Importance of in-season strength training

All off-season you’ve been getting up early, grinding the weights, learning plays, and ultimately trying to become a better athlete; a better player. Now, the season is here. What happens next?    As you start and progress through your sport seasons, practice and games will take up a good amount of your time. On top of that, you have school, homework and still want to make time for your family and friends, However, there is a big thing missing from this; strength training.    As you go through your season, you should still be lifting, conditioning, and training to get better each and every day. Here is why this is so important.    Maintaining strength You’ve worked so hard during the offseason to reach whatever goals you set. Now you’re in-season, so why shouldn’t you still be trying to get better? If you stop lifting and training during the season, you’ll slowly start seeing yourself regress back to where you were at the beginning of the off-season. It doesn’t make much sense for that to happen. You start your season stronger and faster because of all of your hard work during the off-season, and you should want to be just as strong and just as fast come the end of the season. Continuing to lift and train during the season will allow you to maximize your athletic performance all season long.    Durability  As you go through your season, everyone wants to be injury free. Games and practices can put a lot of stress on your joints and muscles, which is another reason why strength training during the season is important. Not only will this allow you to become more durable and injury-free, but will also help your muscles maintain flexibility as well as recover. This allows athletes to withstand the demands of their sport to a higher degree, and ultimately becoming a more available player.    How to train in-season As we have stressed the importance of in-season training, you shouldn’t be training at the same intensity and weight volume that you had been during the off-season. You are practicing daily and your body is already working hard. So a low-rep and heavier weight training is perfect for in-season workouts. By doing this, you will maximize muscle contractions at lower volumes to achieve better strength levels by the beginning of the year. This also reduces in-season soreness and fatigue.    In-season training shouldn’t be difficult and exhausting, but should be used to maintain strength and reduce the risk of injury. This is why you should limit your in-season strength training to only one to two times every week. Overtraining during the season will increase your risk of injury which  won’t allow your body to recover fully.    In-season training isn’t meant to get you bigger or faster, but maintain the strength and quickness that you worked for  during the off-season. Every player wants to get better year after year, but this won’t happen without in-season training. If you allow all of your gains to disappear during the season, it’s going to be very difficult to become an elite athlete.  Warren Academy specializes in training athletes to become stronger, faster, and overall, elite. For information about any of our training programs, visit our website or contact us today!