Whether you are a serious player with dreams of a football career or just play pickup with your buddies, explosive strength and speed will be your biggest ally on the field. Football is a game that requires you to explode with extreme intensity for shorter intervals.

Football also requires that your different muscle groups work well together. Your legs, core, arms, and hands all play a critical role whether you are chasing down the victim of your next hit, straight arming away a defensive end on your next sweep, pulling from the line to block for your back or fighting for a fumble.

Learning to train for explosive strength and speed in a way that will teach your muscle groups to work well together will be a huge key to making that dream a reality or showing up your buddies and earning bragging rights for those post game debriefings at the local pub.

The key here will be to utilize whole body exercises such as dead lifts, squats, clean and presses, clean and jerks, chin ups etc. Any exercise that incorporates several muscles or muscle groups into one motion are the best exercises to help you build that explosive strength. It is actually the same kind of training that Olympic weight lifters use to train for their competitions. Whole body motions that require explosive strength, coordination of muscle groups and stability is where its at. For the best strength results keep your reps very low (1-2 reps).

Use close to your maximum weight limit which you should check often to maintain progress. If you hit a plateau it may be time to put on a bit more size. Increase your reps to 4-6 and your weight to about 80% of your maximum. Eat like a horse and give your body plenty of time to recover (3 days a week in the gym for a max of 35 minutes is all you need). Super sets are a good way to get your routine over and done with faster. Try to pair exercises together in your super sets that use different muscle groups (eg. squats and chin ups).

There are other great exercises that will help you with your football endeavors. Resistance sprints are a great way to build up explosive and powerful speed. Using a steep hill or resistance band works great for this. Sledge hammer routines are great for building explosive strength between your core, arms and hands.

Also, a quick note on the hands.

Your hands are one of the most important tools you have to get your job on the field done. Try to stay away from wrist straps for your lifts. Let your hands become strong with the rest of your body. Strong hands prevent fumbles, pull down an escaping victim of one of your tackles and help you linemen protect your quarter back. Absolutely every thing you do on and off the field is greatly benefited by a set of good strong hands.

One of the often over looked secrets to growing and developing explosively powerful muscle is adequate rest to allow your muscles to recover. Training actually slightly tears your muscle fibers. It is the healing and recovery process that develops and advances the size and ability of your body. You do your thing in the gym and let your body do it by giving it the time it needs to start again.

Go kick some butt in the gym and on the field.

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