Football season is upon us, and it serves as a reminder of just how grueling and tough of a sport it is. In order to be a pro, you have to combine speed, agility, power, and endurance, which is a challenging task. Players need to be able to memorize plays, make split-second decisions, and all that while evading tackles, getting opponents down, and trying to score touchdowns.
Now, in order to be prepared for this grueling sport, you need to work out a lot. And you need to incorporate exercises that will help you develop all those key attributes that will turn you into a better football player. This is where deadlifts come into the picture.
In this article, we will talk about why deadlifts benefit football players and how you can incorporate them into your workouts. So, without keeping you waiting for longer, let’s get started.
5 Deadlift Beneits for Football Players
The deadlift is an essential exercise for building functional strength and power and training the entire body. It helps strengthen the entire posterior chain, including the glutes, hamstrings, and back, which are vital for preventing common injuries. Still, those are not all of its benefits, especially for football players.
Improved Power
When you play football, regardless of position, you want more power. It helps improve your performance and your jumping abilities, and in many cases, that makes you an overall better athlete. One study from 2015 actually found that around ten weeks of serious deadlift training will increase the ability to flex the knee flexors and extensors with more power, resulting in an improved vertical jump.
More Strength in the Lower Body
As a football player, you rely on the strength of your lower body a lot. It’s what helps you sprint, jump, and tackle, along with the core. It’s also what enables you to remain grounded as others are trying to push you to the ground. The deadlift is an incredible exercise for strengthening the entire lower body, specifically the glutes and hamstring. Typically, you will see the most improvement in the first few weeks; then, the gains will start to build more gradually. Having said that, you do have to train for at least six to eight weeks in order to be able to notice the first real results and improvement.
Increase Core Strength
All athletes know how key core strength is, and thankfully, the deadlift will not only help you build up the muscles in your lower body. It will also help you improve and strengthen the muscles in your core. That’s because, as an exercise, the deadlift engages the entire posterior chain – meaning it works mainly the muscles in the back of your body. Still, in order to do it correctly, you have to keep your core activated, as it is what will stabilize the weight throughout the entire movement. That’s why, over time, frequent deadlifts will help you improve the strength in your core, which on the football field will make you more resilient to tackles and better at tackling at the same time.
Better Posture
Over the course of this article, we’ve mentioned several times that the deadlift targets the posterior chain. Of course, that leads not only to muscle gains in the legs but also to improved strength in the back. Because of that, deadlift training often leads to people straightening their posture and improving their core engagement – both things that can prevent you from getting injuries and will lead to much better overall muscle activation in all other exercises.
Maintain Bone Density
Football is what we call a contact sport, meaning that players are always pushing and shoving each other. And while almost all athletes have broken a bone or two, the chances of that happening in such a physical sport are even higher. That’s why bone mineral density is key for football players – the weaker it is, the higher the chances of potential injuries.
One way to improve bone density is by lifting heavy weights; as we know, the deadlift is just the kind of exercise that will enable you to do that. People who deadlift often have higher bone density thanks to a phenomenon known as “muscle-induced mechanical loading of the bone,” which essentially means that the muscles used during the deadlift pull the bones they’re moving, leading to their development.
Should You Invest in a Deadling Program?
If you’re truly serious about improving your deadlift and seeing actual results, then it’s a good idea to work with a dedicated program that’s made to help you get better in the right way. Of course, that doesn’t mean you should take the first free program you see online and blindly follow it; try to find one that’s made by a professional strength athlete who understands the ins and outs of the exercise – like the one by Oleksiy Torokhtiy.
In Conclusion
The deadlift is a key exercise that should be incorporated into any athlete’s training program. For football players, in particular, it’s even more vital, as it helps improve all the key components that help you get better as a player – speed, power, explosiveness, and strength. So our advice is, if you haven’t been deadlifting for any reason up until now, then you better begin as soon as you can – the benefits will be worth it.
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