Strength Report: Football Specific Conditioning, Part I

Football is an explosive sport requiring power and speed in linear and non-linear sport specific movements. With the average time per play lasting 6 seconds and a 40 second play clock, football is an interval based sport switching from high intensity bursts of about 6 seconds and low intensity active-recovery periods of about 40 seconds. Due to the high intensity nature of each play, one goal of the off-season conditioning program is to train the capacity and efficiency of the short duration, high intensity energy system. Between plays, there is low intensity movement being performed, sometimes for the entirety of the 40 second play clock. Therefore, another goal of the off-season conditioning program is to maximize the ability to recover between snaps, and train the capacity and efficiency of the low intensity energy system. Over the years, we have established a football specific