What Sets And Reps For A Fullback

[Football199677]

I'm training for fullback my senior high school year. I'm 5'9 190 lb. So obviously I need to gain some major weight. I'm lifting 4 days a week. Monday is chest/back/bi. Tuesday is legs/shoulders/tris. Rest on Wednesday and repeat on Thursdays and Friday but with some different exercises, sets and reps. What I'm curious on is what sets and reps should I be doing on my exercises? Like for bench and squats and all those good core lifts and also the secondaries like tri pull downs or bicep curls. Oh and my high school uses there full back to block 95% of the time so I know I need a lot of strength and weight. of Thanks

[azz33]

I wouldn't do a body part split in the first place man. Stick to a full body or upper/lower body split especially at your age/training age make the most of this time with big compound lifts that will maximise your potential for growth and strength gains. There's plenty of program's that you can follow that would help you reach your goals and are easy to follow - WS4SB3, starting strength, 531, etc. are all good and are easy to follow and they tell you how many reps/sets to do and they will work.. As long as you choose one and stick to it and dont change after 3 or 4 weeks. To tell the truth you don't really need biceps curls or tricep pull downs. Just stick to the big compound lifts and train them hard and you'll probably be a bit too stuffed to be worrying about curls or pull downs. For an athlete, these are very low bang for your buck but if you feel you can't do without they won't hurt either.. You just don't need them.

I'm training for fullback my senior high school year. I'm 5'9 190 lb. So obviously I need to gain some major weight. I'm lifting 4 days a week. Monday is chest/back/bi. Tuesday is legs/shoulders/tris. Rest on Wednesday and repeat on Thursdays and Friday but with some different exercises, sets and reps. What I'm curious on is what sets and reps should I be doing on my exercises? Like for bench and squats and all those good core lifts and also the secondaries like tri pull downs or bicep curls. Oh and my high school uses there full back to block 95% of the time so I know I need a lot of strength and weight. of Thanks

[JardmanOLB]

great advice ^ I recommend Bill Starr's 5x5 with power cleans instead of/as well as rows.

[Football199677]

Alright thank you. How many days would you work core? 2?

[JardmanOLB]

Do core after you've done your compounds on the day. You don't need to do too much core since you're doing plenty of compounds which will do more for you than situps.

[tcifrino51]

Any sort of hypertrophy workout would probably work well for you. Also, as a fullback you will more often than not using one side of your body to block linebackers so that your RB can cut off your block. Because of this, for your own health and safety, do NOT neglect working out your neck and shoulders. If there was one exercise I'd recommend for other FBs, it'd be hang cleans. The second would be deadlift-to-shrugs. Your traps and deltoids, and all the little muscles and joints around them will take a pounding, especially if you're going to be running an I a lot.

Also, at 5'9 190 you'd no doubt could make a bruising high school fullback, but if you can hack it consider putting some weight (fat, muscle, water, doesn't really matter). Last year, I played RB at 6'0 228, but when I went to do my prep year my coach told me he was moving me to FB. I packed on some fat and muscle and got myself up to 240 for the beginning of the season. My 40 went from a 4.77 to a 4.88, but it didn't really matter because I was just lead blocking, not breaking off TD runs. Your priority though should be making sure you can get to the LB/DE though, weight will help you (especially if your 5'9", no disrespect but as a linebacker it sucked when the fullback was shorter than me) but only if you can get there to make the block.

Some other miscellaneous Fullback advice (from one FB to another)
-Have an O-Lineman/O-line coach teach you to block. RB Coaches have no idea.
-Pass protection and blitz pickup is very difficult, watch film to find linebackers tendencies, see if they send the weakside in a trips formation, and know which of your linemen are good and which suck.
-Don't wear sleeves. I play football in New England and its cold and snowy in November, but sleeves make it much easier to fumble. Fullbacks are slow, we can't be fumblers too.
-Keep your pad level lower than everyone else. This goes for blocking and carrying the ball.
-Having a gut adds to your intimidation factor. Especially if everything else on you looks yoked.
-If you only choose to follow one bit of advice from me, make it this: Learn to/get better at catching. You'll get the ball much more often and your coach and will absolutely love having a reliable checkdown against good coverage or a blitz.

Good luck next season!

[ChestDayErryDay]

5x5 on bench squat and cleans and deads was my bread and butter throughout high school and will likely give you solid gains. For non compound lifts 11-9-7-5 was what our coaches made us do and that worked pretty well too. Like mentioned before, focus on compound lifts, they'll do you wonders. And EAT EAT EAT.

[Football199677]

Hey thank you so much. Everything you've said is going to help me a lot. It's been a little over a month and I went from 185 to 195 (just weighed myself today) and I have about 4-5 months till summer camp so I'm pretty excited about that 10 pound increase. I'm just hoping to be at least 210 by the season. But yeah I know what you mean when you say the shoulders take a beating. My school FB is defiantly a path clearer for are RB up the middle. But I've never had a problem with not being fast enough because I don't play a position that I know I'm not quick enough for, like RB. I've played DE my whole life and love it (I know I know 5'9 as a DE isn't right but I actually do really good). So shooting quick out of a stance is 2nd nature. But thanks again. I'm defiantly going to be doing some dead lifts to shrugs since I've never done both in one movement haha.

Any sort of hypertrophy workout would probably work well for you. Also, as a fullback you will more often than not using one side of your body to block linebackers so that your RB can cut off your block. Because of this, for your own health and safety, do NOT neglect working out your neck and shoulders. If there was one exercise I'd recommend for other FBs, it'd be hang cleans. The second would be deadlift-to-shrugs. Your traps and deltoids, and all the little muscles and joints around them will take a pounding, especially if you're going to be running an I a lot.

Also, at 5'9 190 you'd no doubt could make a bruising high school fullback, but if you can hack it consider putting some weight (fat, muscle, water, doesn't really matter). Last year, I played RB at 6'0 228, but when I went to do my prep year my coach told me he was moving me to FB. I packed on some fat and muscle and got myself up to 240 for the beginning of the season. My 40 went from a 4.77 to a 4.88, but it didn't really matter because I was just lead blocking, not breaking off TD runs. Your priority though should be making sure you can get to the LB/DE though, weight will help you (especially if your 5'9", no disrespect but as a linebacker it sucked when the fullback was shorter than me) but only if you can get there to make the block.

Some other miscellaneous Fullback advice (from one FB to another)
-Have an O-Lineman/O-line coach teach you to block. RB Coaches have no idea.
-Pass protection and blitz pickup is very difficult, watch film to find linebackers tendencies, see if they send the weakside in a trips formation, and know which of your linemen are good and which suck.
-Don't wear sleeves. I play football in New England and its cold and snowy in November, but sleeves make it much easier to fumble. Fullbacks are slow, we can't be fumblers too.
-Keep your pad level lower than everyone else. This goes for blocking and carrying the ball.
-Having a gut adds to your intimidation factor. Especially if everything else on you looks yoked.
-If you only choose to follow one bit of advice from me, make it this: Learn to/get better at catching. You'll get the ball much more often and your coach and will absolutely love having a reliable checkdown against good coverage or a blitz.

Good luck next season!

[Football199677]

Yeah that makes sense. Thanks

Do core after you've done your compounds on the day. You don't need to do too much core since you're doing plenty of compounds which will do more for you than situps.