Dominate the Combine: Complete Off Season Football Workout

Reggie Johal
Written By: Reggie Johal
July 21st, 2016
Updated: June 13th, 2020
72.1K Reads
Dominate the Combine: Complete Off Season Football Workout
Shock your strength coaches, dominate your competition, and get ready to hoist that championship trophy with this complete off-season football workout!
Workout Summary
  • Main Goal
    Sports Performance
  • Workout Type
    Split
  • Training Level
    Beginner
  • Program Duration12 weeks
  • Days Per Week
    3
  • Time Per Workout60-75 minutes
  • Equipment Required
    Barbell, Bodyweight, Cables, Dumbbells, Machines
  • Target Gender Male & Female
  • Workout PDF Download Workout

Workout Description

The time of the year is almost upon us. Friday night lights, Saturday College Gameday, NFL Sundays and Monday Night Football are right around the corner.

The start of football season for adults is what Christmas, Easter, Birthday’s, and summer vacation combined are to children.

Indeed, the sounds of excruciating hits and the celebratory touchdown dances we’ve longed for since February will soon return to our lives.

For those of us not past our playing days (and die-hard fans), the football season is a grind that takes a major toll on your body. 

Being able to build and maintain lean muscle mass, strength and muscle endurance is incredibly difficult during the season. For these reasons, it is critical that you preform the right strength and conditioning plan this summer.

Unlike most programs, we’ve taken the guess work out of it for you.

There’s no need to spend time worrying about how much to use, which exercises to perform, or how to get in shape for the fall because we’ve already done that for you. Instead, worry about hitting this program with all you have in preparation for a championship run this year.

Let’s get into it!

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Maintaining a structured diet

Before we get into the program, I need to quickly cover diet and nutrition. To be a force on the field, we’ve got to feed the beast.

It’s imperative you eat enough calories to maintain your body weight and add on lean muscle mass. Typically that means 3 full meals a day.

Related: The Clean Bulk Diet: 3 Options For More Lean Muscle

Try and keep your meals within 4 – 5 hours of each other and never, under any circumstances skip breakfast! A large breakfast will be the foundation of your day. It is a means that will help you get through the daily grind of the gridiron and two-a-days this summer.

To ensure you are taking in enough calories, in between meals and about an hour before practice, try and eat a healthy snack:

Any of these are great snacks that will help keep your blood sugar stable and get some much needed calories into your diet.

Man Drinking from Blender Bottle

It’s also important to remember to refuel post-workout with a great and balanced post-workout meal. Try drinking 20-40 grams of whey protein immediately post-workout, along with some carbohydrates, to aid in adding muscle mass while fueling recovery.

Intro to the program

This is a 3 day per week program – I always prefer Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The workouts are meant to be quick – 45 minutes or less, so we don’t drain your energy for practice or off-season scrimmages.

Your first set will always be a light weight to warm up the muscles and to make sure your technique is perfect.  Each subsequent set, the weight should be increased.  The last set performed of each exercise will be your guideline.

Whatever weight you pick, you need to do as many repetitions as possible with perfect technique.  If your technique fails or you need a spot to complete the rep, your set is over.  If you perform fewer reps then prescribed on the sheet, it means you probably went too heavy and you should decrease the load for the next week.

If you perform more reps then prescribed, it means you went too light and you should increase the load by 5% to 8% the following week.  If you get exactly the amount of reps prescribed, you should increase the weights by 2% to 4% per week.  These are basic guidelines.  Your numbers may be different by a percentage point or two.

Man performing Incline Dumbbell Press

We’ve built in a formula that calculates the weights for your Olympic lifts. Simply enter your max weights in the cells in the upper right hand corner and they will auto populate.

The workout split provided below begins with a warm up, followed by core strengthening exercises, plyometrics to increase your explosiveness, and finally, your main lifts.

Related: Sport-Specific Speed for Big Men: Improving Acceleration

We “superset” all lifts – in the spreadsheet, this is denoted by color. The chart below shows general set x rep count, but weights are determined by your maxes. Please make sure to download the spreadsheet to get the full workout.

Day 1
Exercise Sets Reps
1. Jumping Jacks 1 1 min
2. High Knees 1 1 min
3. Air Squat 1 1 min
4. Burpees 1 1 min
5. Reverse Crunch 1 14
6. Alternate V Twist 1 8 each side
7. Superdogs 1 10
8. Box Jumps 2 5
9. Step Up Jumps 2 10
10a. Hang Clean 4 5
10b. Incline Bench Press 4 10, 9, 8, 5
11a. Inverted Row (w/ 5 sec negative) 3 6, 6, 5
11b. Dumbbell Split Squat 3 8 each leg
12a. Front Press 3 10
12b. One Arm Dumbbell Row 3 10 each arm
13a. Lateral Raises 3 10
13b. Machine Hamstring Curls 3 10
Day 2
Exercise Sets Reps
1. Jumping Jacks 1 1 min
2. High Knees 1 1 min
3. Air Squat 1 1 min
4. Burpees 1 1 min
5. Side Plank 1 30 secs each side
6. Plank 1 30 secs
7. 1 Leg Hurdle Hops 2 5
8. Lateral Step Up Jumps 2 8
9a. Front Squat 4 10
9b. Dips 4 8, 7, 6, 5
10a. Chinups 3 5, 4, 3
10b. Dumbbell Lunges 3 20
11a. One Arm Lat Pulldowns 3 8 each arm
11b. Pushups (w/ 3 second negative) 3 14, 12, 12
12a. Partner Hamstring Curls 3 5, 4, 3
12b. Skullcrushers 3 10
Day 3
Exercise Sets Reps
1. Jumping Jacks 1 1 min
2. High Knees 1 1 min
3. Air Squat 1 1 min
4. Burpees 1 1 min
5. Alternate V Twist 1 14
6. Bent Leg Trunk Twist 1 12
7. Hurdle Hops 2 5
8. Lateral Hurdle Hops 2 10
9a. Overhead Snatch 4 5
9b. Bench 4 10, 8, 6, 5
10a. Dumbbell Lateral Squat 3 20
10b. Wide Grips Pulldowns 3 10
11a. Dumbbell Bench 3 10
11b. Machine Lat Pulldown 3 10
12a. One Legged "Bucks" 3 7 each leg
12b. Lateral Lunges 3 20

Closing Notes

This program is geared towards building muscle mass, strength and endurance throughout the entire football season. That includes this summer, as well as during the regular season. We kept the program short because we understand you’re still going through practice, recovery, meetings, film study and more.

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The workouts are meant to be done quickly – 30 to 45 minutes and you’re done. Short and sweet so you can get the results you need to perform to the best of your athletic capabilities. The shorter workouts will also give you more time to focus on position skills you will need to perform your best in front of your team’s fans.

Follow this to the T and your body will maintain the hard work you put in this offseason throughout the course of the regular season.

7 Comments
Eugene
Posted on: Thu, 03/01/2018 - 16:50

This is good, but it the spreadsheet shows only 4 weeks of the 12 week program. Do we start back over with week 1, just with heavier weights for weeks 5-8, and 9-12?
Thanks

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JoshEngland
Posted on: Thu, 03/01/2018 - 16:55

Hi Eugene,

Yes, that is correct.

Hope this helps!

John Ferrara
Posted on: Tue, 01/23/2018 - 14:04

Neck exercises- key component for blocking and tackling

Jam
Posted on: Sat, 04/08/2017 - 16:15

Where are they deadlifts, trap work and bicep work?

Lamont moon
Posted on: Tue, 02/28/2017 - 16:34

Whats tne rest time between sets... And i see tbere are a and b are they to ne super setted?

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JoshEngland
Posted on: Tue, 02/28/2017 - 16:43

Hi Lamont,

Keep rest times between 2 and 3 minutes for the big compound movements and 30-60 seconds for all other movements.

Yes, you're correct. "a" and "b" exercises should be supersetted.

Hope this helps!

Lamont moon
Posted on: Thu, 03/02/2017 - 12:19

Big help thank you very much.