I’m pretty much sick of seeing football training videos on YouTube or on websites having football players train for speed by running endlessly through cones.
It may have value, though it’s questionable. I unfortunately get to see football players subject to this pretty often. Add agility ladders to that list as well as “strength shoes” These gimmicks have nothing to do with building actual foot speed. And, even worse, they do nothing to improve your football speed!
What’s Wrong with Cone Drills?
Cone drills are really limited because of one main factor: the football players running through the cones are not strong enough to produce the proper amount of force to actually be agile.
- Football Agility requires relative body strength.
- Relative body strength (as all other elements of strength) is dependant on your Maximum Strength.
If you aren’t strong enough, you won’t be agile …or quick, or fast, or explosive. I can’t stand seeing skinny, weak young players, or, fat, weak players doing cone drills because they can’t even muster up the force to get out of their own way.
A strong football player will almost always be a fast football player. Speed training should be built into your football training program.
So, if cone drills don’t improve foot speed and agility, what does?
Get Stronger
You must work on your strength. Heavy weights and low reps. Max Effort work for both upper and lower body. Explosive Football exercises like Squats, Deadlifts, Incline Bench, Snatch Grip Deadlifts, Good Mornings and Cleans should all be done regularly.
Clean & Jerks
Not many exercises test your ability to move your feet like a Jerk. While you can do Jerks out of the rack, I still like to mix in C&J’s because of the fatigue factor. Basically, you want to be a little tired, then have to move your feet quickly while putting a big weight overhead. You’ll be tired in your games, so don’t you think it would make sense to train agility-building movements while tired?
Clean and Jerks, should, in some way, be part of everyone’s football training program. They are an ideal football exercise – they require foot speed, power, strength, and agility. Those are the qualities that football speed are made of!
Jump Rope
This is as basic as it gets. But, adding a jump rope to your training after you have enough strength can be a great “bridge” between weightroom strength and on-field performance. You can use a jump rope as a warm up, a cool down, or as a workout all to itself. Lineman especially should be jumping rope. If you don’t have good foot-work on the line, forget it, you’re done.
When people talk about how to train explosively for football, they usually start talking about exotic, odd exercises and all kinds of weird training tools like Jump Soles and parachutes and similar crapola.
- But, the Jump Rope is as old as the hills and continues to out-perform just about everything when it comes to improving your football foot speed.
Also, be position specific. Lineman should work on their steps…LB’s on theirs, and so on.
There’s not much sense putting every player through the same cookie-cutter agility and foot-speed training program. Remember, the only football exercises you should add to your training program are those with a high return on your efforts. Jump Rope and Clean & Jerks are two of the best in this regard.
