T Nation

Football Tryouts in 6 Weeks, Instead of the Planned February Date

Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
#1

Hi Coach,

My son is currently on week 6 of your 915 program, he found out today that football tryouts will be Nov 14 at his university instead of the planned Feb timeframe, The original plan was to run 915 back to back then use the Canadian ascending-descending program for power and explosiveness as he neared Feb tryouts.

With the date moved up I was going to recommend that he begins Canadian ascending-descending next week for his lower body training. With the following considerations

  1. sprints, intensive skill work and speed work or any CNS intensive activities scheduled same day as his weight sessions but preceding them

  2. mobility, tempo runs or light skill work, recovery aids, on non-lift days,

Would you also recommend using the ascending-descending for upper body as well? Any feedback on my plans would be appreciated.

position-wise he’s played runningback, linebacker and safety. He received a scholarship to a small Division II school and played there as a freshman before transferring back closer to home with hopes of walking on at the Division I level.

#2

It’s hard to make exact recommendation if I don’t know his strength and weaknesses. But your plan is fairly sound.

The CAD will allow him to maximize power and speed while the 915 will allow him to continue adding size to his upper body.

My only issue is that he will need to fit in track and agility work in there to be ready for the camp. I agree with you that the more demanding CNS track activities (top speed, agility) should be on lifting days. But I would prefer to keep 2 days off per week spent only on mobility and other recovery activities like massage, sauna, etc. With only weeks to g0, neural and physical recovery will actually be more important than training… nothing worse than coming to a try out with good physical capacities that you cannot demonstrate because of fatigue.

I would put the speed and agility work with the CAD workouts (same day, different sessions) and I would put a combination of technique work and conditioning (prowler, sled, tire flip, etc.) on the upper body/915 days (again as a different session).After 3 weeks of this I would drop one assistance exercise for each of the 915 workouts … after another 2 weeks (so 1 week before try-outs) I would drop the second assistance exercise.

For the CAD sessions, I would do them as such for 5 weeks then for the last week only do jumps and sprints. And a low volume of them at that.

#3

Thanks for your input, it was very helpful I feel like I have sketch of how to move forward.