new here and looking for a critique

Other Sports
1

hello all,

Let me start by telling a little about myself, I am 22 years old, 6’2 230lbs very lean build. Next year I will be trying out for the local division 1-AA football team. So basically what i’m doing is trying to get into peak condition, and any advice you guys can toss in would be greatly appreciated!

I’m going to basically outline my week so you guys can get an understanding of what i’m doing and chime in on anything i’m doing wrong or anything i’m doing right.

In the morning i go to the gym, about 9-9:30AM

Monday- Squats
Chest
Shoulders
Tris

Tuesday- Maintenance Day

Wednesday- Cleans
Hamstrings
Calves

Thursday- Back(kind of maintenance day)

Friday- One leg Squats
Chest
Shoulders

Abs are done daily as well as at least 10-15 dips

In the late afternoon early evening I go to the track(approx. 4-5)

Monday- Speed Work

Tuesday- Technique/Form/Drills
Plyo

Wednesday- Speed work

Thursday- Technique/Form/Drills
Plyo

Friday- Speed Work

Saturday- Plyo
Something a lil extreme(sprinting hills, pushing car, anything else crazy that i can think of)

I stretch daily before and after the track work.

Also if anyone has any excercises that I can do to improve my acceleration, I really use them. I did a test on myself in the 40 a found that I average 1.03 seconds for every 10 meters after the first 10 meters. But my start is a hidious 2.2 seconds, which really brings my time down.

Looking for all of the advice I can get and looking to soak up as much knowledge as I can!

Thanx

2

I would try to do the track work before the weight work. Also, move your plyos to your speed/weight days.

3

Gfreak welcome.firstly i would highly recommend doing vis versa in terms of doing speed first then weights.you must be fresh when doing speed and this enables maximum effort and results.

here at CF.com we all basically follow the same guidelines which are openly available throughout this site.

speed + weights
tempo
spec end +weights
tempo
speed + weights
tempo

firstly change your formation-speed first!! also check out your weight programme,try to incorporate the whole body into the session.to improve acceleration from 0-30m i would focus on standing starts over varying distances,short flying 10s-15s with a short run-up.

4

My schedule only permits me to do weights first then speed.

But can you explain why moving plyo to speed day is better??

And what should i do for exceleration speed?? Also since i’m a wide reciever should i start in an upright stance??(i’ve posted my fastest times in an upright stance) And could that mean that when i start in a 3-point stance I’m coming upright too quickly??

Thanks for your replys!

5

Plyometrics is extremely draining for the central nervous system. By putting them on a recovery day you hurt your body’s chances of recovering from the previous days speed work.

6

The weights are spread out by a number of hours, so, if the weights aren’t too crazy, it should be ok. One thought would be to reverse the normal order, and lift with LOW numbers of reps and sets daily- ie upper body AM, then speed PM, lower body AM, then tempo PM (with this sort of set up, the plyos would need to play a more extensive role and would have to be after the speed sessions). The 40 time seems to be suffering throughout, so fix the program first, then worry about the start. Thoughts?

7

Thank You for your replys,

So what you are saying is that I should continue the Morning weights and evening running, but like on Monday I would upper body in the Morning working with low reps and low sets, currently I do 6 sets per excersice 6-8 reps, then in the evening I would do speed work followed by plyometrics. Then on Tuesday I would work my lower body, again low reps low sets, and then in the evening work on tempo, what exactly is tempo???

Am I understanding this correctly??

8

I would also like to add that I am trying to get as strong and as fast as I can possibly be. And I look to you guys here because I see this site as a wealth of information. Therefore I am open to anything, and I am looking for all of the advice/guidance than I can get from you guys!

9

tempo training is simply a series of runs done around 75% of max with little recovery in between reps.usually you can do 10x100m with 50 walk recovery which aids recovery.the main objective is to finish at the pace you started!!

10

Gotcha!

I have two questions, 1. Should I rearrange my workouts to be upper body monday, wednesday, and friday(same days as speed work) and lower body tuesdays, thursdays and saturday(same days as tempo work)?? Currently I use 6 sets 6-10 reps, 18-24 sets per workout. Should I use the same 6 set scheme but go lower to 3-4 reps?? Or even lower??

  1. Are deadlifts a good excercise to do? I had a coach say that they werent good because “they bulk up fast twitch muscle fibers.” True?
11

and we must avoid fast twitch fiber bulk!!!

they are a good exercise if placed right, because they tend to hit your cns hard.

12

Re-arrange the sessions as described.
FT fibre bulk- that’s a new one on me.

13

The reason to do speed before weights is that if your focus is on getting faster, then you should make sure to do that when you are freshest. No sense tiring out your legs lifting, then running slow during your ‘speed’ sessions. Some notable sprinters have made it work by lifting first (I beleive the HSI crew - Mo Greene, Ato Bolden, etc) do it this way but I can’t see how to make it work without some serious therapy betwen sessions. However, if that is the only way you can get in the weight room, then doing it that way is probably better than not doing it at all.

The reason to do plyos on the same day as speed is because you are trying to group all of the elements that have a high impact on the CNS into the same session. While this somewhat compromsed the intensity you can achieve with each of those elements (other than the first one…that is why we like to sprint, then lift) it allows you to work a schedule that hits the CNS hard one day, then allows recovery on the next. If you put CNS elements on every day of your schedule, you will not be able to perform the owrkouts at the required intensity.

FYI, the CNS is your central nervous system. As you progress in training, it becomes the limiting factor in recovery rather than your muscular recovery. Things that hit the CNS hard are runs over 80%, weights over 80%, plyometrics, explosive med ball. Basically anything that requires near-maximal speed and strength.

14

Seems to me this may work for maintenance, but wouldn’t you fry you CNS if you were trying to do this in a max strength cycle? Esentially I am getting near-maximal stimulus every day on the program. At lower levels, when the near-max stimulus doesn’t hit the CNS as hard this may work - but at higher levels???

Perhaps speed PM, full body AM (next day), then tempo. Rinse and repeat? The problem is that training density goes way down.

15

I responded based on a set of circumstances that may not be adjustable. Under this particular set of circumstances, the emphasis on weights would have to be modified, and, probably complemented by other training means within the speed session itself, such as greater emphasis on resisted runs.