HOUSTON TEXANS STRENGTH & CONDITIONING PROGRAM ...

We’ve discussed the formula to running your fastest. There is no need for a football
player to spend any additional time on speed drills. Time doesn’t allow it during the
season when you need to be you’re fastest.
You’d be wiser to spend that time on conditioning, running pass routes, covering a
receiver, perfecting your pass rushing skills, throwing the football, catching a football, or
any other skill used to play the game. Remember, the activities you perform during the
season are the activities that develop and maintain your football speed and quickness
from July through January.
There is nothing better for a football player to improve position specific speed
and quickness than practicing fast and playing fast.
KEY POINTS TO REMEMBER
1. Football speed is the key to your success, not straight-line track speed.
2. Speed and quickness are abilities you inherit from your genetic pool.
3. You can’t develop more speed than your genetic potential will allow.
4. Increases in speed are often obtained in spite of the training regimen employed.
5. There are no magical potions or gadgets to increase speed.
6. Items that can have immediate impact on speed are stance, start and running technique.
7. An explosive start requires several coordinated actions to occur rapidly and simultaneously.
8. You don’t get speed through the air; you get it through the ground.
9. Eliminate the vertical component and you’ll run faster.
10. You must practice running fast.
SKILL DEVELOPMENT
The fourth component of your fitness profile is Skill Development. The execution of
any skill requires a sophisticated series of signals sent from the brain to the muscles.
Muscle fibers must be activated in the proper sequence to perform a skill with any
proficiency. An increase in proficiency will occur if that specific skill or parts of that
skill is practiced. At the higher levels most skills are hard to develop.
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