Linebacker Workout Routine

Question
Hi. I play outside linebacker on my high school's football team.  Our season just ended on Saturday with a disappointing loss in the city finals.  In the off-season, I'd like to get into an intense workout routine that would improve my strength, tackling, and power, but not so much that it would sacrifice my speed.  What kind of routine would you suggest?

Answer
Mike -

Hey there.  Thanks for the question! Well, as you have obviously figured out, training to play LB is a bit harder than training for other positions.  Why?  Because that position calls for the player to be a hybrid, or combination of two other positions.  A good LB must have the strength to take on an offensive lineman head to head, like a defensive lineman.  And also, the speed and ability to either chase down a quick running back or even cover a wide receiver man to man.  Not an easy task for a corner, let alone a bigger, stronger LB.  SO a workout routine must include exercises for all of these things.

It would be impossible to type an entire routine for you on here, because we are limited to the amount of space we can write per response, but I can get you going with several ideas, and where to find further info for this.

 First thing I would do is speak with one of your coaches or trainers (if you have them at your high school).  Sit down with them and let them tell you what they would like to see you improve on for next year.  Maybe you are needing a little more strength.  Maybe you need a little more speed.  They should be able to tell you.  This is important Mike, because in most cases, it is very difficult to increase size, strength, and speed at the same time.  So you must break down your priorities before you get started.  That way, you will be able to decide how much time per week to devote to each area.

OK, once you do that, here are a few MUSTS for each area of improvement:

1-  Strength:  Remember, size doesn't necessarily mean strength.  A lot of players work so hard on exercises that only increase their muscle size for how they will look in their uniforms, they miss out on getting stronger. Examples would be bicep curls.  Although it is important to have strong biceps, it falls way down on the list of priorities in football.  But they still spend hours on it, ignoring other things.  Stick with a base of core, power exercises.  Squats, leg presses, power cleans, dead lifts, bench presses, incline presses, military presses, neck machine, and shrugs.  Those are great ones for your routines.  Make sure and do plenty of them.  In addition, you can add other exercises along with them, but don't waste energy on the other ones until after you have done your core exercises.  Split your routine into days in a week.  Try doing upper body twice a week, and lower twice a week to start.  It isn't the amount of times done per week, but the effort each time AND the amount of recovery time you allow yourself.  Make sure and eat enough to allow your body to grow!

SPEED:  The lower body lifting will help with this, but the best thing is a group of exercises called PLYOMETRICS.  They are simple things that need little or no equipment to do, and are by far the most effective movements to increase your speed in a short amount of time.  They include box jumps, power skips, power hops, line jumps, box leg lifts, etc.  I know you might now know what I mean, but hang in there.

FLEXIBILITY:  OK, now you have been doing things for size, strength, and speed.  But the biggest mistake made is not keeping up with flexibility!  ALL of those things listed above are worthless if you aren't flexible enough to support them.  If you want to get more flexible, and improve strength and conditioning at the same time, start doing yoga!  Don't laugh Mike, it is TRUE!  Yoga is the best way to do all of this at once.  Don't ask me why getting in weird positions and stretching helps your cardio and strength in addition to flexibility, but it does!  You will see a HUGE difference after a short time with yoga, and will have a big edge over other players.

OK, now I am sure you are saying "great, but I don't know what half of this is!"  My friend, there is a great invention out nowadays.  Its called THE INTERNET!  ALL you need to do is print out this response, type in each thing listed, and you will get detailed info on everything!  Like I said, my space for each response is limited, but you can do as much research as you want on the net.  And the info is endless.  Look up everything I mentioned and put a routine together.  After you do, you are more than welcome to write me back and we can go over it together.  I will be happy to go through it and make sure it is for right for you!  But you have to do the leg work here (no pun intended).  It is the first step to getting better.  As you know in football, the mental preparation is as important, if not more important than the physical.  This is no different!

Good luck and I hope to hear from you soon!  Get this info and get back to me with what you have found!  I know you will find it is great stuff, and be very happy with it!  Trust me Mike.. Just trust me on this.  You will not believe it!

Coach Perl