Football Training Drills for Conditioning

A lot of the excitement from watching football comes from the fast, explosive plays the athletes make. Quarter after quarter, they give their very all to come out ahead of the competition. It’s rare to see a player not drenched in sweat by the end of the game. To reach the level needed to keep making plays time and time again, you have to drill. The following football training drills will help strengthen your cardio and teach your body how far it can push itself.

Sprint Runs & Football Conditioning Drills

Sprint exercises are one of the main conditioning exercises to keep up with the fast pace of the game. The time between snaps can be short, so keeping up with training that gets your heart racing can keep you in the game longer. The following are some drills to try to get your body in shape for the whole game.

1. Huddle Sprints

Huddle sprints get their name from the jog back into the huddle that players will do between downs. When the clock is running, you don’t want to waste time walking back to the huddle, especially when your team is waiting on you.

This exercise is like a tempo run. To practice a huddle sprint, you mark off a distance of 40 to 60 feet and then sprint from one mark to the next. Once you clear the distance, you jog back to the starting point and wait for 20 to 30 seconds before sprinting the distance again. This cycle gets done eight to twelve times to create a set. After three sets, you’re done.

If you want to add to the challenge of this exercise, you can use speed sleds and speed chutes that increase wind resistance when doing this exercise. More resistance means you have to use more power to move, thus you'll find your conditioning will build faster with a speed sled or a speed chute.

2. Shuttle Sprints

Shuttle sprints work like huddle sprints, only the trip back isn’t so easy. The idea behind this exercise is to build up muscle control with your conditioning since you’ll be starting and stopping quickly.

Like the huddle sprint, you’ll mark off a distance of 20 to 30 feet. Once you start, you’ll sprint the full distance, turning around as quickly as you can, and then sprinting back to the starting line.

You’ll sprint the distance back and forth eight to twelve times and then take a 10-20 second rest. That completes one set, with three sets making a complete run-through.

The goal here is to build control and agility while conditioning your body. By forcing yourself to start and stop fast, you can give yourself an edge in the game by developing these quick moves.

Sprint Ladders

Sprint ladders are a demanding conditioning routine. They cover a long distance and can take longer than other football training drills. Again, the goal of the drill is to get you ready for the explosive pace of the game so that you can keep up with the rest of the team. A typical sprint ladder looks like this:

• Two 10-yard sprints with a 10-second rest between the sprints
• Two 20-yard sprints with a 20-second rest between the sprints
• Two 30-yard sprints with a 30-second rest between the sprints
• Two 40-yard sprints with a 45-second rest between the sprints
• Two 30-yard sprints with a 30-second rest between the sprints
• Two 20-yard sprints with a 20-second rest between the sprints
• Two 10-yard sprints with a 10-second rest between the sprints

One run-through of the above counts as a full set for the exercise. You can try to go for more, but the above should get you the conditioning you’re looking for to keep up with the rigors of the game.

Stride/Tempo Runs & Football Training Drills

Stride runs and tempo runs are like one another in that they use the whole football field to work on your conditioning. The difference is in the intervals and the pacing.

1. Stride Interval Runs

These runs have you break the field down into 20-yard segments. For the first 20 yards, you go into a full sprint and then go into a stride run for 20 yards. A stride run is when you extend your legs out as far as they will go when you step, but still keeping as fast of a pace as you can.

Alternate between sprints and strides every 20 yards, then rest for 30 seconds when you hit the end of the field. Go across the field this way four to ten times, and you’ve got a completed drill for your conditioning.

2. Tempo Runs

Tempo runs occupy a pace somewhere between a stride run and a sprint. You’re still trying to increase the step length of your run as best as you can. But, it needs to be a pace that you can maintain for longer than in an interval run.

Once you’ve got that pace figured out, you’ll run that pace the entire length of the field, going up the sideline when you do. When you hit the endzone, you’ll jog across it to the other sideline, and then tempo run back down the field another 100 yards.

If you can repeat that four to ten times, you’re getting in good condition for the next game.