How to Gain Weight and Get Stronger for Football
How to Gain Weight and Get Stronger for Football
Football Strength Training 101: Building Mass, Gaining Weight and Getting Stronger for Football
Football strength and speed training is about performancerunning faster, jumping higher, hitting harderin fact, most coaches push the performance aspect of training to the nth degree. Bodybuilding of any kind is looked upon with scorn and ridicule. Yet many players are undersized and need to put on quality muscle mass. Plus, let's face it, we football players are just as concerned with how big our guns look in our jersey as with our rushing yards.
Can a football strength and speed training program that focuses solely on performance lead to increases in mass? Can we gain weight and get stronger for football with such a program?
Or, do you need to forget performance and start oiling up and posing in front of a crowd?
Gaining Weight for Football
One of the main problems with the typical bodybuilding style football workout is that many sets are taken to failure. There is even an entire training system devoted to taking one main set to failure (H.I.T). The belief is that only those last few reps are worthwhile, so all sets must be taken to absolute failure.
This is faulty logic for many reasons.
Sets can never really be taken to absolute failure: Fatigue effects from different types of muscular work are specific, thus an athlete who is too tired to repeat the same exercise, say, a bench press, may still be able to perform another in good form, i.e. push-ups.
It is completely unnecessary for you to become completely exhausted in a single football workout; strength gains are greater when you are not tired
Pushing to exhaustion will burn out your CNS and force you to cut volume in future workout sessions. This is never a good idea when trying to gain muscle and pack on the mass for football.
How to Use Higher Reps in Your Football Workouts to Gain Weight
Powerlifters have used higher rep bodybuilding schemes for quite some time. This would seem counter-intuitive because the powerlifter, like football, is concerned with strength.
But, most powerlifters need a certain amount of mass to gain better leverages (the bigger your chest and back, the less distance the bar needs to be pushed in the Bench, thus increasing the amount of weight used). This is a key for gaining weight for football...
Also, the bigger lifters need to keep large amounts of muscle mass to "fit" into their weight classes. Strongman competitors also do quite a bit of rep work because of the sheer mass that's required to lift giant boulders, flip humongous tires, and drag around anchors.
Now, we want to borrow from the bodybuilders methods but apply them as a powerlifter would to our workouts. Remember, unlike a bodybuilder, we are trying to get faster, stronger, more explosive AND bigger for football. Not just bigger.
So, we need to add reps wisely.
To Gain Weight and Muscle for Football And Get Faster and Stronger: Start Heavy, Then Go High Reps
Start all of your football workouts off with a heavy, low rep exercise for your upper or lower body. So, lower body day would start with Squats, Front Squats, Deadlifts, etc. Upper would begin with Incline, Bench, Press, etc.
Then, finish your workout with assistance exercises aimed at helping you gain muscle and weight.
Movements like Romanian Deadlifts, Rows, Dumbbell Incline, Tricep Extensions, Lunges, Shrugs, etc are all done for 3 - 5 sets of 8 - 15 reps. And, you need to put some weight on the bar. You can't simple do a bunch of reps with sissy weight if you really want to get bigger and gain weight for football. Plus, you want to get stronger, so always strive to do a little more weight!
How Many Reps to Use in Your Football Workouts to Gain Weight
When it comes to gauging volume for muscle gains, especially when training for football, I like to use the "rule of 24" as my base. Basically, the rule of 24 means that the product of your sets and reps will come out to 24 total. For example, 3 x 8.
You can use the rule as a basic guide, it's not a hard and fast rule. Sometimes you may come in under 24 reps, and you will often do way more than 24. But, this should be your aim, especially in the beginning.
You can get to 24 reps in several ways:
3 x 8
8 x 3
4 x 6
6 x 4
5 x 5 (yes, it's 25 but the idea is the same)
2 x 12
12 x 2
Mix it up. Remember, this is the rep portion of the program, so, while 12 sets of doubles is fine, it's not idea. 12 x 2 would be great for a heavy day but not so great for a rep session.
I've found that the best results come from 3 5 sets of 5 8 reps.
Timed Sets to Gain Muscle for Football
This is a wicked twist on both high rep and density-focused training.
Take an exercise like the DB Incline. Pick a fairly heavy weight, something you might be able to do for 8. Then sent a timer for 2 minutes and start pressing!
You will not press continually because you will need to rest along the way, but, you keep the rest periods to a minimum as you try to cram as many reps as possible into this 2-minute period! Your set may look like this8, rest, 5, 4, 5, 3, 1,1,1. Then, you rest for 3 minutes and go again. Two of these blocks is plenty! Next time around you try to beat your total. It's simple and brutally effective!
Key Points
Use Higher-reps for muscle building and recovery and to gain weight for football
High rep sets are used for accessory and supplemental exercises, NOT, for your main strength exercises. To get Stronger for Football, you must train heavy
Use the Rule of 24 as your base when it comes to picking reps to gain muscle
Use some of the more extreme methods like Timed sets to break plateaus and gain new muscle Cut Back Calories For Fast Weight Loss Get Essentials For Personal Tax Return Benefits Ideas On How To Make A Fantastic Wedding Scrapbook China import export data: Elementary requirement for traders dealing with China Why Getting Rid Of A Tree Is Not A Job For Amateurs Make Your Penis Thick To Drive Your Woman Wild New Year DC is the Most Beautiful Place to Celebrate 2011 Things to Consider Before Buying Plastic Storage Containers Why Forex Trading ? How to Choose the Right Cosmetic Dentist? Know The Art Of Buying Trimmers A Raleigh Personal Injury Lawyer Is The Professional You Need For Your Situation Punta Cana First Rate Honeymoon Guides Suites Deals Dining Plus Destinations