The countdown continues, with under one month left before we strap up the helmets and shoulder pads to begin the 2016 football season. Many coaches are finishing up their final phase of the off-season during the summer months. Conditioning and strength training will begin to be reduced in exchange for more fundamental drills and X’s and O’s.
Like many coaches across the U.S, I separate my off-season into “4 Quarters” with the summer conditioning and weight training being the final quarter before the season begins.
Our first quarter or phase of off-season will begin right after the end of the season until the New Year break. This phase emphasizes the recovery of muscle and beginning of the strength training process. We will have the kids max out in 8 week intervals and will begin the first quarter or phase with a baseline testing to provide a starting point for data collection. The second Quarter will begin with the New Year and continue through to Spring Break with an emphasis on strength and weight gains. The third quarter will begin after Spring Break and will end during the end of the school year. My fourth quarter or phase begins at the beginning of Summer Break all the way till Aug. 1st, which in the State of Virginia is the first day of preseason practice.
I have dubbed this period the “Legs’N’Lungs Program” in which we put an emphasis on conditioning and maintaining strength gains from the Winter. We lift 4 days a week with two sessions per a day. I have one session in the AM morning from 9:00-10:30 and a PM evening session from 5:30-7:00 PM. Like any good coach, I stole this from my high school in Geneseo, IL from our prominent football program. We have the state record for most consecutive winning seasons w/ 55 straight winning seasons, which also places our program second in the Nation in that category!
Like my high school football coach, Wing-T Guru Denny Diericx, he stated to me when I was a young man that there really is no excuse not to make one of the sessions. You want to work during the summer? Ok, you either work in the AM or PM and workout at the opposite session. I always come across the student-athlete who states, “Well Coach, I can’t make either because I’m working during both sessions”…..you know what my response is…..”Well, that’s called breaking child labor laws…let me see your schedule and talk to your boss”….Usually that settles that matter! I also loop their off-season participation into an incentives off-season programs called the Champion’s Club and Bobcat’s Club. There are some incentives like personalized gear, opportunity to be voted captain, eating pre-game meals first, selection of gear and numbers first, etc. Probably the biggest incentive is the exemption from the pre-season Conditioning Test of 10 timed 110’s sprints!
We break-up each lifting session with a lower body workout on Monday and Wednesday. We will have an upper body workout on Tuesday and Thursday. This allows for recovery of muscle grouping and also keeps our workouts fresh for our student-athletes. We incorporate core Olympic lifts (such as back/front squat, bench, incline press, military press, and deadlift) and also major Explosive lifts (such as power clean, hang clean, push jerk, etc.) as the basis of our lifting model. We supplement those core lifts with secondary lifts that breakdown the fundamentals of those core lifts (such as floor bench, lat pulldowns, bicep curls, Romanian deadlift, tricep press downs, leg curls, leg extensions, etc.). When our student-athletes finish their workout we will incorporate some form of conditioning for the remainder of the workout.
We will also hold off-season skill and fundamentals practices throughout the summer month culminating our team football camp. I have been a huge supporter of taking my kids to a university campus for team bonding and playbook implementation. This summer our team will attend a 3-day overnight camp on the campus of Old Dominion University.
First of all, this will continue to allow our team to build that very important team chemistry that we will need to compete for a state championship in the Fall. Secondly, the team camp will also allow for us to get a head start on the installation of our offensive and defensive schemes that we will be incorporating for the upcoming season. Lastly, the team camp will allow for my kids to be evaluated in an extended period of time for the FBS school’s coaching staff for recruiting purposes. We will also practice and participate in off-season 7×7 tournaments and passing leagues to further our passing game skills and defense. Good luck to all of you in the 2016 season!
About the Author:
Coach Jared Van Acker recently has been named as the new head football coach at Battlefield High School, a 6A high school located in Haymarket, VA. They finished with a 9-3 record during his 1st year at the helm and a State-Quarterfinalist appearance in the 6A playoffs. They won the District title and earned Coach Van Acker the 2015 Coach of the Year Award. He served as the head football coach at Freedom (South Riding) High School, a 5A school located in Northern Virginia for the previous two years. He previously coached three years as the head football coach at Grafton High School, located in Yorktown, Virginia. He is also the clinic director for the NIKE Mid-Atlantic Coach of the Year Clinic, held in Northern Virginia.