Football is a one of the hardest-hitting contact sports. With a top notch physical training that integrates both weight training and conditioning, an athlete can perform all season long without getting hurt on the field.

I’m always telling my athletes that it’s useless to bench press 400 lbs or squat 600 lbs if you’re stuck on the sidelines for half the season with a dislocated shoulder or a bruised meniscus. Efficient strength training for football must first of all be focused on correctly identifying an athlete’s structural weaknesses. The weakest link is usually the one that eventually breaks. So, a lineman that squats 600 lbs but has a really weak or completely deactivated posterior chain can still suffer injuries, for example to the back and hamstrings (while not using his full strength and explosive potential). I meet many athletes that have suffered easily-preventable injuries.

A good strength and conditioning program for the off- or –regular season must include a structural work component that usually (depending on the training phase) represents at most a third of the program and can be executed at the end of the training. The shoulders, lumbar areas, shoulder blades, rotator cuff muscles, knees, ankles and neck are parts that should get trained all year long, because they are the hardest hit by tackles or violent impacts. You should never forget that those endless external rotations or painful split-squats are your insurance policy against serious injuries. A good strength coach working with football players should first make sure that his athletes suffer the least amount of injuries. This should be one of the most important criteria on which to base your choice of a good weight training coach. If your trainer doesn’t help you recover from an injury and not get injured the same way afterwards, you should find another one. Some strength coaches can help you increase your bench press and squat, but the best coaches can give you those results AND keep you fit.

Have a good training!