Football weight training

Article by Ty Gillespiie

Football weight training for those who haven’t made the team yet

If you’re an aspiring footballer, still young and growing, and you love those linemen positions, guard, tackle, center, end, and the personal challenge of holding a a piece of ground or crashing through a mass of meaty, growling guys intent on stopping you in your tracks, but you just don’t have the weight and strength to compete at this point on a junior varsity or varsity team, there’s still hope. If you’re fast, have endurance and stamina, not much at catching a football, but you can run into a wall of guys crouched to catch and throw you on the ground, you’re probably the right man to play fullback, but if you’re thin and not at your peak strength, you’ll need to put on weight, not fat, but thick, firm muscle. If you’re one of these guys, what you need is a regimen of football weight training.

Performing the proper weight training can increase both muscle bulk and muscle strength, fairly quickly and, if you do it regularly, to lasting affect. Football weight training is generally part of your daily football practice if you’re already on a team, but here we’re talking to those boys who haven’t made it on the team yet and want to know what they can do to get on one when tryouts come up in the Fall. You’ve got more than enough time to put on that weight and increase your strength if you start a football weight training program now. Even if you wait until the summer, three months will be enough time to build up your muscles and strength in time for tryouts in September. Less than three months will not do.

Your objectives in football weight training are quiet clear. You’re after strength and bulk, not definition. That means lifting increasingly heavier weights. If you work with light weights only, you’ll get some bulk, not much, but your muscles will become clearly defined. That’s nice for the beach, but not for the football field. Here’s what you need to do. Start the first week lifting as many pounds as you can, doing a repetition of ten lifts. You have to get the repetitions in, so don’t lift too much so that you tire before the ten. Do bench presses, squats (using heavier weights than for arm, chest, and shoulder development, since your legs are always stronger than the rest), tip-toe lifts for the calves, and side lifts. Do your curls with the same amount of weight you do your over-head lifts and front, crouch to chest, lifts. You can do bench presses with weight heavier than you use for arm work. The next week, add two to two and a half pounds more. The third week, add another two pounds, and on the fourth week, don’t add any new weight. Then, on the first week of the second month of your football weight training program, add two and a half pounds again and work with that for the rest of the week. Do exactly what you did the previous month, increasing weight each week. At some point, you’re going to find that you’re not able to make it through all the repetitions. That’s when you stop adding weight. Continue to work with the same weight until the repetitions become easier. Then start adding weights again.

Football weight training can be very grueling work. You’re breaking down muscle so that it will heal and become stronger. You’re going to hurt. Take steam baths, get massages, and be certain not to strain yourself to the point you cannot continue your training. Keep working at it, and when the Fall comes, you’ll be sporting some tough, fleshy muscle that will be sure to put you on the starting line-up and on your way to football glory. Remember, it doesn’t work until it hurts, but also, don’t strain yourself.