High School Football Off-season Weightlifting and Workout Tips

As an older brother of two football players who has spent the past few summers working out with them and one of their coaches as well as an associate of a trainer of top high school football players in Michigan, I am here to give you tips on what you should be doing with your downtime in the summer to get ready for the fall football season.

The off-season is a time of relaxation for most students, but unfortunately for you as a football player, it is your time to put in extra work to get ahead of the curve and get yourself ready physically for the upcoming season.

Although two-a-day practices leading up to the season will get you in solid cardiovascular shape assuming your coach does them right, it's not going to be enough in most cases to get your prepared for a long football season.

All player should spend their summer time both running and in the gym lifting heavy weights, but how much you do of each depends on what style of player you are, what position you play, and what you need to improve on the most.

First of all, I will be talking about lifting weights in the off-season. The key thing for any football player is to focus on the legs, mainly strengthening them through compound exercises such as squats and deadlifts. You should devote two days of working out your legs in the off-season, spacing the lifting sessions out by at least 48-72 hours each time.

The squat and deadlift should be the two core exercises because they work the most muscles and allow you to add the most weight in the quickest amount of time. Do varying amounts of set and reps to constantly push your body in different ways. While these exercises are tough, you also need to do different secondary leg exercises to supplement them.

Good examples are lunges, where you hold a weight at each side and take long steps before returning to your upright position, and hamstring curls, which are good for preventing injury to an area that is very vulernable to them.