I know this topic has been touched on in various degrees in the past, however I’ll take any chance I can to pick Charlie’s brain.
Charlie, I know that you have trained football players in the past, but I have never acutally seen what the training entailed. So I have a few questions pertaining to that topic:
Exactly how different was the programming for football than it would be for a 100m man, besides the obvious points of less or no SE work and such?
Given the preeminence of acceleration in football, would a larger piece of the program be dedicated to weights, med ball, and resisted running?
How much attention would you pay to developing lateral movement and agility work? (I believe you said that the #1 priority in training for team sports is building speed reserve, with this assumption, how much would you be willing to sacrifice speed work in order to develop multi-directional skills?)
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, how would you structure in-season training? With a 3-4 month long season, many capabilities can seriously diminish. Since you say that strength is fastest quality to lose and practices would tend to make any extra speed work overkill, how would you structure the strength maintenance throughout the season?
Just to chime in for #3, I remember somewhere that what you quoted Charlie as saying is correct. Also, DeFranco and I think Charlie also say that sports specifc training doesn’t exist and you gain the needed skills to change direction, etc by playing the game - the rest is building the athlete as a whole (speed, strength, reaction time, etc)
Exactly how different was the programming for football than it would be for a 100m man, besides the obvious points of less or no SE work and such?
Mostly <40yrd work with some longer 60m stuff on occasion.
Given the preeminence of acceleration in football, would a larger piece of the program be dedicated to weights, med ball, and resisted running?
Weights and med ball would be the same. But since you have no SE, you could do a larger volume of accel work which could included resisted runs.
How much attention would you pay to developing lateral movement and agility work? (I believe you said that the #1 priority in training for team sports is building speed reserve, with this assumption, how much would you be willing to sacrifice speed work in order to develop multi-directional skills?)
No need for that work. The faster you are the more agile you are.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, how would you structure in-season training? With a 3-4 month long season, many capabilities can seriously diminish. Since you say that strength is fastest quality to lose and practices would tend to make any extra speed work overkill, how would you structure the strength maintenance throughout the season?
Do speed work when your body is able to, keep the tempo volume normal, and periodize your weights around the games.
I have no problems with any of those suggestions, except for number 4. With intense practices I can see no room to fit in additional tempo, perhaps the answer would be to do like Al Vermiel and really stress the strength part of the curve in-season?
Also, do you really think that the weights would remain the same given the more physical demands of football that obviously requires an athlete to carry more mass than a sprinter? I would think that the lifting program would be much more comprehensive. I do remember reading where Charlie said that where a sprinter would have 3 phases, a football player would have 5 phases. What these phases entail, I do not know.
Players will have to have the body compositions of their respective positions, but what can you do if you only have a finite amount of energy to expend on high intensity elements? Are you gonna cut speed workouts short to increase the time in the weight room? I don’t think there’s a reason to do that because you get stronger from doing speed work anyways.
True Blinky, plus there are some very big variations on players height/weight with many exceptions. If you play the position well then you play it well. You don’t have to be 6’1 215lbs to be a half back - you could be 5’8 180lbs and be great. It’s all relative.
Players need to be relatively well rounded (both speed and strength), and the saying is the chain is only as strong as its weakest link!
some position requires far more weight training than a sprinter needs.
muscle mass is very important in many position
3)speed makes you fast…wait, do not take it so straightly…10x20y cannot substitute squat deads and pc…for lineman I do not think we should run all the year (except for once a week or so during initial prep months)
4)lateral work is important.You emphasize differen muscle groups and contractions than sprinting.Getting faster gives you an edge, but all the players should not forego agility for long (could be routes, basket ball or whatever, but you cannot just run straight)
It’s been shown time and time again that agility will increase in a linear fashion with speed reserve, AND, that agility is developed by playing the game. That’s what sport specific approaches should be - simply playing the game. An athlete can not be developed for a specific sport in the weightroom. They’re developed as an overall athlete.
I disagree with the lineman statement - I think this is a big contributing factor to many high school and smaller colleges losses. Lineman are argubly some of the most important players on the field - they are the reason backs run holes, there is a hope that they will create a big enough gap so the back can run for many yards. If you have big, strong, and BLAZING FAST linemen…there is going to be exponentially larger ammounts of pressure on the QB that wouldn’t be there otherwise. Sacks are the worst thing to happen to a QB in a game and if you have lineman that are fast, agile, and strong…that QB will be shaking in his boots imagining 3+ blitzing lineman coming for him every single play (which in todays football doesn’t happen because of this idea that lineman don’t need to be fast, just strong). When I watch football, I want to see the stronger team run over the weaker team. Lineman should be chasing down recivers like backs when they come through holes, blitizing the QB, pushing defenders on the ground…I’d even go as far as saying lineman should be athletically, in the same pool as recievers in regards to quickness (though of course recivers will always be faster because of body comp, genetics, etc).
Hey cf are there cases where you would strength train 4 days per with football athletes?
Also with the NCAA setup most of there training blocks are very short 6-8 weeks in length, 6-8 weeks in the spring and 6-8 weeks in the summer how would you progress with there speed work?
With the NFL guys I’ve worked with:
1:Yes. 2:Yes. and 3:No, because they already have that background and it can be enhanced safely via straight line improvement in elasticity and explosiveness.
I have done in-season Programming for teams and not individuals because obviously the team will set the workouts and the plan must be tailored to the coaching schemes etc.
nfl blocks are diff then college in the nfl you may have 12-16 weeks with one or two of mini camps at certain times. im looking at the detriot lions program they have one six week blk follow by 3 day mini camp then 8 week block follow 14day camp follow by 2.5 week block; this is much better then the ncaa system
Look at the actual improvement time you have as you can’t send em dead into the camps and they have to get over them as well. Also check if they are actually in Detriot for those entire periods.
your right, i just think its hard to train ncaa fb players these days bc of these short blocks back in the 80-90’s coaches had 12+weeks with there players.