How to get faster for football...
the age-old question that seems to be impossible to answer in this age of mega-info available on the internet.
There's about a million programs and speed training gimmicks out there, all promising that if you just use their special tool, you'll become the next Eddie Royal.
But, in reality, getting faster for football is not all that complicated.
You only need two things: 1.
A Great Football Strength Program 2.
An Intelligently Designed Plyometrics Program See, most football speed is built in the weightroom.
How strong you are determines how fast you are.
All the sprints in the world will not make you faster if you don't strengthen the muscles to produce the necessary force to actually get faster for football.
It's like attempting to make your car go faster by simply driving it a lot vs.
putting in a more powerful engine.
Lifting heavy, usually at or above 85% for low reps is the best way to get stronger for football so that you can get faster and more explosive.
However, simply lifting heavy can leave some gaps in your speed.
You also need to apply maximum force to the bar (lift it as fast as possible no matter how heavy the weight is).
And, you need to do some speed work in the weightroom.
This is accomplished by lifting lighter weights as fast as possible (typically 50 - 60% of your max, usually with chains or bands added).
If you do those two things, you will absolutely get faster for football.
Sorry, I realize it's not as exciting as running around with a parchute or prancing around with "strength shoes" on.
But, it works.
Enter Plyometrics Now, you will get faster if you do the heavy strength training combined with the dynamic training.
But, if you really want to go to the next level...
if you want to go from being fast to being blazingly fast and explosive, you need to add Plyometrics to your program.
Unfortunately, most of the info out there about plyos is absolutely horrid.
The volume is off the charts and they suggest advanced exercises for the beginner! Plyometrics are not to be toyed with! Plyometrics are exercises where the muscles are allowed to reach max strength in minimum time.
Usually, they are a form of jumping.
To get a real feel for what plyos are and what they can do for football, think of them this way: When you perform any sort of muscular work - lifting, running, jumping, even walking - your muscles will alternate between a period of lengthening (the eccentric phase) and contracting (shortening phase).
The simplest analogy is that of you jumping and a spring.
Both store energy, then release it upwards.
In your case, you drop into a rapid squat (eccentric) before contracting your muscles to propel you up into a jump.
It is that rapid stretch phase that leads to such high amounts of potential elastic energy (we'll refer to this as explosiveness for the sake of simplicity).
Explosive strength is a specific motor quality requiring specific training methods.
This can be done in the weight room with max effort work, chains, bands, and dynamic effort movements.
But, these will still leave a gap in strength.
This is where Plyos are useful.
Because the Central Nervous System is the key to being faster, more explosive and stronger, we need to use training methods that train the CNS.
Getting back to that rapid stretching phase that is so important, we have to realize its importance.
The myotatic reflex, also called the stretch reflex, responds to the rate at which a muscle is stretched and is one of the fastest in the human body.
1 This response is automatic.
The muscle contracts faster during the stretch-shortening cycle (think of the spring) than in any other type of contraction.
If you had to actually think about doing it, it'd be too late for jumping or running - the contraction would be too slow.
When a tendon or active muscle is rapidly stretched, the elastic energy is stored and this energy is recoiled and used to enhance motor output in the concentric phase.
Or, more simply: * The faster a muscle is stretched, the greater the potential force.
When this happens, you can produce a more forceful movement, or simply, you can hit harder, run faster, jump higher...
you'll be more explosive.
How to Use Plyos Usually when I talk to someone about plyometrics, they are fired up and ready to start a jumping program that would cripple a Soviet Olympian...
you simply can not do this.
You have to start with the basics: -Bounding -Long Jumps -Lateral Long Jumps -Jump Rope After a few weeks you can move on to the basic box jump.
This is very easy to do.
Stand in front of a plyometric box and jump up onto it.
You can add multiple boxes of varying height.
When you are on the top of one box, step off (do NOT jump down), rebound off the floor explosively onto the next.
When you do this, you must focus on staying on the ground for minimum amount of time! If you linger, the CNS will learn to be slow...
and no one wants to get slower for football, right? You do not need a huge volume of jumps.
To begin, add 3 - 5 sets of 3 - 5 jumps, done before your leg training.
You can also do lateral jumping on one of the days to make sure you're also building lateral speed.
More important than the volume of your plyo work is that you concentrate on speed.
Jump explosively, step off, land and instantly jump back up to the next box.
This is where explosiveness is built! This is how to get faster for football.