Sustaining Strength and Speed Through Fall Sports

Can you afford to let your performance drop just when it matters the most? As the fall sports season kicks into high gear, we dissect the critical importance of maintaining a structured in-season training regimen. Learn how dedicating even one to two sessions a week can not only help athletes sustain their hard-earned off-season gains but also enhance their performance, ensuring they're at their peak for district and championship play. We'll reveal why solely focusing on practice and games can lead to performance regression and the onset of soft tissue and overuse injuries.

Join us to discover personalized strategies tailored to each athlete’s physical and mental state, helping them stay balanced, confident, and injury-free. We discuss the significance of addressing the repetitive demands of specific sports, working on weaker sides to prevent imbalances, and the benefits of an all-around training approach. From reducing injury risks to preventing significant drops in speed, power, and strength, this episode is packed with insights to help athletes stay ahead of the competition and shine when it counts the most. Tune in, and let's keep those performance metrics soaring!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:28

Good morning. It is early filming session today. We are in here at 7 am. We're going to talk about the benefits of in-season training on today's episode. We are currently, at the moment of this recording, transitioning into fall sports.

Speaker 1: 0:43

So fall sports tend to be one of the busiest seasons in terms of athletics A lot of practices, a lot of sports going on, club sports going on, and I just wanted to give some insight into the benefits of in-season training because sometimes those are overlooked and a lot of times athletes kind of get in this cycle of practice, practice, practice, games, games, games, and there's not a lot of effort being put into that holistic development, maintaining the skills they got during the offseason and staying healthy through the entire season and be able to perform at the end of the year rather than the beginning of the year. So number one would be that maintain and even improve performance throughout the season. A lot of times we see athletes put a ton of work in the off season. They get stronger, they get faster, they have made a lot of progress, and then they get in season and they decide that it's a little bit too much and they cut off training and trade off for more sport, more practice, whatnot. So what you'll typically see is athletes that decide to stop. There's a little bit of a regression actually throughout the season and when we see athletes come back after their sport, they've actually dropped off quite a bit on their performance markers. Their speed has gone down, their strength has gone down. They're usually in a little bit of pain, have some soft tissue injuries, overuse injuries, things like that. So, needless to say, most of these athletes are, as they get through deeper into the season, they're actually their performance is dropping off a little bit, and then you can see this as a whole team as well, and that's where we find even one to two times training in season can not only maintain those metrics. So when we get back into you know off season training, uh, they're either starting, you know, really close to where they're at, or even a little bit better, so we can build to that next tier. Um, and that's that's one of the huge benefits of training in season is is don't regress and you're performing well at the end of the season, you're staying healthy, your metrics are up and, uh, you know you're going to be able to typically outperform athletes that aren't training because as they go through the season they're coming down, down, down, as you're in season, you're maintaining and even getting a little bit better and uh, this is again when it really matters is the end of the season, right, as we get into district play, as we get into championship play, those are really where everything counts, kind of touched on a little bit.

Speaker 1: 3:19

Second would be reducing odds of soft tissue injury and overuse injuries. So giving athletes the ability to keep up their movement patterns, work through different movement patterns in sports. Sport can be somewhat repetitive in the demands and tasks of the athlete and it's important that we keep an all-around approach to keeping the athlete healthy and using the body. Whether that's baseball, where you're rotating a lot to one side, being able to get some work in on the opposite side, keep everything balanced, keep the side that is working a lot healthy. There's quite a few sports that are just focused on one side. Another example is typically when we get soccer players in here, they tend to have one leg that's a lot stronger than the other their plant leg versus their kick leg and the patterning on them actually is quite different. That's why you see a lot of knee.

Speaker 1: 4:16

Getting athletes into a wholesome program. They're doing in-season training. Obviously we take into account. You know, when an athlete walks in here in-season, we're having conversations at the beginning of each session and changing and modifying based on what the athlete needs that day, where they're at mentally, where they're at physically, are they in pain, are they tired, and making sure we're just matching the athlete where they're at and giving them what they need for that day to make that a little bit of progress, even if some days it's mostly just mental progress, feeling better, feeling confident, having trust in their body and know that they're kind of working towards getting out of whatever pain or issues that they're having.

Speaker 1: 4:58

And then the last one is avoiding large drops in speed and in power strength. You know there's different concepts when it comes to, or different kind of principles that we follow in the strength and conditioning world when it comes to how long physical qualities last as well as fitness, as before you start to detrain or kind of fall off on your metrics, and this can be eye-opening to some people. So now let's start with aerobic endurance or capacity. Typically, you know, if you don't touch those qualities, depending on the individual, it takes one and a half to four weeks for that to start to fall off. So you know, if you're not doing something for a week, two weeks, you're not really going to see a huge fall off in performance. Max strength three to four weeks. Again, those are pretty large timeframes, right? So if you didn't touch, you know, weight for three to four weeks, typically what they find is the human body is going to maintain that strength for that amount of time and it's not going to fall off quickly.

Speaker 1: 6:01

Now, as we get into max speed and power, I kind of lump speed and power into the same category in this context. Five days three to five days in terms of fall-offs for that, so almost weekly. So if you're not touching an actual max speed, which you don't a lot in sports, which could be a whole nother podcast, podcast episode from gps data research, uh, that we that we have gone through and combed through now athletes aren't typically in sport hitting max speed other than like track and build. So, uh, three to five days, you're having to fall off in performance there, your ability to create power quickly, your ability to sprint fast, change direction fast, move that falls off quick. So that's something that we do touch on in season once a week as we make sure to get athletes running as fast as they can and, uh, you know, counter to what you may think initially, it keeps the athlete healthier, keeps soft tissue prepped for when they have to call upon that in game, and we've got really great results with that, even though some would say like, oh, they have to sprint as fast as they can, that's going to affect their performance. Again, we have just found over the last 10 years it's not true. It's actually going to improve performance, allow them to maintain capacities that they have the ones that fall off the quickest and is a huge benefactor for the athlete in improving and staying healthy throughout the season as well as performing their best at the end of the year.

Speaker 1: 7:41

Um, so, in-season training it's a must. Uh, athletes, you need to do it if you're going to plan on playing at collegiate level. You are going to train in the season, so those habits need to be in place. But, overall, as an athlete, uh, taking that time off can seem harmless, you know, in the moment, but, like I said, we typically find quite a bit of fall off. If you want to be your best, not recommended to stop training in season. Obviously, loads need to be appropriate. People can really mess this up. Coaches can mess this up, you know doing too much, but finding a professional that can help you put those together, put a training program, wholesome training program together that's going to help you, you know, improve over time as well as stay healthy. That is a must for those athletes that are trying to make it to the next level. So, appreciate you guys time.

Speaker 1: 8:34

If this sparked an interest or you have any questions, please send them over. I would be happy to walk through more concepts about this and answer specific questions. Make sure to follow the instagram, hans athletics and if you are in the southeast idaho area, make sure to schedule your free intro appointment. You're going to get a lot of good, free information at this. We're going to do a video analysis of your movement, teach you how to run a little bit, and it'll be, overall, just be a positive experience for the athlete. And then, if you want to, if you're remote and you're like man, I would really like to work with you guys. We do have options remotely for athletes and teams to engage with us. We do team training. We do individual athlete training remotely and on site. So again, thanks for your time, guys. Have a great day.