As my career progressed so did my workout routine. I evolved and adapted over time.
I do not feel that there is a specific workout to make your snaps faster. You use your entire body to longsnap so I focused on getting my body as strong as possible overall.
When I was in high school, I did your typical Olympic style lifting. I would bench press, squat, hang clean, power clean and do all of the other auxiliary lifting like curls, shoulder press, etc. I will have to say, I wasn’t much of a workout warrior then. I enjoyed the basketball court too much.
While there is not one perfect ‘longsnap’ workout, this was one of my favorite auxiliary moves. It was a modified lift using the lat pulldown machine. I would stand facing the hanging bar with my arms outstretched gripping the bar near the center (hands close together and the bar being close to eye level). From there I would pull the bar down to my waist. This mimics the motion of the snap. This was the only longsnapping specific lift that I would do.
I continued the traditional, Olympic style of lifting throughout college as well.
Once my college career started coming to a close, I trained with Chip Smith of Chip Smith Performance. He is well known all over the world for his work with athletes and his NFL Combine training. He introduced me to sports/position specific training with my longsnapping. He would connect me up to bungie cords that were attached to different parts of my body. We started to train hard and get fit with ankle weights as well as attached bungies to my wrist, to work on overspeed snapping and resistance snapping. He would attach bungies to my hips and legs to work on setting after the snap.
I found this type of training to be a big help. As I moved into the pro ranks, this especially helped with being able to block better after the snap. I found that I was getting quicker getting out of my stance after the snap.
I added this to my workouts while I was in the pros. The bungie workout became part of my off season snapping program.
As I got older, my weight room workouts changed. I moved to a completely different style of training.
During the offseason after the Super Bowl in February 2007, I decided my body needed something different. I was 30+ and I was not getting the gains that I wanted from my old workouts. My body started to ache more and my recovery time was getting longer.
I started with a training system called ULTRA FIT/EVO SPORT. My brother in law, Dr. Tommy John, was a trainer with this system and introduced me to it.
I started to see some gains again and my body felt so much better. I was trying to longsnap in the NFL as long as I could and this change in training helped me reach 16 years.
Figure out what training system works best for you to gain overall strength. This will help you to become the best longsnapper you can be.
11 Comments on “Longsnapping Workouts”
I often hear of people timing their long snaps. Do you have any suggestions how to do this?
Yes you start the stopwatch as soon as the ball moves and stop it as soon as the punter catches it. That will be the snap time. A good time is .80 and a great time is .75 of faster for 15 yards.
Yes I think it is important to time your longsnaps. Typically a good longsnap from 15 yards should be .80 to .65. You time from once the ball starts to move to as soon as the punter touches the ball.
My son is getting his first experience in high school level what would u suggest as far workouts for him.
He’s been going to snapp camps but that it.
To become a good snapper you need to train your entire body. There are no specific lifts that I did just for longsnapping. I did enjoy hang cleans and think that helped me with snap speed a little.
I am a 17 year old snapper, nationally ranked 11th according to prokicker.com camps. From meeting with multiple pros and other mentor over the past 5 years 4 constant lifts that keep coming up are hang clean & jerks, Tricep extensions, rack cleans, and barbell hip thrusts.
I would agree with that.
I am 16 years old I live in hawaii and my dream is to long snap in college. I am currently doing it in high school. Any tips on how i could get scouted?
Seth,
The easiest way is to write an email to colleges and attach some video of you snapping.
My son is at a small college which does not have a actual snapping coach. Hebwas never trained properlyby anyone that actuall knkws how to teach ot to him. He is snapping between .73-.85 average right now. He is looking for a actual coach to train him in his off season or of any camps he should go to. What do you suggest??
I am a 14 year old longsnapper and I am trying to find anyway to get better. My time that I am averaging in at is around .75-.80 with pretty decent consistency. My main training is really just working out and snapping on my own in my back yard into a net. This training has been working pretty well but I still feel like I can get really better. Please leave any suggestions of what I can do to get better.