If you’ve been following social media conversations this summer, you’ve seen a lot of discussion about the training and testing of energy systems for American football. I want to thank Donnell Boucher (Assistant AD & Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at the Citadel) for eloquently capturing my thoughts and arguments through a series of tweets on the topic that I’ve been thinking of for some time and that pushed me over the edge to write this post. After all, much of what we’re arguing about is the training of fitness, not the evaluation of it. I hope this brings some balance to the conversation about how we objectively measure the fitness we’re trying to create in our athletes. I don’t write this article to be contrarian rather, I suggest an objective way to determine a football player’s level of “fitness” and ability to complete the demands of the sport.
In American football, we’re experiencing a pendulum swing that’s moving away from long duration shuttles toward short duration repeated sprints that replicate the demands of the sport.
