Looking Back at What Worked This Summer

Summer training for my college football clients began in early June. For those who were already training with me in the spring, their regimen consisted of my basic 4 day per week set up that focused on getting really strong and fast. Once June came around, we went to a 5 day per week set up focused on getting "field ready".

Mon: High Intensity Leg - plyos, short sprints, heavy leg

Tues: Heavy Upper body

Wed: Lateral plyometrics, various forms of conditioning based on the rest clock of a football game.

Thurs: rest

Friday: Specific Strength and Conditioning - various forms of jumps and sled work

Saturday: higher rep upper body

Sunday: rest


In the winter and spring months, I avoided going back to back days of max effort upper body and lower body lifts to maximize results (squats, dead lifts, heavy bench ect). In the summer, the best set up involved going back to back on Mon/Tues. with our heavy leg/upper days. This meant that some days we just didn't go to complete max effort to avoid burning out the CNS. This set up allowed for a full day of rest between all leg/running days.


Looking back, I think it was a highly successful summer of training. One of my clients reported as the fastest player on the team in all drills...as a freshman. He even ran the fastest mile time- which we spent no time training for. My other clients passed their conditioning tests easily and are competing for starting jobs. Most importantly, all are injury free thus far.

Here are a few things that I thought really worked well this summer:

1. Keeping Mondays low volume/high intensity. This allowed us to run fast, and lift heavy. Pairing up plyos like box blasts with sprints and heavy squats with jumps allowed a number of my guys to set personal bests in 10yd sprints and vertical jumps. This also gave us the rest of the week to focus on conditioning.

2. Using sled sprints, pushes, shuffles and crossovers on Specific Strength and Conditioning Day. Some days, we would pair a weighted jump with a sled push or sprint. An example would be doing a set of 3 DB squat jumps, resting 30 seconds and then performing a 10 yd heavy sled push. We would do 6 - 8 sets and this would serve as our "1st quarter" of training for the day. Each exercise took about 5 seconds per set - about the average time of a football play.

Sleds are great because you can move them in all directions - you can't resist a shuffle with a barbell. Heavy sled work is also hard work! The key was timing the duration of the drill and setting up the rest in a manner that was similar to how a football game flowed.

Here is an example of a sled circuit I used one Friday.



3. Using 10 - 15 yard hill sprints instead of running 40s or gassers. I was lucky to find a hill very close to the gym that was at a perfect angle. On Wednesdays, we would hit the hill for sprints, shuffles and crossovers with varying bouts of rest. Yes, running gassers can be hard, but there is just something about sprinting up a hill that forces you to pick the knees up and push hard. I see too many guys run gassers with terrible technique that will get you killed on the field.

4. Using shuttle variations for conditioning. I have said it a million times..........football is a multi - directional sport. You can run 110s all you want, but nobody runs 110s in a football game. One of the hardest things to do when you are fatigued it to stop momentum going one way and get the body going another. I used 40 yard shuttles (10 and back, 10 and back), 45 yard shuttles (5 and back, 10 and back, 15 yd sprint) and true 5 -10 -5 shuttles. Sometimes the guys touched the lines with the hand, sometimes they just planted the feet without the hand touch. The 40 yd shuttle could be done in around 9 seconds for my skill guys and 10 seconds for my lineman. I usually gave them between 35 and 45 seconds rest between sets and we would do 8 -1 0 of them on either Wed or Fri. All guys unanimously said that the shuttles at the end of workouts were by far the hardest part of the weekly training.

5. Varying up exercise selection. I love squats, deadlifts, bench, ect. Some weeks we squatted with chains, some weeks we deadlifted and some weeks we didn't do any of them. This kept the workouts fresh and my athletes interested in each week of training. Remember, you are training football players, not power lifters.



6. Never neglecting the little things. Hip and Thoracic mobility, lateral plyos, bridging, MB throws and rotational chops were performed on a weekly basis. These are the extra things that help make a well rounded, healthy athlete.