Sprint Based Football - Feed the Cats

I would start with the Track Football Consortium and get a couple of those videos.

I found another post on this so I’ll delete this. Thanks guys.

OP's (coacheichler) team is going to 8-man football this fall.

Here is my question, and maybe its more for smaller school coaches who have guys going both ways, but to what extent is conditioning required for football players and is that training met with this program?

I get not wanting to wear out your players, wanting them to be able to play at top speed. But how many sprints does a top track athlete have to perform at a meet compared to how many plays a football player needs to execute at top level (with whatever available reserves they might have)?

My best players could be hitting 100 snaps a game, is this training best suited for that situation?

I think that is HIGHLY dependent on what you mean by "conditioning".

The FTC guys are really into developing among their athletes what they call "anaerobic speed reserve".

My understanding is that they want to make guys as fast as possible through sprinting, not running. So, let's say, for example, a FTC team has a bunch of guys who sprint in training and run 4.75 consistently under optimal conditions with maximum rest. Now, those guys aren't going to be running 4.75 in the 4th qt. They might be running 4.85 or 4.9 or even 5.0. But, because they have trained to SPRINT, those 4.85s or 4.9s or 5.0s are STILL going to be faster than the other team because by the 4th qt, the other team is now running 5.2s or 5.5s or 6.0s.

So, the FTC argument is that sprint-based training preserves (or maybe a better term is extends) speed over the course of a game than traditional football conditioning programming.

At least that is my understanding. I could be completely wrong.

I'm not an FTC guy so I'm speaking out of turn here but I would imagine that they would take issue with the idea of running sprints as conditioning without rest periods. For FTC guys, "sprinting" has a very specific definition. Anything that doesn't fit that definition falls into the category of "running".

Regarding Tony Holler, he trains all of his 100m, 200m, and 400m guys essentially the same. According to him, he never has his sprinters run more than 200m in practice, even the 400m guys. For him, it's all about max speed. This is a pretty famous Holler quote that describes his approach:

"If you train at 100 mph, 80 mph will seem comfortable. If you train at 60 mph, 80 mph will seem uncomfortable."

My takeaway from that is if you are programming sprints without rest, then the players will not be able to go full-speed on each subsequent sprint because of fatigue. So, they are not "sprinting" because they aren't running at max speed.

I don't know what the answer is. But, based on what I have read and watched on Twitter, this is my understanding of the FTC approach.

What it really comes down to is this: What are your training goals? Skilled players are required to run longer distances than linemen. However BOTH are required to run those distances as fast as possible. Skills run longer sprints. Bigs run shorter sprints.

Since most of my coaching career has taken place at small schools my coaches and I have spent a lot of time evaluating our players' physical, emotional, and mental make up. During post-season training we focus on these characteristics. We test them first, and determine what their initial individual GOALS should be. We also take into consideration their age, and playing experience. The first half of our post-season (January through March) is focused on gaining strength and power. The only "aerobic" work we do at that time is on Fridays during our timed circuit training. We start "running" and explosive lifting in April. Skill players are separated from "Big Skills". We continue this through June when we start our summer strength and conditioning camp. In July we alternate strength and power (two days) with explosive work (sprinting); and one day of explosive lifting and endurance conditioning. All told we go four days per week in June and July. We cannot be with the boys during dead week the last week of July. During the season we will lift once per week before school, conditioning (endurance) once per week (Mondays), while all of their explosive movement is done during practice.

In conclusion I have found that this system has worked very well for my guys in the small school setting. I just want them to be in better shape than they were at the end of the previous season when they report for the current season.

How many times are you running 15 yards, much less 40? I would think agility, accelerating, understanding assignment would be much better in the way what actually happens on the field.

I've learned to focus on the content and to ignore the middle-schooler-who-gets-purple-hair-for-attention aspect of some of the more obnoxious self-promoters in the movement. If you do that, there are a lot of great ideas.

How often are you going to bench press 175 or 200? How often are you going to squat (fill in whatever numbers)? We do those things to help get our players stronger and to protect their bodies. So throughout a game depending on your position and style of play all of those help our players perform. It’s the same thing with the sprints. Sprints are a tool to get faster. You’re not doing a bunch of sprints or spending practice just doing that and going home.

Some teams still do this but I feel a lot of teams don’t. They run gassers at the end of practice or 110s or other things like that to get their guys “conditioned” or to make them physical/mental tough. The FTC approach doesn’t do that.

I think you have to look at sprint days a few different ways. One you’re going to do a few sprints to get to max velocity. It’s just a technique to get faster over time. You are going to do some high intensity things for up to 6 secs or so. That can be team, goal line or whatever where it is full go balls to the wall. You won’t spend the whole practice doing it but that’s the focus. Just make sure whatever you do you don’t hurt the next day’s practice.

Non-sprint days you can still do 90% of what have always done. During team or inside run you’re doing it against bags. You still can work on speed, agility, quickness stuff and go live some in your Indy periods. You can still expect your RB to hit the hole full speed, run quick game and all of that. You’re just not really doing things where players are hitting max velocity or going high intensity. No one is going to hit max velocity sprinting 10 yards and running plays on air or against bags isn’t going to get to high intensity.

Really when you look past how their message comes across and you can figure out what they are really saying (that’s easier said than done) a lot of us already follow the FTC methods in some part or in whole.

Basically don’t beat up your team during the week. Don’t run old school conditioning drills/runs. Don’t stack back to back high intensity practices. Do less team and less full contact. Give players time to recover so they can go full speed. Sprint a couple a times a week to help develop speed.

I think something that never really gets mentioned is taking inventory of the drills you run and what they are designed to do.

If i'm working a reaction drill with the d-line why am I having them sprint to a cone that's a designated distance(usually 5 to 10 yards)?

There are certain drills that don't need that extra running involved. You can cut down on the amount of running you do just by knowing where the kids need to run and where they don't

But that's not gonna get the likes on Twitter! 🙄

where do you see that in a game? Its a waste of time and punitive.

Saying it’s punitive I think is a bit of a stretch. Saying there might be a more efficient way might be (I don’t know) more accurate. When we’ve used the sled and drive it we’ve gone about 6-8 sec and rotate. Depending on how many guys you have it will workout to be about the same amount of rest as going uptempo. Unless you bust a big run a play or if it’s a pass of some type the play would run around 6-8 sec range.