Improve Speed

From offensive lineman to defensive backs, speed and quickness is important to perform well on the field. This can be improved during this off-season if trained the right way. Here are three things you can focus on in the weight room to improve your quickness!

• Power

• Change of Direction

• Fast eccentrics

Power

Power is the heart of football and something you should develop in the off-season to perform in season. Training power is essential for quickness. With power and quickness, we care about relative body weight to strength. Light weight high strength can develop good quickness, especially with change of direction. To produce power in the weight room, you have to focus on bar velocity. So when squatting, deadlifting, lunging, etc., the bar needs to move! Fast and explosively with high weight. Remember, the speed of the bar is more important than the weight on the bar when producing power.

• Exercises

  • Squat with a Pause, hang clean, power clean, dumbbell jump squats

Change of Direction

Change of Direction is the soul of quickness. Being able to change directions on a dime is imperative for skilled positions in football. For good change of direction, we need general force production (we can get this from power training above). BUT, change of direction has a focus on frontal and transverse plane muscles unlike the power exercises listed above which focus mainly on the sagittal plane. The three main rules that come with the ability to change directions:

1. Need good body control

2. Need good athleticism and coordination

3. Need good concentric/ eccentric contractions

These three rules can be taught and developed, but coordination has a limit to what can be taught. It is better to work earlier at a younger age on coordination than later on at an older age.

Fast Eccentrics

Lastly, training fast eccentrics. Eccentric muscle contraction is when the muscle lengthens during the lowering phase of an exercise. Eccentric rate of force development is how quickly you can absorb a force. The ability of an NFL wide receiver to stop on a dime at the top of a route is an example of great eccentric rate of force development. You can essentially take every normal exercise and add an intent to it to get eccentric rate of force development.

• Exercises

  • depth jump with a crossover step, fast skater hop, FAST eccentric/ concentric barbell squats

If your interested in learning more about how to improve your quickness, email me or fill out the training form below!