Regardless of whether they play football or not, many men aspire to achieve the physique of one of the NFL’s top wide receivers. These athletes train for multiple hours every single day — which is impractical for most individuals — but if you adopt some of the principles of an NFL workout, you can obtain a body similar to that of your favorite wide receiver.
The main characteristics that professional wide receivers, such as Chad Johnson and Torry Holt, possess (and the ones you need to focus on when creating an NFL workout) include a high degree of speed, agility and quickness, all while being able to recover quickly without fatigue. That said, here is our NFL workout for attaining the physique of a wide receiver.
The Workout
In the Weight Room
When you’re in the weight room, you want to focus on lifts that are going to work the greatest number of muscle fibers so as to stimulate large amounts of muscle growth; this will include bench presses, squats, deadlifts, shoulder presses, and rows. Really focus on the squats and deadlifts, as strong legs are needed to carry the body quickly while weaving in and around other players. When doing each lift, drive the weights up as quickly as possible; this will serve to enhance the power and speed aspects of your strength. Try to aim for a “one, two, three” tempo when doing these exercises.
In addition to your lifts, you’re going to need to posses the ability to “take a hit,” as contact with other players in football is a regular occurrence. To train for this, take a firm stance with your feet shoulder-width apart and knees slightly bent. Then, have a partner throw medicine balls from either side of you while you catch them and try to stay balanced. This exercise will enhance your ability to withstand force that has a great deal of momentum, thus simulating contact with a moving player. For the really ambitious aspiring wide receiver, you can also have your partner physically try and knock you down — just be sure you take safety precautions when doing so.
Out of the Weight Room
Outside of weight training for your NFL workout, you must train to enhance your endurance, quickness and agility. For endurance, throw one or two 30 to 45 minute jogs into your week in order to build up a good cardiovascular base. In addition to the jogs, add some uphill sprint training one to two times a week. Specifically, you’ll need to find a decent-sized hill and then sprint up it as fast as you can. Once you get up to the top, walk back down and repeat the process another 5 to 10 times.
Sprinting uphill will provide extra resistance against you, which will strengthen your overall leg power as well as help you form the ability to put up a fight in the face of another player trying to block you. Finally, do a couple of agility-related drills where you scatter cones on a field (relatively close to each other) and then practice weaving in and out of them as fast as possible.
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The Diet
If you look at the bodies of professional wide receivers, such as Anquan Boldin and Steve Smith, they are muscular and rather stocky looking. In order to attain this body type, you’ll need to integrate the following guidelines into your diet.
Total calories: Unless you already have enough muscle mass, make your calorie intake equal to 17 multiplied by your body weight in pounds. Otherwise, set your calorie intake at your bodyweight multiplied by 15 to maintain your mass or your bodyweight multiplied by 13 if you need to shed some fat.
Total protein: Next, to ensure you have ample amino acids to maintain and build more lean muscle mass, try to consume 1.25 grams of protein per pound of body weight.
Total fat: While there are no hard and fast rules for fat intake, consume no less than 15% of your total calories from fat and, better yet, aim for 0.4 to 0.5 grams per pound of body weight — more if you’re struggling to get in the calories. Try and get as much of your fat as possible from nuts, avocados, olive oil, fatty fish, flaxseed, and the small amounts found in other animal products.
Total carbohydrates: Carbs will round out the rest of your intake. Focus on eating the majority of your carbohydrates from whole sources, such as oatmeal, whole grains, rice, and potatoes, taking the vast majority of them in around your workout session.
Touchdown
Regardless of which wide receiver you’re aiming to be like, be it Deion Branch or Joey Galloway, keep this NFL workout and diet plan in mind. By following these training principles, you too can get a wide-receiver body for yourself.
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