HOUSTON TEXANS STRENGTH & CONDITIONING PROGRAM ...

football player must be intense, brief, and generate the type of muscular gains that are
most functional in playing the game.
Lifting Skills
There is a specific skill used to bench press with a barbell. This skill does not transfer
to any other skill. If you stop bench pressing with a barbell and use a machine instead,
you’ll lose the specific skill to bench with a bar.
The same gains in strength and size can be developed with a machine that were
developed with a barbell, if the effort exerted remains the same. If you like benching
with a bar, use a bar. If you like benching with dumbbells, use dumbbells. If you like
benching on a machine, use a machine. For variety we suggest using any or all of them.
Your success as an NFL football player will not be determined by the equipment you use.
Some experts claim that the skill and balance developed bench pressing a barbell is
missing while performing the bench press exercise with a machine. This is true. It is
also true that a higher degree of skill and balance is needed to bench press with
dumbbells.
When you ask the barbell enthusiast, “Why don’t you use dumbbells to bench” the
response is usually, “There’s more skill needed to balance two dumbbells and I can use
more weight with a bar.” With that logic it becomes an advantage to remove as much
skill as possible from an exercise and concentrate more on developing strength, not the
skill needed to perform the movement.
Bench-pressing with a barbell will not develop the skills to bench press with
dumbbells. There is also a difference between the skills used to bench press and incline
press with a barbell. Both require different neuromuscular patterns and skills.
Developing the skill to bench press with a barbell will not develop the skill to perform
the incline press with a barbell. Each must be developed separately.
Use a wide range of equipment. You’ll take advantage of what each piece has to offer
and add variety to your training.
PROGRAM ORGANIZATION
Balance is the key to our Texans strength program. Total body development is
essential for a football player. You must develop every major and minor muscle group to
its fullest potential. If too much time is spent performing one exercise, or developing a
specific area of the body, it’s usually at the expense of other areas. Many young players
come into our program having spent endless hours bench pressing.
They’ve become good at bench pressing. They have well developed pecs. However,
many are deficient in other areas of the body. Deficient areas often include the neck, the
rotator cuff, the upper back, the posterior deltoid, the hamstrings and midsection.
The Texans strength program is designed to develop every major muscle group in the
body. We place an equal value on every exercise performed. This is essential if injury
prevention and total body development is our goal.
The Rep
Anding/Riley/Wright 49