focusing on wide receiver

Question
I am from a small town and on my high school football team I played LB, WR, RB, and TE so my workouts were generic. But I would like to play in college and would like to focus on being a wide receiver. What type of weight lifting and strength program should I follow?

Answer
Jason -

Thanks for the question.  Well, from what you wrote it sounds like you are a good athlete, with the ability to play multiple positions.  That is a good start.  As I am sure you know, for WRs, speed and agility are the 2 main keys which need to be focused on.  Yes upper body strength is important, but isnt a must to be successful.  So you will need to be sure and have a full body routine, with a strong emphasis on speed and agility exercises.

It is very hard to give you a routine without knowing your availability during the week or your current size, weight, and speed.  How many days are you planning to work out?  How long each session?  But either way, there is one thing you need to incorporate.  PLYOMETRICS.  These are a group of exercises that require little to no equipment, and will increase your speed very quickly.  Things like box jumps, box leg lifts, power skips, power hops, line jumps, etc.  Go ahead and look these up online and print out a routine.  DO these 2 x a week.  For the other days, concentrate on the core exercises like bench, incline, military presses, shrugs, neck machine, squats, leg presses, dead lifts, lunges, lower back, and abs.

Do not forget about stretching.  All of these execises will do no good without having the flexibility to use them properly.  Make sure and get as flexible as possible to increase strength, speed, and reduce the chance of injury.  

Do upper body on day 1, lower on day 2, off day 3, plyometrics day 4, then restart with day 1.  Be sure and change up your routines.  That means if you are doing upper body, dont always do the exercises in the same order. If you benched first for 2 weeks, bench last the next 2 weeks.  As for reps, change that up as well.  I am not sure your size, but do some heavy days, some light, and some in the middle.  If you are on the smaller size, do a little more heavy, bigger side a little more light.

Please get back to me if you have any more questions about this, or anything else.  I hope this will get you started in the right direction.  Be sure and stick with your routine, whatever it is.  That is what will make the difference.

Best wishes

Coach Perl