In-Season Considerations for Training
It’s September, so it’s time for the annual great flight of athletes from their sports performance facilities to their teams and schools, never to look back at the gym until next summer. For some reason, when it comes to youth sports, we don’t see the value of legitimate long-term development. We see training as an off-season thing that we have to/should do, but that’s it.
What if I told you that there’s no such thing as fitness maintenance? What if I told you that you can lift in season, and ON GAME DAY, and it would help you play better? What if I told you that the season is the longest stretch of time where you could make gains off the field, and you’re crazy for not using that time? We’re going to talk about all of that today.
How Long is the Off Season?
The off-season is not what it used to be. When it comes to time off after seasons finish, there is none. The youth sports development business model has figured out how they can extract capital from their clients year-round. There is no longer a baseball, hockey, basketball, football, or [insert sport here] season. Instead, we have spring season, summer season, fall ball, club season, high school season, and your regular season. It’s insane. If you’re interested in hearing more about this process I wrote about it here and here, and did an episode of Strength Coach Rants about the topic of year-round sports as well. Check them out!
When you think about it though, it’s absolutely genius. This move has allowed sports organizations to double and triple their revenue in an incredibly short amount of time. The issue becomes that youth sports have become void of any level of real development strategy. It’s games on games on games on games. It’s skills on skills on skills on skills. And there is no attention to detail when it comes to physical preparation off the field of play. There is no time for rest and recovery either.
This Instagram reel describes the issue with limiting your off-the-field training to the summer, or “off-season.” Here’s a real-life breakdown of how long the summer actually is:
In my local area of Pasco County, Florida summer break from school started Memorial Day Weekend or May 27th. The first day back to school was the week of August 5th. That’s 9 total weeks of summer break. Now if this was nine weeks of uninterrupted training that would be great, still not really enough time but it would be enough time to make some level of progress. Most kids playing sports today have showcases, most families go on at least one vacation, and kids for some reason happen to get sick from time to time. When your season is over, you’re usually pretty well-conditioned for the field/ice/court of play if you’re not completely burnt out or dealing with some nagging injuries. Do you know what you’re not conditioned for yet? That’s right, the gym. And that takes time, usually around three to four weeks. So, in a perfect situation where a kid has no time lost due to vacation, sickness, or showcases that nine weeks has become five. In those five weeks, you’re going to squat roughly five times, bench press roughly five times, and deadlift roughly five times. Don’t get caught up in the movements here because it could be any movement, just know that you’re going to hit a specific stimulus five times. That’s five times to prepare you for 10 months of the year. It’s not enough.
In what world is five times of practicing a skill (strength is a skill) going to make you proficient enough to retain that skill? Much less a skill like strength that takes progression, progression that typically takes years of consistency. Hopefully, you can see the issue here. And we’re not even talking about the time it takes to become proficient enough in movements to progress them, that’s a whole different conversation.
The offseason is a great time to ramp up training, but it cannot be the only time you dedicate to getting stronger, faster, more powerful, and more mobile in the gym. Five to nine weeks isn’t going to even begin to lay a foundation for success in the next 43 to 47 weeks.
What is the Off-Season For Then?
Since the off-season isn’t really long enough to prepare for the season, what is off-season training even for?
The off-season is a time to ramp up the intensity and frequency of your training. If you’re someone who trains year-round (more on that later), then the offseason becomes eight to ten weeks of increased intensity and frequency allowing you to accelerate your adaptation potential. This is where you can see the most muscle growth, strength acquisition, and speed adaptations of the year. You can think of your in-season training as a slow gradual ramp while your off-season is more of a steep incline.
The off-season can also be an introduction to your physical preparation. What I mean by this is that 8-10 weeks of training can lay the groundwork for your overall athletic development over time. You get 8-10 weeks to lay the foundation with higher frequency, then as the season begins you can peel back a little bit because most of your energy needs to be dedicated to the field of play. This increased frequency allows for faster movement proficiency and faster increases in what’s called general physical preparation. Think of it as a kickstart to your training.
The off-season is also the time to reclaim good positions in the gym. Most sports have repeated movement patterns over and over again throughout the season. The body adapts to this movement and it will often do so in ways that aren’t good for your overall orthopedic health. This means that some muscles get ignored and become weak, while others get overworked and become tight (and also weak). The off-season (and season) is a time to bring your body back to normal.
The last thing the off-season is for is rest. Not necessarily just physical rest, but getting away from the mental and emotional demands of the sport. The repetitive movement patterns of sport are one thing, but being in a position to have to perform day in and day out can take a toll on the mind. The off-season gives you a chance to pull away from all of that for a short period allowing you to come back to the field refreshed and ready to play the following season.
Training in Season
With all of that out of the way, we’re now going to focus on what your training during the season should look like. There are a few things that will play into the equation:
Your training age
How long have you been training? Has there been a layoff from training? We break athletes down into high, moderate, and low training ages.
The sport you’re playing
Different sports have different demands. For example, a hockey practice, a football practice, and a baseball practice all look incredibly different from an effort and movement perspective. They also have different movement patterns and utilize different energy systems.
The frequency of both games and practice
2 practices and 1 game per week and 3-4 practices and a showcase/tournament on the weekends are vastly different.
Overall practice and game volume
Are you getting first-line/first-string/starter minutes in practice? Are you sitting on the bench watching more often than not?
The level at which you’re playing
AAA vs AA vs rec vs high school vs club etc.
These are the most important factors you need to look at when it comes to your off-season training. We’re talking fairly surface-level stuff here that can be applied across the board for pretty much every sport. We’ll break all that down now.
Your Training Age
This is by far the most important aspect of your training plan. Someone who has spent a lot of time developing strength is going to need to train very differently from someone who is just beginning their training journey.
High/Moderate Training Age (>1.5 years)
More of a focus on maintenance-type training. You can’t really maintain when you’re training, you’re either getting stronger or you’re getting weaker, you’re getting slower or you’re getting faster, etc. There is a focus on strength, and training through a full range of motion. Speed and power should be touched on, but not focused on. The two things your athlete isn’t getting on the field of play are strength and mobility. They need to be hammered on.
High and moderate-training age athletes need less training frequency, moderate volume, and can handle higher intensities (load) during the season. You need to make sure you monitor their intensity though, because they’re capable of handling heavier loads/weight. These heavier loads can take a toll on the body’s structures (joints for example) and CNS if not kept in line with acceptable amounts of volume.
Low Training Age (<1 year)
Athletes with a lower training age, including beginners, are still in the process of developing their base levels of strength and increasing their movement proficiency. Due to this, they need more training frequency as well as more volume. The loads that they handle will be light to moderate, although they’re typically capable of handling heavier intensities (load compared to their 1RM) more often.
Speed should also, at times, be a focus within the overall training plan. They don’t need speed blocks or anything, they just need a consistent speed stimulus.
The Sport You’re Playing
Sports are all different. From the practice plans, to the goals of practice, to the intensity and minutes of games no sport is like another. Sports also utilize different movement patterns. For example, hockey is mostly played in the frontal plane, while football is mostly played in the sagittal plane. Baseball, golf, and tennis players all utilize the transverse plane more often than others. All of this needs to be considered when putting together an in-season training program regardless of training age.
I’m going to catch a lot of heat for this, but during the season your sport needs to be the anti-sport. What I mean by this is your training in the gym should look absolutely nothing like your play on the field. The gym needs to give you the movement patterns and stimuli that you aren’t getting on the field. For example, hockey is played in the sagittal plane (side-to-side force vectors), the last things these athletes need in the gym are lateral lunges and skater jumps, they’re getting plenty of that on the ice. They need work in the sagittal plane (front to back).
Another good example is tennis. Tennis involves a lot of internal rotation of the shoulder with shoulder flexion and adduction. Typical thoughts would say that we need to strengthen those structures first and foremost. But in reality, we need to strengthen the structures that perform the opposite actions. Now, this doesn’t mean that we should neglect shoulder IROT, ADD, and FLEX at all. It just means that we need to be mindful to strengthen the structures that aren’t getting worked on the court.
An example that involves a specific position is offensive linemen in football. Their job is blocking which looks a lot like close grip bench pressing. One might think that close grip bench pressing should be a big focus of their training. These guys get hundreds of reps a week so those structures are getting plenty of work. We need to strengthen the structures involved in pulling to offset the push volume that they get on the field.
We’ll talk more about the differences in sport practice later, so just know that the sport that you’re playing is going to play a major role in your needs off the field of play.
Game and Practice Frequency
Someone who plays weekend games on a set schedule’s training will look much different than someone who plays games sporadically throughout the week. Someone who plays once per week every Friday night is going to have six full days off following their games. Someone who plays on Friday one week, then Wednesday the following week, and then Thursday the week after that doesn’t have the same consistent gaps of days off between competitions. Others who play multiple games sporadically throughout the week, or do showcases and tournaments on the weekend are going to have different training needs as well. I’m not of the mindset that amateur athletes need to be completely fresh for every competition, but they need to be recovered enough to not get injured. Training needs to reflect that need.
Practice schedules need to play a role in your training plan as well. In saying this, I don’t mean that you cannot train and practice on the same days, I actually think there’s a ton of value in doing that if done right. But, if your week is front-loaded/heavy with practice, your training needs are different from the kid who practices on Monday and Thursday. Someone who practices 5 days per week is going to have different training needs than someone who practices 1-2 times per week. These all need to be considered when putting together a training plan in-season.
Practice and Game Volume
Practice and game volume are different from practice and game frequency. Whereas frequency is going to be more so how often you play or practice, you’re volume is going to be how much work you’re doing within those games and practices.
How much work are you actually getting? Does practice consist of mostly walk-throughs? Is practice mostly strategy? Are you a healthy scratch not getting a bunch of practice time or any game time? Are you third string basically scout team and a pylon during drills on the field? Are you shagging balls or actually having to perform in practice? Are you playing both sides of the ball? First string/first line minutes? These things matter when it comes to what you should be doing in the gym.
If you’re getting a ton of practice and game minutes, then you might want to decrease your volume in the gym. If you’re getting very little practice and game minutes, then you can afford to push on the gas a little bit in the gym.
This also goes hand and hand with training age. If you’re someone who is getting a lot of practice and game minutes but have a lower training age, then you’re going to have to make some concessions and work a little bit harder in the gym. If you’ve got a high training age and aren’t getting much practice time/gameplay, then you can hit the gym a little bit harder.
Balancing training, playing, and practice volumes is tough, but the biggest take home here is don’t be afraid to push yourself a little bit if you’re not getting the minutes you’d like. And the inverse is true as well that if you’re getting leaned on both in practice and games pretty heavily then you’ve got to dial it down in the gym a little bit.
Level of Play
Before I say this, I don’t want anyone to think that just because you play a higher level of competition in sports, that you should also have a higher ability of performance in the gym. The two are completely unrelated. I’ve had NHL/NFL/MLB/ATP/WTA athletes who were top 5% of performers on the field and would have been embarrassed by some of the high school kids I work with in the gym. Reaching the highest levels of competition is often completely unrelated to your abilities in the gym. On the flip side, I’ve worked with athletes who were unbelievably gifted in the gym, who barely made the lineup each game. While there are correlations between ability in the gym and ability on the field, one doesn’t necessarily equal the other.
What I mean by the level of play is that typically higher levels of play also require higher levels of time commitment. Whereas a recreational hockey team may practice once a week for an hour, a AAA or junior hockey team might practice five days per week for 90-120 minutes, plus film, plus mental coaching, plus study hall, etc. The higher the level, typically the less is left in the tank for training off the field of play. It sucks but it needs to be part of the equation. This is one of the reasons why it’s incredibly important to begin your training earlier on in life. If you get to the highest amateur levels of play and realize you need to get in the gym, it’s often already too late.
On the flip side, if you’re playing JV volleyball, or you’re a beginner tennis player you may have more energy left to be able to dedicate to training off the court. Keep this in mind when putting together your in-season training plan.
How Often Should I Train In-Season?
There’s a lot to consider here, but most athletes would do great with 2-3 sessions per week of training in-season. I’ve got some athletes that I’ll see sometimes 3 sessions in a week, followed by two weeks of 1 or 2 sessions. I think collectively if you can get somewhere between 8-12 gym sessions per month, you’re headed in the right direction and you’ll be able to continue to develop all year.
How Much Training Volume Should I Get In-Season?
Higher training-age athletes can get away with significantly less, but around 75-100 total reps in a training session is what I would consider appropriate for in-season training. This will vary depending on how intense the movements are, your training age, what time of the year it is, etc.
Can I Lift and Play On the Same Day?
100% yes you can lift on game days. Now this doesn’t mean that you can go in and hit repeated effort sets of the deadlift at 75-85% the morning of, but there are ways to make training both beneficial to development and beneficial to your gameplay THAT DAY! I utilize low-volume, scaled-down versions of the dynamic effort method on game days for some athletes.
When I worked for USA Hockey, Jimmy Radcliffe used to have the girls do a CNS prep lift the morning of games. The girls always felt great come game time and it kept us from having to put that training stimulus sometime during the week. It’s a huge win if you can talk your coach into letting you do it.
You can also lift after games. A lot of times schedules are jam-packed and the only way to get a lift in is right after a game. The volume and intensity need to be scaled, but it’s definitely doable.
Let’s Wrap This Up
Training is not only beneficial to do during the season, it is 100% necessary if you want to continue to develop as an athlete and reach the highest levels of play. Far too often I see kids for two months out of the year, and we end up with very little time to try to move mountains. And if you think training for strength all off-season and you’ll maintain it, think again!
Strength training year-round will help you become stronger, faster, more powerful, and it will help keep you on the field and injury-free. A stronger muscle is a more resilient and flexible muscle and training adaptations build on others year over year. Don’t lose your strength when you need it most, stay in the gym to stay on the field!
