Football Workout for Linemen

Hello my name is jawad khawaja and i am a sophomore right now in high school. I started to do football and i didn’t know what position i wanted to be until i got put as a offensive and defensive linemen in football. I currently play as center and right guard on offense and on defense i play weak end and strong tackle. When i would tell people what position i would play in football, they would first laugh at me because of how small i was and then tell me that i have to start eating a lot in order to survive. Right is the offseason for football and i want to prove people that i can play a big position even though i am small. I tried different workouts that I thought that would help me but I feel i just don’t get any results in it. I always have a problem of switching different workouts every week and I can’t find the right program for me to get stronger for football.
I recently started Joe Defranco’s Built Like A Badass program which i saw on the internet that people said it was a waste of money for. I feel like it was a waste of money because i don’t feel like getting results from the program. I just want a workout that will help me become strong, faster, quicker, more athletic, and to help me survive as a linemen on the football field.
Right now my max for bench is 165 and my goal is to bench between 185-225, my max for squat right now is 230 but my goal is to squat in the 300’s, my deadlift max right now is 235 but my goal is to deadlift in the 300’s. My hang clean max right now is 120 but my goal is to hang clean 160’s - 200’s
It would be really helpful if you guys could give a feedback, it would mean alot to me

WS4SB is also from Joe DeFranco and would suit better, since It’s geared to athletes rather than older folks, as in Built for Bad. If not you can try Starting Strength by Mark Rippletoe. That might give you faster gains but you’ll stall quicker as well.

Which ever you choose, don’t switch it that soon. The secret is consistency. Which ever program you do, if you believe & give in the effort, will work. Having goals in numbers is good (you can track progress) but they won’t mean anything on the field so don’t get too caught up in them.

Good Luck

-Agile 8 or Limber 11. Pick one. That’s your warm up for every gym session, do it on off days too. BUY A FOAM ROLLER.
-Follow Starting Strength if you can still get noob gains (you should be able to). Eat lots, sleep lots. Do some prowler/sled pushes on off days, or push a car, or do some light hill sprints. NO JOGGING.
-If you’ve progressed past SS, then look into 5/3/1, do basic 4 day splilt with the Simplest Strength Template. Respect your Training Max. Your 1RM isn’t as important as you think it is, it means alot less on the field than it does in the gym.
-If you can get your hands on any strongman equipment, i.e. Yokes, Farmers Handles, Kegs, then try them (ask a friendly strongman to show you the ropes) as this will help you as much as, if not more, than barbells can. Get uncomfortable, it’ll help on game day.
-Stuff like medicine ball tosses and throws will help for explosive movement with minimal injury risk. Use them as past of your warm up after agile8/limber11.
-Don’t train like a bodybuilder, train like an athlete. Who cares how big your biceps are after you’ve pancaked them for the 5th time in practice? Don’t waste your time with bicep curls and tricep extensions when you could be doing chin ups and dips.

Finally practice your snaps and steps- zone footwork, duckwalks, pulling, bucket steps, pass pro steps etc. (Idk what system you run), grab a buddy and snap the ball to him/her every time you do footwork. I’m sure a coach would want someone who knows his footwork and playbook inside out instead of someone with a 250kg deadlift but who is a liability on the field!

(I’m an amateur offensive line coach and player)

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I was a DB in my football days but moonlighted as a TE as well. In addition to lifting spend a little time shadow boxing/hitting a bag if you have one. Hand speed is important when it comes to blocking and not getting called for a hold.

I have a couple of questions for you,

  1. I only can workout 3 days a week
  2. I can only workout no longer then a hour
  3. Is Joe Defranco’s warm ups lower body or also upper body warmups too?
  4. When u mean car pushing do you mean that you push the car when it is turned on or push the car when its turned off?
  5. I don’t have access to prowler/sleds so what would i do in this situation?
  6. I found a Program that is similar to 5/3/1 but it is called 5/3/1 for Football which has a specific warm up for linemen, its only 3 days a week, and it involves chinups and dips like you said so i wanted to know if i should do this program instead?

what mr. v3lv3t said is great advice, if you school has a wrestling team I’ve heard that’s great for keeping low and developing raw power (they don’t do wrestling where I’m from though)

-3 days a week is great, you’ll probably get more time for recovery
-that’s fine too, just make sure the lifts you’re doing count. Don’t waste big chunks of time with exercises you don’t need.
-He has a warm up called simple 6 as well for upper body. But still do agile8/limber11 before and after your workouts and on off days - It’ll help you recover faster from lower body exercises and football practice, as well as getting you abit more flexible
-turned off- find somewhere flat, turn the car off, leave the handbrake off and push.
-If you don’t have a prowler do hill sprints.
-I’d look into 531 with the simplest strength template. Trawl through Jim’s forum on here if you need, but 531 for football’s been discontinued so take from that what you will.

Good luck

  1. I have the 5/3/1 for Football so I wanted to know If i can do that instead
  2. If i did the starting strength template for 5/3/1 how would i fit that into 3 days?
  3. You talked about using medicine balls after doing the warm ups, what type of exercises i would do after i would do my warm ups?
  4. Would Box Jumps be good after doing medicine ball excercise

-Do either 531 for football or simplest strength template for 531. As long as it’s following the 531 principles you should get stronger. Just pick one and stick with it for 2 or 3 months and decide from there if you want to switch.
-Mon Press + CGBP. Wed- Deadlift + Front Squat. Friday- Bench + Incline. Monday-Squat + RDL. Wednesday Press +CGBP etc.
-Things like overhead throws for height or throws with a jump squat (before a lower body day), chest passes from stance or whilst mimicking pass pro (before upper body day) throws from knees and exploding through hips (either day) and rotational throws for some core training. Mix it up, find what works for you

  • I’d do them before, but try and see what works for you.

A lot of good info in here. I would substitute close-grip bench in place of dip

Out of the big 3 lifts I’d place a focus on squatting and deadlifting. Bench sounds good in theory for a lineman but it doesn’t really have a lot of carryover. The suggestion for a heavy bag is good, as hand speed and technique will trump arm/chest strength when blocking. You should be relying on a solid base and proper footwork to generate most of your power anyway.

Don’t really have much to add on from what others have said regarding weight training. Three conditioning exercises you should make a staple (in rotation) should be bear crawls, hill sprints, and the plate shuffle press. Bear crawls should be done for for power/speed, so no more than 20 yards. Same goes for hill sprints. You want to build acceleration and not top speed.

Haven’t seen any videos on a plate shuffle press, so I’ll try my best to explain it. Find an area about 10-20 yards long, grab a 45lb plate (a big heavy rock can work too), and strap your nuts up because this exercise shows no pity. Grab the plate by 9 and 3 (not by the handles if it has those built in, use the flat edges) and holding it at chest height, get into an athletic stance and laterally shuffle toward the end line and back. You should press the plate out at a level height with every lead step and bring it back in as your other foot follows suit. Each rep is down to the end line and back. Work your way to 2-3 sets of as many reps as you can do. Good luck.

Hey man, all of this above is great advice, i just wanted to add a few points to use in addition to these.

In football specially, over all strength is not as important as power generated. The simplest way to put that is if you can grind out 225lbs on bench, thats strength. If you can blast it up fast as anything, thats power. Final numbers are important of course, but you should look into some methods of building explosion, which is a specialty of the WS4SB mentioned above.

Now something not many people mentionedin specifics: nutrition. You are going to hear many different things along the way, some will say keep it clean as possible, some guys are going to tell you eat 4 snickers bars a day. As someone who did the whole dirty bulk in high school and beginning of college and did it wrong and payed the price, my advice is eat real food as much as possible and throw in some treats now and then. fruit, veggies, meat, oatmeal, rice. If you are as small as you said, you should be able to throw that down no stop, make some real gains, and feel good doing it. Start 4 meals a day, expand as necessary. Dont be afraid to grab some pizza on the weekends or some wendy or BK, but your post workout meal shouldnt be in a drive thru every night. Ditch soda, any iced teas that arent diet or unsweetened, and if youre eating out and want a coke with dinner, grab a diet one. There will be people who will bug out and say never touch diet anything, but in jim wendlers words, its really not a big deal. Balance is the true way to succeed, so in terms of food, a 75/25 or 80/20 split of clean/dirty should get you big and strong as fuck.

Good luck next season man

Quick question for the OP… Unless Ive overlooked it. What is your height and weight ?

Stupid question…out of everyone giving the OP advice, why has no one asked about his height and weight?

i am 5’ 8’’ and i weight 160

Your the same height of my oldest son who is 17…
Few more question if you dont mind to answer.

  1. Whats the average size of the starting Lineman on your squad
  2. How many kids are on your teams roster on average
  3. On average how large are the DL and LB of the schools you normally play?

I personally like the four horsemen program for functional athletic strength. It’s tough, but will help you reach goals and continuously improve performance, if you follow the program. It’s not easy, but it works.

When I was in high school, I was 5’7" 175-205lbs and about 13%bf from my sophomore to senior year. I stuck to power clean, back squat and bench as my main work and would choose other exercises that supplemented those. We had an awesome strength and conditioning coach that really built us well. Going into my senior year I was benching 365, squatting 455, and power cleaning 335. It was a lot of work and dedication. Now if I only had that much motivation now days.

can u send me a link to the program?

1.Our strongest lineman right now benches 315 and squats 500
2.There is about 50 kids on the team roster
3. The DL and LB are pretty huge and strong