By Nick Pinkelman, Owner and Athletic Performance Director
Fast to Precise Performance
When creating a football training program I feel often that lateral movements/exercises are overlooked or the training isn’t correctly emphasized from a strength and conditioning standpoint. When prescribing lateral movements in your program the first thing you have to ask yourself is, how are the movements going to help the player on the football field? The two main movements are a cutting action or a lateral acceleration of some kind (like a lineman pulling). There are other areas of football where lateral movements occur, but the focus of this article will be on cutting and lateral acceleration actions.
When looking at cutting actions two of the biggest things that are required from the body are to produce force and absorb force. Without optimally being able to produce high levels of force quickly, the player won’t be able to come out of the cutting actions as quickly as possible (accelerate). And if they can’t absorb force correctly they won’t be able to stop and set themselves up to come out of the break efficiently. The exercise progression I use with my players for this is a lateral acceleration punch, a lateral hop, and then a lateral hop to acceleration.
The lateral acceleration punch is designed to let the player to develop the correct sequencing patterns of the extension phase during lateral acceleration. I will use two different styles. The first is having the player perform it in an open chain style with band resistance around the ankle. In this style you are teaching the athlete to extend from the hip and recoil the leg up for the next step. The focus should be on the athlete’s extension from the hip while creating as much of an angle as possible with the drive leg into the ground, while keeping correct lines of force. It is key to have the athlete focus on starting the punching action from the hip, then extending through the hip to the knee in order for them to use as much power as possible.
The other variation of the lateral punch is a close chained style, more of a lateral squatting action. This variation is going to resemble more of the forces that are going to happen on the field, having to move their own body weight (or greater) and having to stabilize in the bottom position. The purpose of this exercise is not only to get the correct sequencing of the extension, but also to start building more of the working effect the muscles go through for enhanced rate of force development of the action. The focus is still on starting the action from the hips, particularly the glute medius, and continuing to accelerate the body through knee and hip extension. A key point to emphasis and look for as a coach is the acceleration throughout this extension phase. The athlete will set up the movement leaning into the wall with a stability ball resting at their ribs. Their outside leg will be planted on the ground creating as great of an angle as their body can handle. The inside leg will be raised off of the ground. From here the athlete will squat along the same angle that their outside leg creates. It is important to focus on lines of force and stability throughout the motion as you would with any one legged squat exercise.
In conjunction with the above variations of lateral punches I will use a lateral hop. A lateral hop is just as it sounds – the athlete will hop from side to side. The key is the position that the athlete lands in. It should be with the body leaning back toward the direction that they just hopped from. Not only the body, but both shin angles should be parallel to each other and at the same angle leaning back toward the direction they just came from. Think of this as the plant phase of a cut, so after correct positioning you want to look at the time to stabilization the athlete displays before they pop out of the position. If the athlete is using the elasticity created by the hop in correctly, the hop back should look like they are springing out of the position. As the athlete becomes more efficient at this exercise I will use a band to cover speed and increase the force that they have to land and stabilize with.
The last exercise I will incorporate in the progression is taking that same lateral hop and instead of hopping out of it they will accelerate out of it. The objective when landing is the same as the lateral hop, but then also adding the actions of the lateral punch variations to get the body going in a linear direction. From there you want the athlete to display normal linear acceleration mechanics. The way I think of it from a cutting standpoint is you are trying to get linear as quick and with as much speed as possible, hence creating the use of basic acceleration mechanics from a moving start.
Note that even though all of these exercises are described in a lateral fashion, you should perform them at different angles. I find that starting with the 90 degrees (directly to the side) is easiest for the athletes to pick up. But changing the angles will make it more specific to the actual game requirements.
The correct prescription of lateral exercises can greatly enhance an athlete’s cutting ability when done correctly. The lateral exercises that a coach prescribes should teach the athlete how to correctly produce and absorb force laterally. Paying attention to positioning and sequencing of your exercises will help to achieve this. Having this understanding will help to ensure that coaches aren’t just making their athletes perform a task just for the sake of doing it, but rather making sure that it is something that will show up on the field.