I’m planning to go to the MSL high school football combine in cincinnatti on may 29, 2004 in this combine they test the 40yd, vertical jump, 185lb bench test and the 5-10-5 shuttle but along with these they also test some drills i have never heard of which are the figure 8 and the angle drive.
as of today i have 12 weeks to prepare and i would greatly appreciate your help.
my stats are
weight 175
height 5’10"
185 max rep bench test-20 reps
vertical 32" i never had acess to a vertec so i think if i might gain inches with this machine
40yd- 4.6 but this was last year in may
5-10-5 shuttle- unknown
my man concerns are my speed for the 40yd and my agility for the drills. i read your plan for the combines but it was hard to construct my own plan from what i saw. strength is not a concern for me at all. my question is should base most of my agility training specifically for the drills or should i do general agility drills and only test the drills for the combine every week or so
i tried to make a plan a here’s what i have so far
mon-weights, speed and agilty
tues-tempo and position skills
wed-weights, speed and agility
thurs-tempo and position skills
fri-weights, speed and agility
sat-tempo and position skills
sun-rest
weights
Hang clean 3x8 at 80%/80%/80%
Squats 8/6/3 at 80%/85%/95%
Bench Press 15/6/6/max reps at 135/205/225/185lbs
Pull-ups 3x10
ARM curls 3x12 at 70%
calf raises 3x30 at 250lbs
leg curls 3x10 at 85lbs
knee raises 4x25
speed and agility
warm-up with 4laps around the field 2 reps of high knees, 2 repsof butt kickers, 2 reps of a and b skips and streching for 10 minutes
form starts- 2 sets of 5 reps for 10yds
position starts- 2 sets of 5 reps for 10 yds
flying 10s- 2 sets of 4 reps for 60yds
hollow sprints-2 reps for 100yds
and 40yd sprints- 4 reps
Shuttle long and short
and somewhat at a loss of what to do next
tempo and postion drills
total volume 1200yds
4 sets of 3 reps 100yd sprints at75%
45secs between reps 90secs between sets along with sit-ups
running back drills(specifically for the combine)
does this look ok please tell what you think should be changed
I haven’t heard of these either. You should contact the combine organizers and find out EXACTLY what these drills are, how they will be set up, etc.
as of today i have 12 weeks to prepare and i would greatly appreciate your help.
my stats are
weight 175
height 5’10"
185 max rep bench test-20 reps
vertical 32" i never had acess to a vertec so i think if i might gain inches with this machine
40yd- 4.6 but this was last year in may
5-10-5 shuttle- unknown
my man concerns are my speed for the 40yd and my agility for the drills.
12 weeks is a good amount of time to play with. You have a number of options depending on where you are currently. For example, if your base conditioning and work capacity is already good, then you probably don’t need much or any GPP. If not, take some time to address this first.
Then your next decision is if you want to work in a max strength cycle 3-1-3 style. This will take 7 out of your 12 weeks and you want to have at least a few weeks after the end of the cycle to peak your speed and quickness.
Finally, you will want to determine your activities for specific training and what kind of peaking cycle to use.
i read your plan for the combines but it was hard to construct my own plan from what i saw. strength is not a concern for me at all. my question is should base most of my agility training specifically for the drills or should i do general agility drills and only test the drills for the combine every week or so
Unless you are really deficient in general movement patterns and body control, I would probably not do much or any general agility drills. Practice what you will be tested on. One thing that does work well is breaking the specific drills into components and working on each component separately, then putting them together. For example, you may run just the first 5-10 on a 5-10-5 drill to tune up the takeoff and first transition. Video tape also helps with the analysis.
This looks reasonable. Keep the tempo and position skills low intensity. Also, you may want to vary the focus of your weight/speed/agility sessions. For example, focus on top speed in one session, acceleration in another session and agility in the third session. This will ultimately depend upon your specific strengths and weaknesses. Also, you are doing your speed and agility work (and any plyos) BEFORE your weights, right? BTW, when do you practice your vertical jump? I would recommend right after your speed or agility work.
weights
Hang clean 3x8 at 80%/80%/80%
Squats 8/6/3 at 80%/85%/95%
Bench Press 15/6/6/max reps at 135/205/225/185lbs
Pull-ups 3x10
ARM curls 3x12 at 70%
calf raises 3x30 at 250lbs
leg curls 3x10 at 85lbs
knee raises 4x25
You should vary your weight routine depending on where you are in your strength cycle. 3-1-3, maintenance, accumulation? I would do hang cleans as 8 sets of 3 instead of 3 sets of 8, but you could probably drop them all together. I would also look at something like romanian deadlifts or good mornings instead of leg curls.
speed and agility
warm-up with 4laps around the field 2 reps of high knees, 2 repsof butt kickers, 2 reps of a and b skips and streching for 10 minutes
form starts- 2 sets of 5 reps for 10yds
position starts- 2 sets of 5 reps for 10 yds
flying 10s- 2 sets of 4 reps for 60yds
hollow sprints-2 reps for 100yds
and 40yd sprints- 4 reps
Shuttle long and short
and somewhat at a loss of what to do next
Isn’t that enough? You have 940 yards of speed per day - that works out to over 2800 yards per week! And that is not including your agility work. Too much volume. Split it up. On one day, do the top speed work (flying, hollow, etc) on another day, do the short speed/acceleration (starts, 40s), then on another day do the agility.
tempo and postion drills
total volume 1200yds
4 sets of 3 reps 100yd sprints at75%
45secs between reps 90secs between sets along with sit-ups
running back drills(specifically for the combine)
That looks fine.
Good luck and keep us up to date on your progress.
Agreed. I have the video and it has a number of “tricks” to help improve combine performance. The tricks have pretty much nothing to do with becoming a better football player, but they will help you perform your best on testing day at the combines. Well worth it from that perspective.
However, note that the video does not really address long-term training or macrocycle planning. It kind of assumes that you have a certain level of performance and have a few weeks to peak this out for the combines. So, you will still want to put together a good long-term training plan and then use the Defranco stuff (where appropriate) to make sure you do your best when the lights are on!
thanks for the help
i will split my speed, agility and acceleration days up but for some i feel i need to work on the combine drills every speed day
as for the 3-1-3 strength cylcle would i only use that for benching, cleans, deadlifts and squats or would i apply that to every exercise?
also how would i go about peaking in my speed and quickness and the 3-1-3 cycle is over
I think that putting in some combine-specific drill work every CNS day is a good idea, especially if you are not familiar with the drills. Low volume, repeated often is the best way to learn a new skill/movement pattern. Keep the quality high!
as for the 3-1-3 strength cylcle would i only use that for benching, cleans, deadlifts and squats or would i apply that to every exercise?
also how would i go about peaking in my speed and quickness and the 3-1-3 cycle is over
It will most directly apply to the big lifts that you mention, however, you should also cycle the supplementary lifts to some extent as well. For example, you don’t want to keep the volume of your supp lifts high when you are in maintenance for the other lifts. As a matter of fact, you may even be able to get away with dropping most of your supp lifts while in maintenance.
You will generally peak your speed and quickness by dropping the volume of your lifts significantly, and focusing more on high quality sprinting and other explosive work. The volume may go up a bit for these activities at the start, but it will also taper off as the quality/intensity increases. Shortly before the combines, you volumes should be quite low, but your intensity and speeds should be very high and this will be a significant stress to your CNS so careful management is essential.
How often do you measure what weights you are lifting? Every time, no?
Likewise, you should be timing your sprints every time you run. In some sense, every training session is also a testing session. If you don’t time them, then you don’t know how fast you actually are running and you don’t know when you have had enough volume. If you time them, then you know to stop running when you start to slow down. This is why having an automatic timer is so useful.
The only combine event I might not test so often is the bench for reps because your training for it would involve less time doing reps.
well the combine is on saturday may 29 and I’ve trained hard for it. i’m sorry i was able to post my journal but i haven’t had the time. I know I’m Faster and Stronger and gained about 5 pounds of muscle, hopefully i do good. do anyone have any last minute tips or anything if not wish me luck.