Complete Conditioning for Football (Complete Conditioning for Sport) [Paperback]

I have looked all over for a complete conditioning book targeted for football players. This book is written by Mike Arthur, who is stength coach at Nebraska and one of the most knowledgeable strength coaches in the nation. This is the same program the Nebraska football team follows and they are known for their strength. People have said the program is too easy. When followed at the proper intensity, this program is very tough. If you play football at the high school level or higher, this book can show you how to meet your athletic potential and become a better football player.

Complete Conditioning for Football is outstanding. Written by two strength and conditioning coaches from the University of Nebraska, it details every relevant factor concerning physical training for football. Included are position specific drills, lifting programs, and speed programs, as well as information regarding nutrition, goals, and staying "fit" mentally. I especially appreciated the exercise results comparison charts - you can see how you stack up against other high school and college players physically. I've never seen anything like it before. I got so involved, I picked up the book and didn't stop reading til I reached the back cover! Well written and incredibly informative, I HIGHLY recommend this book to any player.

The book "Complete Conditioning for Football" is a must for any football player. Inside includes performance needs; conditiong principles; testing, evluating, and goal setting; flexibility training; lifting techniques; speed drills; agility drills; nutrition and rest; and last but not least conditioning workouts and programs.

Performance Needs:

This chapter includes a performance pyramid which if followed can lead to "making the play", or success on the football field. It includes character, conditioning, ability, practice, game, and with the top brick, performance. Also it breaks down each of the components, exa. Character- belief, resolve, discipline, courage... and gives a descriptive explanation for each of them also.

Conditioning Principles:

This chapter guides you in developing and implementing a program to allow you to peak the four athletic indicators of speed, agility, power, and endurance. It breaks down and explains the principles of specificity, overload, and periodization.

Testing, Evaluating, and Goal Setting:

This chapter outlines step-by-step procedues on how to safely test and evaluate athletes' fitness and athletic abilities so ou can develop the objectives and specifics of your conditioning program. Here it gives some tests, such as vertical jump test, pro agility run test, 10- and 40- yard dash test, 300-yard shuttle run test, and even height, weight, and waist measurement tests. It also gives you percentile ranking charts of all the positions in high school and college. With your test results you can see where you rank among those in the 10-yard and 40-yard dashes, pro agility run, and the vertical jump. Percentile ranks are from 5-100.

Flexibility Training:

This chapter gives you the proper warm-up routine (high knees, heel ups, ect.), stretching routine (partner stretches), and mobility drills that should be done during the conditioning workouts (warm-ups and stretching before, mobility drills after the workout).

Lifting Techniques:

Provides valuable information on proper technique of all the lifts, to warming-up, spotters, breathing, and so on and so forth. Strength training exercises include: explosive, complementary, base strenght, and specialty. Not many weight rooms that I know of have the complementary, or "ground based jammer", so in the workouts in the back of the book give replacements for these lifts if the jammer is not available.

Speed Drills:

Included are 29 drills for speed (2), acceleration (9), plyometrics (9), and resisted speed (9). Also gives the proper sprint technique especially used for testing the 40.

Agility Drills:

Included are 58 drills for improving your agility. The drills include ropes (8), bags (15), backpedal drills (11), cones (12), line drills (6), and jump rope drills (6).

Nutrition and Rest:

Basically describes all the foods you should eat to make it short. This is a chapter you should allow as many people as possible to read, since without nutrition, athletic performance is low. Also gives a grocery shopping list with all the foods listed under the vitamins and minerals it has in them (example: almonds, corn oil, ect. are listed under vitamin e) and a section of drinking fluids and getting plenty of sleep.

Conditioning Workouts and Programs:

Guides you to building a successful conditioning program. Lists all the speed/agility drills and notes which drills are appropriate for which positions. Included are sample programs in development and peak phases for the positions. Also included in this chapter is the lifting programs for the beginner (base, development, in-season), intermediate (base, development, peak, in-season), and advanced (base, development, peak, in-season). This is an absolutely outstanding weight program in my opinion, with lifting days on monday, tuesday, thursday, and friday.

All in all, this is the complete book for any football player looking to get in great shape for the next season. It is mainly a year-round program by giving types of workouts (base, ect.) for each month of the year in which to apply the right workout to. I also recommend the book "52-Week Football Training" to combine the exercises in the books if you want a more varied program. I suggest taking the time to looking into "Jumping Into Plyometrics" for a plyometric program to add into your schedule and "Play Football the NFL Way" for techniques and tips to help you excell in the game of football.