How to Keep Fit to Play American Football

To say that American football is a demanding sport is to say nothing. Professional football players look like they spend all their free time lifting weights in the gym. That’s why many people who are thinking about playing football hesitate to start. All sports are demanding, but American football stands out among all of them. If you don’t have strength and endurance, you have no business in football. Colleges and some other educational institutions offer a perfect opportunity for young people to try themselves in different sports, including American football.

Students can join the college team to understand what American football is. By the way, it’s also a chance to enter pro leagues. Playing there requires a student to show outstanding results both in studying and sports, and it turns out to be impossible without professional essay writing help. Nowadays, custom essay and term paper writing assistance isn’t a luxury but a necessity. Students are working, are playing sports, and need time on other activities. And asking for help is the only way to get some free time.

Staying fit also takes time, and it’s important not only because it helps players achieve outstanding results, but also to avoid injuries. American football is an active and high-contact sport, and you can never forget about the risks. Today we’ll discuss the activities and exercises to pay attention to if you’ve started or only think about starting playing football.

1. Run more

Even though football players don’t run large distances while playing, this activity is still ranked first. If you start running training sessions, you have to remember that distance isn’t your key aim. You have to work on the speed, acceleration, quick stops without getting tired fast. It’s better to test your capabilities on track. Running also benefits your cardiovascular system and your overall health. We advise training shuttle runs, sprints, running with walking breaks. The more you train, the higher your endurance. And as you know, endurance is the key to a successful game.

2. Stretch regularly

Before we start discussing other training activities and programs, we consider it necessary to convince you to do stretching. It has many opponents, but we don’t understand what makes them dislike stretching. No matter how hard and how often you train your muscles, you can’t achieve the agility you need without stretching. Note that these sessions should be full-body and engage every muscle of your body. If you often face sprains and muscle strains, you have to start stretching to avoid these injuries. Make sure to do a good and long warm-up before stretching. If your muscles are clenched, any stretching will be ineffective or even dangerous.

3. Lift weights to get stronger

Agility and endurance are useful in football, but they are useless without strength. Not all people have inborn strength, so they have to work hard on developing it. As you know, the best way to get stronger is to start lifting weights at the gym. Don’t hope that you’ll come to the gym for the first time and be able to squat heavy. First of all, you’ll have to get acquainted with the equipment and learn the exercise technique. Be ready that the latter one will take you much time. Only when you master the technique you can start increasing the weights you lift. What about the exercises you can do? All basic weightlifting exercises, such as squats, deadlifts, and bench press, perfectly suit your purpose. But it doesn’t mean that the list of exercises you may do to stay fit is limited to these three ones. Here are a few others to add to your training program:

• Box squats;
• Romanian deadlift;
• Sandbag;
• Box blast;
• Prowler;
• Dumbbell Incline;

4. Try football-specific exercises

You know that any sport has a set of special exercises focused on mastering certain movements and skills, and American football isn’t an exception. All players do running and agility drills from time to time not to lose skills and play effectively. We’ve mentioned some of the basic ways to train them at the beginning, but now your task is to learn more about the basic drills for American football. These are exercises with an agility ladder, position-specific running. Pay more attention to the following drills if you want to build speed and explosiveness:

• left-to-right jumps;
• single-leg swiss ball squats;
• high-to-low drill;
• fast feed drill;
• circle-around-the-cone drill.

Find the techniques on the Internet and incorporate them into your training if you want to get fit for football.

Is it easy to prepare yourself for the game?

We’ve listed the most important and effective techniques here, but it doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to get fit in a week. NFL players do them regularly. In case they need to prepare for a game, they start it 4-5 months before the expected date. Nothing can be easy today, especially in sports.