Are You Ready For Some Football Practice?
Fall will soon be here. School bells will ring again. For Texans fall means the air will have a much anticipated chill – but most of all fall means Friday night football from Texarkana to Brownsville. Crowds will cheer. Cheerleaders will dance. Bands will march. Dads will hope their son will be the next star. Moms will worry. If football is king, then physical conditioning is a prince – but he is not a nice prince. This prince punishes you. He makes you struggle and sweat and he pushes you to the end of your endurance and makes you doubt your commitment. So if you want to have a better chance to make the starting lineup when the whistle blows, here are six things you should be doing now to get ready.
Begin Conservatively
If anybody has been motivated to the extreme to exercise after taking a long hiatus I’m sure you know the feeling of being painfully sore for days. While we do want to cause micro fractures to the muscle fibers, we don’t want to tear fibers which can commonly happen when you exercise too hard too early. We simply refer to this as DOMS, which is an acronym for delayed onset muscle soreness. The excessive soreness is believed to be caused by a sodium ion leak in the fibers of the muscle, which will also prolong recovery time, it can also create adhesions in the fascia is left unchecked. So, start a new exercise routine at a moderate pace and work up slowly, remember that more is not always better, especially during the first couple of weeks.
Focus On technique
Focus at least 2 days per week of perfecting movement patterns. If one performs skill movements incorrectly this will reinforce incorrect movements on the field, it does not matter how strong you are, if your form is better than the next guys, you will be the better athlete. Remember it’s okay to make mistakes, but a mistake is only a mistake if you did not learn from it.
Cardio and Sprints
Remember that football is mainly an anaerobic sport, at least 90% of the athletes metabolic training should be focused on enhancing short burst energy production. The way to do this is to focus on sprints and interval training. Aerobic exercise will decrease the amount of muscle lactate by increasing muscle lactate metabolism, lactate acid significantly contributes to muscle fatigue, and muscle lactate will render your muscles useless if your body cannot rid it fast enough, we refer to this as “onset of blood lactate”. By doing aerobic exercise you also increase the amount of mitochondria, we call these the “power house” of the cell, this is where the magic happens, the more mitochondria available, the more energy we can produce. A combination of aerobic and anaerobic training is critical during the off-season.
Flexibility
By far the most neglected, overlooked, and most critical component of power development, and injury prevention is a good base of flexibility. Always warm up before you stretch, this will increase blood flow to your muscles and get them heated and elastic. Remember that the more your muscles can stretch, the more potential energy they will have. Make sure to not over-stretch, this can cause muscle laxity, which means your range of motion is too extreme, this can result in an injury. So, if you aren’t flexible, start stretching, once your muscle become elastic enough focus on strength.
Strength.
We want to build strength during the off-season, power is not generated solely by muscle size it requires quick neural activation. Strength training increases neural activation, which will increase motor unit recruitment, and also improve the synchronization between motor units, therefore leading to a quick neural activation. Including Olympic lifts such as dead lift, bench press, power clean and squats are great exercises that will recruit type II muscle fibers, the fibers responsible for quick busts of energy that is exactly what you need while preparing for a football program.
Nutrition & Post workout meals
Carbohydrates are the high performance fuel. During training when you start to feel muscular fatigue it happens for two reasons, the first could be a lactate buildup the other could be a low amount of immediate energy. If you need energy fast use a carbohydrate supplement and make sure your diet is packed full of them around 2.5 grams of carbohydrates per body pound should give you sufficient energy for the off season workout. Protein we want to keep at about 1.5 grams for every 2 pounds of body weight. The best way to fuel up is to eat a good breakfast with whole grain carbohydrates and lean protein.
Your post workout meal should be packed full of carbohydrates and protein. We call this the “One Hour Window” after about one hour your body will actually start breaking down its own protein in a process called gluconeogenisis to attempt to replenish glycogen and also repair muscle fiber after strenuous exercise. If we can flood our body with protein and carbohydrates soon after exercise we can avoid this effect and get more out of your workout.
Fall will soon be here. School bells will ring again. For Texans fall means the air will have a much anticipated chill – but most of all fall means Friday night football from Texarkana to Brownsville. Crowds will cheer. Cheerleaders will dance. Bands will march. Dads will hope their son will be the next star. Moms will worry. If football is king, then physical conditioning is a prince – but he is not a nice prince. This prince punishes you. He makes you struggle and sweat and he pushes you to the end of your endurance and makes you doubt your commitment. So if you want to have a better chance to make the starting lineup when the whistle blows, here are six things you should be doing now to get ready.
Begin Conservatively
If anybody has been motivated to the extreme to exercise after taking a long hiatus I’m sure you know the feeling of being painfully sore for days. While we do want to cause micro fractures to the muscle fibers, we don’t want to tear fibers which can commonly happen when you exercise too hard too early. We simply refer to this as DOMS, which is an acronym for delayed onset muscle soreness. The excessive soreness is believed to be caused by a sodium ion leak in the fibers of the muscle, which will also prolong recovery time, it can also create adhesions in the fascia is left unchecked. So, start a new exercise routine at a moderate pace and work up slowly, remember that more is not always better, especially during the first couple of weeks.
Focus On technique
Focus at least 2 days per week of perfecting movement patterns. If one performs skill movements incorrectly this will reinforce incorrect movements on the field, it does not matter how strong you are, if your form is better than the next guys, you will be the better athlete. Remember it’s okay to make mistakes, but a mistake is only a mistake if you did not learn from it.
Cardio and Sprints
Remember that football is mainly an anaerobic sport, at least 90% of the athletes metabolic training should be focused on enhancing short burst energy production. The way to do this is to focus on sprints and interval training. Aerobic exercise will decrease the amount of muscle lactate by increasing muscle lactate metabolism, lactate acid significantly contributes to muscle fatigue, and muscle lactate will render your muscles useless if your body cannot rid it fast enough, we refer to this as “onset of blood lactate”. By doing aerobic exercise you also increase the amount of mitochondria, we call these the “power house” of the cell, this is where the magic happens, the more mitochondria available, the more energy we can produce. A combination of aerobic and anaerobic training is critical during the off-season.
Flexibility
By far the most neglected, overlooked, and most critical component of power development, and injury prevention is a good base of flexibility. Always warm up before you stretch, this will increase blood flow to your muscles and get them heated and elastic. Remember that the more your muscles can stretch, the more potential energy they will have. Make sure to not over-stretch, this can cause muscle laxity, which means your range of motion is too extreme, this can result in an injury. So, if you aren’t flexible, start stretching, once your muscle become elastic enough focus on strength.
Strength.
We want to build strength during the off-season, power is not generated solely by muscle size it requires quick neural activation. Strength training increases neural activation, which will increase motor unit recruitment, and also improve the synchronization between motor units, therefore leading to a quick neural activation. Including Olympic lifts such as dead lift, bench press, power clean and squats are great exercises that will recruit type II muscle fibers, the fibers responsible for quick busts of energy that is exactly what you need while preparing for a football program.
Nutrition & Post workout meals
Carbohydrates are the high performance fuel. During training when you start to feel muscular fatigue it happens for two reasons, the first could be a lactate buildup the other could be a low amount of immediate energy. If you need energy fast use a carbohydrate supplement and make sure your diet is packed full of them around 2.5 grams of carbohydrates per body pound should give you sufficient energy for the off season workout. Protein we want to keep at about 1.5 grams for every 2 pounds of body weight. The best way to fuel up is to eat a good breakfast with whole grain carbohydrates and lean protein.
Your post workout meal should be packed full of carbohydrates and protein. We call this the “One Hour Window” after about one hour your body will actually start breaking down its own protein in a process called gluconeogenisis to attempt to replenish glycogen and also repair muscle fiber after strenuous exercise. If we can flood our body with protein and carbohydrates soon after exercise we can avoid this effect and get more out of your workout.