Off-Season Strength Training

By: Hunter Britt

Off season is a time to specialize in the areas that need the most attention. When it comes to lifting more weight, off-season is the perfect time to commit to your goals of setting some new PRs with the barbell. Strength is beneficial to train year round, but depending on your sport, it needs to be moderated based on what your needs are for in season performance. Strength training is unlike some other areas of fitness like conditioning, skills, or technique work where they can be trained effectively with lower impact on joints. Your strength program needs to be intelligently written to allow for recovery, but strength training does require high intensity and it does put extra stress on your joints. The freedom of off-season is that it allows for this kind of training and it allows for extra rest days to recover between sessions.

Crossfitters perform a lot of volume of all kinds of fitness so stacking up a full strength program in season can sometimes put volume over the top. Golfers need to avoid soreness so they can move freely and with precision. Football players take a beating during the season so there is not a huge desire to beat them up even more between games. In season for these sports is the time for strength maintenance or slow progress.

In-season is where you get to show off what you have been training in the off season. Off-season is when you put your head down and put in consistent work on the areas that are going to support your performance in your sport. As mentioned, this is the time that you allow yourself to push your training to the point of soreness (within reason) because volume and intensity can increase to replace the lack of time spent on your specific sport. However, this increase in volume and intensity is all for nothing without a plan.

Plan Your Off-Season Strength Training!

Here is how to do it:

Off-Season Schedule
1. Find out how many weeks are in your off-season
2. Vacations/Staycation

Commit to the days/weeks that you need a mental and physical break throughout the off season. If you need some time at the start of your off-season to relax then take that time. The off-season can be full of semi-repetitive days so go into it excited to train.

Goals – What do you want to accomplish?
1. Have short term goals for the off season and long term goals for years

Write your goals down. There is plenty of advice out there on how to set goals. Overall, setting measurable, realistic goals is a good motivation when you are putting in hard work.

Get on a program
1. Find a coach and/or program

Have conversations with your current or future coaches to make sure they understand your goals. If you are following a program, do some free trials. However, once you pick your program or your coach, stick with it! Try to avoid program hopping after too short of time because results take time. Ready to try out our online programming to reach your strength goals this off-season? Click here to join the Sea of Green!