Off-season – Guest Blog from TrueFitness

The pre-season and in-season time periods were the focus of the previous two blogs so today we are going to focus on the off-season, first we will review the previous blogs.

The pre-season is all about getting ready for the sport. Doing sport specific movements and focusing on improving the ability to play the sport that you are getting ready to play. We use agility and reactivity drills mimicking sport movement, speed and duration to do this as well as incorporating strength and power training exercises that use the muscles pertinent to the sport. That leads into the in-season where the focus is maintaining the gains that we made during the pre-season as well as during the off-season. We are not trying to improve but instead our trying to keep our body fresh and help speed recovery while trying to retain our strength, speed and quickness.

The off-season presents its own set of parameters and has its own focus. We need to treat the off-season differently just as we need to treat the pre-season and the in-season time periods differently. The elements and components may overlap between time periods but they need to solely focused on what is the most important to improve during the off-season.

Off-season
The purpose of the off-season is to get better. We need to be bigger, faster and stronger for next season. This is when we focus on our foundation. We need to establish a base on which our strength, power, speed and quickness will be built. This is the time when the aspects of the sport are not necessarily the main focus. I didn’t say they were not a focus but they don’t have to be the emphasis. The off-season is when we set our base and then work to improve that base. We need to consider the sport when we consider what kind of base to establish but after that we focus on the foundation movements. Foundation movements are your compound, multi-joint exercises which set a base level of strength for a sport. These exercises include but are not limited to Power Cleans, Snatches, Squats, Bench Press, Push Press and Rows. These will help to establish a strong powerful base structure that can handle they increase in Lean Body Mass while allowing the athlete to maintain speed, quickness and agility to retain a high level of sports performance. During the off-season the athlete does not have the same time constraints such as practice and games and is not as hampered by soreness and fatigue like during the in-season time period. Also different from the pre-season time period the athlete is not worried about improving ball handling, improving reactivity or worried about technique for coming out of cuts. The off-season is about power and strength improvements so that during the pre-season and in-season we have our foundation set and now we can make that foundation game ready. A stronger more powerful athlete is not necessarily a better athlete but instead a stronger more powerful athlete can become more explosive and move quicker while being strong enough to allow for powerful movements.

During the off-season is when we spend the majority of our time in the gym lifting weights and doing some form of resistance training. We have more time available and the need to train hard with weights since that is the foundation we are trying to establish. The general rule of thumb during the off-season is that we will be lifting weights 5-6 days a week with one day off to maximize our potential to improve our strength and power. Days off are needed for recovery but too many days off means someone is out there working harder than us and we simply can not allow someone to out work us.

Spend the time in the gym now to establish the base that will be the foundations of a game ready athlete come game time. Now is the time that sets us apart from other athletes. He who works the hardest during the off-season becomes the best during the season.

Anyone in the San Diego area is welcome to drop in at our studio at 2949 Garnet Ave. 3rd floor, Pacific Beach, CA. We would love to put you through our workout.

Please feel free to call or email Annalise Evans of TrueFitness with any questions: (760) 809 1848annalise@truefitness.biz and join her fan page on Facebook: TrueFitness Annalise Evans

Article written by Spencer Aiken, CSCS, CEO, TrueFitness