When periodizing movement training or “speed work,” BPS found its best to plan a 4-week mesocycle. We take into consideration active recovery days, “off days,” neurological specific days, linear speed days, position specific days, and aerobic conditioning days. Typically our high neurological days are on Mondays due to the fact that most athletes will be “off” Saturday and Sunday and it is important to stimulate the athletes neurological system into a heightened state. We do this first thing in the week so we can enhance performance on our aggressive linear speed day and position day that will follow the “neuro-Monday”. Wednesday is typically our active recovery day to allow the body to adapt from the training in first half of the week. This will help our athletes get the most out of our position work on Thursday and conditioning work on Friday. Each week progresses in volume and difficulty of exercises as well as intensity and specificity.
As you’ll see on the attached example 4-week movement mesocycle, our CAMPS are organized to complement the goal for the day. The movement will be similar for certain football positions. For example, defensive backs (DB) and offense wide receivers (WR) have neurological, linear speed, and conditioning days that are very similar. Most neurological exercises performed by both positions are very similar and include all ladder drills, micro hurdles drills, and rapid response drills. Although both positions will perform the “star drill” on some Mondays, they may do different variations. For example, receivers may perform the cross over lateral run whereas the defensive back may do back angle pedals within the same “star drill” setup. Linear speed training is exactly the same due to the fact that both position needs linear speed development and the training for pure linear speed doesn’t change based on position. This same concept applies to conditioning days and active recovery days because our goal is to train muscles and human performance systems not motions.
However, our movement days vary between a DB and WR on “position days.” These Thursdays are the days where we target and enhance muscles that will be used during sport related motions. This does not mean we are DB or WR football coaches. These WR multi circuits in the example mesocycle may target and enhance the strength of inside and outside edges of the foot through the overload principle by performing resisted “cut-up” drills. On this same day, a DB may perform the snapioca drill, which increase the mobility and speed of the muscles that are utilized during hip pivots and back angle pedal change of directions sprints.
The lineman circuits tend to develop the musculature that lineman typically need due to the nature of their position. You’ll see in a single lineman circuit in the example mesocycle the script can target grip endurance, low angle hip and ankle strength, as well as upper body power endurance. These types of lineman circuits will benefit the lineman athlete more so than a linear speed day due to the role a lineman plays during a football game.