Football Coaches Everywhere Are Wrong: 'Hands On Knees' Posture Is Most Efficient Way For Heart Rate Recovery
If you ever played football, you ran sprints. Maybe your coach called them gassers. Whatever it was called, they STUNK. Just an all-around awful time. No worse feeling than when you hear a whistle followed by GET ON THE LINE.
When you were done with the third or fourth sprint and you were gasping for air, every coach would yell at you to not bend over and put your hands on your knees. "There's no air down there, put your hands above your head to get oxygen." I think I read once that Nick Saban has banned Alabama players from bending over to get air, they must always have their hands above their head if they're gasping for air.
Well, it turns out that every football coach ever was WRONG:
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Now, of course, football guys across this great nation will say "we don't want you with your hands on your knees because that's a sign of weakness."
Do I expect an apology from any football coach? Of course not. If football coaches started apologizing we'd have another pandemic going on.
What I do want to see is this first player to tell a coach "no, coach, the science says…." after he is told "there is no air down there." That's going to equal 10+ more sprints for the entire team.
The study for all you nerds out there: