Productive strength training for Football requires that certain key elements are met; logic, efficiency, science, and good old hard work.  Your main goals are injury prevention and performance enhancement on the field.  You want these benefits from your strength training with the bare minimum of tax on your body's systemic recovery and, with minimal overall risk, i.e. with a favorable risk to benefit ratio. 

Logical training requires that a program is of an attainable and realistic nature and that all known science is utilized in obtaining your final decision.  Frequently, logical ideas will clash with science, this is ok.  It is in the form of true logic that one discerns the essential, applicable information for the given situation from the available information.  

Efficiency governs that the program be of such that it produces the desired results with minimal time and energy output.  One would desire to emphasize sport-specific movements over general preparatory exercises, as well as constructing a program that utilizes as little wasted activity as possible.  Remember that the most important part of strength training for Football is being able to devote your full faculties to the game, and the technique training that occurs outside of the weight room.  

Productive programs utilize available scientific literature extensively.  Problems arise when literature becomes the sole provider of information.  While it is important to acknowledge the findings of the past, it is crucial to look to the future for better methodologies.  Do not let success become the roadblock to greater success.  

The simplest and easiest factor to describe is hard work, but what exactly is hard work?  Hard work is a mixture of dedication and effort.  Both are necessary, and both, are required.  

Dedication, a simple phrase used freely by most, is actually a test of one's honor and fortitude.  True dedication is doing what one knows to be necessary time and time again over the long term.  You can not put your claim to dedication quite so easily as some think, as it is the most elusive of the traits to achieve.  One with true dedication performs each aspect known to be required to produce the greatest performance on and off the field time and time again.  He/she does not simply train and eat to get by and stay on the team.  Game performance preparation does not begin a couple months before the season and end after the season is through, it starts, and it continues indefinitely!  Proper nutrition and exercise habits are essential year round.  True dedication requires guts, plain and simple. 

Effort ties in with dedication.  It is the personal decision to expend as much effort as required to elicit the desired response from your body, your team, and yourself.  Plain old hard work does count.  Equal results obtained from training come at differing prices for each person, but you can be sure that your decision to work hard, and at the best of your abilities will ensure that you did not let genetics decide your success.  Always remember that the glory is in the strain, not the end result. 

I want to touch briefly on the choice of exercises one chooses to employ.  What exactly is sport-specific?  What constitutes a general preparatory exercise?  

In order for a movement to be deemed sport-specific, it must very closely mimic the same force, load, and energy pathway requirements as the sports movement patterns.  For example, the Flat Barbell Bench Press is NOT a sport-specific exercise in that there are no instances in the game, which call upon this movement pattern.  The Incline Barbell Bench Press or the Decline Barbell Bench Press on the other hand, may be considered sport-specific in that they closely mimic the movement patterns used on the field. 

The most important thing to remember when considering general preparatory exercises is that their sole function is to assist in the development of the sport-specific exercises.  They are not performed in order to get stronger for the hell of it, nor are they performed to be able to earn bragging rights to friends.  Just as the sole purpose of sport-specific exercises is to enhance game performance, these too have their purpose securely designated.  This is extremely important to remember when choosing your assistance exercises.  Also, in keeping with efficiency, movements must be chosen with the maximum synergistic and productive properties.  Do not waste time or energy on movements, which overlap previous exercises, or do not cover enough territory with minimum expenditure. 

In the next installment I will outline a program that meets these requirements, and will help you create your best performances on the field.  Stay tuned! 
 
 To be continued... 

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