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Pushin’ Iron for the Gridiron
Part 3 - Phase 4

By Kris Aiken
First published at www.johnberardi.com, Aug 4 2003.

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Phase 4 - Pre-Camp Phase

Training camp is now looming on the horizon. Two, sometimes three a days, meetings, and film work are what you have to look forward to. Oh yea, ice baths and blisters are also waiting for you in the August heat. So this is your last chance to work hard and slightly diminish the agony that is coming. No matter what you do to prepare, camp still sucks. Of course, it’s fun the first day. But that 6:30 wake up call on day two hurts and we all know it’s harder and harder each day after that.

In this phase, the weight room workouts are reduced to three hard sessions per week. The type of lifts and goals in the gym remain fairly consistent. There will now only be one power day per week to go along with the two max days. It will alternate between upper and lower from week to week on Friday’s workout.

In addition, there will now be more of an emphasis placed on field work. Specifically, conditioning and game simulation sprints will be improved. There is also a testing day on Saturday, to prepare for the tests that you will usually be put through on the first day of camp. Even though good testers are not always good football players, those that can do both well will get the best opportunities.

Weeks 1-6

Monday - Max Lower

• Squats 4 sets of 3
• Deadlifts 4 sets of 3
• Split Squats 3 sets of 5
• Glute ham raises 3 sets until failure
• Cable Crunches 3 sets of 10

Tuesday - Track Workout

• See track workout section

Wednesday - Max Upper

• Bench press 3 sets of 5,3,1
• Chin ups 3 sets of 5,3,1
• Floor Press 3 sets of 3
• One arm DB Row 3 sets of 3
• One arm DB Bench Press 3 sets of 3
• Dips 3 sets of 3

Thursday - Track Workout

• See track workout section

Friday - Power

• UPPER
• Speed med grip bench 3 sets of 8-10
• Push press 3 sets of 8-10
• Speed one arm cable row 3 sets of 8-10
• Speed Dips 3 sets until you feel slow
• Speed Chins3 sets until you feel slow

• LOWER
• Jump Squats 3 sets of 8-10
• Power Snatch 3 sets of 8-10
• Power Cleans 3 sets of 8-10
• Speed Deadlifts3 sets 8-10
• Speed leg curls 3 sets 8-10

*Alternate from UPPER to LOWER from one week to the next.

Saturday - Testing

• Bench 225 for as many as possible
• Power cleans 1RM
• Vertical jump
• Shuttle 40 yd dash

*You should also perform an agility workout on this day after you do your testing

Sunday - Recovery/Agility

*Sunday should consist of form running and a lot of stretching both static and dynamic along with a little bit less intense of an agility workout.

Track Workouts for pre-training camp phase

The workouts for these last six weeks will follow the same pattern as in the prior phase. Longer distances will be covered on Tuesdays and shorter, more intense work will be performed on Thursday. The rest intervals are being shortened in order to simulate the rest a player would have in the huddle during a game. Saturday and Sunday’s agility workouts should be creative and resemble game situations as much as possible.

Week One

Tuesday

• Warm up
• Skips 65 yards
• Stretch
• 12x 110yd @ 80-85% (rest 30 seconds between each sprint)
• 4x 5yard lateral quickness (run back and forth between two lines spaced 5yds apart touching each line. Repeat for a duration of 30 sec)
• Abs and Tornado ball
• Cool down and Stretch

Thursday

• Warm up
• Skips 25 yards
• Stretch
• 3x 100yd accelerations
• 10x 10yd starts
• 10x 20yd push up starts
• 4 sets of 3x 40yd sprints @ 100% - jog back to start and rest 3 min between sets
• Abs and Tornado ball
• Cool down and Stretch

Week Two

Tuesday

• Warm up
• Skips 65 yards
• Stretch
• 14x 110yd @ 80-85% (rest 30 sec between each)
• 4x 5yd lateral quickness
• Abs and tornado ball
• Cool down and Stretch

Thursday

• Warm up
• Skips 25 yards
• Stretch
• 3x 100yd accelerations
• 6x 10yd cable resisted starts
• 6x ladder run
• 4 sets of 4x 40yd sprints @ 100% - jog back to start and rest 3 min between each set

Week Three

Tuesday

• Warm up
• Skips 65 yards
• Stretch
• 16x 110yd @ 80-85% (rest 30 sec between each)
• 4x 5yd lateral quickness
• Abs and Tornado ball
• Cool down and Stretch

Thursday

• Warm up
• Skips 25 yards
• Stretch3x 100yd accelerations
• 4x 20yd sprints @ 100% (rest 2 min)
• 4x 30yd sprints @ 100% (rest 4 min)
• 3 sets of 5x 40yd sprints @ 100% - jog back to start and rest 5 min between sets
• Abs and Tornado ball
• Cool down and Stretch

Week Four

Tuesday

• Same as week 3 but must complete all 110’s under 15 sec

Thursday

• Same as week 3 but do 4 sets of 5x 40yd

Week Five

Tuesday

• Same as week 4

Thursday

• Warm up
• Skips 25 yards
• Stretch
• 3x 100yd accelerations
• 5x ladder run
• 5x 10 yd starts
• 15x 40yd - jog back between (add 0.5 to your best 40 yd time, all 15 should be under that time)
• Abs and Tornado ball
• Cool down and stretch

Week Six

Tuesday

• Same as week 5

Thursday

• Same as week 5

At this point, you should take a complete week off so that you can be fully rested and recovered for camp. It’s been a long 37 weeks and if you’ve followed the program as recommended you’ve probably got a brand new body. Put it to good use and hit somebody – hit ‘em hard – for me.

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Kris Aiken recently graduated with a B.A. in Honors Kinesiology from the University of Western Ontario, where he spent 5 years as a starter for the UWO Mustangs football team. Currently, Kris is working as a strength coach and will be attending free agent camps for the CFL this spring in hopes to continue his football career on a professional level. He can be reached at mustangdb5@hotmail.com.