The sport of football places tremendous physical demands on an athlete. An athlete must possess adequate work capacity, speed, explosive power, and absolute strength to become a successful football player. Coaches must implement a comprehensive strength and conditioning program to meet the demands of the sport. 

Strength training is one of the most important aspects of athletic development. Enhancing absolute strength, power, speed, and work capacity will allow athletes to reach their full potential. No matter how naturally talented a player may be, the weight room will take physical strength and capabilities to the next level. 

Aside from helping athletes reach their full potential, strength training also helps athletes improve their physical durability, leading to decreased injury rates. With the high-speed impacts that occur during the average football game, athletes must have the strength and physicality necessary to perform at a high level and recover from game to game. 

At Westside, we have trained and consulted with many different football coaches and players over the years. Using the Conjugate Method, we have assisted athletes in becoming stronger, more explosive football players who can perform at a high-level week after week. 

With a properly structured Conjugate Method program, football players can undoubtedly improve their sports performance. 

The Importance of Strength Training in Football

Football requires athletes to be strong, explosive, fast, and adequately conditioned. While football practice can help improve strength and conditioning to some degree, adding a weight training plan into the mix accelerates the rate of improvement. Through the use of the max, dynamic, and repeated effort methods, we can deliver rapid results in the gym that translate directly over to the football field.

The maximal effort method will help athletes improve their absolute strength. This method requires athletes to train at high levels of intensity, intending to recruit the largest motor units. By doing so, absolute strength improves, improving the level of force an athlete can produce. 

This method improves an athlete's ability to exert force and helps increase bone and soft tissue density. This increases an athlete's overall physical durability and ability to endure high-speed impacts on a weekly basis. 

The dynamic effort method helps athletes improve their explosive strength. This means training an athlete to exert a high level of force in a short amount of time. By performing dynamic effort movements, athletes improve their rate of force development, allowing them to be more explosive and quickly reach maximum force outputs.

It's a simple idea; the maximal effort method improves the level of force an athlete can produce, and the dynamic effort method helps shorten the amount of time it takes to reach peak force output. Combining absolute strength and explosive power development allows an athlete to tackle with authority, deliver blocks that push the defense off the line of scrimmage, and change direction in a powerful manner.

The repeated method allows athletes to improve physical composition and work capacity and can be used to target identified weak muscle groups.

If a player shows up to camp out of shape, we can use repeated effort work to enhance work capacity and drop some weight. If a player shows up with a muscle weakness affecting playing ability, we can design targeted repeated effort work to solve the issue. 

As you can see, the Conjugate Method is perfectly structured for improving athletic performance. We leave no strength untrained, and we do so simultaneously. Instead of working through training phases that take weeks or months, we can attack all sport-relevant strengths weekly. 

This sets a Conjugate Method training plan apart from other strength training methodologies. 

Assessing Your Current Fitness Level

As athletes prepare to begin a training plan, it is important to test each player's current fitness level. This is necessary to ensure that the strength and conditioning plan implemented does not place excess demand on individual athletes. While we, of course, wish all athletes would show up in shape and ready to train, we know this will not always be the case. 

Ensuring we have a basic understanding of each athlete's current fitness level will make training much more productive for each individual. Additionally, it will prevent athletes from getting in over their heads regarding what level of training they can and cannot recover from. We want training to help the athlete, not break down or injure the athlete. 

We must first test conditioning and work capacity. Football is a sport that requires stamina and the ability to perform various athletic tasks repeatedly. So, we want to ensure that each athlete is appropriately conditioned to perform the tasks their position requires on a down-to-down basis. 

To test conditioning, we recommend a basic mile run. We want to time the run and then monitor the amount of time it takes each athlete to recover from the run. We will judge each player based on their ability to keep up with what are perceived to be the best athletes within their position group. 

When testing work capacity, we will have players perform tasks such as push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, and sled pulls. These exercises will help give coaches an idea regarding the strengths and weaknesses that will need to be addressed for each player via accessory exercise selections.

Once we have an idea of the type of shape athletes are showing up to camp in, we can move on to testing speed and agility. To test speed, athletes will run a basic 40-yard dash test. Once again, we will identify the best athletes in each position group and judge all other athletes to that standard. 

To test agility, we will use a basic 5-10-5 agility test. This is the standard change of direction test for all football players and is an excellent way to judge an athlete's ability to move from sideline to sideline on the football field. 

Explosive power can be tested in a few ways. We will start by testing it for the lower body with a vertical and broad jump test. To test explosive power for the upper body, we can use the speed bench press using a weight relevant to the position group being tested.

We can also use an Olympic weightlifting exercise, such as the power or hang clean.

Finally, we will test absolute strength. This will be achieved by testing each athlete's max squat and bench press. Keep in mind that we do not need the athlete to max out to full capacity. We will perform a well-executed and heavy rep while leaving a set in the tank. 

These tests should be performed over a two-week period. The first week will focus on conditioning, work capacity, and agility. The second week will test explosive power and absolute strength. We recommend at least one day of recovery between each testing day, with two days of rest being optimal, particularly during the second week of testing. 

Designing a Football-Specific Training Program

What makes the Conjugate Method so valuable is the training methodologies used and the structure of the training plan. Each week, athletes address absolute strength, explosive power, work capacity, and speed. Combine this work with football practice, and athletes develop a high level of strength and conditioning that translates directly to the football field. 

The most important aspect of designing a football program is the exercise selection. We want to ensure that the selected exercises provide as much benefit to the athlete as possible. With the limited amount of training time an athlete has in the weight room, we must ensure that the movements selected provide as much benefit as possible.

This means we want to select multi-joint movements that target critical muscle groups involved in football-related tasks and single-joint movements designed to improve multi-joint movement capabilities and target identified weak small muscle groups. 

Here is an example of what a properly structured Conjugate Method training week would look like for a football player:

ME Lower:

SSB Low Box Squat – work up to a top set single.

Hang Clean - 4 x 5

Single-Leg RDL - 3 x 10-12

Calf Raises - 4 x 25

GHR Sit-Ups - 4 x AMRAP

Farmer's Walk - 10 trips, 10-15 yds per trip

ME Upper:

Bench Press – work up to a top set of 3 reps.

Barbell Row - 4 x 8-10

Rolling DB Triceps Extension - 4 x 12-15

Hammer Curl - 3 x 12-15

Lateral Raise - 3 x 15

Face Pulls - 3 x AMRAP

DE Lower:

Box Squats – 5 x 5 @60%

Speed Deadlift – 6 x 2 @60%

Landmine Torso Rotation - 4 x 12-15 each side

Inverse Curl - 4 x AMRAP

Reverse Hyper - 4 x 15-20

Leg Lifts - 4 x 12-15

Sled Push - 15 trips, 10-15 yds per trip

DE Upper:

Football Bar Speed Bench - 9 x 3 @60%

Close-Grip Bench Press - 4 x 5-8

Lat Pulldowns - 4 x 12-15

Williams Extension - 4 x 10-12

Chest-Supported Row - 4 x 10-12

DB Curl - 3 x 12-15

Cable Lateral Raise - 3 x 12-15

During in-season training, we often use a two—or three-day Conjugate training program. This often means we condense the dynamic effort training days into one training session while performing 1-2 accessory movements each for the upper and lower body. 

For more information regarding our Conjugate Football training program, check out the Conjugate Club. 

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Optimal Exercise Selection for Football 

Volume, intensity levels, and exercise selection will affect the quality of an athlete's training program. For training to be most effective, we must choose the exercises that best improve the special strengths we seek to enhance. With exercise selection on point, the chances for a successful training plan go through the roof. 

During max effort days, we want to perform basic movements such as the squat, bench press, and deadlift. Once an athlete can perform these movements to standard, we can add variation to these exercises by using accommodating resistance or specialty barbells such as the SSB, giant cambered, or Swiss bar. 

When seeking to improve explosive strength, we will consider a few different options. We often perform dynamic effort squats and bench presses, which involve accommodating resistance and specialty bars. We can also opt to add Olympic weightlifting and plyometric movements to the mix. 

Accessory exercises can be multi- and single-joint exercises, and they aim to improve physical composition and work capacity. Movements such as goblet squats, Romanian deadlifts, dumbbell bench presses, barbell rows, rolling dumbbell triceps extensions, and abdominal exercises are commonly used accessory exercises. 

This training will help improve the rate of force development and target specific anterior and posterior muscles and muscle groups. 

It is often believed that skill position athletes and linemen must perform different exercises, considering the demands of each position. However, when you think about it, nearly all players perform similar tasks down after down, aside from the quarterback position. During each play, linemen, running backs, wide receivers, linebackers, and defensive backs make contact, block, sprint, or move explosively in short distances. 

Considering this, exposing all athletes to similar movements and training stimuli makes sense. Just because an athlete plays a skill position does not mean the athlete does not need to become stronger. By improving absolute strength, a skill position player can run faster, change direction more explosively, deliver powerful blocks downfield, and enhance their resistance to injury. 

Unfortunately, many coaches believe that training at higher levels of intensity will diminish the speed and quickness of skill position athletes. Another concern raised by coaches is that athletes will suddenly put on twenty pounds of muscle and become bodybuilders. Neither of these scenarios will occur when using our training with skill position players. 

Our goal for all players is to enhance absolute strength, explosive power, work capacity, speed, and relative strength. We want players who are physically dominant within their position groups, capable of overpowering, outrunning, and outlasting the opponent. Exercise selection should be based on the strength being trained, not the position an athlete plays. 

Plyometrics

Plyometric exercises are a great way to improve an athlete's explosive power, speed, and endurance. This means athletes can maintain their jumping, sprinting, and change-of-direction abilities throughout the duration of a football game. 

At Westside, we perform plyometrics on our lower body training days, typically on our dynamic effort lower training day. These exercises are executed either before or after we squat and deadlift. The order in which we perform these exercises depends on the individual. 

Some athletes respond better to plyometric exercise after a short warm-up, while others prefer to perform the movements following dynamic effort squats and deadlifts. A coach should select whichever choice allows athletes to perform best. 

A few of our go-to plyometric exercises include box jumps, seated box jumps, depth jumps, scissor jumps, and various styles of bounding. We perform two- and one-legged jumps and jumps in both a forward and lateral direction. We focus on explosive movements with short ground contact times. 

We will perform up to 40 jumps in each session, provided the athlete has the proper stamina. We can go with a classic 4 x 10 set and rep scheme with one exercise, or we can break the 40 jumps down into multiple styles of jumps. Here is an example of basic plyometric training for athletes:

Lateral Bounding – 4 x 10

Or 

Box Jump – 4 x 5

Scissor Jump – 2 x 10

As you can see, we can complete our work in one or multiple exercises with various sets and rep ranges. The goal is to perform basic plyometric movements in multiple directions to ensure athletes are prepared for the explosive power demands they will face on the football field. 

Building Endurance for Football

If athletes wish to succeed on the football field, they must have the stamina to demonstrate strength and skill down after down. This requires a high level of work capacity and endurance. To ensure athletes show up to camp with enough endurance to begin basic practice, athletes must maintain endurance-focused training year-round. 

In season, much of the endurance training is accomplished during practice via sprints and drills, and during games as athletes acclimate to football tasks and begin getting into "game" shape. However, for a football player to be most successful, it is essential to remain as close to game shape as possible year-round.

This means that during the offseason, athletes must maintain a basic sprint protocol and a few endurance-focused runs per week. For athletes struggling with conditioning, this can mean starting at a half-mile run and working to get to one or one-and-a-half miles. If an athlete is in shape, we recommend up to three-mile runs during the offseason. 

The more work you can put into enhancing your endurance, the better your performance will be on the football field and in the weight room. By showing up to camp already in shape, athletes start at a higher level year after year, becoming better and better.

If an athlete waits until it is time to report to camp to get into shape, their ability to improve year to year is ultimately limited. 

An athlete's level of endurance plays a critical role in all sports, and football is no different. If you want to be the best football player you can be, ensure your cardiovascular conditioning is on point from year to year. 

Integrating Strength Training with Team Practice

The most crucial aspect of developing a successful football strength training program is to ensure the training plan is designed to avoid clashing with sports practice or competition. This means we want to work enough to improve but not so much that recovery times are extended and begin to affect game or practice performance.

As a strength coach, communication with coaches and monitoring athlete fatigue on a weekly basis are critical. A strength coach must have accurate feedback and data regarding the weekly expectations of players to optimize training. During the off-season, we can take a more aggressive approach while finding ways to maintain strength and avoid causing excess fatigue once camp and football season begin. 

During the season, we want to train at a frequency that prevents detraining while limiting the volume and intensity of training to avoid affecting field performance. It is a balancing act, but as long as a strength coach maintains good communication with the football coach and players, it is rather simple to adjust between off- and in-season strength training. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What are effective methods for preventing injury in football players?

A: The maximal effort method best helps to improve durability and resilience for all athletes. 

Q: How can I integrate strength training with my regular football practice schedule?

A: In season, we often recommend training two days per week. These two sessions combine upper and lower body movements to help avoid detraining. 

Q: How can football players improve their explosive power and speed?

A: Dynamic effort training combined with jumps and sprints will significantly improve explosive power and speed. 

Q: Are sled pulls effective for football players?

A: Yes, sled pulls are great for helping football players develop work capacity, explosive power, and lower body strength, depending on how they are programmed and executed. 

Q: Should football players use belts, knee sleeves, and wrist wraps when strength training?

A: Yes. These devices will help to provide stability and limit the wear and tear on the joints during barbell training. 

Conjugate for Football

What makes the Conjugate Method so valuable to the strength coach focused on conventional sports is the customizability of the programming. No matter the player, circumstances, or time of year, we can develop a comprehensive program to deliver optimal training adaptations and make a direct impact on sports performance. 

Our training methods address all the special strengths needed to play football at a high level and will help take athletic performance to the next level. Athletes only have so much time each year to dedicate to barbell training, so why would they not opt to use the most efficient strength training method?

The Conjugate Club Football programming targets the strengths and muscle groups most involved in football-related tasks. This training program helps make an athlete stronger, faster, and better conditioned. Additionally, through max effort training, athletes will improve their durability and toughness. 

If you are a coach seeking to take your athletes to the next level, the Conjugate Method is your best choice. Our training helps to improve absolute strength, explosive power, speed, and work capacity rapidly and will lower yearly injury rates. Winning or losing comes down to who is better prepared, and the Conjugate Method leads to a significantly higher level of preparedness. 

When it comes to effectiveness and efficiency, no strength training method compares to the Conjugate Method.

Sources:

Simmons, L. (2007). Westside Barbell Book of Methods. Westside Barbell.