Typically when we train our athletes we pick 3-4 indicator exercises and we build our program around those. Most our skilled guys do bench, pull ups, box jump/vertical and the box squat. Most football players never do heavy shoulder work. If you are like most football players you might have injured shoulders. All my college and pro athletes I’ve trained, I’ve never got one that did not have some sort of shoulder injury before they came to me. So lifting the press heavy is not the best for football players, imo.
Back to the basic indicator lifts.
You can pick any exercises really but we pick these four for a reason. You need to increase all 4 of these exercises and if you do, then your abilities will better translate to the field. The Bench and box squat (this could be normal squat or deadlift too) develop your absolute strength very well, an athlete needs to be explosive so we pick some type of jump that translates to his or her skill set (if you are an athletic lb then the vertical, more of a thumper then broad jump) and the max rep chin up brings in the real world or relative body strength well.
If one or two of our indicator exercises go up then we know that we may become weaker in one area which would be build less optimal results. Say our strength goes up but our jump goes down then we are not developing our explosiveness very well and we need to reprogram so we don?t develop one to quickly. If just our strength goes up and not our jump then we set the risk of becoming slower, less athletic, even though we will be stronger we won’t be able to run which in football is a wee bit important. I will say with proper training and progression this almost never happens. When a jump goes up it usually has some carry over to the squat and vice versa.
If these four indicator keeps improving then you got a solid program. you need to pick out your indicators carefully though. Make sure they fit together and dont do too many exercises or your program will be too hard to progress.
Now for a workout. I like some of the stuff in rampant badgers post. With some small tweaks you can adjust to fit your exercises.
The basic plan for the main lifts is:
Week 1 - 5x5 ? 70-73%
Week 2 - 4x5 ? 73-76%
Week 3 - 3x5 ? 76-79%
Week 4 - Rep Test (we’re still debating on what number to use)
Week 5 - 5x3 ? 82-85%
Week 6 - 4x3 ? 85-88%
Week 7 - 5x2 ? 88-91%
Week 8 - 4x2 ? 91-94%
Bench Day
Bench - Follow plan
Bench pattern 3-5x10
Row supersetted 3-5x10
Row or traps 3-5x10
Biceps and Tricep Superset
Jump Day
Box Jumps -15-20 jumps performed explosivly and for height not to see how fast you can go
quad dominant 3-5x10 (single leg with added rom)
hamstring doming 3-5x10
ab 3-5x10
Squat Dat
Squat - Follow Plan
Quad Dominant (prefer single leg with added rom movemnt)
Hamstring Dominant 3-5x10
Weighted Abs 3-5x10
Pull Up for Reps
- Pull Ups - 3-5 x max reps
- Pull Movement 3-5x10
- Pull-ups (Vertical Pull) 5x10 or 50 reps
- Upper Back 3x15-20
- Triceps
- Biceps
Schedule
Monday - Bench Day
Thursday - Sprint Work
Wednesday - Off
Thursday - Squat Day
Friday - Chin Up Day
Saturday - Conditioning or Strongman Day
This is not the exact program we use but its actually fairly close
You said you 2-3 hours that should be 1 1/2 hour max. get in, do the work hard and get out. You can add conditioning to your squat workout (prowler pushes) and sprint work on your day off.
Notes
You can always add more shoulder work as you go. Keep it more in the bodybuilding capacity (Lateral Raises 3-5 x 10 reps) though or do a shoulder shocker at the end of either upper body workouts.
You can add bodyweight, barbell complexes and dumbbell complexes at the end of all workouts if you are not going to do conditioning and sprint workout. If you are getting closer to your season which you are, sprint and conditioning work should be done.
This is merely a template, if you want to do shoulder press then do shoulder press. Some people might think i am in idiot for saying don’t do it heavy but i have my reasons. I actually think its a much better exercise than bench press but reasons like
a) most football players have shoulder problems so we don’t overhead press heavy ever
b) they don’t know how to overhead press correctly (most pro athletes are always more strong and powerful than actually technically proficient in an exercise and we get better results from no overhead heavy work template than any other template we have used)
c) like it or not the bench matters in football.
THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE, PRE HAB, REHAB, WARM UP, ACTIVATION, ALL THE LITTLE THINGS TO KEEP THE BODY FRESH. EVEN WITH THE ALL THESE THINGS THE WORKOUT SHOULD NOT TAKE YOU MORE THAN 90 MINUTES TO COMPLETE. MOST OF OUR GUYS COMPLETE IN 60-75 MINUTES
