This Should be a Sticky..or not. HOW TO BUILD A YEAR LONG PROGRAM(+1 year example)
Football season is coming to its final weeks of the post-season and it is time for athletes to start thinking about training for next season. You see a lot of questions on this forum asking how to increase speed in 3 weeks or pack on 10 pounds before the season starts next week. So for everyone who didn't feel like they optimized their off-season last year I’ll outline what your focus should be throughout the off-season.
The programs people follow are centered on building strength OR increasing your vertical OR packing on muscle OR increasing speed OR getting you in great condition. The truth of the matter is that athletes need to develop all of these qualities and not just one. It is problematic for an athlete to just follow a program that only focuses on one quality.
Conversely, it is also a major problem to take a speed program and combine it with a plyometric program and combine it with a strength program and combine it with a bodybuilder program and combine that with a conditioning program. If you do that you won't accomplish any of your goals. The problem with combining programs is that one program is a stand-alone product and it cannot take into account everything else you are doing. If the designer of the strength program knew you were doing a lot of conditioning, high rep finishers and sprints then I bet they would change some stuff around. Everything needs to be taken into account when designing a program.
Good programs will focus on different objects during different times of the season, with a primary focus on one or two qualities while the other qualities are put on the back burner but everything is taken into account of what is to come. I'm going to outline how you would go about putting yourself together a yearlong program leading up to football season.
This outline is in mind for a football player but the concepts can be informational for other sports as well. There are many different positions within football but the base of training is exactly the same. The main difference will be with the distances ran by position groups, conditioning requirements for position groups, special attention to the shoulder for the Qb, specific change of direction requirements and blocking sled/explosive work for linemen. This program is in mind for a lifter who has experience and proficiency in all the lifts.
Position Groups
Offensive and defensive linemen are placed in the Line group. Linebackers, TE's, QB's and FB's are placed in the big skill group. DB's, WR's and RB's are placed in the skill group. The majority of the sprints Line will do will be 20 yards, big skill with sprint at 30 yards and Skill will sprint at 40 yards. Here are the distances for extensive tempo runs: Line=60yds, big skill=80yds, Skill=100 yds.
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