fast twitch fibers.

To build speed and power with this workout, I would use less weight than you normally would on each exercise (at least 25% less) and do each rep as explosively as possible. Some of these moves are tough to do that way, but this is perfect for cleans, all the squat variations, bench variations, and all the rows.

Alternate each week between going explosively and doing the regular workout. But on the regular one, try to perform each set with the max weight possible. If you can squat 300 8x then start with 290 and work up to 300. You probably won’t do 8 reps on the third or fourth set, but this will force you to lift the most weight possible throughout the exercise. With this workout, it’s the closest you’ll get to developing maximal, functional strength.

9

Also, remember this: the biggest difference between the d1 and d2 level, or even d1 and 1AA is speed, not necessarily size. Speed is what separates the SEC from the other conferences. The Big 10 is known for its size, but their teams usually get dominated by the SEC teams. So concentrate on speed. Big DE’s and OLB’s are a dime a dozen, but a powerful, FAST DE or OLB isn’t.

On Wed, Fri, Sat, and Sun, rather than lifting or running a lot, do a lot of hip, shoulder and knee mobility stuff. This will help you acclimate to the extra size this workout is going to put on you, and flexibility is a big key to speed. I wouldn’t even do any long distance running either, just work on sprinting and sprint technique on Wed, Fri, and the wknds, but don’t push yourself too hard. Spend at least as much time stretching and doing mobility drills as you do sprinting. Long distance running is only going to make it harder for you to put on weight.

10

So your looking for a workout to supplement a workout? Don’t try to work to hard.

Well, there is nothing that i would personally add inside of the weight room, however I would start busting my ass on the track.

By the way, Columbia would be a very hard school for a lighter defensive end as all of there lineman are monsters. 6’4" 250 is the typical d end on the J.V. program there. Olineman are all over 6’5".

11

Well on Bench, P/C, and Squat we move lower reps every three weeks right now and until the week after next we are at 3x5. Im doing heavy weight and the workout makes me sweat, I jsut dont feel sore or anything and I feel like I could lift more. Im wondering if repeating the main lifts after school that same day would be ok, do you think it would? Maybe I could do them explosive after school and technique during school.

Also what type of running should I do to improve speed? I must admit my abs arent the strongest and I am not that flexible, I know those are DRASTIC in speed work so do you have any suggestions for on maybe wednesdays an after school Ab/Run workout? Also some stretches that can help.

Example of after school

Monday:
Bench
Squats
Close Grip Incline

Tuesday:
P/C
Push Press IPC

Wednesday:
Running
Abs

Thursday:
Front Squat
Close Grip Bench
Incline Bench

12

Well, when you lift close to maximum weight for low reps, you normally won’t feel nearly as sore as doing 4x8 or somewhere around there because the total volume of reps is much lower.

What happens when you lift heavy weight for lower reps is that you use your fast twitch fibers, but when you lift lighter weight for higher reps, the fast twitch fibers burn out first, and then the slow twitch fibers, which is why you’d be more sore after a higher rep workout, because the slow twitch fibers don’t come into play on close to maximum lifts.

If all you are doing now is the three exercise per day routine listed above, then you could probably add two more days of lifting, rather than extra lifting on Mon-Wed. But if you are doing the above stuff on top of the first workout you listed, fuck, that’s way overkill.

If you’re just doing the nine moves above three days a week for now, on Thu and Fri do one push, one pull, and one leg exercise and do 5-6 sets. On Thu do the sets explosively, then on Fri do a different push, pull and leg, but do 6 sets of 1 rep with 90% of your 1rm.

As long as you do each exercise fast on every rep on every set on Thu, you won’t be too sore to lift again the next day. That’s what’s great about targeting your fast twitch fibers only. They can get worked repeatedly as long as the total reps for each movement is fairly low (under 25 total reps). You are actually training motor learning and your central nervous system.

Add this on Thu and Fri
Thur: powercleans 6x3 w/ 50-60% of 1rm explosively
barbell rows 6x3 w/ 50-60% explosively
squats 6x3 w/ 50-60% 1rm OR use 10-20% of your 1rm and do jumping squats

Fri: bench 6x1 w/ 90% 1rm
weighted pullups 6x1 (use a weight that you can do 2-3 pullups with)
deadlifts 6x1 w/ 90% 1rm

I left out bench on Thu and added powercleans since you do two chest moves on Wed. and your workout in general has more chest than back. And make sure you warm up for all of these. If you plan on benching 6 sets of 1 rep using 300, then do a set of 8 with 185, a set of 3 with 225 and two sets of 1 with 250 and 270. You won’t be burned out because, again, the total rep count is low, but you’ll acclimate yourself to the heavy weight.

13

For speed, hamstring and glute flexibility is a huge factor, along with stride length. Stretch your hams and glutes constantly. To work on stride length and technique try this stuff:

Run 4 10 yd sprints each on the following techniques:
-high knees
-quick steps (try to touch your toes to the ground as many times as possible in 10 yds)
-exaggerated long strides
-high heels (run with normal stride lengths, but make your heels come up and hit your ass)
-move your arms as fast as possible without worrying about your stride.

Also, find a place where you can run downhill and into a flat area. Going downhill will force you to take longer strides than normal, and when you hit the flat part, try to maintain the same stride length as long as possible.

Aside from this, just work on short sprints up to 20 yds with a chute or dragging a tire and do longer sprints of about 150 yds. The long sprints are all the endurance work you’ll need.

For abs, you could do a variety of things, but with all this other shit you’re doing, you should probably just keep it fairly simple.

I like hanging knee raises a lot because they also work the front of your hip flexors during the concentric phase, it’s a little bit challenging to keep from swaying all over the place during each set, and you also work on grip strength by hanging from the bar for 30 reps or whatever range you do. Do 3x25 at the end of every other workout and on the other workouts do 3 sets of 90 secs with front planks.

The other thing I would do is avoid using a belt unless you are going for a legitimate 1rm. The belt helps stabilize your core to keep you in good position, but w/o it, your abs are forced to work harder. Go slightly lighter on each lift you would normally wear a belt on if you are used to using one until you get used to not using one.

14

[quote]artw wrote:
What happens when you lift heavy weight for lower reps is that you use your fast twitch fibers, but when you lift lighter weight for higher reps, the fast twitch fibers burn out first, and then the slow twitch fibers, which is why you’d be more sore after a higher rep workout, because the slow twitch fibers don’t come into play on close to maximum lifts.
[/quote]

Take this info with a grain of salt. Ideal work for speed development is in the 10 to thirty percent of your 1RM for any given movement. Doing lot’s of sets of relatively high repitions is one of the way’s I train for speed when doing squats. It’s also the way Vernon Davis trains who may indeed be the biggest baddest beast alive.

15

Schlenkatank is right. 10-30% is ideal for speed, but to increase strength AND speed, 40-60% of 1rm is ideal. But you should probably do some ballistic movements with 10-30%. However, even with light weights, doing high reps will increase the total volume to the point where you may have trouble recovering enough to have an effective workout the next day.

For sport-specific lifting, functional strength is always the goal. Part of functional strength is increased motor learning capacity. This means that you want to get more efficient at a particular movement. The best way to do this and still have enough in the tank for all the other shit you’re doing and still gain strength is to lift explosively, but to do so with lots of sets and low rep counts very frequently throughout the week. This way you are training the movement and only the fast twitch fibers rather than ALL the fibers in a particular muscle (which is perfect for size gain and overall strength, but NOT for functional strength and speed/explosiveness gains).

If you do a high rep/low weight squat workout, you will indeed help increase your speed capabilities, but you can only do this sort of workout about twice a week. And that’s not even taking into account the squats you’ll have to do with your team workout.

As a huge Niners fan, I can’t disagree with schlenkatank though. Vernon Davis is a badass and has amazing speed for someone his size, plus he’s exceptionally strong which has made him one of the best blocking TE’s in the league. You definitely won’t go wrong with his workout, but only if you weren’t already required to do your team’s workout.

To augment what you are already doing and to gain speed, lift explosively with 50-60% 1rm, heavy with 80-90% 1rm and do these lifts for lots of sets and low reps, never to failure. Failure will burn you out too much to get effective results from your team workout, as will high rep sets. But you should still do 10-30% 1rm exercises, but do these ballistically such as jumping squats, jumping lunges, medicine ball pushes on a flat bench, etc. and still keep the rep count low.

16

[quote]artw wrote:
Schlenkatank is right. 10-30% is ideal for speed, but to increase strength AND speed, 40-60% of 1rm is ideal. But you should probably do some ballistic movements with 10-30%. However, even with light weights, doing high reps will increase the total volume to the point where you may have trouble recovering enough to have an effective workout the next day.

For sport-specific lifting, functional strength is always the goal. Part of functional strength is increased motor learning capacity. This means that you want to get more efficient at a particular movement. The best way to do this and still have enough in the tank for all the other shit you’re doing and still gain strength is to lift explosively, but to do so with lots of sets and low rep counts very frequently throughout the week. This way you are training the movement and only the fast twitch fibers rather than ALL the fibers in a particular muscle (which is perfect for size gain and overall strength, but NOT for functional strength and speed/explosiveness gains).

If you do a high rep/low weight squat workout, you will indeed help increase your speed capabilities, but you can only do this sort of workout about twice a week. And that’s not even taking into account the squats you’ll have to do with your team workout.

As a huge Niners fan, I can’t disagree with schlenkatank though. Vernon Davis is a badass and has amazing speed for someone his size, plus he’s exceptionally strong which has made him one of the best blocking TE’s in the league. You definitely won’t go wrong with his workout, but only if you weren’t already required to do your team’s workout.

To augment what you are already doing and to gain speed, lift explosively with 50-60% 1rm, heavy with 80-90% 1rm and do these lifts for lots of sets and low reps, never to failure. Failure will burn you out too much to get effective results from your team workout, as will high rep sets. But you should still do 10-30% 1rm exercises, but do these ballistically such as jumping squats, jumping lunges, medicine ball pushes on a flat bench, etc. and still keep the rep count low.

[/quote]
Should have known that a writer would give such long winded responses! Just kidding, this is some fairly good advice here although I always place higher emphasis on excercises like sprints, leaping, bounding b/c I believe speed is king.

17

For sure speed is king. All of this weightlifting shit aside, actually trying to run fast for very short distances and running long sprints is the best way to get faster.

Let me sum it all up for you quickly for once. Your “team workout” is not going to increase your speed at all and will only increase your strength through increasing the cross-sectional size of your muscles. This is not a functional/efficient strength gain and therefore is not the greatest way to gain power and speed for football, or any other sport.

That being said, you need to hypertrophy in order to have more muscle protecting your bones and ligaments during collisions. But to increase speed and power make sure you do this:

  1. 10-30% 1rm with ballistic exercises for speed (ballistic means to physically release what it is you are moving like throwing a medicine ball or jumping off the ground, like a ballistic missile)
  2. 50-60% 1rm explosively
  3. 80-90% 1rm for 1-3 reps maximum
  4. run A LOT of short, explosive sprints concentrating on the start
  5. run A LOT of long sprints
  6. jump upwards, backwards, sideways or any other directoin you can think of as explosively as possible
  7. in order to have enough energy during your team lift sessions, perform #1-3 above by doing a lot sets for very low reps (never more than 4) and don’t go to failure.
  8. stretch a lot and RUN SPRINTS
18

Here’s Vernon Davis’ workout routine. I just found it on the Internet. This is what he did before the combine a few years ago. In a couple of months he put on 10 lbs, dropped his 40 time from 4.68 to 4.34 and benched 225 33x. Notice that on the really powerful movements he performs a lot of sets and few reps. What the shit in parentheses means is all notated at the bottom. With all this info, you’d better be playing at fucking USC after high school.

MONDAY

      EXERCISE              SETS         REPS

warm-up + stretching
Kettlebell Swing 1 15
Power Clean 5-8 1-6
Bench or Incline Press(1) 8 3
Triceps exercise(2) 3-5 8-15
Circuit(3) 2 1 min. Each
Abs(4) 3 2-30

Farmer’s Walk 4 length
(holding 20-kg plates) of weight room

Neck Lateral Flexion 1-2 2-20

TUESDAY
EXERCISE SETS REPS

Light warm-up + stretching
Kettlebell Swing (warm-up) 1 15
Explosives(5) 3-6 1-3
Barbell Squat(1) 8 2
Speed Deadlift (with bands) 8 1
Back Hyperextension 3 15
Calf Raise 3 20
Abs(4) 3 12-30
Dumbbell Clean(6) 4 6

THURSDAY
EXERCISE SETS REPS

Light warm-up + stretching
Kettlebell Swing (warm-up) 1 15
Power Clean 5-8 1-6
Bench or Incline Press 5-8 8,5,3,1,1,1,1,1(7)
Upper-back exercise 3-4 8-15
Triceps exercise 5 6
Special exercise 2 10-30
Lat Pulldown or Pull-Up 4 8
Abs(4) 3 12-30
Grip exercise 4 8
Neck Lateral Flexion 1-2 12-20

FRIDAY

      EXERCISE             SETS  REPS

Light warm-up + stretching
Kettlebell Swing (warm-up) 1 15
Single-Leg Squat 5-8 3-5
Explosives5 3-6 1-3
Reverse Hyperextension 4 6
Posterior Chain (10) 3-4 8-15
Calf Raise 3 15
Abs(4) 3 12-30
Dumbbell Clean[Clean.sup.9] 4 6
Neck Rotation/Twisting 1-2 12-20
1 This can be any number of exercises, depending on which one Davis chooses to do, but it’s some sort of pressing movement, such as bench on incline presses and squats. Implements such as chains and elastic bands are always attached to the bar so the resistance becomes greater as the bar is lifted. As the goal here is to improve power and explosiveness, Davis uses a weight that’s 50%-60% of his one-rep max (1RM) and does each rep as fast as possible.
2 Can be any number of triceps exercises, such as cable pressdowns, lying barbell extensions or overhead extensions.
3 This consists of three different exercises–for example, a pulling move such as rows, a pushing move such as a chest or triceps move and a shoulder move such as lateral raises --each performed for one minute with no rest between sets.
4 One of any number of exercises that target the upper abs, lower abs or obliques.
5 Typically consists of one of the following exercises: Kaiser squat machine, explosive jumps, kneeling squats, box jumps, box squats.
6 Performed standing on air-filled foot pads or other unstable training tool to enhance balance. Can be done either one leg or two legs at a time.
7 Unlike on Mondays and Tuesdays, Davis uses as heavy a weight as possible for the desired number of reps. After doing sets of 8, 5 and 3, the goals is to work up to doing three singles at or above 90% 1RM.
8 Can be any number of back exercises, such as lat pulldowns, bent-over rows or machine rows, standing high-cable rows (to face), stiff-legged cleans or snatches, seated cleans or shrugs.
9 Can be virtually any pressing exercise of Davis’ choice with a barbell, dumbbells, kettlebells, bands, chains, etc. Reps stay somewhere between 10 and 30, stopping around two reps short of failure, resting 3-5 minutes between sets.
10 Typically consists of one of the following exercises: single-leg deadlifts, stiff-legged cleans or snatches or glute-ham raises.

19

if you’re serious,check out www.defrancostraining.com

look at his training template, and the athletes he has trained. put in the hard work and train smart and see where you get to.

20

sup man, i play d1 football in the acc and the focus @ my school is really about speed, of course size and strength are certainly key factors that need to be worked on and constantly improved. we focus on olympic lifts in order to get the body’s core fast and strong (the core here is defined as quads, hams, glutes, abs, lower back. heres a sample workout, it only takes about 30 mins. this is not a workout to bulk you up but to make you into a more flexible, powerful football player.

if you want to gain mass, whey 3 times a day w meal, creatine, and a big hearty breakfast. other guys on here may know more about how to gain weight, im just throwing in my 2 cents to let you know that although size and strength are important, a good football player is determined by the intangibles and a get-after-it attitude. heres the workout

Warmup- calisthenics, tumbling, GH raises and jumprope

power cleans- 154x3, 174x3, 8x2 @ 85% of your 1rm
1 arm DB press- 3x5 superset with barbell rows 3x5
front squat- 6x2 start @ 154 go up 20 each set
back squat- 4x3 going up 20 each set
one leg squat- 1x10 each leg
dips and pull ups- 3x5