6 dos and don’ts of in-season weight training

By Mike DeVader | Posted 10/6/2015

With all of the attention to detail on game planning, athletes can’t forget how important the weight room is during the year.

Jace Derwin, lead sport performance specialist at Volt Athletics – which builds online training regimens for high school and college athletic programs across the country – shared a blueprint that athletes should follow in the weight room during the season.

  • Do: Keep workouts short. As the intensity at practices ramp up to prepare players for competition, athletes don’t need to spend as much time in the weight room to keep their body primed and ready. Volume and frequency should be reduced during in-season weight training sessions, and workouts should be kept to about 30 to 45 minutes each two times per week.
  • Don’t: Train to exhaustion. During the football season, athletes always want to leave the weight room with something left in the tank. Pushing too hard in the gym is a great way to set yourself up for a poor performance on game day. Don’t let your competitive drive endanger long term goals.
  • Do: Keep loads high. The loads lifted during training sessions should stay high. Keeping the weights heavy allows players to maintain the strength and power the athletes spent the offseason building without risking overtraining.
  • Don’t: Lift heavy on game day. Save energy for the field on game days. If you absolutely need to get a pregame workout in, try some dynamic medicine ball throws or easy box jumps. The closer to game time, the more important it is to produce force quickly.
  • Do: Recover fully. It is more crucial to recover fully and completely between weight training sessions during the season than at any other point in the athletic year. Listen to your body. If you feel any tightness or pain, address it before it turns into an injury. Spend more time warming up, foam rolling tight muscles, stretching your whole body and –most importantly – getting enough sleep every night, at least eight hours.
  • Don’t: Skip warm-up. Warm-ups are an invaluable time to not only prep an athlete’s body but to identify what may be nagging a player from practice or the last training session. Adapt the weight program so you can avoid having a bad day in the weight room or furthering an injured muscle group. 

Be smarter in the weight room. Play bigger and stronger on the field.

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