What Should Your Priority Be Right Now?

If you are a football athlete then right now is a critical time in your development.

The early off-season is a time where an athlete can close the gap on your competition, build your strength, and align your bodyweight with your goals.

As with any comprehensive strength program the goal should be based around one simple question:

“What are the physical abilities we need to be great at by the time the season comes?”

As strength and conditioning coaches our goal is put you in the best position possible to play at a high level on a consistent basis. This means building strength in a way that will set you up for success in late July and through the entire season. 

This means a few things…

1: Teaching proper movement patterns

2: Improving strength to match the physical demands of your sport

3: Building the mobility and stability needed to perform the assigned tasks

So, for football athletes, what should you prioritize at this point in the year? 

To me the answer is simple: 

You need to focus on getting stronger and you need to build your ability to perform complex lifts with great technique. 

For the athletes in our program, both in our facility and training online, we are working on building towards end goals. Similar to how you would install a playbook we are starting with building blocks while working towards more specific and complex lifts. 

Now, to dive deeper in that, we are using three unique lifts to install our full ‘playbook’ of lifts.

• To build the Front Squat we are performing the Zombie Squat
• To improve the Power Clean we are utilizing a Pause Hang Clean
• To increase our Bench Press we are using the Barbell Floor Press

Remember, there has to be a process towards achieving big goals. For us, this means breaking down movements to allow our athletes to be successful when the time comes. 

Trust the process. Be consistent. And never stop improving.