I’ve used one of those weight stations!
[quote]Yogi wrote:
[quote]theBird wrote:
[quote]Sutebun wrote:
[quote]theBird wrote:
[quote]Yogi wrote:
dude, you really can’t see how having a good squat would make you better at American football?[/quote]
Like I said, I don’t want to start an internet war. I was just trying to make the point that for younger high school athletes, I think that practicing their actual sport and relevant skills is more beneficial than spending heaps of time in the weight room. Although I do agree that been that little bit stronger would help performance on the sporting field.
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You’re probably just comparing the needs of American football too much to soccer and or have different assumptions about the players and logistics. You said skill work > weight room, so here is some food for thought directing that point:
Some football players (positions) simply require size. Technical skills won’t mean too much if the other guy is just plain bigger. I bet you could compare it to lacking conditioning as a soccer athlete. Your feet skill with the ball won’t matter too much if you can’t keep up on the field.
Football players don’t tend to play year round. Quite a few at my school did some wrestling after the football season, and then some even track in the spring. Off-seasons is a chance to lift weights and add more mass as well.
And they aren’t spending heaps of time in the weight room even if they are spending some. The 80-20 rule is quite applicable here. Spending 100% of your time on skill work won’t be as beneficial as taking a small amount and dedicating it to other training to enhance your athleticism. My school also offered weight training classes (even one as a “zero period” class from 6:30 am!), so it is likely that they could be very dedicated and simply doing more work on top of their skill work.[/quote]
Thanks for pointing that out to me.
I thought all positions in American Football would require a high level of skill.
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I’m sure they probably do, but you still need to be big and strong[/quote]
Yes. American football players going into College, and even to a large degree into the pros, are judged on metrics. The Combine is a great example of that. There are both skill-based drills and simple drills that measure physical ability. Athletes do a 225 bench press for max reps. I’ve heard of athletes being recruited to play college football who never even played in high school, simply because of their physical gifts.
So Bird, the real answer to your question is that both strength and skill are important in American football. Linemen on both sides of the ball HAVE to be very, very strong. Receivers and DB’s are skill-players who can get away with not being very strong. RB’s have to have very powerful legs, and they have to be skilled at cutting… unless they would prefer to be used as battering rams. Then they can just be powerful. I could go on, but you get the point.
And as to the original question of the thread… I looked like this when I graduated high school. I weighed about 125. The first time I touched a weight was in my last semester of high school, and I didn’t actually start a weight lifting routine until College.
I’m a freshman in highshool weighing a little under 170. I’ve been training for about 3 to 4 months in my school without an actual coach so I would like to get o a gym but there are none in my area. I can do about 205lb clean and jerk and only a 145 lb snatch. Trying to get to teen high school competitions
My lifting age 16,17,18 was almost completely retarded (I did db curls every day with too much weight & 240 sit ups every day) LOL!!
It wasn’t till I hit 18/19 or so that I started a least a slightly less retarded routine which include occassional deadlifts & ohps etc.
30 odd years ago, in Australia virtually nobody lifted at school, maybe only the guys that had Rugby league contracts, coming up through the juniors, and a few wannabe bodybuilders(like myself).
When I started virtually no one could bench over 200lbs in my year, not even the big tall guys that thought they were naturally strong.(one big fat guy could bench over 200lbs but I never saw him do it) A lot of guys that started to lift got bad shoulders from trying to break the 200lb barrier. Absolutely no technique, no coaching.
My friend eventually broke the 200lb bench before I did, but even though he was stronger than me with weights, and arm wrestling I could push him around at will in stand up wrestling, just brute strength no tricky techniques.
I probably started “lifting” (doing curls) when I was 13 with my dad’s weight set. I started playing football freshman year, so I got access to the school weight room. We followed a really basic strength program (high weight, low reps: 5x5, 3x3, ect.) focusing on the bench and squat, but were allowed to choose our own accessory lifts afterward (rows, military press, curls, haha). We were a small school, so there wasn’t much equipment to choose from. It was enough though; I was able to bench and squat 300 lbs by senior year. Unfortunately, I never got very big because I had no idea about proper nutrition in high school. Oh well.
I’m also a sophomore. I started lifting in 7th grade. I started with doing the stuff that everyone does. Bench press bicep curls let pull down and leg press. I did that for a whole year. And because I was 13 years old i gained about 10 lbs or mass doing that. Then I started using like a real program. I Started using a power bodybuilding type program because I wanted to get bigger and stronger because i play football. You can pick any program you want based on your goals. My advice to you is get form down befre anything and th4e only supp that works is creatine
Luckily I have always been a big researcher. I may have been way off on a lot of things but I knew compound movements were king.
Download a copy of Dan Johns ‘From the Ground Up’ (its free!) and full of gold.
Even better, also get his book before we go