Football Summer Training

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

alright so i got my lifting manual and its got alot of what i normally do. but its a split routine and ive never done a split routine. ive always done bench squat clean and deads.

but anyways my question is this ive been wanting to add farmer walks into my program and i figure since ill be playing college ball next year i might as well work as hard as possible.

so should i add them in or not and if so how much weight should i use and on which days should i do them upper or lower body days cause i know it worsk both. but my current lifts are benchs 340 squat 455 dead 430 and clean 265. any input will help thanks

2

Do you got the lifting manual from somebody? Or did you make it by yourself?

3

Why do you want to add farmer’s walks? What purpose do they serve?

Keep the training simple my friend. Bench, Squat, jumps, short sprints, and specific work for the important muscle groups. Above all: work on your football technique. Don’t waste your time or neurological resources learning a lot of different movements (oly lifts, tire flips, farmer’s walks, etc) that have little to no transference to the field. Develop your body’s biological power.

Your focus should be on football! From looking at your picture I’m guessing you’re on the OLine which is the most skilled position on the field. You have to engage in hand-to-hand combat every single play with a variety of intents. Approach line play like it’s a martial art!

Forget about the 1RM, you need to train to be able to be to express your highest level of skill and power every play every day in practice, then hopefully 60-80 times a game, over the course of 15-20 weeks depending on what level you’re at.

Hope this helps if you have any questions fire away.

4

so ur saying farmerw walks would be useless to add in.
and the strength coach gave out the manuals

5

Do 1-3 sets as a conditioning finisher on your lower body day

It’s not some technical move you have to spend a lot of time learning… pick up a couple DBs, stand up straight, walk.

Transference? Thick traps, strong hands, back and abs transfer pretty well to the football field IMO.

LA

6

My advice for you is…ask the strength coach of your football team. I think or hope he knows what he talks about so he could surely say something to your plans

7

When I left High school I got a training manual and I immediately wanted to do it…plus 1000 other things. I wanted to be in the greatest possible shape imaginable. Right out the box I was working out all the time, doing anything and everything. I was doing 225 17 times, I squated 515 for 6 Reps, I could deadlift 650. I felt like a beast. Problem is I over trained, and when practices came around I tried to Hide it and kept drilling and practicing. Ended up tearing my Knee. Now im here talking to you and football is in my past. Stick to the manual and do it hard. You’ll have 3-5 years to peak your skills, think to the future.

8

[quote]LA wrote:
Do 1-3 sets as a conditioning finisher on your lower body day

It’s not some technical move you have to spend a lot of time learning… pick up a couple DBs, stand up straight, walk.

Transference? Thick traps, strong hands, back and abs transfer pretty well to the football field IMO.

LA
[/quote]

What is a “finisher” and what purpose does that serve? The only “finisher” should be an effective cool down to get back into parasympathetic dominance so you can start recovering.

Once again, what purpose does the farmer’s walk serve? If you’re using it for strength gain, a bench or squat is far superior. For assistance work, why bother when a simple row will do the job at much less cost?

Training for football has got to be specific to the requirements of the sport. Think long term – camp, practices, games. It’s a grind and you’ve got to prepare yourself for it, that means you need to improve your body’s ability to recover between plays, practices, and games.

There is so much more to it than improving skeletal muscle and the 1RM. The 1RM is useless if you can’t reproduce it 60x in late october.

9

We do farmers walk in our normal American Football training sessions, but i am not a us player. In Germany it is a marginalized sport and we don`t train as the schools in the US. So i guess i would take the advice my strength coach gives me about adding some other exercises.

10

[quote]duck_dodger23 wrote:
Training for football has got to be specific to the requirements of the sport. Think long term – camp, practices, games. It’s a grind and you’ve got to prepare yourself for it, that means you need to improve your body’s ability to recover between plays, practices, and games.
[/quote]

Strength training is GPP for the football player. Bench, squat, dead, clean, whatever… including farmers, are are not football specific. They are exercises that one may use to make themselves a stronger football player.

But if you want to stay on the sport specific thing…
farmers strengthen/build grip, traps, abs, legs, and they’re good for overall conditioning. Again, what football player could not benefit from:
strong hands
thick traps
strong midsection
great conditioning

Don’t like farmers? Don’t do them. But they have a place in a football player’s off season routine. And, they’re certainly not going to diminish one’s ability to refine their football skills or prevent them from getting in top shape for the season.

LA

11

No exercise is sport specific,my friend. HOWEVER, it is the way the exercise is implemented that makes it specific to the sport.

No such thing as “overall conditioning.” Conditioning of what for what? Football is aerobic/alactic. The play itself is alactic, but you’ve got to have a high aerobic capacity to optimally recover between plays.

There’s SO much more to being a sucessful football player than building up skeletal muscle. Look at the highest level, David Boston, a freak of freaks explosive at 260 yet he couldn’t sustain that ability throughout a game let alone a season. Now he’s out of the league and never did anything.

and if you’re doing farmer’s walks for ab work. Well…

What I’m trying to tell you is that the are COMPLETELY unnecesary. Instead of worrying about doing strongman exercises, football players need to be worrying about their skill and being able to replicate that for months on end.

anatoly bondarchuk, probably the greatest coach of any sport ever, maintained a 5:1 skill:gpp ratio with the training of his hammer throwers. Think about that.

12

duck - you’re right, they are unnecessary. Not useless. They are a tool, to which we disagree it’s usefulness. Again, I an talking a couple sets at the end of one weight session a week. I am not recommending hours if strongman work instead of football drills.

I understand your David Boston point. He had other problems that helped him out of the league though.

Curious… in another thread, I read that you have read and followed Defranco’s WS4SB. You gave it pretty high praise if I remember correctly. Joe D himself recommends farmers as a “conditioning finisher.” I’m not saying Joe D’d word is the one and only gospel, but your opposition to farmers strikes me as odd…

5:1 skill:gpp ratio… good point. Again I was not advocating farmers in lieu of the football work.

Nice debate

13

Yes, I have definetley used DeFranco’s WS4SB to great success. As a matter of fact, if it wasn’t for DeFranco’s work, I would not be where I am today. Not to say that I’m anywhere great (which I’m not), but I will be soon. You could say that reading DeFranco’s site/articles was my “introduction” to the darkside of sports training.

That being said, my views have changed very dramatically, very recently I might add. The more I read and learn the more I realize I do not know. I’m beginning to better understand and quantify the role of GPP for the sport athlete, all the while trying to advance my skill capabilities in my sport (usa football).

In that respect, simplest is best. Why use a barbell when you can accomplish the same task with bodyweight? Football linemen, TE’s, and LB’s must first overcome their own bodyweight before they have to overcome external loads. For team sport athletes, their most important task is the execution of the sport. So, I want to save as much energy/reserves for that as possible. Basically, the path of least resistance. JKD “reject that which is useless” , etc. etc.

Understand that I have used the farmer’s walks, tire flips, car pushes, sled drags, etc. and was not satisfied with the progress I made. Therefore, I continue to pursue alternative knowledge, namely USSR coaches/sport scientists and the western coaches who they have influenced (francis, simmons, smith, mclaughlin, morris, myslinski, etc. etc.) I don’t think any of these people (especially the USSR) use “strongman” exercises (or oly lifts except for the oly lifters) to hardly any extent except for maybe punishment.

Also, when you say “finisher,” what exactly do you mean? Like i said, the “finish” to your training session should be a cooldown to get the nervous system back into a parasympathetic state. These “finishers” as I’ve seen utilized are actually likely capable of causing more physiological harm than good. The extreme stressors take longer to calm CNS, muscle tonus, etc. thus prevent recovery so you can “start” your next training session.

Also, understand it’s not that a farmer’s walk is a terrible exercise or anything like that. I’m just saying for a football player it is completely unnecesary. How the exercise is implemented is 100000x more important than what the exercise is. An example, two guys squatting one does 3x5 @ 60% the other does 5x3 @ 85%. The training effects are going to be very different even though the exercise is the same. What you have to do with the team sport athlete, is make sure the training effect is in line with their needs and the requirements of their sport. That being said, (i may be wrong here), but I don’t think there is one team sport where maximal strength is utilized.

Sorry for the rant. I hope you see where I’m coming from, and I’m enjoying the debate.

14

Cool… I get it. You gotta go with what works for you.