Post-Season Football Training
From August to November you played your heart out each Friday night and on every other day went through grueling practices. Your season is over and the best in your league have been crowned champions. It is now 8 full months before you strap the pads on again which means you have two thirds of a year to physically prepare for next season. What do you do?
Even though December marks the start of football's "off-season", there really isn't an off-season for a sport that's so physically demanding. What you do during the off-season really should depend on what you need to work on and at what point in the off-season we are talking about. Whenever I plan a strength and conditioning program for an athlete on a long term basis, I take into account several factors: a) how many weeks out from the season are we, b) what does the athlete require to improve physically for football, c) what does his position demand, d) what history of injury is present, and e) what other sports, if any, are being played at the end of football season. Too many high school programs follow a college model of training for football, especially when it comes to the beginning of the off-season.
For many college programs, spring football (March) is a time in the season for coaches to incorporate new schemes in their practices in addition to evaluate players who are looking to step up into roles now vacated by graduating seniors. The strength and conditioning programs leading up to spring ball usually incorporates weight training on a 4x/week basis as a means of developing strength and power in addition to grueling 6:00 am conditioning sessions that are insanely demanding both mentally and physically. As a collegiate strength coach I never understood why the head football coach needed to implement the morning conditioning sessions when all they were doing was breaking down the players to the point of injury. Just recently, one player from the University of South Florida died because of the intensity of one of his a.m. conditioning sessions.
In the same vane, why are high school football players doing the same running and bag drills in January when there isn't even spring ball as a rationale? As soon as the season is over, an evaluation of each player needs to be made to determine what physical capacities need to be addressed. Most players will fall into a couple categories in terms of what they need: a) bigger and stronger b) leaner, and c) quicker. Nearly every high school athlete needs to be bigger in terms of the amount of lean body mass they have which, at the high school level, will translate into greater strength. For many of the smaller players who have low body fat, getting bigger and stronger is a necessity. These players should not be participating in any conditioning drills whatsoever during the beginning of the off-season, for this will only negate their strength training/hypertrophy gains. Conversely, many linemen are flat out overweight with way too much body fat. They need to be doing a structured conditioning program along with strength training exercises to trim down. For overweight linemen, this type of training needs to be done right after the season because it is far enough out from the start of next season. You don't want to be doing body fat reduction workouts with linemen in July! It also makes no sense to teach any football player, especially linemen to sprint like a 100m sprinter in December/January. The only exception would be for those who are preparing for a spring combine.
If you have the capability and knowledge to do so, plan your off-season training by backing out from the start of next football camp (August). June and July need to be months in which the players are training very specifically for the movements and muscular contractions specific to their position. It is also during this time that position-specific conditioning should take place. The months previous to June can be a little more general in nature with exercises being taught that prepare them for the specific training in June/July. December through to spring break should be devoted to reducing body fat in high body fat players, developing periodized strength training for all players, and specifically addressing the enhancement of lean body mass through specific training protocols and nutritional counseling.
Mark is the owner and performance director of Dynamic Sports Performance in Ashburn, VA. He can be reached at 703.858.5016 or by email: results@dynamicsportsperformance.com.
Website: www.dynamicsportsperformance.com
