In part one of the "Top Nine Get Faster for Football Exercises," I laid out the nine 'go to' exercises we use to get faster. These spurred on a very good, healthy debate about movements that were left out. Yes, there are more than nine exercises that will help athletes get faster on the football field. I just didn't think the editors wanted "1200 Get Faster For Football Exercises," as it might have taken up too much bandwidth.
For those who missed part one, the first nine were:
- Box back squats
- Conventional deadlifts
- Snatch grip deadlifts
- Bottoms up squats
- Kettlebell swings
- Glute ham raises
- Asterisks lunges
- Romanian deadlifts
- Box jumps
With that being said, let's delve into some of the exercises other suggested and the second half of our favorites.
1. The power clean
I realize that not including the power clean in an article about football training of any kind is a right bit of sacrilege, but they simply weren't in the top nine. However, I'm not anti-power clean. In fact, if used correctly, they can add a few slabs of muscle on the upper back and traps and increase explosiveness. However, two things need to be taken into account:
- Can the coach actually teach them?
- Where and how will you place the exercise?
The power clean isn't that complicated. It just isn't. Anyone with half decent athletic abilities will be able to pick it up quickly. The bigger problem is many guys just have no idea how to teach them. I suggest either taking the USAW Club Coach or Sports Certification course (you'll learn a lot even if you're pretty experienced) or finding an Olympic lifter to teach you. Or you could get Jim Schmitz's Olympic lifting manual and DVD.
Once you know how to teach it, it will only take a session to have an athlete learn how to do them.
You can use it as the first exercise in your heavy lower body day and go heavy on it. This will serve as a great warm up to deadlifting. Or you can go a bit lighter and treat it as a way to "wake up" the central nervous system before heavy squatting, deadlifting, or benching. Personally, I prefer this approach. I do a few sets of doubles and then go right into the heavy stuff. Don't knock the second way without trying it. Go from the floor, the hang, or off the blocks.
2. Olympic lifts and variations
Why is it when it comes to football training, everyone fights about Olympic versus power lifts? It's a silly argument really. Both can and should be used. While we use the power lifts and their variations as our base, we also use Olympic lift variations. For example:
- Power cleans (as described above)
- Snatch pulls and snatch high pulls
- Clean pulls and clean high pulls
- Overhead squats (as a flexibility exercise/beasting exercise)
- Jerks/push press/push jerks (with bar, dumbbells, sandbags, logs, little brothers, and kettlebells)
- Snatches (for those who are interested in competing in Olympic lifting)
You can use the power clean as a brain kick starter or as a big movement. You can use snatches or clean pulls as a hamstring exercise or as a "speed pull" movement. Putting snatch pulls in after heavy box squatting will give the hamstrings a real bit of work. Plus, your back and traps get some extra work as well. Treat these the same as you would any other hamstring movement. Just use multiple sets of low (five or less) reps.
Using the overhead squat with a barbell or dumbbells at the end of the session is a great way to increase real world flexibility, especially in young linemen who usually have the flexibility of a communist dictator.
3. Front squats and box front squats
I admit I should've included the front squat and box front squat in part one. The front squat is one of the most underrated leg exercises to increase football speed and driving power in linemen, line backers and backs. It seems to be one of those movements that has a much bigger impact on "football field speed" than it does testing speed, probably due to its impact on the quads.
The front squat works great on max effort day or your heavy day, especially on days where you don’t think you have it in you mentally to hit a top back squat or deadlift. You can still go very heavy on the front squat but have it be less than your top effort mentally. You can go a few ways with front squats:
- Deep Olympic style
- On a soft box below parallel
- On a low box
Go with either multiple sets of three or less or work up to a max single, double, or triple. You will find that your driving power increases almost immediately and that your abs/obliques/lower back will all get much stronger.
Let's get the biggest front squat issue out of the way. Yes, in the beginning, your wrists will be sore. Using a towel, there's an easy way around this. Get a standard bath towel and roll it up length wise. Drape it around your traps and have the other two ends under the bar. Grab the towel as close to the bar as possible (like handles) and hold on hard. This will relieve stress on the wrists in the beginning. To break into eventually going sans towel, go through all warm up and lighter sets without a towel and only use it on the heavier sets. Gradually, use the towel less and less as your wrists adapt.
4. Seated box jumps
I love seated box jumps. They are super easy to set up and perform. You hardly need any equipment except for a chair and a box or staircase. They're better for building explosiveness than flat out straight down the line speed, but explosiveness is a huge part of the game. I put them in the “advanced” category when it comes to plyometrics because they're too easy to mess up!
Because they’re so simple to do, guys get lazy and make two fatal errors:
- They get lazy and jump lazy, teaching the body very bad habits.
- They rock on the box! Don't rock the box!
Some guys rock on the box to get momentum going so that they can get higher jumps, but this teaches your central nervous system to “need” that momentum. This isn't an option when you're on the field. Actually, if you rock when doing box squats, you’re bound for serious injury.
Seated box jumps are excellent as a pre-activator before a game, practice, or heavy lift. They teach tremendous explosive power in the hips and legs and also force your upper and lower body to work together. Get a chair, bench, or box squat box. Set it up about 18 inches from a plyometric box or staircase. Sit on the box/chair the same way you would on a box squat—sit back in an athletic position and relax your hips. From the seated position, jump!
Jump up and out so that you land on the box or on the steps. Don’t rock and don’t cheat. You simply jump from your seat. Keep your arms at your sides, tensed, and explode up. Just don’t swing the arms.
You might find this difficult at first. That’s fine. It just shows you that you need to get more explosive. Go for 3–6 sets of three jumps. You can make this more advanced by jumping on to multiple boxes or up several “sets” of steps (jump from seated position to the fourth step and then immediately to the eighth step).
This is an excellent move to do before a heavy leg day, practice, or before a game. If you’re doing them before a game, sit and jump without landing on a box. In this case, you’re just trying to wake up the central nervous system.
5. Bulgarian squats
Tight hip flexors are often called "breaks" because of how much they can slow you down. Sadly, most football players have horribly tight hip flexors. Yes, this includes even high school players who think stretching is a waste of time. Performing dynamic and passive stretching for the hip flexors is a good start, but let's take it a step further and give the glutes and quads a nice extra bit of work.
Bulgarian squats accomplish this and they are important for football players. While not a true one leg exercise, they do train the legs in a way that most traditional two leg movements can't. They place a good amount of stress on the quads, glutes, and hams. Because of how they're performed with the non-working foot up on a bench or box, Bulgarians dynamically stretch the hip flexors and hamstrings/glutes.
6. One leg deadlifts
The one leg deadlift makes the list for two reasons:
1. It hits the hamstrings and it does so one leg at a time (obviously).
2. For guys with very tight hamstrings, it has reduced the number of pulls over the years.
I have no scientific proof on number two, but many guys who have always had tweaked out hamstrings started doing one leg deadlifts and didn't have any additional problems. For this reason alone, they're worth adding to anyone's training program periodically.
As I said in number one, it does target the hamstrings very well. Include this at the end of your workouts from time to time. You can use the one or two dumbbell version and go for a few sets of medium to high reps.
The important thing to remember here, especially if you don't see your favorite exercise listed, is that any exercise that hits the hamstrings, glutes, and quads hard is going to be good for getting faster on the football field. So if you're getting ready to tell me how X exercise sucks and Y is better, keep in mind that many times we're splitting hairs, especially with high school football players. Get them hammering away at the hamstrings, glutes, and quads. Work the upper body hard, train the hell out of the mid-section, and results—in the form of increased speed on the field—will follow.