Football Weight Training

I'm interested in past and present weight training regimes for football -- both at UT and at your high school. It's all changed so much over the years.

I'm especially interested in what UT does and did for weight training over the different coaching regimes. From newspapers I've heard of Dana LeDuc's work, and I recall hearing of a switch to more Olympic style lifting in the Mackovic era. I remember reading of Charlie's man on man strength challenges, etc.

 

At my high school, the football weight training (mid to late 80's, next-to-largest class, not too far from Houston) focused exclusively on power lifting. Under what could be described as a sort of Cro-Magnon era regime, we did bench, squat, and dead lift, almost exclusively. Incline and military press were tolerated. All other lifts (and especially bicep curls) were considered "pretty boy" lifts better suited for body builders or Hollywood actors. Machine weighs and anything high tech were looked at with much suspicion. Olympic lifts were regarded as just that--something for the Olympics, not football training. All weight lifting was done with long barbells. Dumbells were not used.

Like many high schools of that era, there would be big poster board charts for the whole male student body to see in the locker rooms with all the football players' current bench, squat, and deadlift maximums. It became rather competitive. Fortunately we weren't those dorks that would walk around the malls with shirts printed by the athletic dept that said "I bench press X lbs", etc.

Three times per week, we would do 4 sets of 5 reps of bench, squat, and deadlift at 80% of current maximums. Then we'd get new maximums once a month. Linemen would also pull big truck tires with ropes and harnesses.

If you compared us to that Rocky movie where he fought the Russian (with the Russian using fancy high tech training and Rocky using old-school equipment and techniques), we would be Rocky in our training methods.

 

There is a simple time tested method for building Strong football players

Smart Evaluation of the players body type

Target weight training of the major muscle groups

Early morning heavy weight training

Round robin training where you mix up the lifts to keep the muscles guessing

Overburn where you work specific major muscle groups to failure

Individualize each workout to the needs of the player

Diet of heavy protein to feed those muscles

Sleep sleep sleep, so the muscles repair themselves and get stronger.


If you follow this plan you will see major results really fast. Of course this workout also may cause shrinking of testicles, so beware.