Strength Report: Ohio University’s Spring Conditioning

At Ohio University, we go through a systematic approach to enhance speed, agility and football specific conditioning during the spring. We have four weeks to train in May after spring practice is completed. We then have a three week discretionary period due to finals and the break between spring and the summer quarter in June.     Our main focus in May after practice is on linear speed – both acceleration and max velocity for skill players and just acceleration for linemen. Since the team just completed spring practice, we do not spend a lot of time on change of direction and other position- specific drills. For schools like us who lack an indoor facility to train, this is a great time to work on linear speed and we conclude the four week session with a series of performance tests such as the 40-yard and 10-yard sprints, the 5-10-5 pro agility drill, and the vertical