T-Nation forums, I come to you for help. I want to play football my senior year.
Stats-
Age:17
Height:5'9
Weight:160lbs
Bf:9%
Currently, I have been lifting for 9 months. I have (what I think) good genetics, I’m Hawaiian/Samoan. I have 12 months till the next football season. I’ll be playing at high school varsity level. I plan on dedicating a lot of time to coordination/speed training. I’ll also be switching from a bodybuilder oriented workout to a strength workout. I’ll be clean bulking the whole way.
The whole reason why I’m asking this, is because I’ve always wanted to play high school football and I don’t want to waste a year of dedication to be benched. Is it possible?
First thing, if you want to play you’re gonna have to go to spring practice. Every football team I know of holds spring practice for about a month sometime between March and May. This means you need to plan on only having about 6-7 months to train.
That being said, at 5’9 160, you probably won’t be able to play anything besides a skill position. This means you need to get FAST. Speed is the name of the game here. If you can catch, you have more options because you could play receiver or running back. If you can’t catch a cold then you’re limited more to the defensive side of the ball at either cornerback or safety.
Either way, you need to be getting your legs strong and running sprints. By getting your legs strong, I don’t mean your quads. I mean your hamstrings and glutes. You want to focus on posterior chain exercises.
Try to gain as much muscle as possible, but realistically it’ll be tough for you to show up in spring weighing more than 175 without having gained too much fat.
If you need help organizing your training, let me know. I’ve been training to walk on to my college team now for about 6 months and it’s been a learning process the entire time. Try playing alot of basketball in the meantime as that will help with your agility, reaction abilities, and hand-eye coordination.
First off if it’s something that you really feel like doing you should just go and do it, don’t base your decisions off what other people are going to say.
Secondly, it is definetly possible. I didn’t start playing football until my last year of highschool, and then I ended up having to come back for another semester and I played a second year of football.
The speed training is a good idea and also building as much strength as possible (squats, deadlifts, cleans, presses) between now and then. Depending on your position you might want to gain some weight, however I have a feeling you’re not wanting to be a linemen. Also work on your conditioning, although some of your speed work will carry over to that. Also if you know some of the kids who have played before talk to them or the coaches and ask them for some advice or suggestions. That can help you get more of an “in” by showing your interested and willing to work for it (which coaches usually like).
If you go to a smaller school any position is available. we had 1800 kids at our school and our O-line had 3 kids over 200 pounds, one at about 190 and one at around 175-180. We also had some backups that were around 250. We went 13-0 that year and won the section championship(there was no state at that point).
Anyways without any experience, unless your a good athlete and natural football player, you’re probably not gonna play alot. Micheal Strahan played one year of pop-warner football and one as a senior in highschool and got a scholarship to a big school. You probably dont need to be at that level of talent to start in high school though. thats no excuse to half ass it tho.
Improving relative strength and power cant hurt.Westside for skinny bastards is a good place to start, dont neglect speedwork or conditioning tho, as some people get that idea from it. Maybe put off conditioning until 2-3 weeks before spring training or something.
Dude everythings not so cut and dry as everyone will lay it out to be. High school is highschool not college. If you can play a position better than everyone else than you will probobly get that position or one similar, size really has little to do with high school positioning. Lift heavy and practice football specific things in your spare time and it will be fine.
I played safety at 130lbs, 185lbs and 215 lbs and we had a 170lb center. Ability to play and hussle. No competition is so great in highschool that being a smart player will get outplayed by size. However alot of the things I said will indeed change moving to the collegiate level.
Good Luck
Dean
P.S.
Just the fact that you are already devoting time and thought to your goal when so many others arent and I will bet, without even meeting you, that your gonna be quite successful. No joke though, stay away from pot and excessive drinking, its the one limiting factor i would have changed if I could.