04.01.05

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Q: Hey Joe – Perhaps you can address this in your Ask Joe section, it will be greatly appreciated my friend.

With your current facility, and with the weather conditions of the north east states, how do you go about training your athletes for SAQ? I understand the strength and power training to improve speed, but what about actual techniques for SAQ, how do you address these skills w/your athletes, especially the high school athletes who often times are never coached to change directions, acceleration, deceleration, etc.?

I can keep making my football players stronger & more powerful via a strength program, but if the training of SAQ is not done, then they run chances of being out performed on the field. Can you break down some of your SAQ methods and give your thoughts on how to train football and baseball and other athlete’s w/SAQ?

I know I asked a lot and I can easily ask much more, but I'll stop here! Looking forward my friend :)

Zach Even - Esh / NJ

A: Zach, You always seem to come up with the interesting questions. This is a good one; and very practical for strength & conditioning coaches in our position. (That is, coaches that don’t have their own facility… YET! The BIG ONE is coming…) Anyway, I’ll go over how we train our high school football players because it is currently “training season” for them. We DON’T do any “SAQ” training with our football guys until the end of May! Obviously, once May comes around we are able to do our speed & conditioning work outside. Our rationale for not running yet isn’t because we don’t have a big enough facility. I have specific reasons for us not starting to run until May.

#1 - During the initial stages of the off-season for a football player, I like to give the body a break from the repetitive nature of running. During this time we focus on restoring muscle that may have been lost during the season, healing any injuries through rehab exercises, soft tissue work, flexibility/mobility training and get proper nutritional habits in place. Basically, all of the things that I just mentioned build the foundation for “SAQ” training! Don’t ever forget that fact. Think about it; if you do “SAQ” training with a fat, weak, inflexible kid who is eating fast food every day, do you think he will ever reach his true speed potential? Of course not! He will just be a “SAQ” of shit who runs everyday but never gets faster!!! WE WORK ON THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM; NOT THE PROBLEM ITSELF! In most cases, it’s a lack of relative body strength (strength training coupled with a proper diet & supplementation routine) and a lack of flexibility/mobility.

Seriously, having football players running in January is detrimental to their ability to get stronger and recover from the previous season. I guarantee that if you really get your football players focusing on eating properly, lifting properly and improving their range of motion for 4-5 solid months; when May rolls around and you take them outside to run, they will be amazed at how much more powerful and faster they feel.

#2 - We want to be in peak condition for the football season - not for Easter! The Easter Bunny doesn’t give a crap if you can play 4 quarters in April! But, I guarantee you that your coach will care about you playing 4 quarters during September – December! But, if you start running 2-3 times a week in January, you’re going to be fried once training camp starts. After all, it doesn’t take high school kids 8 months to get in shape anyway. 6-8 weeks of conditioning is usually all you need to show up to camp in shape and ready to kick ass!

A great example of my point is one of my current clients, Tenafly H.S. quarterback, Jabulani Lovelace. Jabulani was a 1st Team All-State quarterback who will be attending Rutgers University on a full scholarship this summer. Jabulani arrived to train with us on January 8th, weighing 182 lbs. at 6’02”. He could barely squat 2 wet socks! If I started running his guts out in January, he would probably arrive at Rutgers in June still weighing 182 lbs. This would not be good for a kid who will be taking hits from MEN from schools such as Louisville, West Virginia and Pitt. For the past 3 months, Jabulani has been lifting weights (WS4SB) 3-4 times a week, working on his flexibility and eating a much better diet with the help of meal replacement shakes. On March 18th, he weighed 200 lbs. and box squatted 325 lbs. for 2 easy reps off of a below parallel box! His physique has transformed by adding 18 pounds of lean mass and he’s starting to look like a COLLEGE athlete.

Jabulani dominating high school at 180 lbs.

Jabulani preparing for the NEXT level

#3 - Now, many people misinterpret my philosophy and think that I feel running isn’t important. Nothing can be further from the truth! Running is extremely important; I just feel that most coaches miss time its importance. Here is a rough outline of what some of our high school football players do during the off-season and pre-season:

Monday: Max-Effort Upper Body lifting
Tuesday: Max-Effort Lower Body lifting
Thursday: High Rep Upper body lifting or Dynamic Upper Body lifting (advanced)
Friday: Extra workout (full body) or Dynamic Lower Body lifting (advanced)

* Also, take into consideration that most of our athletes are active playing pick-up basketball games, racquetball, weekend lacrosse tournaments, etc.

End of May – End of June

Monday: Max-Effort Upper Body lifting
Tuesday: Dynamic Warm-up, Mobility drills, Sprint technique, Tempo runs (linear)
Wednesday: Max-Effort Lower Body lifting
Thursday: High Rep Upper body lifting or Dynamic Upper Body lifting (advanced)
Friday: Dynamic Warm-up, Mobility drills, frequency drills, anaerobic conditioning (using football drills / agility drills)

July – Mid-August

Monday, A.M. : Dynamic warm-up, mobility drills, anaerobic conditioning (linear)
Monday, P.M. : Max-Effort Upper Body lifting
Tuesday: Max-Effort Lower Body lifting (decrease volume & intensity)
Wednesday: Dynamic Warm-up, mobility drills, anaerobic conditioning (using football drills / agility drills)
Thursday: High Rep Upper body lifting or Dynamic Upper Body lifting (advanced)
Friday: Dynamic warm-up, Strongman conditioning

* At this time of year, most high schools participate in 7-on-7 passing camps during a couple of weekends. This adds more running/conditioning and neurological demand to the work week.

* Take 3-5 days completely off before the 1st day of training camp.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• This template comes out to be approximately 33 conditioning workouts, not counting 7-on-7 tournaments or training camp. If you’re not in shape for the 1st game, take up poker!
• Notice that we ease into the running workouts. Some coaches like to argue that if you don’t run all year long, you’ll pull a muscle when you start running. This isn’t true if you plan your workouts accordingly. You wouldn’t max out on every single exercise in the gym on your first day back, would you? Don’t max out on your first running workout either. Be smart during the 1st 2 weeks back!
• High school football Combines are becoming more popular throughout the country. If your kids are preparing for a combine, this sample template must change. Most combines are in May. This means you will have to start running and practicing the tests sooner.

Alright Zach, there you have it. Let’s create some freaks this off-season, bro!
Joe D.

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Q: Mr. DeFranco, I read on your Pro-Maker interview and on t-nation.com that you have bad shoulders and you don’t do military presses anymore. I have 2 questions: what do you do to keep your shoulders strong? How come my shoulders don’t hurt when I do military presses? I want to keep doing them because I feel that they help me a lot. But if you tell me not to do them, I won’t.

Thank you coach,
Timmy

A: Timmy, I’ve answered this question before. Basically, when you press overhead, you’re driving the head of the humerus into the acromion. This causes impingement, specifically to the supraspinatus and long head of the biceps tendon. Repetitive impingement can lead to a tearing of these two muscles/tendons. I CAN’T do military presses anymore even if I wanted to. The pain it creates in both of my AC joints is so severe that I can’t lift upper body for at least 3-4 weeks after just a couple of sets of military presses. It’s just not worth it for me. Basically, my shoulder training consists of a ton of rear delt work, external rotator work, shrugs and light cable lateral raises.

It’s also very important for you to know that EVERYONE’S ANATOMY IS DIFFERENT. This is why exercises that hurt me, may not hurt you (for now anyway). For example, I had an appointment with a shoulder specialist last Monday to get cortisone shots in each one of my shoulders. The doctor was nice enough to spend some extra time with me as I asked him a thousand questions. He showed me the x-rays of my shoulders and revealed something to me that no other doctor has ever told me. He told me that the “hook” of my acromion was the largest that he’s ever seen. (This is NOT good, by the way.) Not only has this contributed to the arthritis that I have in my shoulder; I’m destined to have a rotator cuff tear in my supraspinatus down the road. Basically, the “hook” of my acromion comes down so low it’s rubbing against my supraspinatus. Even if I do everything perfect in the weight room, I am destined for this type of tear because of my God-given anatomy. (Just the news that I wanted to hear 1 week before my back surgery!)

Shit happens.
Joe D.

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Q: Joe - I received the combine video today. All I can say is WOW! The video is simply awesome and anyone who is planning on attending a combine needs to get their hands on it.

My question deals with how to implement combine training into a regular lifting program. We are using your WS4SB 3-day split. Can we use the combine events as a dynamic warm-up prior to lifting on M/W/F? How much time should we devote to combine training per week? How many reps of each event should we be performing when we practice for the combine?

Keep up the good work! This site is a valuable resource for coaches such as myself. I will continue to spread the DeFranco Gospel to anyone who will listen.

Chris

A: Chris, Thanks for the positive feedback. I answered a question similar to yours on the t-nation.com forums a couple of months ago. Remember that there are MANY ways to incorporate combine training into the “Westside for Skinny Bastards” training split. Here is another example of a split that I have used.
Give it a try.

MONDAY morning - Dynamic warm-up/mobility drills, 40-yard dash technique work. (I start by focussing most of my time on the start and first 10 yards. This is the day that we will eventually work up to running 20, 30 and 40 yard sprints.)

MONDAY evening – Max Effort upper body strength training

TUESDAY – P.N.F. stretching, mobility drills, vertical jump & broad jump technique

WEDNESDAY - Dynamic warm-up/mobility drills, pro-agility & 3-cone technique

THURSDAY - Repetition Upper body strength training

FRIDAY - Dynamic warm-up/mobility drills, 40-yard dash start technique

SATURDAY – P.N.F. Stretching, Max Effort lower body strength training

SUNDAY - OFF/MASSAGE

See if this training split works for you. Best of luck.

Back surgery #5 this Wednesday. Like Arnold said, “I’ll be back!”
Joe D.

 

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