Summer Football Training for Speed and Power

Use your summer football training workouts to get faster, more powerful and to prepare yourself to help your team win games! To do this, you must get better as an athlete and football player.

Periodization training for football players is important because you want to peak at the right time---DURING THE SEASON! Periodization training is a method that helps to avoid injuries and over-training.

During the summer, you must convert your strength to power (how fast your muscles can produce force) and speed. The 7-on-7 tournament games during the summer are a good way to work on your speed and agility.

Plyometrics, sport specific training and speed training comes to the forefront as you get ready for the season.

At some point, getting stronger will not increase your power. Power, or speed strength is one of the best physical predictors of success in sports.

High speed plyometric exercises like jumps and bounding are high-risk, high-reward. It is important to learn proper jumping and landing techniques before doing the exercises at full speed.

And, plyometric exercises like squat jumps improve vertical jump height and top end running speed. Year after year at the NFL Combine, the fastest athletes also have the highest vertical jump heights.

Sport specific exercises should closely mimic the movements at your position. For example, a defensive back would do high speed shuffles, back pedals, crossovers, hip turn-and-runs, etc.

Speed training would include agility drills (reaction, quickness, change-of-direction), speed endurance (including metabolic training), speed acceleration, closing speed, backwards speed, stopping speed, etc.

As you progress year after year, you will need less muscle growth/strength training and more plyometric/speed/position training. So, the time periods for each training goal can be shortened or lengthened.

Go here now and get your Free Sports Power Workout Book and Speed Training Tips!

"Other things being equal, a muscular, powerful athlete will outperform a fat, slower or skinny, weaker athlete. Sports Fitness Hut's Fat Blaster Athletic Power Training System will give you your "lean and mean" athletic machine!"

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

5 Steps to Improve Explosive Power for Sports

Explosive, powerful athletes win more games, get more scholarships and sign more contracts. Train your body to perform at its best! That's all you can do, right?

If you have weak structures supporting your ankles, knees, low back, hips, elbows and shoulders, your power potential will suffer. And, you are headed for avoidable injuries.

Take these 5 Steps to Improve Your Explosive Power:

1. Bodyweight and dumbbell exercises are great for stabilizing your joint structures and core. For example, if your right leg is significantly stronger than your left leg, you cannot compensate for the weaker leg.

It will be forced to "catch up in strength" to the right leg.
These exercises will also prepare your body for heavier weights and intense plyometric and speed exercises.

2. Promotion of plyometrics and sport specific exercises has gotten out of hand.

Plyometrics and sport specific exercises are important but only if you have enough strength and joint stability to make these more risky exercises work effectively for you (to improve explosive power).

3. The core muscles are very important in preventing low back pain and stabilizing the shoulder girdle and hip structures. A strong and stable core will maximize your extremity strength (limbs) and explosive power. If your core is weak, you will not effectively transfer power from your legs to your upper body.

A core strengthening program involves using many muscles in a coordinated movement. Rather than isolating specific joints as in most weight lifting exercises, core stability exercises focus on working the deep muscles of the entire torso at once.

4. You can improve the ankle's joint proprioception (position sense) and dynamic joint stability with balance training. Doing one-legged balance exercises will accomplish this goal. One-leg balancing on foam pads or disks for 4-5 minutes (each leg) is a great exercise. Other great exercises are lunges, single-leg squats, step ups and medicine ball rotations on one leg.

5. You will need to strengthen your knees and ligaments around them. Having strong, stable knee structures will influence how high you can jump. The deep knee bend exercise is good for this purpose.

Work hard and smart to succeed in your sport!

Go here now and get your Free Sports Power Workout Book and Speed Training Tips!

"Other things being equal, a muscular, powerful athlete will outperform a fat, slower or skinny, weaker athlete. Sports Fitness Hut's Fat Blaster Athletic Power Training System will give you your "lean and mean" athletic machine!"

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

8 Workout Nutrition Tips To Build Muscle

Pre- and post- workout nutrition is critical for you to build muscle and improve your workout and game-time performance.

The rigors of training breaks down your body and you need proper nutrition and rest to rebuild your body bigger and better. Protein consumption, in particular, is critical if you want to build muscle (more discussion below on protein)

Here are 8 Workout Nutrition Tips to help you Build Muscle:

1. Pre-workout nutrition should mainly include carbohydrates and proteins. During intense training, your body depends on fuel from glycogen made from the carbohydrates that you eat. The body can't use fat for fuel during high intensity exercise because there is not enough oxygen available.

Consuming fruits, vegetables and smoothies 1-2 hours before a workout will build up your glycogen stores. When your glycogen stores are low, your performance will suffer.

2. Research has shown the effectiveness of pre-workout protein drinks (such as whey and casein). Your muscles get 2 times as much benefit from a pre-workout protein drink compared to having just a post-workout protein drink.

3. Post-workout nutrition is important to help your body recover from intense exercise. You don't need to eat immediately after your workout but there is a 45 minute to 1 hour window where replenishing your body's fuel (carbs, protein, fats) will optimize your tissue's repair and growth.

The post-exercise meal should consist of carbohydrates, protein and a small amount of essential fats. A drink, such as a smoothie, is good because it is quickly digestible. A ratio of 2g carbs/1g protein is what you need.

The carbs should be high glycemic, the proteins should be easily digestible (such as whey) and the fats should be from sources such as fish or flax oil.

4. Your body needs a minimum of 200 grams of carbs per day if you are a light exerciser. You will feel tired and listless without this amount of carbs.

5. Athletes in sports that require plyometrics, speed and weight training need about 2.5 grams of daily carbs per pound of body weight. A 180 pound athlete would need at least 450 grams of carbs each day to function properly.

6. Endurance athletes such as marathoners, swimmers, triathletes need high amounts of daily carbs. About 3.5 to 4.5 grams per pound of body weight is needed. So, a 180 pound athlete would need 630 to 810 grams of carbs per day. These athletes sometimes use carbohydrate loading before events.

7. Protein provides the main building blocks for your muscles. Daily protein needs for athletes should be calculated according to body weight (not by percent of calories). Daily protein targets (grams per pound of body weight) are:

--Recreational exerciser, adult 0.5-0.75
--Competitive athlete, adult 0.6-0.9
--Growing teenage athlete 0.8-0.9
--Adult building muscle mass 0.7-0.9
--Maximum usable amount by adults 0.9 (your body will excrete excess protein)

For example, if you weigh 190 pounds and want a high protein intake (0.9 gms/lb), you'll need 171 grams of protein. Protein should be eaten at least every 3-4 hours (with every meal) to insure adequate supply during the day.

Your night meal should be comprised of slowly digesting protein (such as lean meats) that will give a constant release of amino acids into your system overnight.

8. Drink daily about a half an ounce of water for every pound of body weight (180 pound person would drink 90 ounces). During exercise, drink about a cup of water for every 15 minutes of exercise.

For exercise lasting more than one hour (or during games), a sports drink with carbohydrate and protein is needed.

Eat like an athlete! Train hard and smart!

Go here now and get your Free Sports Power Workout Book and Speed Training Tips!

"Other things being equal, a muscular, powerful athlete will outperform a fat, slower or skinny, weaker athlete. Sports Fitness Hut's Fat Blaster Athletic Power Training System will give you your "lean and mean" athletic machine!"

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

12 Steps to Become a Better Athlete

Make yourself a better athlete, a better player! Its up to you to do the hard work. It will pay off for you. If you're going to play, reach your full potential. It might lead you to the pro leagues!

Take these 12 Steps to Make Yourself a Better Athlete:

1. Core Exercises for Stabilization, Strength and Power. See this post.

2. Squats (2 legs and single leg) - Don't leave squats out of your workout!

3. Deadlift - The deadlift is one of the best full body exercises there is.

4. Clean and Hang - A great exercise because you execute the exercise from the same position that you jump from (or the power position).

5. Medicine Ball Throws and Chops - These exercises are great for full speed power exercises.

6. Multiplanar Lunges and Step Ups - These 1 legged exercises use the same pathways you use to run.

7. Hip Strength and Flexibility - You won't be a good athlete without well-conditioned and flexible hips.

8. Hamstring Flexibility and Strength Exercises - Hamstring conditioning and strength should be on-going.

9. Improve dynamic balance with 1 legged exercises and by training on different surfaces.

10. Squat Jumps, vertical jumps and long Jumps - These exercises will tell you how much leg power you have.

11. Ladder Drills, Cone Drills, Speed Drills and Bounding Drills.

12. Speed, speed and more speed! You have to continually improve your running speed to compete these days. Start by perfecting your running mechanics. Every coach is looking for faster players because it gives them an advantage over the competition.

Train hard and smart!

Go here now and get your Free Sports Power Workout Book and Speed Training Tips!

"Other things being equal, a muscular, powerful athlete will outperform a fat, slower or skinny, weaker athlete. Sports Fitness Hut's Fat Blaster Athletic Power Training System will give you your "lean and mean" athletic machine!"

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

Max Sports Power Output Training

Your power training for maximum sports performance begins with getting adequate stabilization strength.

Primary goals you should be focused on during stabilization strength training are:

1. to correct muscle imbalances
2. joint dysfunctions,
3. postural distortion patterns,
4. improve kinetic chain (human movement system) integrity and
5. reconditioning/rehabilitation.

You can't skip over stabilization training to do more risky strength and power training! The purpose of your sports fitness training is to give your body the best chance at avoiding injuries while competing at a high level.

Stabilization training prepares you for the more intense training to follow. General strength and conditioning is accomplished by strengthening the core and all other major muscle groups and joint structures.

The cardiovascular and nervous systems are also developed.

Stabilization training is also used to rehabilitate injuries and correct any postural dysfunctions. Strength training is high volume and low intensity.

This means training with lighter weights and higher repetitions. All athletes need this phase of training. Elite athletes won't need as much time in this phase as a beginning or low-level athlete.

Don't do exercises before you are ready for them. For example, you shouldn't be doing high speed plyometric exercises before you have adequate core and body strength.

Go here now and get your Free Sports Power Workout Book and Speed Training Tips!

"Other things being equal, a muscular, powerful athlete will outperform a fat, slower or skinny, weaker athlete. Sports Fitness Hut's Fat Blaster Athletic Power Training System will give you your "lean and mean" athletic machine!"

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

Speed Training and Slow Distance Running

Speed training athletes shouldn't do much slow, long distance running during training. Sprinters need to activate and train the bulkier fast twitch muscles. If you do too much long distance running, your slow twitch muscle fibers will take over and make you slower and nonexplosive.



What about speed endurance training? This is something totally different. Speed endurance is the ability to maintain maximum velocity or a percentage of maximum velocity for a prolonged period of time or in a fatigued state.

When you are fatigued, it is important to maintain proper running mechanics. Doing so will give you an edge over your opponent.

Several sports require speed endurance including football, lacrosse, basketball, soccer, field hockey and tennis. These sports require repeated sprints followed by short periods of rest (walking or jogging).

Interval training for speed endurance is different than regular speed training. Speed endurance sprint intervals last from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. Also, recovery time is reduced to prevent complete recovery by the athlete.

I was once asking a client about running exercises they were doing in school athletics to improve running speed. The answer was disappointing and typical.

Some of the running drills were:

1. mile runs
2. stadium steps for endurance
3. gasers for conditioning

"Did you run any sprints?" "No." Guess what? Those athletes aren't getting any faster....they are just basically running for conditioning.

Conditioning has its place but if you want to get faster, you have to train fast. That means sprinting drills with enough recovery time to run each sprint full speed. About 1 minute of recovery time is needed for each 10 yards sprinted (50 yard sprints need about 5 minutes recovery time).

Running sprints after practice won't get the job done either. Players are too tired at this point to give maximum effort. So, coaches, do your sprinting drills at the beginning of practice when your players are fresh.

Train hard and smart to get faster!

Go here now and get your Free Sports Power Workout Book and Speed Training Tips!

"Other things being equal, a muscular, powerful athlete will outperform a fat, slower or skinny, weaker athlete. Sports Fitness Hut's Fat Blaster Athletic Power Training System will give you your "lean and mean" athletic machine!"

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!

Explosive Athlete's Training Technique

Become a more explosive athlete with eccentric contraction strength training. This type of training will improve your strength in a way that will maximize your power output and reduce risk of injuries.

Strong eccentric contractions are critical for you to produce maximal power since all force production (concentric) must be preceded by force reduction (eccentric). An example would be loading up in your squat to do an explosive squat jump (a plyometric exercise).

Plyometric exercises always follow the same order: a landing phase, an amortization phase and the take off.

The landing phase starts when the muscles start an eccentric contraction. The rapid eccentric contraction stretches the elastic component of the muscle and activates the stretch reflex. A high level of eccentric strength is needed during the landing phase. Inadequate strength will result in a slow rate of stretch and less activation of the stretch reflex.

The amortization phase, the time on the ground, is the most important part of a plyometric exercise. It represents the time between the landing and the take off and is critical for power development. If the amortization phase is too long, the stretch reflex is lost and there is no plyometric effect.

The take off is the concentric contraction that follows the landing. During this phase the stored elastic energy is used to increase jump height and explosive power.

Strength train your muscles with all contraction types (eccentric, isometric, concentric). All muscles function eccentrically (reduces force or deceleration), isometrically (stabilizes force) and concentrically (produces force).

Eccentric contractions are able to produce the most tension development followed by isometric contractions and lastly, concentric contractions.

If eccentric contractions are able to produce the greatest tension development, then more time should be devoted during training for eccentric contractions to reduce the risk of injuries such as knee ACL tears and improve power.

You would train for eccentric contractions this way:

Eccentric muscle contraction weight training is the lowering phase (force reduction) of a lift.

For example, you would lift the weight (concentric or force production) for a hamstring curl for one count and lower the weight for 3-4 counts. For bench press, lift the weight for 1 count and lower the weight for 3-4 counts.

Become a more explosive athlete by training correctly for power!

Go here now and get your Free Sports Power Workout Book and Speed Training Tips!

"Other things being equal, a muscular, powerful athlete will outperform a fat, slower or skinny, weaker athlete. Sports Fitness Hut's Fat Blaster Athletic Power Training System will give you your "lean and mean" athletic machine!"

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

My Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as a Top Health Blogger! Quite an honor coming from that institution!