When I was a high school and college football player, we tested in the "12 mile run". We ran as far as we could in 12 minutes. In light of what we know about football demands and the specificity concept, does the "12 minute run" really make sense? A 2006 study gives us great insight on this issue.
The study timed work (how long the play lasted) to rest (time between plays) ratios for high school, college and pro games.
The average high school play from scrimmage lasts about 5.6 seconds. The average recovery period between these plays is about 31 seconds. The high school work to rest ratio is about 1:5. The average high school drive takes about 6.7 plays. So in an average high school football drive, about 37 seconds of live action occurs. There are about 11 drives in an average high school football game. So that is a total of 6 minutes and 47 seconds of live action for a player (assuming the player is not playing both ways).
The average college play lasts about 5.5 seconds with a recovery average of about 34 seconds. The college work to rest ratio is about 1:6. The average college football drive takes about 6.3 plays. So in an average college football drive about 35 seconds of live action occurs. With an average of 13.8 series per game, the average college football player would see just under 8 minutes of live action.
The average NFL play lasts about 5.5 seconds with a 35 second recovery period. The NFL work to rest ratio is about 1:7. With an average of about 8 plays per drive, the average NFL drive will last about 44 seconds. With an average of about 11.7 series per NFL game, an NFL player will see about 8.6 minutes of live action during an entire game.
If the average football play lasts about 5 seconds of all-out effort followed by 30 something seconds to recover, it does not make sense to run twelve minutes (which is 144 x5) at a relative slow pace to train for the sport.
Without even beginning a discussion of energy systems, the demands of an average football game make clear the twelve minute run is not a good football test. In light of the specificity concept, which states an athlete must train near the sport's demands in order to improve performance, jogging and football seem a poorly matched pair.
I will discuss the interference effect (another problem associated with jogging and football training) in another post.
Rhea, M.R., R.L. Hunter, and T.J. Hunter. Competition
modeling of American football: Observational data and implications
for high school, collegiate, and professional player conditioning.
J. Strength Cond. Res. 20(1):58–61. 2006.
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Great post, I always wondered when we ran a long distance in high school what we were really training for.
ReplyDeleteDoes your interference effect have to do with slow-twitch muscle fibers versus fast-twitch muscle fibers? I know that understanding the difference between those in college helped to make me train much better.
Brian,
ReplyDeleteThanks and good luck with your site. Post a link on here so everyone can find it easier!
Interference effect primarily has to do with athletes training in the correct energy systems based on the demands of the sport.
Since football is a power sport, we do not want football players using endurance methods for training since endurance training may "interfere" with power production. I will post a detailed explanation of the interference effect soon.
Jeff
Hey, Jeff, thanks a lot, you got it: it's OnePlaybook.com. It's web software for football and other sports. Basically a team gets a secure website where they can draw plays, share videos, upload documents, post announcements and more. A sort of one-stop-shop for communicating with your team.
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