subject: How to Get Stronger and Faster for Football: 11 Quick Tips [print this page] How to Get Stronger and Faster for Football: 11 Quick Tips
How to Get Stronger and Faster for Football: 11 Tips to Skyrocket Strength and Speed
No matter how good your football strength and speed training program is, we all get stuck at some point.
Sometimes you need to pull something out of your bag of tricks to get progress going again. Here are 27 tips and tricks to get you closer to hitting your goals.
Guns not growing? Try Arm Wrestler Curls. This partial movement allows you to overload the biceps and also build explosive strength, which will allow you to use more weight in your normal curl exercises. Sit down with bar in hands, place your forearms on your thighs, and explode the weight up. Go heavy. 3 5 sets of 4 6 reps.
"Choke up" on the bar when doing Dumbbell curls. The biceps' job is to turn the palms, so by placing your index finger closer to the plates on the dumbbell, the bi's will perform more work when supinating the hands.
If you are having trouble putting on muscle, try slowing down the negative portion of the lift then exploding up! This won't do much for strength but it will lead to an increase in lean muscle.
Always lift the bar as fast as possible, no matter what the exercise or how much weight is on the bar. Lifting fast will train your fast-twitch muscle fibers, which will lead to a better physique and improved performance in any sport. Even if the bar is heavy, the intent to accelerate it as fast as possible is what counts.
Use chains and bands to accommodate resistance. The problem with lifting fast is that the body will decelerate the bar as it nears lockout to prevent bad things like your joints breaking. Adding bands or chains to the bar actually "adds" weight to the bar as you near lockout, so you must accelerate all the way through or you will miss the lift!
Another issue is that often we are strongest in the last 1/3 of a lift, so that portion of the motion is under-trained. Bands and chains will increase resistance as the chains come off the ground or the bands are stretched, thus making the entire lift hard.
Bands aren't just for explosive strength. Adding bands to the bar and fighting their pull on the way down will accentuate the negative and lead to more muscle gain. A great way to try this is to loop one end of a band around a barbell, and the other end around the bottoms of your feet (a position called stumping). Do curls as you normally would, but fight the bands on the lowering portion. You'll feel it the next day.
You can also stump the band around your back and transform the ordinary Push-up into a hard-core, muscle-building movement that will challenge even the strongest lifters.
Is your Deadlift or Squat hurtin'? Try performing some jumps before your pull or squat. Do about 5 jumps either onto a plyo box, on stairs, over a bench, or just do Vertical Jumps. I picked this up from Joe Defranco and it always seems to help get the big leg exercises going after hitting a wall. One of my football players hit a 10lb P.R. in the Trap Bar Deadlift after weeks of stagnation after adding the jumps.
Static stretching just before lifting heavy or performing athletically is not always a good ideaexcept for the calfs and hip flexors. In most athletes, these two areas are notoriously tight and relaxing them prior to going all out can help increase performance. Hold static stretches for 2 sets of 30seconds, each leg. For the hip flexors, the lunge stretch works best. Remember, tight hip flexors have been called breaks, so don't let them slow you down.
Video your lifts or routines as often as possible. The old saying in football is true in every sport; the film doesn't lie. If you are having form issues either on stage, in the weightroom or on the field, the video will expose and allow you to fix them.
Training is great, but at some point you've gotta' put it on the line. Compete in whatever your chosen sport is, no matter what the level.
Think you're strong? Enter a Powerlifting or Olympic Lifting meet. Athletic with a good body? Enter a Figure competition. Even if you are an adult, there are 18+ leagues for just about every sport in the world. Competing will help keep you focused, give you an idea of where you are, and inspire you to constantly strive to perform better.
Train in different types of shoes, especially when Squatting. Try Olympic Lifting shoes, Deadlift slippers, Chuck Taylors, and even boots with a heel. All will put a different spin on the squat and help improve strength and give more complete development in the legs. Most sneakers are terrible for lifting weights. They have too much cushion and the force that you should be applying to the floor through your feet is just lost.
