From youth leagues all the way up to the professional ranks, football is a physically intense sport that requires year-round training and dedication. From the workout room to the playing field, football players can be found putting on muscle and building speed. There are a variety of ways to increase speed that translate to the football field.
Benefits
While training may take place all year for football, the intensity of each training session reaches its peak during the off-season. There are no games, bumps or bruises to recover from. Workouts can take place every day without the worry of being too fatigued for a game the next day. There are also no plays or game plans to memorize, allowing you to mentally focus on what you need to do physically for each workout.
Types
Speed training varies significantly per position. The positional groups break into three sections: linemen, backs and sprinters. Linemen concentrate on short-burst exercises, as they rarely are required to do any sprinting on the field. Backs focus on power movements and short distance sprinting, somewhere between five and 25 yards maximum. Sprinters consist mostly of receivers and defensive backs, positions that require them to run 40 to 50 yards on a play-to-play basis. Their training is often split between field sprinting drills and weight room endurance exercises.
Considerations
The stronger a player's muscles are, the more force he is going to be able to apply when his foot meets the ground. During the off-season there is also no need to worry about muscle gains unexpectedly cutting into a player's range of motion. What this means is players are free to put on as much muscle as necessary through a protein-rich diet. Dr. Peter Lemon, who headed a study at the University of Western Ontario, found that eating between 1.7 and 1.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight every day will result in maximum muscle growth in an active individual.
Effects
Increased speed through workouts will lead directly to an increased ability to create or close the separation between yourself and opposing players on the football field. Increased muscle mass in your legs may slightly alter your range of motion and running technique, therefore stretches and flexibility exercises must be done before and after every workout session. This will also help avoid muscle strains which can potentially put you out for the entire off-season.
Misconceptions
The idea that to increase speed you just go out and buy special shoes or run around cones on the field is entirely false. The first step in increasing sprinting speed is increasing leg strength. There is a reason that Olympic sprinters have thighs the size of tree trunks. Another misconception is that linemen, players who often have stomachs that hang over their football pants, don't train for speed at all. While linemen may not train for speed as frequently as most other positions, that's only because sprinting isn't a part of their role. Linemen speed training focuses on quick feet, balance and reactionary drills. A lineman has to be the first person off of the line on every football snap.
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