In the world of high school football, sometimes tradition means more than the truth. Sometimes a more talented team will lose to a lesser talented team because they’re intimidated by their tradition. Often, a lack of tradition will hold an otherwise talented team back from winning. These same principles hold true with how high school football coaches deal with their strength and conditioning programs, especially with lifting weights. Traditions die hard.
Over the past 25 years of my life, football has been my central purpose, from playing midgets, junior high, high school and college football to coaching high school football for the last 14 years. During those 25 years, I’ve heard a million different things about lifting and how football players should lift. These “things” have become part of a “dogma” of football coaches. Unfortunately, this “dogma” isn’t always factual and doesn’t always have the best interests of football players in mind. Obviously, there is “more than one way to skin a cat.” Some coaches do things differently than others and still have success. Some coaches do some stupid things in the weight room and their players win in spite of that. But the bottom line is that everyone wants the same thing — their players to get bigger, stronger and faster.
The purpose of this article isn’t to make fun of others nor is it to say how great my program is. Rather, my goal is to get fellow coaches to have an open mind, to not be afraid of change and to see what I’ve done with my team.
First of all, I truly believe that attitude and effort are way more important than any template or exercise selection. There are tons of examples I’ve come across in my years spent playing and coaching football where the previously mentioned “dogma” or old school approach by some coaches has been almost silly. But the funny thing is I really didn’t know any better until six or seven years ago. When I was in high school, we used to bench press, squat, incline press and military press every Monday, Wednesday and Friday as hard and as heavy as we could all winter and summer long. And we didn’t question it. I just thought that was the way it should be.
During that time, we did every pressing lift with a close grip because “that’s where your hands are playing football.” In college one winter, we tested our squat by doing 275 lbs for as many reps as possible. Our nose guard did it 40 times and got bored. I did it 41 times just to beat him, but I doubt my squats were parallel because “going too low” was “bad for your knees.” Even when I was a 23-year-old high school assistant coach, I had no problem with players deadlifting heavy twice a week. I chastised them for being wimps if they said their backs hurt. These personal examples will probably bring a smile to some, make others cringe and make others say “why?” But do you know what the funny thing is? In every instance, we got stronger!
Despite the fact that each of these examples would probably be laughed out of the weight room by all of us loyal EliteFTS people, they did make us stronger. And that is why high school football coaches still do these things in many places. Because every coach I know wants to improve his team’s performance, maybe a reevaluation is sometimes needed.
Now, let’s get back to the “dogma” idea of things I’ve heard in football weight rooms and from football coaches. In the last few years, I’ve had many opportunities to discuss strength training with many other area coaches. Coaches in our region can see that our guys are strong and explosive despite the fact that we’re normally undersized against other teams at our level. So they want to know what we do. I give them a general overview of exercises we do that I know most football coaches don’t know about, don’t understand or don’t believe in. I mention things like glute ham raises, good mornings, board presses and, most importantly, box squats. If they still want to know more, I tell them about rotating exercises, max effort work, dynamic effort work, repetition effort work, the 5/3/1 program and the posterior chain. By this time, most coaches are saying, “When do you power clean? Why do you lift like a powerlifter? Don’t you want your players to be explosive? We do mostly Olympic lifts so we can be more explosive. You have to train explosively to get more explosive!”
But if they still want to talk, I mention accommodating resistance and conjugation, and I start to talk about results. Number one, we win football games. All of our kids look like football players — big asses, broad backs and thick necks, and they can run. After that, I cite examples of gains in the three lifts — the squat, bench and deadlift — but especially the squat and bench because most football coaches won’t do any deadlifts or variations of it (maybe trap bar). However, everyone squats and benches. I mention how our skill guys do well sprinting in track meets. I also mention how our average players add at least 20 pounds of muscle a year if they do our program. But, believe it or not, most coaches are no longer listening at this time. They still want to go back and talk about power cleans, push jerks and close-grip bench presses. If they’re still listening, I talk about dynamic flexibilities, limited injuries and restoration methods. But since these things weren’t done in 1978 when they won the sectional as seniors, it’s just “new school and fancy,” not mainstream. Recently, a few people continued listening. This was when I discussed our tremendous success with Jim Wendler’s new 5/3/1 method.
First off, I love the 5/3/1 method because I tested it out myself for four months before I had our players do it. At 36 years old, I’m breaking records every week and truly looking forward to every time I’m in the weight room. But this article isn’t about my training. It’s about the positive effects the 5/3/1 program has had on my players and my program. I will talk about three separate groups — my “good ninth-graders,” my “best varsity guys” and “everyone else.”
As far as groups go, I must state that I really like my current group of ninth-graders. They’re tough kids who love lifting and playing football. There are 19 of them, which at a school our size is a huge class. Out of those 19 players, 16 of them lift regularly. I had our ninth-graders start their off-season lifting a full month before the varsity players. So their results are based off of lifting from November 3, 2008, to February 21, 2009, or three and a half months. Out of those 16, I took the best 10 to a junior high powerlifting meet on February 21. All 16 ninth-grade lifters made great gains, but the 10 who went to the power meet are easier to measure.
I realize that some of the success is what you might call “artificial strength.” Because they were all reasonably inexperienced lifters, their totals probably went up in part because their technique improved greatly over the last few months. I can also state that they weren’t “lifting virgins” either. They all participated in our junior high program last winter, which emphasized technique above everything else. Regardless, they can lift more. Even more importantly, I believe they’re stronger in the right places to help them play football better. In addition, their average weight gain during this time was more than 10 pounds per player, which also helps because we always seem to be undersized against the other teams we face during the season.
So just how much stronger did this group of “good ninth-graders” get? Their average squat went from 210 lbs to 265 lbs for a 55-lb average increase per person. The average bench press went from 145 lbs to 165 lbs for a 20-lb average increase per lifter. Finally, the average deadlift for those 10 lifters went from 265 lbs to 315 lbs for a 50-lb average increase per lifter. So to all of you powerlifter types out there, would you be happy with increasing your total by 125 lbs in three and a half months? Our kids were very happy and so was I!
My second group is my “best varsity guys.” At the varsity level, I have many athletes who do other sports during the winter like basketball, indoor track and swimming. Add that to other after school activities like the high school musical (which many players do because a lot of pretty girls participate in it), jobs and other clubs and you have many distractions from lifting weights. So to measure all varsity players during this time isn’t quite as valid as measuring the guys who are more serious about it than others. But I know this is commonplace at many high schools, so I’m not complaining. I’m just pointing out why I limited posting the results of five athletes instead of 25. Also, these five athletes competed in a varsity powerlifting meet where they were able to test their one-rep max.
This group started their lifting on December 2, 2008, and competed in a varsity football powerlifting meet on February 26, 2009. So their results are from a two and a half month time period. Their average squat started at 360 lbs and ended up at 400 lbs, which is a 40-lb average increase. Their average bench press started at 225 lbs and ended at 245 lbs for a 20-lb average jump. Starting on December 2, the average deadlift was 385 lbs and by February 26, it was up to 415 lbs for a 30-lb increase. Add all of these averages up and you have an average increase of 90 lbs per lifter for their three lift total in two and a half months. Once again, I feel this is great progress, especially for five kids whose average weight is 207 lbs and average age is 16.5 years old.
My third group — “everyone else” — did well, too. These are the guys who might not have been able to be there all the time. However, since the 5/3/1 program is so easy to follow, this wasn’t all that bad. Kids still got in great work when they were here, made gains in strength and size and got a taste of lifting hard without having to learn all kinds of technical lifts. Most kids who fall into this group were lifting, on average, three times a week instead of four like the more serious lifters. Once the spring and summer phases begin, these kids will be expected to be around more often and won’t be able to use the excuse that they don’t know what’s going on.
I guess the finale of this article is what we actually did this winter in the weight room. We used Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 program four days a week. Monday was deadlift day, Tuesday was bench day, Thursday was squat day (for most mini-cycles, we did parallel box squats, but before our meets, we switched to parallel free squats for a mini-cycle) and Friday was military day. To learn more about how these lifts are waved, buy Jim’s Three Days a Week Manual or his new book that focuses on just the 5/3/1 method. It was great to stick to these four basic lifts. It was easy for kids to follow and easy for them to get good at the techniques of each lift. It was also great motivation to go for rep maxes in the weight room with all of your teammates yelling and cheering you on while grueling through a 10-rep set of deadlifts. There were some awesome performances this winter, and some character was definitely built hammering out those last sets of rep maxes.
Accessory work was consistent, too. We did a lot of basic exercises for accessory work with some more modern lifts sprinkled in there. Our upper body assistance lifts were dips, rear delts, dumbbell bench/floor presses, 3- and 4-boards close grip, push-ups (with chains, bands, or blast straps) and high rep triceps extension stuff. Lower body assistance lifts were glute ham raises (eccentric only at the beginning), reverse hypers, good morning variations, leg presses, back raises, lunges, step-ups, pull thrus, pull-ups and rows. Weighted abdominal work was done 2–4 times a week. All four days were limited to five total exercises and we did each lift hard.
Including the dynamic warm up and some static stretching afterward, the total time in the weight room per day was rarely more than one hour. Players also used medicine balls, jump ropes, sleds and the Prowler after workouts to get in extra work if they wanted to do so. And of course, they “did biceps” after every upper body day. Well, they are kids, right?
In closing, I must say that football coaches are a quirky bunch when it comes to lifting. Like I mentioned before, I’ve heard a million different ideas on how football players should train in the weight room. Many of these are good and many of them are bad. However, effort and technique will always win out over a fancy template or a bunch of fancy lifts or machines. I don’t want the power clean mafia to put out a hit on me, so if you like power cleans or any other Olympic lifts, do them. I just heard a quote from a fellow head coach who said that his kids had sort of a “rite of passage” once they achieved proficiency with their power clean technique. I liked that. Those are the kind of things that make kids tougher. But as a football coach, you have the responsibility to do what is best for your players, not just on the field but in the weight room, too. So don’t just follow that “dogma” of high school football lifting because it’s tradition. Learn a little about what other places are doing and then reevaluate your own program. Good luck in the fall!
Questions or comments? Drop me a message at jerosen@riverside.k12.pa.us.