High School Athletes: Summer Strength Training
- Jake Hicks
- Apr 30
- 7 min read
I would argue, for most high school athletes, summer is the most important part of the entire year in terms of strength training. Yes even baseball players playing summer ball. You have 2.5 months to drastically prepare and improve your physical abilities, and below I will share why and how to do it. Includes a free week at the bottom.
Summer strength training is what sets up your entire year of training. With the exception of football (and other fall sports), summer is often considered your post season training phase. This is the transition from your sport season, playing games and practicing more frequently to a drastic reduction. This transition is a vital opportunity to increase your time, frequency and focus to your physical development. Yes even you baseball players. I played baseball in the SEC, I know all about the summer schedule, my message to you is find the time.
Mindset
The training you do this summer can both enhance and hinder your off season training in the fall. This also can enhance or hinder your pre season training in the winter and ultimately it can help of hinder your in season training. Zoom out and let's look at a training year, broken down into four 12 week phases and the respective goal of each phase.
Post Season: Acclimation
Off Season: Accumulation
Pre Season: Intensification
In Season: Realization
Acclimation
This phase is all about your body getting used to the demands of resistance training. Post season, which is summer for most, you have likely been lifting less frequent and at lower volumes from the season and it's smart to use an acclimation phase to re introduce exercises that you may not have done throughout the season as well as training volumes that had decreased in season. Think of it as your muscles, nervous system, and even joints learning the movements and building the coordination and stamina and tissue tolerance needed to handle increased workloads. Increased workloads are especially needed if your goal is to gain weight. The off season (fall for most athletes) is the largest building phase, and to simplify the acclimation phase, it's primary goal is to prep you for the off season phase. I like to call it, training to train. Image skipping your summer training and jumping into your off season training in the fall. You will experience a tougher time recovering from workouts, and a slower timeline for adaptation. You only have 12 weeks in each phase, that's not a long time. If you spend 4 weeks in the fall adjusting to your off season training, that only leaves you with 8 weeks to thrive. That's not enough time. Typical training splits I will use in the Summer or Post Season phase would be 4 total body splits organized as the following.
Day 1- Lower Push/Upper Pull
Day 2- Upper Push/Lower Pull
Day 3- Upper Pull/ Lower Push
Day 4- Lower Pull/Upper Push
Total body splits are the best way to acclimate back into training because it will "spread out the soreness" and deliver smaller doses of stress to each area of the body in more frequent doses. I break this section into a 12 week phase broken down into four 3 week waves. Each wave will contain a different primary exercise which will set us up to train each of them more aggressively in the off season. Examples I would use, remember a wave is 3 weeks long.
Wave 1- Back Squat, Bench Press, Bent Over Row, Trap Bar Deadlift
Wave 2- Front Squat, Incline Bench Press, Power Row, Deadlift
Wave 3- Box Squat, Close Grip Bench Press, DB Row, RDL
Wave 4- Paused Front Squat, Paused Bench Press, Pull Ups, Deficit Deadlifts
Accumulation
After you acclimate then you accumulate. What are we accumulating? Literally everything. Volume, intensity, speed, size and strength. Accumulation is in the offseason for a reason, you're still a good ways away from the season, which allows you to spend more time on general strength. You're likely participating in your sport very little, sometimes not at all, in terms of practice games etc. This allows the time and effort it would take to really change your physical ability. This phase would use an upper lower split. This change alone is enough of a change from the previous phase as it will increase the stress and the dose on each muscle group. Below is what this would look like.
Day 1- Lower Push/Lower Pull
Day 2- Upper Push/ Upper Pull
Day 3- Lower Pull/ Lower Push
Day 4- Upper Pull/Upper Push
One benefit to making the change to upper and lower splits is that it increases the dose in terms of stress on each muscle group and it puts more rest days between muscle groups. You crush legs day 1, you don't touch them on day 2, most would take a full rest day before day 3 and then you crush legs again day 4. That's 72 hours between lower body sessions. You can probably see how skipping a proper summer or post season/acclimation phase might be a bad idea to jump straight into an off season program. Nonetheless, athletes do it all the time, and while you can do it, it's not the most ideal way to optimize the athlete. High school athletes only get 4 stabs at this process. If you miss one year, you only have 3 left. So you can see how this can compound either in aiding development or hindering development. In this phase I prefer to rotate the exercises I listed above week to week instead of wave to wave. Here's what that might look like
Week 1- Back Squat, Bench Press, Bent Over Row, Trap Bar Deadlift
Week 2- Front Squat, Incline Bench Press, Power Row, Deadlift
Week 3- Box Squat, Close Grip Bench Press, DB Row, RDL
Week 4- Paused Front Squat, Paused Bench Press, Pull Ups, Deficit Deadlifts
Week 5- Back Squat, Bench Press, Bent Over Row, Trap Bar Deadlift
Week 6- Front Squat, Incline Bench Press, Power Row, Deadlift
Week 7- Box Squat, Close Grip Bench Press, DB Row, RDL
Week 8- Paused Front Squat, Paused Bench Press, Pull Ups, Deficit Deadlifts
Week 9- Back Squat, Bench Press, Bent Over Row, Trap Bar Deadlift
Week 10- Front Squat, Incline Bench Press, Power Row, Deadlift
Week 11- Box Squat, Close Grip Bench Press, DB Row, RDL
Week 12- Paused Front Squat, Paused Bench Press, Pull Ups, Deficit Deadlifts
Intensification
As the season approaches, pre season training will change to reflect and meet specific demands of the sport. Each phase is simply prepping for the next phase. In season you are looking to the frequency and intensity of FORCES to increase. The words speed and strength to me are not nuanced enough to describe sport demands. Many would tell you that speed needs to be prioritized for pre season, but that's not the whole truth. It's the FORCES that speed places on your body. So with that mindset, volume is going down a bit. I'm spending less time on the mindset of building and more on the mindset of expressing FORCES. There are 2 extremes in terms of expressing forces. One extreme has no time constraint. This would be your heavy near or at max weight on primary strength exercises. The other extreme DOES have a time constraint. This would be your sprinting, jumping and any other power exercise that comes to mind.
IMPORTANT: I'm a BIG proponent of training everything all the time. The omni method, if you will. So I'm training sprints, jumps, power etc in ALL these phases, but my time allotment is what changes phase to phase.
Some training components I might add in this phase
Speed Eccentric training
More accommodating resistance
Overspeed training (assisted sprints and jumps)
French Contrast Training
Increased Med Ball Training
Less time if at all using single joint exercises (bicep curls etc)
Prioritize rest between sets for HIGH quality reps
Decreased total tonnage and volume
Less if any long distance running
More intent on active rest days using soft tissue protocols, mobility and flexibility etc
You could probably imagine how difficult it may be if an athlete skipped one or both of the previous phases. The demands of this phase is extremely high, and just jumping into this phase would be very difficult for an athlete to thrive. Of course, you will have this situation, and that's where you make individual adjustments and need to consider in session audibles
Realization
It's called the realization phase because you are know seeing the results of the entire training year playing itself out on the field of play. There is nothing in a weight room, including olympic lifting, that happens as fast as running, jumping, change of direction etc happening in your sport. Between practice and games, the frequency of expressing max forces WITH a time constraint has never been higher. So my time allotment in training sessions with reflect this.
Another well known fact. Strength diminishes within 14 days, speed diminishes around 3-5 days. What's this mean?
Lift 85% or more at least once a week. I suggest 4-10 total reps, but you never take speed out. In season in the weight room I like to use moderate weight for speed sets and I like to finish a session to touch on those 85% or more lifts to continue to see absolute strength INCREASE throughout the season.
Athletes need a plan
I would suggest working with a coach in some capacity even if it's not me. Find a coach in person or online that you feel can help you reach your goals. A plan will ensure you go in the right direction, it provides motivation and accountability. I have MANY plans depending on your age, sport and I have plans for entire teams. So if you're a coach in need of a summer programming I'll share a free example for you as well. For both teams and for individuals I have PDF options that you can print and create a booklet, and I have on app options which I'm offering a free experience below with no need to sign up or submit payment info, I just need an email to send your invite to.
There is the free in app experience, carried out on the Train Heroic app. I can set teams up on the app as well as individual athletes, to start your free week sign up here. There is ZERO financial obligation here it is 0 dollars. Set up for you to simply experience the app.
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