Post-Season Training Part I

Developing a particular aspect of your year round programming is similar to a recipe for a dish. You have many different ingredients that you combine in different ratios and proportions. Many of the ingredients will be used year round but in different amounts. The training periods of the year include the post-season, early off-season, late off-season, pre-season, and in-season portions.

I believe the post-season is an extremely important time to build the foundation for the rest of the off-season.  This is a crucial step in the complete off-season program that may often get overlooked.  I want to cover the goals of our post-season training in the next couple posts to give some insight into how our program is constructed. The post-season is the time directly after the season has completed. 

We typically give 1-2 weeks off from all sport related activities and then will go through a week of testing before beginning training.  Post-season training will typically last 3-6 weeks in length depending upon how long the season was, the training age of the group and injuries that occurred during the season. The goals of the post-season are the following:

1. Restore Range of Motion that was lost during the season.
2. Build Work Capacity for the off-season so higher volumes of training can be handled
3. Reinforce technique in the major primary lifts
4. Re-hab any injuries
5. Build connective tissue strength through higher eccentrics, isometrics and longer duration movements
6. Teach proper position of movement skills
7. Establish mentality of the team for following season
8. Establish individual goals for physical improvement
9. Build a flexibility reserve
10. Teach movements/exercises that will be performed during the off-season.

I want to make sure that these areas of training are covered first and foremost before we begin to work on developing max strength, speed, power and specific conditioning.  A good recipe must always start with laying the ingredients out first.  I'll cover each of these in the next couple posts, so please stay tuned.