STRENGTH
"Some focus on the big squats and big benches. At Cincinnati, I've gravitated toward ground-based training, especially Olympic lifts and explosive movements. Today, 75 to 80 percent of our weightroom work is done on a platform.
Off the platform, my favorite strength training activity is strongman work. I like to get creative for our strongman sessions, so we have done just about everything, including traditional farmer's walks, tire flipping, log presses, and carrying heavy rocks, sand bags, and other oddly shaped implements.
In addition to being a great way to increase work volume, strongman exercises offer several key benefits. They promote total-body muscle coordination by forcing the athletes to use their core, extremities, and stabilizer muscles to maintain balance while carrying a heavy, awkward object. Most weightroom work involves predictable straight-line up/down or push/pull movements, but strongman activities provide a more dynamic stimulus: The athletes have to think and react with their muscles during the walks, lifts, and movements, much like they have to during football games.
Another benefit is that strongman activities lend themselves to competition between the players, so they push each other to work harder. Any time I can make a strength activity competitive, I know the athletes will give it everything they have."
SPEED
"nothing is more important in our strength and conditioning program than speed. I'm not just talking about 40 times -- being football fast is about explosiveness, force production from the ground, foot agility and quickness, and the ability to change direction on a dime.
I don't believe there are any magic techniques for speed development. My favorite speed exercise is hill running, because it uses gravitational resistance, requires the athletes to generate force as they plant each foot in the ground, and trains total-body coordination during the running movement. And best of all, when performed as a group, it taps into players' natural competitiveness."
