Oct 14, 2016Gaining Ground
Looming large over the Clemson University football team’s indoor practice facility is a sign that reads: Best is the Standard. This is the mindset of our overall program–and also our strength and conditioning program.
We are fortunate that Head Coach Dabo Swinney believes in the work we do and trusts us to get the job done. In return, our number-one priority is to shape the team according to his vision for it. Coach Swinney’s in-season vision demands consistency, discipline, and hard work, so that’s what our strength and conditioning regimen consists of. Our focus during this time is balancing heavy lifting with injury reduction and recovery to guarantee players can stand up to the rigors of practices and games. This allows our athletes to meet Coach Swinney’s standards and compete at their best.
One of our mottos for in-season lifting is: “If you want to get strong, you’ve got to pick up something heavy.” Therefore, the intensity of our training resistance and volume of reps are periodized throughout the season to ensure continual growth in mass and strength output. Here’s a look at our five core in-season lifts and how we break down load and volume for each.
Power clean: This is one of our foundational lifts due to the explosive triple extension and ground-based power production it requires. We implement the power clean in-season because it is crucial to our athletes’ development, and we do not want to go into winter training — where it remains a core lift — without having spent the previous 20 to 23 weeks working on it.
Our average volume is nine to 12 total reps, and our linemen add an extra set of two reps. Intensity varies from 60 to 85 percent of one-rep maximum (1RM).
Trap bar dead lift: We use this movement to train resisted ground-based hip extension. The volume varies between nine and 15 total reps, with preset loads ranging from 225 to 405 pounds depending on each athlete’s position. Using preset resistance makes our training more efficient because athletes can work down the line rather than waste time changing weights.
Back squat: Another foundational lift in our program, intensities in the back squat range from 55 to 75 percent of 1RM. We focus on lower resistance with this lift due to the change of direction, repetitive maximal sprinting, and constant contact experienced by the athletes’ legs during the season. Players who do not take as many reps in practices and games will routinely add weight to their final sets, finishing anywhere between 75 and 90 percent.
Two-board/Two-block bench press: Because athletes’ shoulders can get banged up during the season, we use two or three boards or a “shoulder-saver” block when doing the bench press. These tools slightly decrease the range of motion of the lift and help protect the shoulder.
In addition, this is a tremendous strategy for overloading on the press throughout the season. Our intensities range from 75 percent in week one to 82 percent in weeks 10 to 14. The final set progresses from a double at 82 percent in week one to a single at 92 percent or higher in the final weeks.
We finish each bench press session with a max-reps set at 185, 205, or 225 pounds. This is vital for enhancing muscle tissues and muscle endurance capabilities. Some of our younger athletes are not yet proficient with max-rep sets of 225 pounds, so we allow lower numbers to ensure more volume.
Neutral grip bench press: We switch to the neutral grip bar on Wednesdays because the motion used to press it has a direct correlation to football-specific actions like blocking. Intensities range between 72 and 82 percent of standard-bar 1RM, and the athletes complete five to 10 reps per set.
Complementing the core lifts, our in-season strength program also contains a variety of auxiliary lifts. The term “auxiliary” can be misleading — these exercises are by no means less important. In fact, they serve many purposes, including strengthening muscles not used as prime movers in our core lifts, adding volume to areas already addressed in our core lifts, and mimicking football movements.
In-season, our auxiliary volume is 900 to 1,200 reps each week. Before red flags pop up in your head, keep in mind that we don’t do every rep at maximal resistance. Rather, we usually utilize a lower load that allows for 12 to 15 reps of each exercise.
Many of our auxiliary movements focus on the back and core. Football requires a lot of upper-body pushing, especially in the trenches. To address this and provide muscular balance, we maintain a 2-1 ratio of pull-to-push lifts and incorporate external rotations of the shoulder joint. Some of our sample pulling exercises include bodyweight and resisted pull-ups, cable pulldowns, cable rows, dumbbell rows, and band-resisted and TRX-resisted pull-aparts, all with varying grip requirements.
To develop core strength, we use exercises that involve anti-rotation, resisted hip flexion, and spinal erector emphasis. Strong anti-rotation transfers well to the football field due to the torque involved in the game. In addition, research shows that resisted hip flexion in a suspended position helps combat injuries in the lower abdominals and hip flexors. Finally, our athletes need strong spinal erectors to transfer power efficiently through their posterior chains. We utilize band-resisted Pavlov presses, suspended straight-leg and bent-leg raises, and normal and reverse hyperextensions in our core work.
