In-Season vs. Off-season Strength & Conditioning

The role of a strength coaches is simple; serve the needs of our athletes. The overall health of our athletes is always our primary responsibility. The needs of athletes change over time, as athletes grow and develop their strength and conditioning program needs to change and evolve with them. Where an individual athlete is at in their competitive season also influences their strength and conditioning program. The needs of an athlete in-season are different than the needs of an athlete during the off-season.

Off-season training is all about growth and development. Our priority in the off- season is simple; train hard to get stronger, more powerful, more explosive, and better conditioned for the demands of their sport. Generally, this allows the strength coach to program far more load and intensity during the off-season. Off-season strength and conditioning programs typically have a higher frequency of sessions (more sessions per week), work up to heavier loads and include longer and more intense conditioning work. While loads and intensity increase during the off-season, a quality off-season strength and conditioning program cannot be full speed ahead every day. That’s just not the way our bodies work. An effective off-season strength and conditioning program must still be periodized allowing the athlete to rest, recover and finally to develop physiologically.

We want parents, coaches, managers and most importantly athletes to know

what to expect in a comprehensive in-season strength and conditioning program. When it comes to planning an in-season strength and conditioning program beyond the overall health of the

athlete, game day performance is the priority. Anybody can program a tough training session that leaves the athlete gutted. Quite frankly our staff is more than capable of having your son or daughter not walk for a few days

afterwards, but that would be ridiculous and certainly not effective in having them compete at the highest level on game day.

Let’s simplify things a bit. Picture a gas

tank. The fuel inside the tank represents the energy available to meet the demands of life: school, work, friends, family, and sport. An athlete with an empty tank simply will not be capable of performing in life and certainly not in their sport. There are many things beyond sport that compete for and drain fuel from an athlete’s tank. Games, stress, travel, schoolwork, extra curricular activities, friends, family, and work. Add to this nutrition, hydration, and sleep, which all impact how much fuel an athlete has in their tank. Our bodies have a finite ability to respond to stress so we as coaches (sport and strength) must choose and manage stress wisely. Our goal, during the sport season, is to keep the fuel tank as full as possible while getting stronger.

When it comes to the in-season, we focus on structural maintenance and/or slow and controlled progression. As we have stated the end goal is to allow the athlete to perform maximally in their sport, while maintaining and increasing baseline strength levels. This is both an art and a science for the strength coach. The “Law of Competing Demands” states that if too many stressors are acting on the body adaptation, growth, and development are compromised as is game day performance. As strength coaches we are always chasing the minimum effective does of stimulus. We want our athletes to continue their growth and development while training in-season with as little gas being emptied from their tank.

We strongly believe that movement is the single most important quality of any athlete in any sport. We know that the more proficient an athlete can move in the gym the more able that athlete will be to acquire and master sport specific movement skills. As such movement forms the foundation of all our in-season training programs.

Strength is another characteristic of paramount importance to athletes. An athlete’s absolute strength influences their power, speed, explosiveness as well as their overall resiliency and health.

Unfortunately, the Law of Competing Demands, specifically the intensity of the

in-season schedule, makes maintaining strength in-season near impossible. However, decreasing the amount of strength loss is very possible. As such lifting heavy weights is a significant part of our in-season programs. Generally, our in-season programs have our athletes continue to lift heavy loads (near max effort), when appropriate for the individual athlete) but with less volume (fewer reps and sets).

What changes most significantly in our in-season strength and conditioning programs is the volume and intensity of the conditioning or general physical

preparation work our athlete perform. While our athletes will still perform some conditioning work (GPP) in-season that work looks very different than in our off-

season programs. In-season we tend to focus on trunk stability work as the basis for our conditioning work (GPP). Additionally, athletes can maintain their work capacity through their effort in games and practice.

Athlete health is always a priority. As such mobility work is the cornerstone of our in-season programs. Our athletes are consistently performing mobility work

based on principals from Dr. Andreo Spina’s Functional Range Conditioning (FRC) methodology. The FRC work performed by our athletes is not simply about increasing or maintaining their range of motion but more importantly earning more control through more of the range of motion they possess. Beyond mobility work our in-season programs include both soft tissue and connective tissue work. Connective tissue work typically comes in the form of high-volume low intensity band work. While soft tissue work includes foam rolling and Body Tempering.

Communication is paramount to the success of any strength and conditioning program. Communication between strength coaches, team managers, sport coaches and of course athletes is essential in ensuring that their in-strength and conditioning program compliments their team’s overall season plan and supports sustained elite sport performance.

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