I am a new football coach and have to develop a strength and conditioning program for my off season football players. I have something in mind and was hoping that I could get some constructive criticism from the members of T-Nation.
I will focus solely on the strength part of this program. The strength part takes place on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
30-45 minutes: 1 press/pull superset 5x5 (same weight throught out lift) 1 lower body excercise (rotate between squat variation and deadlift variation) 5x5 (same weight throughout lift) 1 olympic lift 5x3 (same weight through out lift).
10 minutes: grip training, pick one forearm/grip excercise and perform it for a good 10 minutes.
finisher: car pushes, dodge ball, etc. just something to finish off the workout and help the athletes work hard together.
One note about the program is that the atheletes will be performing this workout for two weeks with barbells. They never do the same workout during those two weeks, so for example if they bench for their psh excercise on monday they won’t bench the next week.
After the two barbell weeks the athelets will lift one week with dumbells. Then after those three weeks the athletes will take off from lifting and just come in on monday and max out on their squat. Wednesday max out on bench. And friday max out on deadlift.
Let me know what you guys think. This program can be tailored to beginners also (two full body workouts per week instead of three) and for advanced trainers (4-5 workouts per week).
I would suggest going over to defrancostraining.com and follow his variation of westside training, for us it has reaped by far the best benefits related to football.
Dito, to the above. Read all the everything in the Ask Joe section of his website. I would also seriously recommend his Super Strength DVD that just came out. It explains his whole training philosophy and takes you through some actual workouts he uses with his clients.
I’ve had great success with using Defranco’s system as a high school player and now as college. The guy is in an elite level when it comes to training football players. Also, look into Eric Cressey’s Off-Season Training Manual.
Agree with the above DeFranco’s WS4SB program is about as good as you can get for high school athletes. I’ve helped developed the strength program used at the High School I coach at and have used many of DeFranco’s principles with great success. Also the Starr/Pendlay 5x5 is also a good program for athletes. (Just search for pendlay 5x5 on google)What we have done is combined some of the theories behind both of them and made it our own.
I do like the fact that you have them doing a lowerbody exercise and upper every day. With younger athlete’s sometimes the best way to increase strength is just do the exercise often, as often they are not proficient and efficient at the movement. Also doing a lot of hip mobility work is a huge asset for HS athlete’s as most of them don’t have much. Hurdle drills and stretching hip flexors between sets of squats is in my opinion as important as the movement themselves. Good luck and ive me a pm if you have any questions.
Id add lots of strongman can be great flipping dragging and beating things. Then another great one is one you touched on having them have fun dodge ball etc…Dan John does this has the players Play something like the track atheletes play football etc and hey will go ALL the hell out PLAYING Not even realizing they are sprinting and such doing HIIT and energy system work as they are Playing having fun.
Have them play a game or do something FUN yet hard. Focus on the competition and the fun and they will brig the intensity even when beat from a workout you put them through earlier as there mind says PLAY / FUN.
Why just focus on the strength portion? Some athletes might be naturally strong but lack explosiveness and reactive ability and would benefit that kind of work.
And also, why never have them do the same workout? I can see changing set/rep parameters but completely changing the workouts from week to week is going to make sure that the athletes don’t have time to make any adaptations (get stronger) at specific exercises.
I’d check out Eric Cressey’s Ultimate Off-Season Manual if I were you.
I think the program looks okay but I think it’s a little more complex than it needs to be. I am a big proponent of the “simple is better” school of thought when it comes to athletic training. I don’t put a lot of stock in supersets or anything other than basic and heavy training.
I think if you base the program on olympic lift variations (power clean, clean, snatch pull, snatch deadlift, clean deadlift), squat variations (back, pause, box, front, zercher), bench varations (bench, incline, 3-board, floor, dumbbell) along with some supplemental shoulder and lat work (standing press, dumbbell press, seated press, barbell row, pull-up) you really can’t go wrong.
Cycle the heavy exercises and mix up the reps (staying between 2-6). Kids are going to thrive on a lot of heavy work in very simple movements. That’s my opinion anyway. Good luck.
[quote]Gorilla96 wrote:
Dito, to the above. Read all the everything in the Ask Joe section of his website. I would also seriously recommend his Super Strength DVD that just came out. It explains his whole training philosophy and takes you through some actual workouts he uses with his clients.
I’ve had great success with using Defranco’s system as a high school player and now as college. The guy is in an elite level when it comes to training football players. Also, look into Eric Cressey’s Off-Season Training Manual.[/quote]
Agreed. Follow Joe Defranco’s program (WS4SB 1 or 2) and get the new Super Strength DVD. It’s a great way to see how the workouts are performed. It also shows a dynamic upper and lower body warmup.
Implement the Strongman Day as well and be sure to keep the linear speed and agility work in the program as well (less during the off season and more toward the season). See WS4SB 2 for more about the type of sprint workouts they use.