Football conditioning, despite advances in strength and speed training, is still in the stone ages.
Coaches, especially at the youth and high school level are absolutely clueless on how to actually set up a football conditioning program that, well, improves both football skill and football conditioning (or, football shape, as some say).
Two myths, that just won't seem do die, continue to wreak havoc on football players' conditioning programs.
It's time to kill these myths so you can get into legitimate football shape and do it the right way...
even improving football skill along the way...
Myth 1 - Jogging is Good for Football Conditioning This old myth is seemingly impossible to kill.
Jogging, it is said, is necessary to build an "aerobic base" of conditioning.
Even though football is a game of short, intense bursts, these people believe that in order to get into football shape, we should train in a way that is an absolute complete opposite of how we play.
However, know this right now: Jogging has no place in football conditioning.
None.
Not as a warm up or as a cool down or anything in between.
There is no such thing as an aerobic base.
In fact, it is insanity to train for an anaerobic sport by training aerobically! It's like training for a Max Deadlift by doing sets of 50.
Would you do that? Of course not! Why would you condition for football this way? All you're really doing is training your fast twitch muscle fibers to be slow.
Not a smart idea.
Why does this still go on? Well, many coaches just don't know any better.
So, they simply have their players do what they were made to do when they were young.
It's an endless cycle of poor football conditioning programs that harms your ability to play.
Myth 2 - Speed Training and Football Conditioning Are the Same Thing This one just kills me.
Guys spend hours "sprinting" at top speed, with incomplete rest because they believe there is a way to train both football speed and conditioning at the same time.
Doesn't happen.
Conditioning is one thing, speed training is another.
When you are training for speed, you need to have complete recovery, have very specific amounts of volume, and it must be integrated with what you do in your strength training as well.
Conditioning is totally different.
You do not allow even close to complete recovery, volume can be much, much higher, and, if you try to condition at full speed all the time, you will eventually pull a hamstring, calf or sprain a joint.
You must keep your conditioning and speed training completely separated.