In one of the posts, we talked about working out to gain lean muscle mass, and shed some unwanted pounds. I wanted to start a post for two reasons: 1)I wanted to share with you the summer workout I have put together for my football team(which I also follow to an extent), and 2)I wanted to get any tips or recommendations from our readers on things you do/have done that you think could be useful, or anything you'd like to throw out there in terms of a workout plan you think is beneficial. I'm always looking for new ideas and training methods for our team, so anything you have may be helpful.

First, I wanted to share my training philosophy with everyone. As some already know, I am an assistant varsity football coach, and head strengh and conditioning coach at Farmington High School, in Farmington, CT. I will be going into my 3rd year in this position. I tend to focus on core strength a lot. I am a firm believer that the majority of fundamental football strength come from the core, and everything you do can be drawn back to this area. I also like to be very innovative in my workouts. I do tend to remain old school in the weight room though, focusing mainly on olympic style power lifts(Dead lift, squat, cleans, bench).

This summer, I plan on changing things up a bit. We condition twice a day, once in the morning, and again in the evening. We try to get the kids to attend at least one of these sessions a day, as some work summer jobs, and we try to be flexable with their schedules. We do Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday(we have passing league Wednesday nights). I run the evening sessions. Our normal workout starts outside. On Mondays, we do hills(8-10 runs), and then go to our practice field and do plyo's. These are a true bitch. We spend a good 25 min doing line plyo's. They consist of 30 to 60sec of jump explosion exercises, with a 40 yard sprint at the end. The guys get a 30 sec rest between sets. In place of the sprints, I'll often throw in bear crawls, backpedal, leap frog jumps, or bounds(regardless, their doing something for 40 yards at the end of the plyo set). I even throw in push-ups, mountain climbers, sit-ups, and up-downs in the middle of the plyo workout.

Tuesday we do the Haynesworth test(300 yard shuttle)2 times. Each position group has a number they must hit in each time trial. If they don't all hit it, we may end up doing a third. After the Haynesworth test, we do truck tire flips(these are my favorites). We have 6 truck/tractor tires. 2 weigh 230lbs, 2 weigh 280lbs, 1 weighs 320, and our big boy is 380. They flip the tire, then jump in, out, back in and out, and continue this for 20 yards, where a partner takes over and does the same thing back. I usually have each guy get at least 2 sets of flips(sometimes 3).

Thursdays are hills and plyos again, but we also add a sprint drill, where we burst for 20yds, then walk for 10, then burst for 30, then walk for 10, then 40, then 50........then we work our way back down to 20(this is the drill I tore my hamstring on last year).

Fridays are our curb days. We use the bag curbs and do a series of drills though the curbs. Run through x2, two feet in x2, high knee jumps x2, side shuffle x2, fowards/backpedal x2, and bear crawl x2. The next part is a new exercise I want to add this year. I want to get 6 sludgehammers, 2 12 lbs, 2 10 lbs, and 2 8 lbs(for the little guys). I am going to have them hit the tires with these. my plan is to do 12-15 overhead swings(each over the left and right shoulder), then do 12-15 side chops(again, to the left and the right side). I want to get at least 3 sets per guy. I can have 2 guys work on each tire at the same side(on opposites sides).

We go to the gym after our outside work is done to lift after every session. To start off in the gym, for the first two weeks, I have them do a very simple, yet effective one-bar circuit workout. It consists of 8 lifts that are done consecutively in one set. They use a 45lbs bar, and depending on their strength, add 5, 10 or 25 lbs weights to the sides(no one goes over 25s). They do bent over row, upright row, military, good mornings, split squat right, split squat left, squat press, and stiff leg deadlift(all one right after another). They rest while their partner does a set, then they are right back to another set. I have them start with 3 sets, and we work our way up to 4 by the second week. This workout is a bitch, but it gets their bodys ready for the hard lifting.

Once this is done, we move into our power segement. Monday is Chest and tri's. They do flat bench, incline dumbells, and reverse bench. Tuesday is legs(squats, presses, hamstring curls). Thursday is deadlifts, roman chair and heavy back. Friday is cleans, and snatches, with shoulders(I love iron cross).

I also promote a very high protein diet, and(if these choose) a really good BCAA to help speed up recovery time.