Conditioning for Football

August 2, 2012
Written by Chad Wesley Smith

Conditioning tests are a standard practice at NFL, College and High School football training camps and are for the most part poorly designed. Many of you may remember the media fiasco that Albert Haynesworth’s difficulty to pass the Washington Redskins training camp created and while I certainly won’t argue that Haynesworth came into camp ready, the test he was being asked to perform (reportedly multiple 300yd shuttles) was so poorly designed that his ability to pass it had very little correspondence to his ability to play 4 quarters of football.

While scouring Facebook the other day, I ran across the video that featured a journalist attempting the Baltimore Ravens conditioning test. The test shown was 6x150yd shuttles (Run to the 25yd line and back, three times) with 70 seconds rest between each of the 6 reps. Offensive lineman were required to perform each rep in under 35 seconds. The journalist in the video does complete the test successfully, but after the 3^rd rep is clearly swimming in a bath of lactic acid, yet football is a totally alactic sport, so why do football coaches continue to insist upon conditioning their athletes outside of the proper energy systems?

The flaws in this type of test are abundant, yet this test and others like it (mile, 300yd shuttles, 110 yd runs) seem to still be the rule, rather than the exception in the NFL, college and high school football programs. It is well how NFL great, running back Earl Campbell, would routinely be among the slowest to finish his teams timed mile, yet he would dominate his competition during games. Campbell is a perfect example of how having a well developed lactic capacity does not help your ability (in fact it hinders it) to possess great speed, explosiveness and alactic capacity. It is this same reason that Usain Bolt isn’t also the World’s best 1500m runner and vice versa. To put it simply, being a great distance runner makes you a worse sprinter; what do you want on your team, sprinters or distance runners?

 

 

There has also been recent news of Felix Jones and two other players, failing the Dallas Cowboys’ conditioning test of 2×10 sprints of 40-60yds depending on position group. This is a far more rationally organized test that will do a better job of measuring the players alactic capacity. The other players who failed the test, Safety Brodney Pool and Reciever Andre Holmes, were ‘doing a lot of distance running during the offseason’ according to Cowboys’ coach Jason Garrett. Distance running, in addition to being ineffective in developing the proper energy systems needed for football, it is also much more stressful to the athlete’s joints. Stress fractures are a very common injury among distance runners and that problem is only compounded by having 300+ pounders performing distance work.

The Cowboy’s conditioning test is a good one, and simple to execute with large groups. Other test that would be great to utilize would be The Prowler Sprint Test or various sled sprint tests, utilizing heart rate monitors.

Conditioning is a big word that encompasses many different things. Ask anyone on the street who is better conditioned a marathon runner or a professional strongman and 99 times out of 100, they will say the marathon runner without hesitation. The question being asked though is incomplete, it must be predicated on better conditioned to do what? That is the question that too many sport coaches are failing to ask when they begin having their athletes run a set of gassers or suicides or send them off onto a multiple mile run. While the marathon runner is certainly better prepared to run, swim or bike for multiple miles, but the Strongman is better suited to produce repeated high outputs with short rest periods. You must examine what it is your athletes need to be ready for; long and slow or short and fast?

Those in charge of the training of football players, or any athlete, must examine what energy systems are primarily responsible for their athlete’s success. American football is a aerobic-alactic sport; from a time-motion standpoint it features 10-18 series of 3-15 plays which last 3-10 seconds in duration in which the athlete will usually cover 5-40 yds and encounter varying resistance depending on position. Depending on the style of offense being run and length of the play clock being used there will be 15-40 seconds between plays and 2-10 minutes between series. The understanding of this information is the jumping off point to properly conditioning football players.

Alactic capacity conditioning at Juggernaut:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Alactic Capacity Drills-10 Series	Tempo Runs	Alactic Capacity Drills-14 Series	Tempo Runs	Alactic Capacity Drills-12 Series
Primary Bench Training	Recovery Modalities	Accessory Weights	Recovery Modalities	Primary Squat Training
Secondary Squat Training		Abs		Secondary Bench Training
Abs				Abs

Our alactic capacity work is broken into series or 4-8 plays per series with a play being an explosive activity lasting 3-7 seconds in duration, in an effort to mimic the exact energy systems of a football game. We use 5-7 different drills each day to keep the athletes from getting stale and will do 2 series of each drill. Drills used vary by position group and include SPP drills, particularly for linemen. Rest between plays is 15-25 seconds depending on the time of year, style of offense they play in (or against) and length of play clock used at their level of play. Here is a look at some of our staple alactic capacity drills…