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I want to play NFL
dexter
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
The story is I've recently really gotten into gridiron. I live over in Australia, and it's not so popular over here. I'm joining a local team, we start off-season training in a few weeks which I'm pretty excited about.
In the mean time I'm just looking for some advice on particular work outs and which position I'd be best suited to.
Mostly I'm looking for some tips on how to throw well. I bought a ball (one of the cheap nike 705's all fielder ones made from synthetic plastic or something), and I'm keen to get to practicing.
While I've improved a whole lot since a few weeks ago, I still find it difficult getting a nice spiral as well as distance + accuracy. I've been practicing throwing at the bins in my backyard to build accuracy and play with friends when I can.
So any videos or websites aiding me with my throwing technique would be fantastic, or hell, any tips you guys could give me would be neat. I've been reading up the NFL threads too and watching games on ESPN.
I'm 22 years old, weigh 70kg and I'm around 5'8. I do gym, but my cardio's pretty poor so any workouts i could follow would be fantastic too. I want to be around 75kg, should I be aiming for a higher weight than this?
Thanks in advance, dudes!
In the mean time I'm just looking for some advice on particular work outs and which position I'd be best suited to.
Mostly I'm looking for some tips on how to throw well. I bought a ball (one of the cheap nike 705's all fielder ones made from synthetic plastic or something), and I'm keen to get to practicing.
While I've improved a whole lot since a few weeks ago, I still find it difficult getting a nice spiral as well as distance + accuracy. I've been practicing throwing at the bins in my backyard to build accuracy and play with friends when I can.
So any videos or websites aiding me with my throwing technique would be fantastic, or hell, any tips you guys could give me would be neat. I've been reading up the NFL threads too and watching games on ESPN.
I'm 22 years old, weigh 70kg and I'm around 5'8. I do gym, but my cardio's pretty poor so any workouts i could follow would be fantastic too. I want to be around 75kg, should I be aiming for a higher weight than this?
Thanks in advance, dudes!
dexter on
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Crossfit football is designed for football so it might be a good place to start. You need to get bigger and stronger.
You need to bulk up, 154 lbs is very slight for football, so bulk up as much as possible, for reference Darren Sproles is 5 foot 6 and around 190 - get bigger and stronger. Lifting heavy weights, low reps, and get about 1 gram of protein for every lb you weigh (so 154 grams of protein a day) - that'll help you get bigger and stronger. 5 foot 8 is pretty short for all positions but you can overcome that with power and speed.
As far as throwing, seems like throwing into bins in the backyard is a good start! Don't know much about that.
I'm sure someone will come along with a better routine or more ideas, but I wanted to share crossfit football!
Have fun!
You might check out some of these: http://www.youtube.com/user/FootballDoneRight#p/u
Don't lead with your head when you tackle.
If I were you I might be tempted to take up Flag Football instead. It's fairly popular here in the U.S. and would suit someone of your height who might want to play at Quarter Back. It's most of the fun of real football plus chicks and beer minus all the nasty spinal cord injuries.
Friend of mine has played semi-pro his entire life, the injury thing is no friggin joke. Do you like your knees? Hands? Feet? Do you want them to be broken at some point?
Even flag football has some injuries, but uh, fewer concussions and broken fingers.
For throwing motions, the best in the game right now is Tom Brady. He would be my example for anyone wanting to know what they should look like when they throw the ball. So many things go into throwing the perfect pass, that you will have to practice daily, and it gets a lot more complicated when you're throwing to someone who's running, you have someone racing toward you to hit you, you're throwing off your back foot, or throwing on the move.
Scour YouTube, watch Tom Brady, and practice a lot.
What state are you in and what team are you joining?
For you, you're going to need to gain weight - throwing practice is obviously important if you want to be a QB, but there's plenty of vids on youtube to help you learn.
Most importantly, you need to practice route throwing to real people. That's just essential.
re weight, you're pretty light, which will pose a problem to varying degrees based on how good your OL is. My advice is to put on at least 5 kgs through weights. Your team mates should have lots of ideas, but remember, nutrition is key to good weight gain. Focus on the core lifts (deadlift, bench press, Overhead Press, Squat) and go from there.
You should look up combine exercises involving sprint and agility work, as they are great indicators of ability and training needs - as a QB you don't need to be super endurance based - speed and power are far more important.
A bloke I used to work with played for the Gold Coast a few years back, and they could barely put enough players on the field for a team, definately not enough for a defensive team et al. Its a very, very minor sport over here, to the point where there is more croquet teams than NFL teams.
As to general fitness, mate you need to improve your cardio. All ball sports involve running a fair whack, in soccer its estimated at 10km a game, touch its over 20. NFL requires bursts of speed, and maintaining it, while wearing all that padding.
You need to run. Start off with 1-2 times a week 4km+. You will NOT be able to run the whole thing to start with poor cardio, run as much as you can, then jog/walk the rest. First 3 mins of the distance walk, then 3 mins slow jog, then pick up slowly to full pace. Do the same in reverse for the last bit.
Intervals are the fun stuff. You want to pick a distance of about 30m to start, and you jog to the first mark, then sprint your butt off, then jog, then sprint. Do this for about 25 mins. As you start to be able to do this easily, increase the distances by 10m each time.
Make sure you leave 24h between each set of training, to give your body time to recover. Make sure you hydrate, at least 4 litres a day. Gatoraide or some other such drink immediately after training can help. Make sure you stretch after running, but do not stretch beforehand, as your muscles will be cold and you can do damage.
Its going to be tough work.
As to upper body strength, we used to do the bar challange. Get yourself a 10kg torsion bar. This bar goes everywhere with you (school, work (if possible), the toilet). Every hour you did 20 reps of bent over row, military press, bicep curl, squats.
This improved upper body strength quite a bit, just from carrying 10kg all the time and doing the reps. We got some funny looks at uni, but the girls seemed to like it :P
Good luck.
Not much help, I know, but check into it. Maybe it's an alternative.
Also, having read things a little closer, you're also interested in looking at other positions? Not knowing how good your hands are, I think the default for someone like you would be DB, as your size precludes you from anything more serious.
I used to play and at peak I was 93kgs/204lbs, which is pretty light by most standards. Any decent running back is going to be upwards of 100kgs, so putting a stop to someone like that just requires more mass than what you've got at the moment (tackling is way, way different to tackling in rugby).
Offensively if you're super quick and agile with good hands you could be a WR, though that comes with its own challenges - taller DBs will make a little challenging, though in Aussie leagues you'll survive at your height.
One thing I'd recommend is reading about the game. Once you've played a bit and understand the assignments etc. I'd recommend this book. Pat Kirwan is on Sirius NFL Radio and he is a football genius.
If you really are wanting to get into the NFL, unfortunately you're too short to play almost any position, especially QB.
Now, there are other leagues but for meager(er) salaries. CFL in Canada, UFL in America, and Arena League. In those leagues you can have less than ideal traits and have success, but with maybe a 1% chance of getting picked up by the NFL.
With that bring said, football is a brutal sport and I swear to you it is infinitely harder than it looks on TV. any adult male can throw or catch a good football. Try doing it with three 270 pound men trying to grind your bones into oatmeal and you'll see what the deal is.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
At your size you're looking at probably a receiving position, like Wide Receiver or Tight End, if you can get some good bulk on you, maybe even Running Back if you've got a smart head.
You need to do a lot of cardio, you want to be able to pop off the line fast and reliably, and also be able to keep breathing late in the game. I don't know too much about what you should be working out as offense, I was always been O Lineman and linebacker.
I'm a math major so I'm not looking to play pro, just to play ball at a state level for fun/fitness.
Thanks guys, I'll read these all properly soon!
So, befriend a QB.
Football Outsiders is chiefly a statistical analysis think tank for NFL and College Football, but they have weekly articles that dissect plays from big games and talk about specific players techniques and mechanics, and by reading that you might be able to glean some insight about playing the game at a high level for any position.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
WHA?? Maybe WR, but definitely not TE. Those guys are blockers most of the time. He would get housed.
anyways the bursts of speed are right on. You need to be able to explode after the ball is snapped, and still have enough left in the tank to finish the play. If you are reasonably athletic you will probably do well at am amateur level. Like any sport it takes lots and lots of practice. there's a lot of chemistry with your QB as well, a lot of plays he throws to where you are supposed to be.
I always wished i had played football. I'm built for it physically, but not mentally. I just don't have that competitive nature for most sports. I'd be so worried i've killed the person i hit. Good luck man!