Football Pretest - bench press, football, good day, long jump, pretest, sport

The Football pre-season started for our team today.

!

I don't know how many people are gonna be able to relate to me, but I'm gonna go ahead and tell you all about it anyway, because I'm excited about the season! I hope i don't make this too long so that nobody wants to read it... =(

I'm going to be a Senior next school year and I have been playing football since Jr High. I love playing, it's definitely one of the best sports life has to offer. I play Tight End and Wide Receiver. I started off as a Wide Receiver when I started playing, but slowly moved to Tight End because I love playing that position.

Today is the day to start focusing on Football 100% since Track is over and Baseball's pretty much done with too. We've had small Skills Practices on Sundays and have lifted every day after school during the off season, but today's actually the day that kicks off the whole football season! Football Pretests were this morning.

The Football Pretest is something we do two times a year, one before the season starts, and one a couple months later, a few weeks before our games begin. Today was the first of the two. What we do at the pretest is record our physical abilities, and set goals for ourselves to get better by the next pretest, where we do it all again and record our progress. We do 4 different tests: the 40m run, bench press, standing long jump, and then the 12 minute run.

Let me go over my day:
I got up at 7am, did my morning rituals, took a Whey Protein drink and was off to the school to begin the testing. When I went outside I noticed how GREAT the day was. Sunny, not TOO hot, very nice. I jogged to the school, which is only about ten minutes away from my house and went down to the locker room to get weighed in. Immediately after weighing in, Coach hurried us into the gym to do our stretches. After warming up, we were put into 3 different groups depending on positions. I went with the Receiver group.

Before long, my group went down to the football field for the 40m. In past years, we usually did the 40m on concrete, or a track; this year we did it on the grassy field. I bet some people can do a lot better on a field than a track, but I'm not one of those people, heh. I think I could have done much better if we did use concrete to be honest. Last year I ran a 4.8 on the concrete. We got 2 runs each. I did SO bad in this... My first run was 5.1 seconds and my second was the same... I dun care if anyone says thats a good time, I still think I can do better >:o

Next we went back up to the school weight room for bench press as the Running backs went down to the field to do their 40m runs. For bench press, we have to choose a weight that we know we'd be able get up more than 3 times, then do as many reps as you can. We all warmed up by bustin' out a few push ups, then did our lifts one by one. I was pretty happy with what I got for my bench. Last year, I got 135lbs (61.36kgs) up 9 times. I was actually a surprised that I was able to get 185lbs (84.09kgs) up 8 times this year

We left the weight room and headed for the gym to do the Standing Long Jump as the linemen were finishing their jumps. The long jump is an easy test in my opinion. All you have to do is stand on the mat, swing your body for momentum, then jump as far as you can (no run-jumping allowed >.>

. We each get 3 jumps, and our best jump gets recorded. This test went by pretty quickly. Last year, if I remember correctly, I jumped 96 inches (243.8cm). This year I jumped a little further with 98 inches (248.9cm). I really wanted to break the 100 inch mark, but 98 inches is still really good =O

And finally all groups went back down to the field for the 12 minute run. In this test, you basically just see how far you can run in 12 minutes lol. We all run at the same time. Our distance is determined by how many laps we get. Each lap is just smaller than a lap around a school track, but a little bigger than running around the football field. The sun started getting very hot and I wasn't sure how well I was gonna do. I even got to show everyone my boobies 'cause I wasn't about to run 12 minutes in the heat w/o some kind of air flowing through my armpits ahaha. I began my run and was feeling pretty good the whole way. I did start to feel a lil nauseous around the 9th minute, but I was able to stick with it and by the time the clock stopped at 12 minutes, I ran 8.5 laps! That's better than what I thought I was gonna get considering I was butt-tired and the sun was beating down on me like crazy.

After our run, we had a few minutes to rest then we had a short Skills Practice. When the practice was over we all went back up to the school and ate pizza and Gatoraide! Coach even gave me $22 for being one of the only people that sold over 20 boxes of cookies for our fundraiser LOL

Overall, today was a good day. I think I did really well

-Damien

Weight: 166lbs
40m: 5.1 seconds
Bench Press: 8 x 185lbs (8 x 84.09kgs)
Standing Long Jump: 98in (248.9cm)
12 Minute Run: 8.5 laps