Maintaining strength and speed is every coach’s goal throughout the football season. It is imperative that coaches maintain their team’s strength and conditioning level throughout the season in order to be ready for that stretch championship run that all teams hope to make at the end of the season.
We set goals and expectations during training camp with our players for their in-season training. We want our athletes to know that we take our in- season program very seriously, and we expect to maintain strength levels and, in some cases, make gains throughout the season. It is very important to set these expectations for your athletes as you begin your in-season program.
We will continue to do the basics such as clean, squat, bench and all of their variations. Our focus will be to keep our intensity high but reduce our overall volume throughout the in-season program. At Battle Ground Academy, we will reduce the number of exercises, sets, and reps in order to reduce this volume. The intensity, however, will remain high in order to make sure we are maintaining pre-season strength levels. You can not lift light weight and expect to maintain or make gains during your in-season program. We work to make sure that our volume is low enough to keep our athletes from experiencing excessive soreness. We also don’t introduce anything new in-season that could create excessive soreness in our athletes. This is also a time we pay a lot of attention to maintaining and increasing flexibility levels.
We also alter traditional core exercises during the season if it is needed. We may change one of our regular core exercises such as the clean to just the clean pull to reduce stress on the shoulders and elbows as an example. We feel good about an adjustment like this because we can still achieve our goal of triple extension with a high intensity weight while reducing some stress on the athlete’s body. We are also going to make sure we limit our sessions to no more than 30 minutes. Football is the athlete’s primary obligation during this time, and we want to make sure we keep it that way. They are football players, not weightlifters.
Conditioning for us during the season happens with our practice each day. We do not run sprints because our football staff does a tremendous job of maintaining a high pace at each practice.This is as sport specific as you can get, and there is no substitute for high intensity, high tempo football practice in order to condition your athletes for the sport. We want to make sure we are doing just the right amount and not over-training our kids. We want our legs to be fresh for that playoff run at the end.
It is important to be smart during the season and know when to hit the gas pedal with your athletes and when to put on the brakes. My ego will never get in the way of protecting our athletes and keeping them in top physical condition during the season. It is a time that we make many adjustments in order to make sure that we get the absolute most out of our players and help them reach their potential. During the season, I keep a close eye on my hardest working athletes, and I will make adjustments depending on what I feel is the pulse of our team at that time. I feel this is extremely important when dealing with high school athletes in order to maximize performance and help aid in injury prevention during the competitive season.