by Steve Morris, ExplosiveFootballTraining.com   

The vast majority of the questions I get about football training are about how to get bigger, faster, more explosive for football. Guys ask about Power Cleans and Box Squats and, of course, the Bench Press. This is a good thing because it shows that football players today are taking strength training seriously and are working hard to become explosive athletes.

However, the second most common question (or complaint) I get is from guys who’ve injured their lower back on the field…usually, they say, they have no idea how it happened. They weren’t hit hard, but maybe they fell in an odd way or twisted too fast.

The truth is, 90% of the time, nagging lower back football injuries are caused by lack of abdominal strength.

That, coupled with complete lack of oblique strength and high-speed collisions on the field, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Back injuries don’t get as much press as knee or shoulder injuries. This is because when you blow out your ACL, you’re out.

How is it that a sport like football, which is dominated by hard-core strength training, leaves so many guys with weak abs? There are 3 reasons:

1. Ab training is seen as secondary and usually just “thrown in” at the end of a workout
2. Ab training in the football world is seen as vain; it’s something bodybuilders do, not football players
3. Ab training information comes from that bodybuilding world where form has priority over function

The good news is that it doesn’t take long to strengthen your core the correct way and kill off those nagging lower back injuries. It not only won’t take away from your regular football training program, it will add to it! Simply put, if your legs are capable of Squatting 500lbs but your Abs can only handle 250, guess how much you’ll actually Squat. (Hint, it ain’t 500!)

Follow these 3 Rules of Ab Training for Football Players and follow the exercise I lay out and you’ll be injury free and stronger than ever.

1. Treat your ab training with the same respect and intensity you would Squats, Bench or Deadlifts
2. Ab training is about function. The purpose is to make your core as solid as a slab of granite.
3. Ab training must be done hard and heavy. Doing endless reps of crunches is NOT the way to do it.

The Top 5 Power Ab Exercises for Football Players (and all althetes)

1. Suitcase Deadlift

This is simple but brutally effective. Most athletes spend the majority of their time training the abs but neglect the obliques. If you really want to lift big and stay injury free (or knock people on their asses) then you need to train the obliques just as hard as the rest of the mid-section.
This lift works best with a Farmers Walk Bar, so you don’t have to over-extend when lifting a regular bar off the ground. If you don’t have Farmer’s bars, then set the bar up at just below the knee in the rack.

Stand to the side of the bar, grip it in the middle, and Deadlift it. Don’t twist. Just grip the bar and stand up. Use your legs as the prime movers and your obliques will get a ton of work. You’ve got to keep your entire mid-section ultra-tight the entire time!

• Keep the reps low (under 3) and do multiple sets. Once you get comfortable, start adding weight.

2. Standing Cable Crunch

As football players we perform standing up, so why do so many magazines only recommend exercises performed while lying down? Usually they will tell you this is done in some half-ass attempt to “isolate” the abs, but this is lunacy.

First, the abs don’t need to be isolated. They function as a stabilizer in most athletic functions. Second, trying to take the hip flexors out of all ab-training movements is asking for trouble. Sure, if you are after only aesthetics, then isolating is a good idea at times, however, always isolating can be problematic. The hip flexors and abs were designed to work together, so they should be trained together most of the time! Louie Simmons put it best, “Train your abs standing, and why not? When you lift, wrestle, or play ball you are standing.”
A perfect exercise to involve the abs in a dynamic fashion while standing is the Standing Cable Crunch.
This exercise can also be done with Bands.

Simply attach a rope or strap to a Lat-pull machine, walk out a step or so, and bend forward forcefully. Return to the top slowly, flex, and explode down. Change attachments and foot placements to change the exercise.

• This can also be done kneeling.

3. Shovel Lift

Most of you have probably never done this lift before. The Pitch Fork Lift (sometimes called the Shovel Lift) is true functional ab training. It works the obliques as hard as any other movement I’ve ever come across. The PFL comes from Steve Justa, author of Rock, Iron, Steel. He developed the exercise after getting a job bailing hay and found that all the traditional training he was doing wasn’t helping one bit. After a few week of doing the Shovel Lift, Justa was tossing the hay around like an old pro.

The Shovel is pretty easy to set up and perform. Load one end of an Olympic bar. Now, grab the unloaded end with one hand and place the other hand at about the mid-point of the bar.

Bend the knees and sideways at the hip and lift the loaded end of the bar; just as you would when shoveling dirt. You can make the movement much harder by then turning a bit to the side, as if “dumping” the dirt out of the shovel.
Return to the starting point and repeat. It will help if you lock-out your arm farthest from the loaded end and “press” it down, levering the weight up.
If you’ve been having trouble with falling forward in the Squat or have had back problems when tackling or blocking, this movement will push you to new heights. The internal pressure that is needed to stabilize during this exercise will really teach you how to properly push out when exerting force against an opponent.

• Keep the reps low, under 6, and go for 3 – 6 sets.

4. Weighted Sit Ups with a “Stone Trainer”

Weighted Sit-ups are Old School and effective. They should be a staple of any good football strength training program. But, it can be a real pain once you get past using 90lbs. To circumvent this problem, simply load the weight onto the Stone Trainer. I’ll keep the weights nice and in-place so you can worry about performing the exercise rather than an errant 45 smackin’ you in the head.

Keep the weight high on the chest, or, hold it slightly off the chest to increase the difficulty. If possible, lock the back of your ankles onto something stable, like the edge of a platform, against a band, or have your partner hold them. This is basically a Janda style Sit up, so you can be sure that the majority of the stress is placed on your abs and not your hip flexors or lower back.

• Go heavy. Pile the weights on as long as you are keeping your form honest.
  • Do not twist the back while doing the FCT; it should be a smooth motion. Lower under control then flex and rotate back to the other side. Please watch the video several times before attempting this lift. Again, 3 – 5 by 5 –10 seems to work best. Add weight slowly. The majority of form problems I’ve seen have come from adding too much weight too quickly.
The Stone Trainer is available at www.elitefts.com

 

5. Full Contact Twist

I learned about this exercise years back in one of Pavel Tsatsouline books. It is an excellent movement for the obliques and abs.


Forget standing on a Swiss ball; the Full Contact Twist (FCT) is functional ab training! I’ve found that this exercise not only strengthens the abs but also helps with the ability to “pop” the hips. Several softball players found themselves hitting bombs a few weeks after adding FCTs to their programs. Fighters and those who like to throw the occasional punch will find this exercise quite helpful as well. And, of course, football players could always use some extra hip power.

Wrap Up

Dissapointed I didn’t include some weirdo exercise on a wobble board or have you running on a Swiss Ball? Don’t be. Those things are borrowed from the re-hab world and are improperly applied to athletes by trainers who don’t have a clue.

You should pick 3 – 5 of these exercises and include them in your strength tra recommendations and soon you’ll be much bigger, faster and injury free.