Sport performance
American football strength and power program
phase.fitness builds the football off-season in the four phases the document prescribes — adaptation, hypertrophy, strength, power and speed — conditions by position instead of by distance, and holds strength through the season by cutting volume, never intensity.
Updated
- Level
- All levels
- Length
- 16–20 + season weeks
- Days per week
- 3–4
- Modalities
- StrengthCardio
- Equipment
- A rack, barbell and platform for cleans, a sled, a field
- Sessions go to
- Hevy, Garmin, Strava
The short answer
An American football program in phase.fitness moves through anatomical adaptation (3–4 weeks at 65–75% for 8–12 reps), hypertrophy (4–6 weeks at 70–85% for 6–12), strength (4–6 weeks at 85–95% for 1–5) and power and speed (4–6 weeks of complex training, resisted sprints with a sled at 10–15% bodyweight for 6–8 × 20 m, plyometrics, and acceleration over 0–20 yards). In season it is two lifting sessions a week at 80–90% with volume cut 40–50%, placed as far from game day as possible. Conditioning is positional: linemen 5–8 efforts of 5–7 seconds with 30–40 seconds recovery; skill positions longer efforts of 10–15 seconds with maximal-velocity exposure. Eccentric hamstring work and high-speed running are never removed.
Position is the organising principle
The football document phase.fitness reads starts from strength standards by position — 2.0–2.5× bodyweight squats for linemen and linebackers, 1.8–2.2× for skill positions, power cleans at 1.2–1.6× — and from the observation that Olympic lifts predict on-field performance better than the bench press the culture is built on. The off-season runs in four phases because each builds the next: tissue tolerance, then mass, then maximal force, then the power and acceleration the game is actually played at.
Contact is a load the plan has to account for, and speed degrades under fatigue: sprint work is placed fresh, kept in season at a handful of quality efforts a week, and never removed — taking sprinting out to reduce load leaves the hamstrings less prepared for the speeds the game demands. Pulling volume matches pressing volume for the same reason the shoulders survive contact.
How much should you lift in season without losing speed?
Two sessions a week at 80–90%, with volume cut 40–50% and both placed as far from game day as possible. phase.fitness keeps eccentric hamstring work and high-speed running in the week regardless: the point in season is to hold what the off-season built, not to add to it.
Do sled sprints make you faster?
They train the acceleration end of it. In the power and speed block phase.fitness prescribes resisted sprints with a sled at 10–15% of bodyweight for 6–8 reps over 20 metres, next to unresisted acceleration over 0–20 yards, complex training and plyometrics.
What phase.fitness builds
A program is a sequence of phases, each with a job. These are the phases phase.fitness writes for this case, with the bands the generator has to respect — transcribed from the document it reads, not invented for this page.
Anatomical adaptation
3–4
Hypertrophy
4–6
Strength
4–6
Power and speed
4–6
In-season
season
| Phase | Weeks | Job | Band |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anatomical adaptation | 3–4 | Tissue tolerance and patterns | 65–75% 1RM, 8–12 reps |
| Hypertrophy | 4–6 | Mass where the position needs it | 70–85% 1RM, 6–12 reps; pulling ≥ pressing |
| Strength | 4–6 | Maximal force | 85–95% 1RM, 1–5 reps; repeated sprints 1×/week |
| Power and speed | 4–6 | Complex training, sprints, plyometrics | Sled 10–15% BW 6–8 × 20 m; acceleration 0–20 yd; repeated sprints 2×/week |
| In-season | season | Keep strength, stay fast | 2 lifts/week at 80–90%, volume −40–50%; a few quality sprints/week; eccentric hamstrings year-round |
A sample week
One week from the first phase, as it would sit on the calendar. Your own week follows the days you say you have — 3–4 here — and the equipment you list.
- SStrength
- CCardio
- Rest
| Day | Modality | Session |
|---|---|---|
| Mon | S | Squat 5 × 3 at 87%, power clean 4 × 3, Nordic curl 3 × 5 |
| Tue | C | Acceleration 8 × 15 yd, sled 6 × 20 m at 12% BW |
| Wed | S | Bench 5 × 3, weighted pull-ups and rows to match, trunk |
| Thu | Rest | — |
| Fri | S | Trap-bar deadlift 4 × 3, jumps 3 × 5, single-leg work |
| Sat | C | Positional conditioning: linemen 3 × (6 × 6 s / 35 s); skill 8 × 12 s efforts |
| Sun | Rest | — |
S = strength · C = cardio · K = calisthenics. The order is the point: hard days are kept apart and the long session gets the clean slot.
How it adapts when a phase ends
phase.fitness reads the lifts from Hevy, Liftosaur or the watch and the field work from Garmin or Intervals.icu. Garmin activities are read only if you allow it. A hypertrophy phase that moved bodyweight and the working loads earns the strength phase on schedule; one where the pulling volume was skipped keeps the 1:1 pull-to-press rule in the next block by trimming pressing rather than adding sets. When the season starts on the date you gave, the plan switches to two sessions with volume cut 40–50% and keeps the sprint exposure, because that is what the document says is lost first.
Where the sessions go
phase.fitness plans; you train in the app or on the watch you already use, and the completed session comes back. For this program:
What phase.fitness does not do here
phase.fitness plans the gym and the conditioning by position; it does not write practice, and it does not know your depth chart. The strength standards in the document are references, not promises — the plan works from your logged loads.
The evidence
The documents this page is built from
These are the knowledge-base documents the phase.fitness generator reads for this case. The phases, bands and weekly numbers above are transcribed from them.
- Power, Speed, and Positional Strength for American Football — updated 2026-02-21, american football
- Mechanics of Speed and Power Development — updated 2026-02-21, athletics
Frequently asked questions
How is the off-season structured?
phase.fitness structures it in four phases, as the football document prescribes: anatomical adaptation at 65–75% for 8–12 reps (3–4 weeks), hypertrophy at 70–85% for 6–12 (4–6 weeks), strength at 85–95% for 1–5 (4–6 weeks), then power and speed with complex training, sled sprints and plyometrics (4–6 weeks).
What changes in season?
phase.fitness keeps two lifting sessions a week at 80–90% with volume cut 40–50% — intensity is what preserves strength — placed as far from game day as the schedule allows, with a few high-quality sprints a week and eccentric hamstring work kept year-round.
Is conditioning different for linemen and skill positions?
Yes. In phase.fitness, linemen get 5–8 efforts of 5–7 seconds with 30–40 seconds recovery, sled work and short shuttles; skill positions get longer efforts of 10–15 seconds and deliberate maximal-velocity exposure. Nobody gets distance running once camp begins.
The only app that plans strength, cardio and calisthenics together
For a football player the calisthenics day is trunk stiffness and scapular control under load — support holds, hanging leg raises — the bracing that contact demands, without adding volume to the legs.
Right now, phase.fitness is the only training app that writes strength, cardio and calisthenics into one periodized program — same calendar, same phases, same recovery budget.
You choose the mix. A calisthenics-only plan, a cardio-only block, strength plus cardio, or all three: the phases, the end-of-phase analysis and the sync work the same way with one modality or three.
Why calisthenics is in the plan
Bodyweight skill work is strength training in a different shape. Straight-arm work, levers and handstands build scapular control, tendon capacity and relative strength that barbell and machine work leave untouched, and they transfer because they are closed-chain, whole-body patterns. Treated as a modality rather than a warm-up, they get sets, holds and progressions like a squat does.
No exercise catalogue on the market contains a tuck front lever, so those sessions run in the phase.fitness built-in player; strength goes to Hevy, Liftosaur or a Garmin watch, cardio to Garmin and Intervals.icu. How the skill work is programmed.
Free to start, no card. The first phase is yours to keep whatever you decide.
