Football Training: In the Stone Age at Best

Football training for many seems to mean lifting really big weights on a core set of lifts: squat, hang clean, bench press, push press, and dead-lift. More advanced programs will use power cleans and snatches. We have become so rooted in the idea that this is how you need to train. I am not entirely sure why we think this way. I think it may be because people think that football is full of big guys and so to become a big guy you need to lift really big weights and by doing so you'll be more effective on the field.

To an extent, this logic is sound. We want our football players to be able to move large amounts of weight (doing so quickly would also be good). But this isn't the be all end all of training for the sport. There are many other aspects to football which are just as important as the core lifts. The first being speed. Speed training should be the #1 focus of 9th and 10th grade football players. Why? At that age, the kids aren't going to bulk up - or at least 98% of them won't. There is little point in having them lift, lift, lift, when the returns will be minimal. Lifting at that age, don't get me wrong, is still extremely important. But speed training trumps! Also, at this age, kids can lack coordination, balance, and good stabilizers. Calisthenic training should be emphasized during these years. It's good if a young boy can do some push-ups before moving to the bench press. Why? The bench press requires chest and shoulder muscles to work together to move a bar from the chest upward to the ceiling. Great, but what about the little stabilizers in the abdominals or even in the upper body? I honestly don't know how well bench press works the upper body stabilizers - but I do know it doesn't do the job to the core, to overall stability of the body, that push-ups do. So if you can imagine an athlete who is unable to maintain a push-up but can do a lot of bench presses. We may run into scenario whereby an athlete has bulky upper body muscles, a weak core, and moderately strong legs. For this athlete, he cannot leverage his upper body strength very well. His weak core lowers his ability to use his legs effectively to maintain balance. He can use his big arms all he wants but without effective stabilizers through the core, his strength is minimized.

Now, even when we move forward to 11th and 12th grades, the emphasis on lifting the most weight can become a little out-of-whack. Some positions, like wide receiver, require speed. Without speed you won't be a great wide receiver - that makes sense right? A lineman, however, doesn't necessarily need the same speed. He needs brute strength, exerted in quick bursts. For him, it makes more sense to emphasize moving heavy weights. Then why in the world do we treat our wide receivers the same as our lineman!!!!!!

To summarize the two quick points I made about current football training methodology:

1) Speed is more important, especially at younger ages where muscle gains will be minimal. Stabilizers and core training through more holistic exercises like push-ups are more beneficial for young athletes.

2) Positions vary in their use of speed and strength and so training modules should reflect these differences (in the weight, on the track, diet and nutrition, etc)

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