Heres the situation. I’ve got my entire summer workout planned out, and all my cycles and all that (Its pretty standard, I wont bore you with the details). I’ll be working out in the mornings from about 8:30 - 10:30 with alternating days of high intensity speed or SE and tempo with weekends off. Now here comes the hitch, I have football practice from 4:00 - 7:00 in the evenings Monday - Friday and the coaches tend to make every summer practice high-intensity conditioning built into the drills.
Now heres my question, will doing this completely fry my CNS and what could I do that would allow me to work out on my own with speed and still have football practice? Should I only work out in the mornings three days a week as opposed to five? I’ll be happy to provide more info about my program if anyone has any questions about the intensity, but I need someone to help guide me in the right direction.
Maximum of two speed sessions a week. No speed endurance (what the hell do you need speed endurance for in football?). Eat like a horse and keep your lifting conservative and you might be OK. Since your coach is an idiot I assume he’s a jackass and won’t let you skip the practices if you want to play come fall. Do the tempo, but not high volume.
Well I use SE differently then most meaning my ability to tolerate lactic acid, so it would be more like lactic capacity (very important for football). Also, we do lift weights for football practice but its not very structured and I could get out of that and just do my own routine.
So in your opinion I would be able to do both as long as I take it easy and dont try and overdo it? I will be able to miss some practices by faking a vacation or that I’m sick, but that will only work for maybe 4-5 practices max. Thanks.
Personally i’d train on the track 3 mornings a week high intensity. And skip the tempo since you will be doing conditioning and such during football practice.
That is Correct
You can even play around with the days if you want depedning on how hard your football practices are. As long as you feel recovered you can do you speed work any of those days as long as you have at least a day of rest between.
Maybe if you were one of the outside guys on a kickoff return and you run down 70 yards to the endzone and the kick is called back. Then on the do-over you run down 70 yards and the ball is fumbled and you pick it up and run 100 yards to score a tocuhdown.
70-70-100 like a split run
Lactic acid buildup is something I’m more concerned with during fall camp. During the actual games, lactic acid isnt as much of a factor, however, it does start to buildup. for example, I’m the starting receiver. I dont come out of the game much. 1st play, I run a a slant route across the middle. Total yards run, about 40. 2nd play, run, I block, total yards run, 10. 3rd play, streak down the sideline, total yards run 50. Thats 100 yards in three plays in rapid succession. And then the drive continues and as I run more, lactic acid is starting to buildup. If I wanna stay in the game I have to learn to tolerate it so I have the endurance to play all 4 quarters.
However, the major issue for lactic acid for me is during Fall Camp aka Hell Week. Two a day practices for a week where the coaches sole goal is to make you puke from running so long. Here lactic acid is one of the deciding factors of who plays and who doesnt. If the coach sees you can handle the conditioning that week, then that gives you a major advantage over the other guy who’s puking and having trouble completing the drill. Sorry for the long response, but I hope you get the picture.
I get the picture. If you’re the starting WR, isn’t the deciding factor who can catch the football, block and tackle? What year are we in? Bush is president right? The son I mean. Gas $2.00 a gallon? Fantasia won American Idol?
This coach of yours is part of a vanishing breed. Not vanishing fast enough however. National Geographic Ultimate Explorer is doing a piece on these guys next week titled: “Bull-in-the-Ring, Salt Tablets and Tight Polyester Pants With a Five Inch Elastic Waistband - The Legacy of the American Football Coach” Mark your TV guide.
Why are you going to prepare non-specific for an entire summer just to make it through “hell week” and have less speed than if you prepared properly? The only thing “hell week” does is overtrain the team.
As far as the activity you describe, why don’t you push your anaeorbic (sp) system a little further so that you can display speed or power for longer than 5-6 sec? Remember you have time between plays, timeouts, defensive on the field, injuries, etc… You have time to recover between bouts of activity.
“As far as the activity you describe, why don’t you push your anaeorbic (sp) system a little further so that you can display speed or power for longer than 5-6 sec?”
How would you recommend for me to go about doing this? Then I could implement it into one of my CNS days to get ready. I see what you are saying about preparing for the conditioning as opposed to preparing for the actual game, but there is just no way I can drop all of my lactic capacity work and expect to come into camp prepared to play. However, I can minimize some of that work and replace it.
Short displays of power, sprinting, med balls, plyos, sled pull (good for breaking tackles), sled push, etc… for 7-10 sec with a shorter RI 45 - 60 sec.
However, I would first develop the power in June and July then work on enduring it for a slightly longer time period in August.
Yeah, thats how I sorta had my routine planned out, but now I have to tweak it a little. So thanks for the input.
Thomas,
I think I asked you (if it was someone else I’m sorry) if you could send me some of the better sprint programs you have seen and you said you’d get it to me as soon as you got them off your other computer or something. Do you have them yet? Thanks, and if I’m confusing you with someone else then I’m sorry and you can just disregard this post.
It is intense. What you’re trying to accomplish is a display of power for a slightly longer period of time. Training the alactate system to display power and strength longer than what the body presently is able to do. Training the alactate system to recover quicker than it does now and display the same level of power and strength over and over again.
The rest intervals and length of exercise can be manipulated accordingly. Generally speaking, the longer the exercise 7-10 sec, the longer the RI, 60-90 sec. But this will always change.
Generally speaking, I like to make the athlete as powerful and strong as possible, with appropriate full recovery RI’s, then lengthen the exercise time, then shorten the RI.
So it’d be like develop the speed, then be able to repeat that speed with less recovery? What do you think about speed reserve instead? Do you shift completely from full recovery type speed workouts to the endurance ones without maintenance sessions? Or how does one maintain speed throughout?
Charlie, yes. Your’re correct the RI needs to be longer for a 10 sec activity. Ninety sec would be better for activity further to the left.
My use of this type of training has best suited my athletes in sports such as soccer, football and lacrosse. Of course with modifications for the different sports, individuals and positions. My athletes have had great success using it, however many coaches still like to train aerobicly for soccer and lacrosse.
I had several lacrosse players I worked with over the winter using this system. Saw great improvements in speed. When they joined their team in the spring and started running 2-3 miles a day, all their speed washed away like footprints on a beach.
