Google
 

Friday, March 14, 2008

The Popularity Of American Football by James Brown

The term "American football" refers to a type of game, not a regional sport. American football is enjoyed world-wide. Professional American-style football leagues exist in Canada, Europe, South America and Japan. NFL Europa is a organization operated by the US based National Football League. NFL Europa has teams in six German and Dutch cities. In Canada, there are 2 organizations, the Canadian Footbal Leage, a professional league, and Canadian University Spot, which is a network of nonprofessional University level teams.

Both Canadian leagues play American style football but with some variations known as Canadian Rules. New Zealand, Mexico, Japan and several other countries have amateur football leagues. American style football is governed by the International Federation Of American Football (IFAF), which has over 45 affliates in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australasia. However, the true moving force in american footbal is the NFL, or National Football Association.
The NFL is the regulatory and organizational arm of football in the US. It makes and enforces rules for sportsmanship and drug use. When a player behaves overly aggressively during a game, misses practice sessions or becomes involved in extracurricular illegal activity, the NFL will impose a fine and/or suspend a player. The NFL bans recreational and steroid, or performance enhancing, drug use. It authorizes and conducts urine testing on its professional atheles.

The NFL also decides yearly whether the rules of the game should be changed, and in what ways. Often the rules are done to make the game more interesting or more fair. Safety is another motivation behind rule change and the NFL tries to make this aggressive and even violent game as safe as possible by modifying the existing rules and the forms of protective equipment used. However, merchandising is also a factor and the NFL has advocated rule changes, such as a sponsor time out which is a pause in the play of the game, that are solely for the purpose of allowing the sponsor to show commercials.

The NFL decides which cities can have a team and how many teams will make up the two franchises, The Amercan Football League and the National Football League, which originally was the only and prototypic league in American football. Fans have intese loyalties to these two franchises, which is capitalized upon in the yearly Superbowl. This game was established to play upon this rivalry and pits the AFL and NFL Champions against each other. This is held in February and is the single most watched event on American television. It is an event that begins weeks in advance with football interveiws, panels of sports figures who speculate on the game's outcome, and bettiing oportunities. This hype grows over the weeks of playoff games and builds to a near frenzy by the time Superbowl Sunday arrives.

The game is an all day event with ceremonies and a legendary half time, Las Vegas style, show that features top celebrities. For the multitudes watching at home, the Super Bowl is also augmented by the premeire screening of a collection of the most innovative and often humorous advertising blips. Because of the exposure and the terrific numbers of viewers, the competition to be one of the favored advertisers is nearly as hearty as the team competition to play in this game.

American Football is sweeping the rest of the world and becoming a popular phenomenon in nearly every country. This growth in popularity is slower in countries that have established rugby or soccer francishes but American Football is rapidly becoming as popular as American fast food.

About the Author
James Brown writes about Cleveland Indians Discount, Florida Marlins Bargains and American Football Coupon

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Football Training Tips

Basics for Improving Your Game

Football training tips have gotten very sophisticated, mostly because a great football player is a renaissance man in the athletic world. He is a package deal, so to speak. He is amazingly strong and solid with the ability to channel explosive power at that perfect moment in time. He is dense and powerful and wields tremendous inertia on the field. On the flipside, he must also be agile and quick on his feet. And the greatest players can disappear down the field in a flash, hopefully with the ball in hand.

If you're thinking that this 'great' football player sounds almost super-human, you're not very far off the mark. Especially when you consider that he must be able to think and make quick decisions even while he's performing all this magic on the field. But don't dismay, if you have a goal to become a better football player, you can hone your athletic skill to be this diverse. Here are a few football training tips for a great, all-around on field performance.

Top 6 Football Training Tips: Football Training Tip #1

Your first football training tip is to head to the gym for some weight training sooner rather than later. If you already have some basic weight training under your belt for balance and stability, you can go ahead and move on to more intense training that is very specific to football. If you don't, you'll want to ease into it and start off with a few weeks of lighter training. Start with about three to four weeks of circuit training to strengthen your larger and smaller muscle groups. You can do this at home or in the gym with free weights or machines. Check your local weight room as it may already have a circuit set up and ready to go.

Top 6 Football Training Tips: Football Training Tip #2

Once you've completed your prep-training, you can move onto the second football training tip - more intense strength training to build muscle mass, strength and power. This football training tip focuses on targeting your larger muscles and start lifting some serious weight, about 65% of your maximum strength. Rest for several minutes between sets and you really only need to perform this training three or four times each week, so long as you're working each major muscle group 1-2 times each week. After four weeks of more intense strength training, you're ready to move into about four weeks of maximal strength training, in which you'll be lifting almost 80%-100% of what you can physically lift for as many reps as you can. Don't get discouraged if you can only do one rep per "set". Again, rest for several minutes between and only follow this football training tip three or four times each week. There's no need to overdo it here. Also, get into the habit of stretching after each workout. Stretching increases flexibility and can help achieve your speed goals. Most importantly, stretching can help you fend off an injury which is key to completing a great season.

Top 6 Football Training Tips: Football Training Tip #3

This football training tip is more about what not to do than what to do. One of the most common mistakes in training for football is overtraining. For this reason, follow the football training tip I just described for off-season training. During the season, this program would be overkill and likely lead to fatigue and decreased performance. It is, however, a great football training tip to build you up before the season starts. For your training during the season, tone it way down and do the minimum amount to maintain the progress you made during the off season.

Top 6 Football Training Tips: Football Training Tip #4

This football training tip is also a warning against overtraining when performing drills and endurance training. While endurance is very important in football (you don't want to peter out half way through the first quarter), training as if for a marathon is not necessary when training for football. Interval training is a great way to achieve the kind of endurance that is ideal for the game of football but without inducing fatigue due to over training. When you think about it, football is played in bursts of intensity which are then followed by a pause. Interval training recreates the same kind of activity in that there are short bursts of intensity followed by recovery. How you perform during the bursts is the most crucial part of the training.

Top 6 Football Training Tips: Football Training Tip #5

Running and speed is an integral part of the football game being that the combination often means that making a touchdown is more likely. In terms of speed training, you must refer back the previous statements about the importance of not overtraining. For the sake of getting faster, many athletes run farther and harder, and then on game day they are worn out and can't perform the way they'd like. Speed training is often pursued on the field. However, strength training done properly is a sure-fire way to gain ground in terms of speed. If you've already done serious weight training for gaining strength and power, your speed is already being influenced by the strength of the major muscles of your body. The chances are good that you are already moving over the ground with some substantial power. However, power combined with stride speed can generate a serious shift in speed.

Top 6 Football Training Tips: Football Training Tip #6

To improve stride speed, spend some time working your thigh flexor muscles during your weight training sessions. Find a resistance band and fix one end to a stationary object about ankle height from the ground. Fix the other end of the resistance band to your ankle. Standing with your feet about hip's width apart, move your foot with the band attached about 12 inches off the ground in front of you while slightly bending the knee. Hold this position approximately 15 seconds and then return to the original position. Perform this exercise for one set on each leg a few times a week to see improved muscle speed as well as strength.

The key to great football training tips is to aim for well-roundedness of skill: solid with speed, power with agility, strength with endurance. For a football player, it's not enough to be just fast or tough. He's got to be fast and tough. However, striking the perfect balance is very achievable with proper training and taking care not to over train while in pursuit of your goals. What we've covered in this article is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of football training tips, but it is a step in the right direction toward becoming a more powerful and confident football player on the field.

To learn more about how to run faster from Patrick Beith and Athletes' Acceleration and to get the 7 tips to dominant speed for athletes go now to: http://www.CompleteSpeedTraining.com

For the top speed and power training resources check out: http://www.AthletesAcceleration.com/products.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Patrick_Beith

Monday, March 10, 2008

Football Training - Strength Training by Patrick Beith

There is a huge need for strength training for all football players. The ability to put together a strength program takes planning to get the most out of your athletes and to structure it properly. It is both an art and science to plan a strength training program.

Here is a quick list of facts that you need to keep in mind concerning your strength training for football. It isn't just about how big and bulky you can get - quite the contrary actually.

 Bigger muscles are not necessarily stronger muscles o You need to not only develop the size of a given muscle; you need to actually be considering the muscle's strength. That's what it's all about.

o A strong muscle is more than big; it has strong tendons and ligaments attached to it.

o Many a big muscle is torn loose from the joint that it is meant to move. A torn muscle can literally take months, even years to heal fully. Some never do.

You develop tendon and ligament strength by taking your training seriously. Don't attack your weight training like a crazy fool. Take your time. Pay attention to strict form in every rep.

Perform your reps slowly and with full control. Haphazardly jerking or throwing the weight up and calling that a successful rep is not only careless; it is a false achievement. Weight training is about far more than just moving the weight from point A to point B. Remember that!

 Bulky muscles too often yield decreased speed, agility and finesse. o Especially for wide receivers, defensive backs and tailbacks, muscles need to be specifically trained for bursting power and speed. -. Football is no game for wimps. It is also not an event for big, slow, overly bulky pigs just because they might be able to bench 400 lbs in a quirky, jerky, off-balance fashion. Be real!

Do yourself and your team a serious favor and ensure that you will be around season after strenuous season to help out. Take your strength training for football very seriously. Slow down while at the gym. Develop your tendon and ligament strength along with your bulk. The end result will be superior, lightening fast, impossible to rip, explosive muscles that have the true strength of a beast! Now that is what you are after.

There are several types of strength training for football to consider. Football is versatile and needs versatility in strength training programs. Here are the types that we will address:

 Functional strength training for football  Hypertrophy strength training for football  Maximal strength training for football  Power strength training for football

First, we will define each one and then address how to combine them all into the total athletic package for football.

Functional strength training for football:

Football can really put a hurtin' on your body in a lot of different ways. Your body is twisted, bent, bounced and forced into uncountable positions of unnatural strain. You need to ensure bilaterally symmetrical development while engaging your strength training. That means that you give equal, animalistic (but controlled) effort to both sides of your body. You want symmetrical development, not lopsided malformation.

You also need to ensure that you never get so wrapped up in the development of your prime movers (quads, biceps, pecs, etc.) that you neglect your supporting muscle (hamstrings, triceps, calves, posterior delts, lower trapezius, etc.). The message here is that you must maintain balance. If you fail to develop your body in a symmetrical, holistic fashion, you are begging for injury.

Hypertrophy Strength Training for Football

Don't let the hard-to-pronounce name fool you; it just refers to an overall increase in muscle mass due to increases in the sizes of individual muscle fibers. This is the type of strength training for football that everyone thinks of. You get to concentrate on muscular growth and sheer bulk. Remember that even linemen should only dedicate roughly half of their strength training to hypertrophy strength. More than that and you are entering into the slow zone - the zone of painful injury because you lack agility and speed.

Maximal Strength Training for Football

In a nutshell, this refers to the development of cross sectional areas of each muscle. It is responsible for explosive power. You have to lift maximal loads in order to promote the development of these "fast twitch" motor units. Strength and power are close cousins. When you are performing maximal strength training, you explode into the lift. You fire a burst of energy into the weight propelling them to the desired destination. You must remember the first lesson about strict and proper form. Do not ruin your workout by flopping like a fish under the weight. If you have to do that, then take some of the weight off of the bar. Remember: you didn't really lift it at all if you flopped your way through it. More importantly, flopping and squirming invites bench-sitting injury. Believe it!

Power Strength Training for Football

You have to possess the ability to instantly convert all of your strength into booming power to prevail on the football field. When you collide at full speed with an equally strong opponent, he who has the most explosiveness will shine with victory - not to mention instilling a demoralizing fear in said opponent. You have to accentuate your functional, hypertrophy and maximal training sessions with power strength training. You want your CNS to recruit fast twitch muscle fibers as quickly as possible. Now that you understand that more than just going in and fish-flopping through your workouts is needed in order to develop the total package for football, you need to understand something else: Cycle training. If you wish to optimize your strength training for football, then you have to incorporate all of the above training methods.

Develop a timeline. Construct a program to cycle through each of the training types in succession. Functional training is followed by hypertrophy work. Follow that with 4 weeks each of maximal and power training and then repeat. Vary your training. You do not want your body to plateau so training cannot be the same consistantly. Think of your body as a multifaceted machine that needs different care at different times. Always take your time with each individual rep to ensure proper form. Develop symmetrically. Develop tendon and ligament strength. Develop size and develop explosive power!

Release your inner beast through diverse and intelligent training and rule the field!

About the Author

For speed training tips and techniques go now to http://www.CompleteSpeedTraining.com

For more information on Patrick Beith and his training methods go to: http://www.AthletesAcceleration.com/sportsarticles.html

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Football Popularity

Football is the most popular sport in the world; in South America, Brasilia, France, U.K people play football, visit football matches, watch football games on TV and discuss them with friends and read updated football news. The games of elite football groups attract thousands of people. For instance, the capacity of Salt Lake Stadium in India is 120,000 people, and of Beaver Stadium in U.S.A - 107,282 people. In World Championship the stadiums are often full, and many people don't manage to get tickets in time.

FIFA includes 208 different national federations. Many countries consider football a part of their national heritage, and refer to football games as to representative of the country's national ideas. Football fans create special magazine, which presents latest football news and events, such as transfers of the players, and of season, changing of managers and coaches et cetera. Publishers and editors of fanzines often receive no financial compensation; fanzines are often distributed free of charge or for nominal cost only.

Football popularity often leads to rivalry, which sometimes develops into hooliganism. Fights between supporters of different teams usually occur after football matches. Sometimes football rivalry brings to tragedy on stadiums. At the mass brawl in May 2007, hundred Liverpool fans fought each other in Athens, hoping to get a ticket for the game. Another tragic event took place at the Hillsborough stadium on April 15, 1989, causing the death of 96 people. The unprecedented influx of fans through a narrow tunnel leading to the stadium has caused a major crush.

Football has always maintained a foothold in the fans' enthusiasm. Most of the largest stadiums in the world are used for football, because of its enormous popularity. One of the main interest in this sport is the football transfer rumours part. Raising awareness of the violence among football fans might help to reduce the danger of tragedies and save the rightfully owned popularity of the game.

Submitted by Natalie Halimi - Content Editor in Internet Marketing Company - Inter-Dev, for Caughtoffside - Sports blog.

http://www.inter-dev.co.il/en/http://www.caughtoffside.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Natalie_Halimi