A football player is a finely tuned machine that is capable of incredible acts of brute strength, amazing bursts of speed and mind-rattling collisions and tackles that make you wince just watching them. I'm providing you these football training tips because you need to take a careful, balanced approach.

You don’t want to go overboard with weight training because it can destroy flexibility and mobility, and at the same time, you don’t want to under do it because it can lead to your linemen and linebackers getting pushed off the ball too easily. And if you think that weight training is all there is to football training, think again. Everything from diet to exercise to studying film is all part of making a football player a success.

One of the best football training tips is making sure your players are getting the proper diet. Of course, you wouldn’t feed the same things to your center as you would to your kicker, but in general, you want to make sure they get plenty of carbohydrates (pasta, bread) as well as plenty of fresh fruit and veggies. You haven’t seen a person eat until you have seen an offensive lineman pack away 3-4 bags of food the night before a big game.

But just because they eat a lot doesn’t mean they should eat whatever they want. Things like fast food and sweets are just as bad to an offensive tackle as they would be to anyone else. Making sure your players are getting the calories they need to develop their bodies is very important, but so is making sure they are getting it from the right sources.

The next set of football training tips comes from the mental side of things. Watching and analyzing film is the number one way you can prepare your players for their next opponents. While playbooks today now come in jumbo and super jumbo sizes, many coaches are still quite vanilla when it comes to calling plays in high stress situations. They develop patterns and come back to the same plays over and over again in tense situations.

It is these patterns that you need to discover in the film room. You can also look for players tipping the play before the snap. Maybe an offensive lineman for the other team makes a motion with his hand when it is a running play or maybe the quarterback looks directly at his desired receiver for a few seconds before the snap on a passing play. Discovering these seemingly small things in the week lead up to a game can give your players a huge advantage out on the playing field.

The final set of football training tips is one that many coaches miss. No matter what you believe the outcome of the upcoming game is going to be, you need to make sure your players are having fun. Studies have shown that players who are enjoying the game play better, and what fun is playing a sport if you aren’t having fun? Monitor your players and do what you can to make sure everyone has a smile on their face.