School is officially over and summer has begun.  That means that your fall sports teams are conducting summer workouts.  Traditionally, this is a big time for your football team.  Summer football training for a high school football team means that the first football game is only a short two and a half months away.  This is the homestretch for the football coaches as they try to really put you through some grueling workouts to get you prepped for two-a-days.

What we want to put together is the complete summer football training plan that will cover these components – strength development, speed development, and conditioning.  You also don’t want to spend 3 hours at the school a day doing all this.

Here is how you will put this together:

Hard work in the weight room is what the high school football coach really gets excited to see.  They want excitement, seeing iron being pumped, and a weight routine that will get their football players bigger and stronger.

For a high school football team, you can lift either 3 or 4 days a week.  3 days a week can be a Monday/Wednesday/Friday split where you do a total body one day, an upper, then a lower body day.  Or 3 total body days.

A 4 day a week split can be a Monday/Thursday upper body day and Tuesday/Friday lower body day with Wednesday an off day from lifting.   This is what I did with the high school team I was working with that ended up winning the state championship.

Your lifting routine should consist of compound lifts that will hit multiple muscle groups at once.  Olympic lifts like the hang clean, power clean, or push press are great for explosive development.  Squats, bent over rows, lunges, and bench press are usual staples.  Hit the hamstrings hard for speed development and knee stabilization and always blast your core.  Do some neck exercises to help prevent concussions.

You can combine speed development and conditioning into one session.

Most teams try and get 3 times a week in for this, but they usually end up with two.  If you are shooting for 3 days with either the 3 or 4 day split, then just speed/condition on MWF.  If you get two, then speed/condition Tuesday/Thursday for a 3 day lifting split or Monday/Wednesday for the 4 day lifting split.

Your warm-up for these sessions should consist of form drills and some dynamic warm-up movements.  A-Skips, B-Skips, Toy Soldiers, Inch Worm, etc.  Then get into the power portion whether you are doing plyometrics or resistance running.  After that do some acceleration work, to work on your 0-10 yard sprinting.  This could include some falling starts or push-up starts.  Finally, fit in some agility work, either with ladders, step hurdles, or cones.

The speed development should be first in this session because you want to be freshest when you are developing pure speed.  Then you can finish with your conditioning.  I would do sprints or suicides with rest intervals the first month of conditioning.  Shoot for something where the athletes are going full speed for 7 – 10 seconds, then rest 30 – 40 seconds.

The second month, you want to mimic more of game type conditions so you do pattern running.

Break your football players up by position and have them run 10 different patterns specific to their position.  After each pattern jog back to the starting position, then immediately begin the next pattern.  After your 10 patterns, rest 1 – 2 minutes, then repeat for 2 – 4 sets.  I did this with Armand Robinson to get him in shape for the Pittsburgh Steelers training camp.

When August comes, your football players should be in great shape.  Their speed should be fast, their strength should be optimal, and their conditioning should be at peak performance.  An entire session of both lifting and conditioning should take around an hour and a half.  Quality, not quantity, is what we are looking for.  Try this out and let me know what you think.