Both every player and every position in football has unique training requirements. Ergo, individualization of training is a cornerstone of successful football strength and conditioning programs. Suspension training offers unique, propietary solutions for designing the truly individualized, dynamic strength and conditioning programs that today’s game requires.
Suspension training enables athletes to directly address faulty motor patterns, muscle weakness or imabalances, or specific training requirements for a particular position. These characteristics also make suspension training ideal for quarterback conditioning and shoulder injury prevention.
Hurling a 14-15 ounce football around the field as hard as possible places a tremendous amount of stress on a quarterback’s shoulders. Improper technique, overuse or an inability to decelerate external rotation can all cause shoulder injuries. When you factor in defender impact on the quarterback’s arm while he is in a throwing motion, it’s clear that the quarterback must be provided with the best functional strength and conditioning possible for his position. And that means suspension training.
Below are a number of unique, highly effective techniques for addressing these demands. Exercises like Bilateral Internal and External Rotations allow for isolated strengthening of the rotator cuff while the Suspended Scorpion develops core strength and loading while creating the hip dissociation necessary for an effective throwing motion.
The fixed point loading concept is a very unique and highly effective suspension training technique that mimics the forces and mechanics of the loading phase of the throwing motion. This exercise does a tremendous job of training the body to withstand the forces that the shoulder is subjected to during the throwing motion. It also helps to train the mechanics of effective throwing and ensures that the entire body is contributing to the throw in order to maximize performance and reduce related injuries.
Further, it provides the ability to train different versions of this throwing motion. These variations map directly to the demands of common game situations where the environment dictates the throwing motion. The photos demonstrate how this technique reproduces the loading phase of the throwing motion and how they can be used to enhance performance and reduce injury.