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The mindset of in season training and why it's crucial

Many athletes take training very serious, until the season that is and then it seems to get put on the back burner. This might be the most detrimental thing you can do for your performance, below is the mindset and the application for optimizing in season training


The Mindset

Looking at the calendar year of an athlete, you can identify 4 distinct phases. Each phase has it's own goals and priorities.

  1. Post Season

  2. Off Season

  3. Pre Season

  4. In Season

From a programming standpoint, as a strength coach, each phase dictates the training program. I also break down training into 4 phases that align with the 4 phases above.

  1. Acclimation

  2. Accumulation

  3. Intensification

  4. Realization

Let's go through each phase and how each phase plays a crucial role in an athlete's development

 

Acclimation

This phase is all about your body getting used to the demands of resistance training. Post season, you have likely been lifting less frequent and at lower volumes 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 needed to handle the workload. The off season if 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. Typical training splits I will use for this 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 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

 

You've probably heard athletes complain of "lifting legs everyday" and that their legs are always sore. If you stick with the total body split too long this is a common complaint, and one benefit to making the change to upper and lower splits is that 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 3. That's 72 hours between lower body sessions. You can probably see how skipping a proper 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. 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

 

  1. Speed Eccentric training

  2. More accommodating resistance

  3. Overspeed training (assisted sprints and jumps)

  4. French Contrast Training

  5. Increased Med Ball Training

  6. Less time if at all using single joint exercises (bicep curls etc)

  7. Prioritize rest between sets for HIGH quality reps

  8. Decreased total tonnage and volume

  9. Less if any long distance running

  10. 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.

 

Every phase prior to this in season phase has prepared and tempered the body and tissues to tolerate training. You would be shifting from a 4 day per week training plan to a 2-3 time training plan. That's in itself enough change to be confident in the ability to train hard and recover without affecting in game play. Soreness in trained athletes come from new stimulus or unfamiliar work loads. The word load is at an all time low in season and the athletes have been exposed to all the stimuli that I would use in season. There are a ton of options for exercise selection, but I would NOT choose exercises simply because they are easier on the athlete. The lower work loads will take care of that, and I would use the same exercises the athlete has been using since the start of the previous post season phase.

 

The mindset in season is to be your STRONGEST and FASTEST in the playoffs or championship play. That's the whole reason to even train, not to be at your strongest and fastest for opening day. That's why in season training is so important. You will get stronger as the season goes. And at best, you're not having to start completely over each year because you took the whole season off in the weight room.

 

Summary

Each phase is vital. Each phase has it's own goals but they all fit congruently to optimize performance. If you skip even just one, I would argue you're missing out on physical potential. Commit to the process, you won't regret it.

 

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