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Gatorade Sports Science Institute Gets U Ready for Some Football !
What are the most important strength exercises that should be emphasized for football players? How important are “weight-room” exercises compared to on-field “football-specific” exercises such as blocking-sled drills?
Those exercises that improve strength in the “core” muscle group are the most important ones. The core is defined as the lumbar-pelvic-hip complex and consists of the gluteals, abdominals, hip flexors, and spinal muscles. The core is where our center of gravity is located and where all power movements begin. Squats, dead lifts, leg presses, abdominal curls against resistance, and leg raises are excellent exercises for developing the core musculature. Of course, upper body strengthening with bench presses, military presses, and various exercises to strengthen elbow flexors and extensors are also important for football players.
The combination of developing a good strength base in the weight room and developing the technical ability to execute a skilled movement at a high speed during field drills is the key to successfully enhancing performance of a power movement. Without speed, strength will not allow the athlete to generate adequate power.
I believe the most important strength exercises are the power clean, parallel squat, push press, and bench-press. These exercises all carry over to the athlete’s ability to produce and transfer power throughout the body. Properly performed strength and power movements can have a dramatic effect on an athlete’s performance. Weight room exercises should be used to prepare a foundation of strength, whereas football-specific drills should be used to “fine tune” the strength of the muscles used in football.
Time spent in the weight room building core strength is essential for the successful football athlete. Other more sport-specific drills are also important but are probably not as efficient for building sheer strength and power.
What are your two most favorite on-field conditioning drills for football players? Why do you think these drills are important?
Pre-practice drills are very important to teach proper technique. We begin practice with a moderately long run to raise body temperature and follow this with static stretching of all major muscle groups. Next, the players perform a series of sprints, stride stretches, and plyometric rebound jumps on one and two legs. These drills do a fantastic job of preparing the athlete’s body, particularly the joints, for the rigors of practice and competition. During the first five days of practice before heavy contact work, our players also perform agility circuits. We set up 10 stations with various drills:
plyometrics with resistance, grass drills, running against elastic ropes for resistance, jumping ropes, and one-legged running.
At each station, players work for one minute at high intensity before moving on to the next station.
We try to design these drills to be as specific as possible to football. During the main part of the season, we select from a menu of high-intensity intervals (repeat 40-yard sprints), long slow distance runs, and a variety of football-specific agility drills.
I like the plyometric training drills as well. I feel strongly that they help to enhance power movements. I also think that short-distance acceleration drills (10 yards or less) are important because a large part of a football game is played within about 10 yards of the football as it is being snapped to the quarterback.
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