Football Weight Training

Football weight training is an integral part of this sport. Football players are required to be muscular, bulky, take hits and move quickly down the field, mowing down anyone in their path. Only a football weight training program and endurance training can do that for a player.

Football players are on the go and ready to move throughout most of the game. They require explosive acceleration, fast sprinting, lower body strength, muscle endurance, agility and balance, flexibility and body awareness. Football weight training includes strength training, speed work and endurance to achieve all of the sport specific activities that go into a well rounded player.

Weight training should begin with lower extremity work to make your legs more powerful and able to adjust to quick acceleration. In other sports, you may be able to get away with using body weight or simple exercises with dumbbells and resistance bands but in football the player needs a gym and weight room to accomplish their goals.

Lower extremity work should include the seated quadriceps and leg press machine that works your quadriceps which will give you power when you are accelerating down field. The calf machine will improve the strength of your calves from which power in your acceleration also comes. Hip adductor and abductor machine will give your legs the added strength in rotation.

Very importantly, football weight training programs shouldn’t make the player unbalanced. Oftentimes this can happen when the quadriceps become trained and the hamstrings are neglected. Use the hamstring curl machine and the bridge to improve your hamstring strength. Using the machines that work the glutes and hip flexors will give your lower legs all around strength and agility.

Football weight training programs will also focus on the upper body workouts. These sessions are designed to work all muscle groups and to increase your heart rate. Aim for a comfortable pace taking minimal rests between the exercises and work the exercises as a circuit training program.

As you are able to increase intensity only add repetitions or weight during one week, but not both at the same time. For instance, you’ll want to decrease repetitions to 10 and increase the weight by 1 pound in one week and the following week increase the repetitions to 11.

The football weight training for upper arms includes wide arm press up or pushups, 1 arm row with hand held weight, biceps curl, triceps dips, bench press, triceps kick backs, reverse fly, and shoulder press.

Doing 15 repetitions each week will improve endurance but not add bulk. Correct nutrition and progressively increasing weights help to build stronger leaner muscle tissue necessary for today’s game.

Football weight training should be taken seriously by the football athlete. Athletes will be able to improve their game and the game of their team when all players participate in a football weight training program.

Resources:

Bleacher Report: 10 College Football Workouts to Help you get in Shape this Summer

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1687174-10-college-football-workouts-to-help-you-get-in-shape-this-summer

Grand Valley State University: Weightlifting for Football

http://www2.gvsu.edu/pontiusd/fwght.html

Florida Gators Football: Strength and Conditioning

http://www.coachwillmuschamp.com/pages/conditioning

MensFitness: The Football Body Workout

http://www.mensfitness.com/training/build-muscle/football-body-workout

BrianMac: Strength Training for Football Players

http://www.brianmac.co.uk/football/strength.htm

Sports Fitness Advisor: Strength Training for Football