HS Football Strength Numbers

To all you high school football players and coaches, what kind of numbers do your kids/teammates put up in the bench, squat, and powerclean? At my HS we only test squat and bench. We have two kids squatting 400 and two kids benching 275.

some high school guys that work for me say some guys on their football team squat over 400 lbs (4 kids), and one kid benching 280 and 3 over 250.

Don’t buy into the #'s too much. I bet you anything if those kids went to a combine they’d be in for a rude awakening when the judges told them the rep they just attempted didn’t count becuase it was only 75% complete.

At the combine I went to after H.S. we were set up w/225 on bench and had to do reps at the pace given to us by the judges. Guys claiming to bench 400lbs were pounding out 8 reps! It was hilarious! I did 3… lol

I played at the #1 ranked JC in California last year. Had about 10 of my buddies go D1, including the starting free safety for USC next year! Anyway, I broke the all time squat record for recievers at the JC at 435. Not many of the guys on the team could do much more than that.

Also depending on position these #'s will become more important. Clearly a 300+ lb bench doesn’t do much good for a WR.

Oh yeah… Do cleans!!!

I recommend you go over to elitefts.com and check out the following articles by Jim Wendler:

-Strength? (especially)
-Westside Training and Football
-Training the High School Athlete

At the high school I was at last year, the best squat i saw was 500, bench was 320, and power clean 250. My senior year I squatted 500, benched 3something, and power cleaned 335.

The school I am at now is pretty weak. That will change soon.

We did do a high school comp this year and I saw a 600 raw squat(was a little high), 435 raw bench(touch and go) and a few 300+ power cleans. The kid that did the 600 squat weighed about 400lbs.

My high school has about four guys hitting 300+ in bench, with pretty good form, and last year we had two 500+ squaters, myself included. this year they have two at 450 and two more at a little over 400. and we’re AA!

Thanks for the responses. If you could add what in what state your program resides I’d appreciate it. Also how your program competes in league play. Our program has 1 400 squatter and 1 385 squatter (the 400 was a little high). We also have 2 275 benchers. We’re from New York and we’ve had losing seasons the past 4 years.

Bench, squat, cleans and others strength numbers are bullshit, put you focus instead on making them a better athlete. One of the best strengths guru in the biz gave me this advice ?are they power lifters or are the athletes treat them accordingly.?

If you really want to compare something compare the speed at which your athletes execute the skill/movement. For example Bench press: 1 rep with 300lb (100% of 1 RM) in 2 seconds by a 18 year old defensive tackle.

Boss, unfortunately you have to put “some” emphasis on these lifts because the coaches judge the kids by how they perform them. We live in Texas, my son will be a freshman next year, he weighs about 155 and benches 215 cleanly, and that is no big deal at his school, it is considered a very good number, but there are others right there with him. I know there are several kids benching 350+ in the higher age group.

During the summer before my senior high school football season (just graduated June 3rd), I was puttin up decent numbers, not too bad for a 5’10" 168 lb. wide reciever/sprinter. Our school tested for bench, squat, and deadlifts. I had PR’s of 240 bench, 380 parallel squat, and 370 lb. deadlift. Before my microdiscectomy In April this year, I was doing sets of 5 reps with 180 lbs. on hang cleans also… We had one of our offensive lineman (6’1" 230 lbs.) go 305 bench, 440 deadlift, and 585 squat. That was the strongest by my memory on our team.

Well Boss I UNDERSTAND what you are saying but I dont agree entirely. Training to get stronger will help you be a better athlete. If you have two lineman, one squatting 600lbs and the other squatting 300lbs, the 600lber is going to win. If you are training correctly(for speed strength, strength speed, maximal strength, etc.) then there is nothing wrong with wanting to get your athletes stronger.

Also if you have a guy get stronger, he is gonna be faster with lighter weights up to a point. A 300lb bencher isnt going to move 300 very fast but a 400lb bencher will move 300 pretty fast.

Goldberg, Boss, etc correct me if i’m wrong. I have always thought that an athlete should work and build up a solid base of muscle and strength. After that solid base of muscle and strength is built, then start working on speed and power training.

When I played HS football, I was 162 lbs starting LB for 4A HS in Houston,TX in my senior year. Got ended up on all district 1st team… benched 275. Squatted 385. We didn’t really have a true S&C program so we did weights on our own without the help from coaches. There were others that put up impressive numbers in squat and bench. We barely ever did powerclean. One day some of us challenged each other to do it to see if we could do 225lbs PC and I was the only to do it. I didn’t even warm up or anything. No big deal. I did 185lbs PC when i was a freshman at a different HS where the coaches really emphasized strength training. They had a lot of strong players! Anyway, I was placed in top 5 for PC on freshman team. I probably weighed only 140-145 lbs at that time.

?are they power lifters or are the athletes treat them accordingly.?

No, this statement is bullshit. Powerlifters train for strength and speed. Pretty similar to football players right?

Now, I’m not saying that football players have to train like powerlifters though, because there are other ways of developing strength and RFD.

Let me clarify my posts and answer a couple of questions.

Piper1 I agree with you in that most coaches need to see high numbers to feel like they are doing a good job.

Goldberg your right training to get stronger will help you be a better athlete no argument there. My point that I made is that the athlete should strive to develop as much speed as possible even under heavy load.

Stacked your right in that athletes should build a very solid foundation, I actually posted many times telling athletes to first build a foundation (base) before using more advanced methods.

Footsolder your post is partial incorrect, powerlifters main focus should be limit strength, while footballers should focus on not only strength but strength-speed, and speed-strength as well.

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Footsolder your post is partial incorrect, powerlifters main focus should be limit strength, while footballers should focus on not only strength but strength-speed, and speed-strength as well.

NO NO NO…this is not correct…strength-speed and speed-strength are ultra important to powerlifters and if these aspects are not trained at the right time and under the correct %'s maximal strength can be greatly effected…strength speed and speed strength are the reasons bands and chains were developed to change the strength curve so each aspect can be worked…bm

most high school football players are weak, unfortunately. sometimes im amazed at how some good athletes are kept weak for so long by inadequate strength training. i have, however seen a few kids who got strong… im the head coach at a regional development center for olympic weightlifting in wichita falls texas, and ive had a few kids who were football players train here for a while. i hate squat numbers because with different depth, stance, etc, the same kid might do anywhere from 400 to 600, but ill give you a few powerclean numbers since its hard to fake a powerclean.

i have a 165lb freshman quarterback thats trained with me 3 years who has powercleaned 300lbs, greg henderson who is the quarterback for rice trained here for 5 years and cleaned 350lbs in high school and now cleans 390 at rice, ive had several senior linemen clean 350-375lbs, i have a senior now who will clean 400 by the end of the summer, hes at 385 now and gaining fast… i have several other freshmen who are cleaning in the 250-275 range already.

most high schools have kids capable of these numbers if they train right.

Those powerclean numbers look awesome, but a little odd–the skinny guys seem to be powercleaning as much as the linemen. Anyway, can you provide a sample of your training porgrams.