Conditioning for the Gridiron Warrior

In any sport, being big and strong is never enough. What good is that 500 lb. squat if you’re taking a knee in the 4th quarter desperately gasping for air? If you want to be great that sure as hell ain’t gonna cut it. That’s an embarrassment to you and your team.

What you need to be a true warrior on the gridiron is strength, speed, AND conditioning.

But there is a real problem with the methods some athletes or coaches use to condition. Methods that can actually make an athlete slower, smaller, weaker and still have shitty conditioning! Something NO athlete wants, regardless of their sport.

I’m here to tell you how to condition the right way, and how to avoid the garbage that will make you weak!

The first thing I want to address is that football, like most sports, is anaerobic in nature. Anaerobic means that your body is producing energy without the presence of oxygen. Which means that your conditioning should train your anaerobic system to prepare you for your sport. An example of anaerobic training would be a sprint followed by a brief rest or less intense phase.

On the other side of the coin, aerobic training produces energy WITH the presence of oxygen. An example of aerobic training would be going for a jog.

What happens when you train aerobically is your body begins to produce mass amounts of the stress hormone, cortisol. This stress hormone is extremely catabolic which means it will hold onto body fat for dear life and actually eat away at muscle tissue.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how detrimental that will be for your performance in the weight room and more importantly, on the field.

Feeling skeptical? Take a look at the often used example of the physical differences between marathon runners and sprinters. Sprinting is anaerobic, long distance running is aerobic. Who looks stronger? Who is faster? Who would you rather have on your team during battle?

I’m pretty sure 99.99999% of you said the sprinter.

In addition, when you increase your anaerobic conditioning levels your aerobic conditioning will also increase. But that doesn’t work the other way around. So someone who trains anaerobically will have better conditioning all the way around.

All that said if you want to perform at the highest level possible you need to condition anaerobically. This should be aside from your speed and agility/misdirection work (which is anaerobic in nature) but I want to remind you that this post is to teach you how to condition. Not train for speed. Conditioning trains your actual energy system in way more depth.

One thing to be sure of is that if you are doing your conditioning work on the same days as weight training, it is imperative to condition AFTER weight training. Otherwise you’ll be weak and depleted before entering the weight room and will certainly not perform at max potential.

So, here are some of my favorite ways to condition.

Hill sprints: These are awesome. They require max effort and are a “fun” way to get your sprinting in without too much stress on the hamstrings. You can sprint up then jog down and repeat 10-12 times. Once that gets easy you can add some more sets or increase difficulty in some other way. Just make sure you take advantage of these.

Strongman training: Using odd object lifting is not only great for building real world strength but they are awesome to use for conditioning. Set up an obstacle course with kegs, tires, sledgehammers and heavy sandbags and go through in circuit fashion.

The prowler sled: The prowler is one of the best methods of conditioning in my opinion. They develop great lower body strength and muscular conditioning. Stack it up with some heavy plates and push it or pull it for set distances. Maybe 20 yards, maybe 50. It doesn’t matter. Make it hard and get your hands on one of these.

Some others are battle ropes and jump ropes. You can do them when your lower body needs a break or if you’re recovering from an injury. You can do something like 60 sec. on followed by 30 sec. of rest for 15-20 minutes for an example.

You will instantly notice the difference between this type of conditioning and the outdated 3 mile jog. Which by the way bores the shit out of me.

Start training anaerobically and watch your performance on the field go through the roof. The season will be here before you know it. Now is the time to get out there!

If you have any questions please comment below.

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Until next time.

Train hard.