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1. Box squats
Box squats are king of the football speed training hill. If you want to truly get faster for football, do box squats. A lot. They build raw strength in the glutes and hips and dynamic strength in the glutes and hamstrings. This is especially important for football where the game starts from a dead stop and can often be played in a stop-and-start fashion. Think of how a running back sprints to the hole, gets to the second level, stops, makes a move, and explodes again. This is the kind of explosive speed box squats build. And you can also use box squats as a dynamic effort movement, thus improving your rate of force development (maybe the most overlooked aspect of football speed training).
2. Conventional deadlifts
Deadlifts are the most underutilized exercise in the entire football training world. All this bull about hurting your back has scared generations of players and coaches from using what just might be the greatest overall strength and speed builder of all time! As far as the injury factor goes, there are probably many more injuries each year caused by overtraining on the bench than there are from deadlifting. If you deadlift in good form, you’re fine.
Why conventional deadlifts and not sumo? Sumo deadlifts are great as well, but if you have to choose between the two, go with conventional because of the extra stress placed on the hamstrings. Once you learn to really sit back, pull, and engage your hamstrings, you’ll see your speed increase so much people will think you’re on something!
Stick with heavy, low rep sets. Again, this sounds dangerous to some, but the reality is that higher reps tend to equal more injuries than low reps. If you’re really afraid to go super heavy, work up to multiple sets of doubles and triples.
3. Snatch grip deadlifts
Talk about underused exercises…the snatch grip deadlift is a bonafide “get faster for football” all-star movement. Because of the wide grip, the body is forced into a much lower position, which makes the hamstrings, glutes and hips work harder. Harder is good when it comes to getting stronger and faster. This is also a great indicator exercise. Typically, as the snatch deadlift goes up, so do all other leg movements.
The key here is to start with the hips lower than normal (this will happen naturally) and actively “sit back” when you pull, keeping the back flat. We need to turn this from the traditional Olympic lifting movement into more of a powerlifting deadlift, keeping the shoulders behind the bar and the body sitting back. Again, go for low rep sets. This can easily be used as a max effort movement, especially on a day when you don’t feel up to hitting a super heavy squat or deadlift. While you still go heavy on the snatch deadlift, it’s still lighter than those exercises.
4. Bottoms up squats
Starting speed is almost never addressed by most football strength and speed programs…at least not consciously. Most programs base their leg work around normal squats and cleans. But real world starting strength (better known as explosiveness) is rarely covered.
Football is a game based on starting strength. If you can’t turn it all on quickly, the rest of your speed is wasted. Trust me. I personally went through this early in my career. When I fixed it, my game changed completely.
Jumping, firing off the line, starting a pass route, and jumping a pass route for a defensive back are all based on your ability to fire all the muscle fibers in a hurry. One of the best ways to do this is with bottoms up squats and front squats. Basically, this is setting the bar on the pins in the rack at various heights, usually the bottom, mid-point, or in a quarter squat position. Then you wedge yourself underneath, get tight, and explode.
Now ‘explode’ is the appropriate term. If you don’t move your butt quickly, the bar just won’t move. You quickly learn what kind of leg power you have when doing these. And once you get good at them, you can add bands or chains to make sure you’re exploding through the entire range of motion.
It’s best to stick with Singles and Doubles on these. Especially with Front Squats (it tends to be a trickier set up). Once you are moving some good weight, experiment with chains or bands added to the bar. Rotate these in about once a month. If you also do Deadlifts and SnDL’s as your ME movements, this is plenty.
5. Kettlebell swings
Swings, when done correctly, can do more for your closing speed than any other exercise other than box squats. The problem is most people do them incorrectly. They do them in the housewife fat loss style, turning it into a semi-squat movement.
You need to allow the kettlebell (or dumbbell or small sandbag) to swing back and between the legs. Then tighten the abs and contract the hell out of your hamstrings, forcing the bell to snap forward. It’s all about the reversal of motion here. Then the hips and quads fire a bit. That snap is responsible for your hamstrings being able to turn on in an instant and have you closing in on the ball or ball carrier. They build real world football speed.
The swing is an accessory exercise. Go with multiple sets of low to medium reps. Don’t be afraid to use some real weight and go with sets of four. These do best following a heavy movement like deadlifts.
6. Bent knee hypers or glute ham raises
Glute ham raises have become a staple for most serious football strength programs. Their impact on the hamstrings and glutes is astounding. Every football player who wants to get faster should be 
doing them…a lot. You can begin by trying three sets of ten reps. When you hit that, start to use weight. Go with three to five sets of six to twenty reps.
If you don’t have a glute ham raise bench, you can still get some of the benefits. Doing hyperextensions with your knees bent and your feet pressing hard into the board causing you to do a leg curl and extension together is a good substitute. It isn’t perfect, but until you get a glute ham raise, it’s the best option you have.
7. Box jumps
If there is one piece of the ‘getting faster for football’ puzzle that is always overcomplicated, it is plyometrics. Simple jumping has turned into a sport unto itself. Gone are the days of the simple long jump and box jump and in are the days of spreadsheets three miles long with double undulating plyo periodization.
The truth is you don’t need all that. Simply adding box jumps and then multiple box jumps is more than enough to increase football speed and explosiveness. Try adding five to seven single box jumps before your heavy leg work and watch your real world speed explode. Then you can alternate them with multiple box jumps. Again, around five sets of jumps are plenty, especially for the non-advanced. You can also do lateral box jumps on a low to medium box.
Right there you have three variations of a box jump that will absolutely get you faster without fail. Don’t make a simple and effective tool complex and ineffective. Keep it simple…just jump!
Plus, as a great side bonus, your leg exercises will jump up as well since your central nervous system isn’t firing at max capacity, and when your leg exercises increase, so does your speed. It’s a beautiful little cycle.
Start with a few jumps to start your leg days. Then try them before your speed days. You can do upper body plyos on your upper days, but that’s a subject for another article.
8. Romanian deadlifts
The Romanian deadlift (RDL) is an excellent football speed exercise. It’s very similar to glute ham raises, but you also get the added benefit of back and trap work, and you can use a much heavier load on the RDL. This benefits the hams and glutes and makes them nice and ready to run fast.
The key to doing the RDL is the hip movement. These are not straight leg deadlifts. Your hips will travel back, knees slightly bent. Let your hamstrings and glutes stretch and then pull back.
You can use the RDL as a max effort movement or as an accessory for three to five sets of five to ten reps. You can also use dumbbells as a variation.
9. Asterisk lunge
The asterisk lunge is an odd little exercise I picked up from Joe Kenn’s book. It looks like a normal lunge gone insane, but it’s a hell of a brilliant movement for increasing speed on the football field. Yet I’ve never see them done.
A huge problem in the football speed training world is that lateral speed is never addressed. If most programs include lateral lunges, it’s a miracle. Remember, on the field running in a straight line is only part of the battle. You have to move laterally and from all angles! Well, the asterisk lunge solves this problem.
Grab two dumbbells, lunge forward, and then lunge at a 45-degree angle. Then lunge laterally, lunge 45-degrees to the rear, and do a full rear lunge. It looks like an asterisk (that star looking thing on your phone).That’s one rep. As you can see, it covers some major ground and a lot of angles. Perform each lunge explosively. Include these in your program once a month (along with angle and lateral lunges). Obviously, this is an assistance exercise so perform three to four sets of three to four reps (remember a “rep” is five lunges).
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Steven Morris is a strength coach and minor league football player in the Philadelphia area. To learn about his one-on-one online strength and speed coaching program, email 
Very Nice!
Steve,
You make several great key points in your presentation. There is one I would like to touch on because I was reading about it last night. “A huge problem in the football speed training world is that lateral speed is never addressed. If most programs include lateral lunges, it’s a miracle. Remember, on the field running in a straight line is only part of the battle. You have to move laterally and from all angles!” I totally agree with you and understand why this is. The article I was reading was in American Football Monthly and was talking about the evolution of the speed coach. Most of the so called “experts” (or should I say self-proclaimed) come from a track background. Track is a straight line sport and they were using track principles and applying it to football. Unfortunately, track and football are two different sports. The shortest distance in track is 100m, almost never does a football player run 100m in a straight line.
Even in college, I do not ever remember doing anything except side hops during summer practices to address lateral speed and this was D1 football. I’m not even going to bother talking about the D3 program I was in. All I can say is it explained why we were not very good.
There are some good points in your presentation, but some of your choices I would not have picked maybe because my background is more olympic lifting and yours seems to be more power lifting. Overall a great article as always.
Nice article, I agree with on the importance of incorporating bottoms up type squats and other type of pause movements into the lower body routine for ball sport speed, especially football.
One thing I’d add to the article is regarding the shock training (ie-plyometric movements). Focus on the form in which you’re completing the exercises. Shock training is meant to primarily train the nervous system (which as a byproduct trains the muscles). In other words, it’s not like lifting weights where you’re focusing on the muscular development. Too many individuals will try to speed through a bunch of box jumps and in the process, negate the development of positive benefits one hopes to achieve with them.
One comment did have me scratching my head a little bit…
“The Romanian deadlift (RDL) is an excellent football speed exercise. It’s very similar to glute ham raises….”
I agree 100% that the RDL and GHR are both awesome exercises and should be included to maximize speed. However, the above comment through me for a loop as the RDL is a hip based pulling movement whereas the GHR is a knee based pulling movement. I don’t consider these exercises interchangeable with one another.
And on a final note, where’s the bench press and bicep curls?!?!?! I’ve seen many high school kids go into the weight room, preparing for the football season, and ALL they do is bicep curls, bench presses, leg extensions, leg curls and calf raises under the supervision of their coach. These HAVE to be necessary exercises to improve speed according to a typical high school design program!
(tongue in cheek of course on that last comment)
Ha Ha
Seriously though, nice article.
Sean Casey
“For Sport, For Life”
Steve,
Very good article and I will defintely be using these exercises with my Football players. Just to add to George’s comment: I would definitely throw in some Olympic lifts and their derivatives (power clean, hang snatch and Jerks etc) for explosive power development. Would you do the same?
Cheers
Russell
This is good stuff! I would like to stress that the box squat be taught properly. I have seen way too many kids using the BFS program and squat incorrectly, to say the least their form sucked! Many came away with injury, back problems, and even knee issues all due to improper instruction. Unfortunnately I was/am not in a position to correct the BFS instructor (I am but a smiple powerlifter who received his CSCS long ago- my knowledge has been left at the side of the road- but that is another bitter story.) Again, it’s good to see these lifts being instructed or implemented and encouraged in ‘other’ programs!
Greg’s commet made me think of something. I also agree that the lateral component seems to be lacking but does it matter? Logically it seems it would but do we have a huge lateral speed deficit with American Football players? If it’s not a weakness in the analysis wouldn’t training economy dictate the time be better spent elsewhere? Could the current training and just being stronger already be developing the lateral skills? Aren’t these skills already being developed in practice with every snap they play?
In regards to the use of olympic lifts, it’s my opinion, and I assume the opinion of the author, that olympic lifts for speed development are overrated. They are hugely technical exercses, requiring an enormous amount of training just to use effectively, and after all that they don’t really give anything you can’t get with simpler movements that have their basis in powerlifting.
Simply relying though on weightlifting as a means to become “faster” is an error in my opinion. If you do not try to correct the athlete on the mechanics of running, and how someone actually properly sprints in a linear fashion without becoming to technical then I believe you are providing a disservice to your athletes. There are plenty of athletes that have very poor coordination do to lack of any sort of physical education while growing up, and not aquiring basic locomotor skills.
Ron, I agree that improper instruction regardless of the type of program used can lead to for performance and injury. Regarding the BFS program, it is like any other program, in that it can be effective when taught properly. I am also a CSCS and my school uses the BFS program. The core lifts and the set/rep system provide achievable goals. However, I incorporate a lot of what I read on here when choosing movements that will increase the speed and strength of my football players. When taught and coached properly, an athlete will see tremendous improvements. I am all about proper form and technique and utilizing information and cringe at the “coaches” who don’t.
Great article. Love the asterisk lunge. I guess I was lucky my high school strength coach pounded us with those (with a goblet hold) 15 years ago.
Very nice article Steven! Most don’t realize how simple the speed formula is. It is the work and adjustments that determine how you get there.
The strength foundation is a must, training the nervous system, and using explosive drills with proper form. Some kids are more reactive than others, so might need more strength work than others. I completely agree about the lack of lateral drills in football. It stunts development and leaves some speed on the table as well as injury prevention. Please keep these articles coming. It’s one of my favorite series.
I would love to see some video demonstrations as well.
Thanks.
J
Adam stated “and after all that they don’t really give anything you can’t get with simpler movements that have their basis in powerlifting.” Really? I tend to disagree with this. Powerlifting movements can be completed slow, olympic lifts can not. And to be technical, you don’t have to catch a powerclean for it to help with speed. A simple power shrug or high pull can accomplish the same. To be successful with olympic lifts, you have to be quick and athletic, not true for powerlifting movements. Your track and field throwers are usually very big guys, they use the olympic lifts, and are some of the fastest sprinters.
In regards to the ‘Bottoms Up” squats, by taking the Eccentric motion out of the lift, wont this decrease power production? There have been studies done comparing loaded vs. unloaded squat jump training and they found regular squat jumps emphasizing the concentric and eccentric portion of the lift induced greater gains?
Heres the Link :
http://people.stfx.ca/x2006/x2006nuu/references/Hoffman-2005-Comparison%20of%20loaded%20and%20unloaded%20jump%20squat%20training%20on%20strength%20and%20power%20performance%20in%20college%20football%20players.pdf
Why not do Olympic lifts? They are straight power and explosiveness.
Hey everyone, going to try to address some of the comments here.
Quick note, my sites are actually http://FootballStrengthWorkouts.com and http://ExplosiveFootballTraining.info
–George, thanks for the nice words. I agree about the track background. Most of the “new” info seems to be coming from that field. You said you disagreed with some of my exercise choices…what would yours be? Always open to new ideas.
Btw, I competed in O-lifting for about 5 yrs so I’m def NOT anti-Oly Lifts.
Sean, they’re similar though not really “interchangable.” I should’ve clarified. In my experience, a lot of high school coaches have no budget and players who train on their own can’t afford a GHR bench, so, RDL’s are a good alternative in their effect on the hams/glutes.
Lol I do always include some curls…never, ever underestimate the vanity of a football player
-Josh, I agree. Getting stronger is your BASE. Too many people now want to use running drills as the be-all, end-all of increasing speed without the strength stuff. Sadly, you’re right, too many kids come up without knowing how to run. Hell, I have grown men on my football team now who still dont know how.
Greg. In some cases yes. However, i can tell you I got into “lateral” strength stuff because I could run a hell of a 40 but couldnt move laterally to save my life. When I fixed this in the weight room, things improved greatly. Some guys seem to be blessed with the ability to move laterally, but, bigger guys usually are not.
Ron…BFS is…well, I dont know how to take them. In a way, I’m glad they promote lifting. However, they box squat incorrectly and lie horribly about their numbers. I was actually flipping through one of their old articles claiming an unusually high number of kids with 400lb power cleans and 700lb squats.
Actually, now that I think of it, they use chains incorrectly too.
RE: Olifts v Powerlifts.
Use both if you can. If you’re capable of teaching the Olympic Lifts then teach the clean/power clean, etc. If not, you can easily use things like Snatch and Clean Pulls as accessory movements.
Having competed in both, they both have merits. Now, I can say that there was one year where I ONLY used the Olifts and my on-field performance suffered. I did the same with the Powerlifts and didn’t have a drop off but I still wasn’t quite right. A hybrid approach seems best, IMO.
Base in the Powerlifting style, some O-lifts or variations, some “Strongman” stuff, lots of sleds and what I’d call “general athletic improvement training”…jump ropes, sleds, medicine balls, sandbags, etc.
Thanks to everyone for the nice words. If I missed anyone’s comment, I’ll get back to them later.
-Steve
I agree that Olympic lifts take some time to coach and are technical, but the ability to coordinate one’s body and learn new skills is vital to becomming a successful athlete. The powerlifting moves create a great strength base for power, but as George stated they are too slow. Speed is fundamentally about Rate of Force Development (RFD), the highest force must be produced as quickly as possible. Powerlifting movements do not train this, they often reduce your RFD in exchange for high maximal force development, whereas Olympic lifts cannot be performed successfully without rapid RFD and therefore have many beneficial effects for sprinting.
Steve,
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on suggestions. We can always learn more. My suggestions are not necessarily the answer or correct. We all respond to different exercises differently.
As I said before, I would have the power clean and even the snatch. The power clean is not that hard to teach. I have a 9 year old that I had doing power shrugs from mid-thigh for eight weeks and started on the squat clean from mid thigh recently. He also does the clean grip deadlift. Hopefully in the next few weeks, I will be able to get him to do the squat clean from the floor.
An exercise or should I say a group of exercises I learned from Dr. Yessis. I used to do these with a multi-hip machine, but now use bands (can’t afford a multihip machine). I work on the pawback which really works the hamstrings. Also ad and abduction. You can also add the forward knee drive. Strong and flexible hips are very important. Just ask a lineman that doesn’t have any.
A key area not addressed is midsection work. I didn’t say abs, because I am including the back. Things like the reverse sit up, reverse trunk twist, and russian twist would fall here. I know the back was addressed with the RDL’s and glute ham, but we need rotational strength too for the rip, swim, spin, QB’s for throwing, and twisting when bouncing off hits. Plus a greater midsection strength increases the squat, clean, and other exercises.
I would also include dumbbell squat jumps and the dot drill along with box/depth jumps.
One of the best exercises I was surprised not seeing here was the front squat. When done correctly and deep, it is awesome exercise for the quads and makes you stay straight up.
I was never a fan of box squatting, but still use it for beginners. I guess because I learned the BFS way and hurt my back when I got over 400 lbs. Not sure if I agree on the bottoms up squats. I just see potential for injury here. Plus when you run you use the stretch reflex which is not addressed with bottoms up squats.
Once again, I’m not trying to discredit your article. You make very good points and have more experience training people than I do. I’m sure we have crossed paths in the past. I have played with the Wicomico Dragons, Baltimore Bulls, and Delaware Punishers along with (as I cringe) working for Tony at one time. If you want to contact me, I’m sure Tooz can get you the info.
Thanks this really helped!