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Strength Report: In-Season Training Considerations

by: Ted Rath
Strength and Conditioning Coach Detroit Lions
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One of the most common questions that a strength and conditioning coach will be asked is “what is your program”? The answer to this question could be extremely complex if you were to take all of the components of a coach’s program – volume, rest, time, conditioning protocols, speed work, agility drills, quickness training, reps, sets, progressions, strength development, power development, periodization models, etc. As you can see, this would be a long article! Instead, the short version of a more detailed and complex answer is simply “our program IS our in-season program”.

A football season will test even the most well prepared athletes. The list of physical ailments that will arise is seemingly endless. With this portion of the year being absolutely critical, you must design a training program that will allow your athletes to be as strong as possible and resistant to injury. The goal must remain to make strength gains. With this in mind, what do you do when an athlete is injured?

With the hand being one of the most common injuries, do you have a program for athletes who cannot grip a barbell or dumbbell? A “no-hand” routine will address this problem and allow those athletes to continue to train and protect themselves against further injury to other parts of their anatomy. If you lack the appropriate equipment, I urge you to learn how to properly apply manual resistance to your injured athletes. A “no-foot” routine can also be easily designed for athletes who suffer an injury to their foot or lower leg. A no-hand routine can be performed with any combination of exercises, the most common being the chest fly, pullover, lateral raise, front raise, posterior deltoid raise, shrug, incline chest fly, external rotation, internal rotation, bicep curl, and tricep extension. Each one of the movements can be done using manual resistance, free-weights, or machines. An injury to the hand will most likely eliminate the athlete’s ability to perform most of these movements with free-weights. A no-foot routine would commonly include these movements – adduction (groin), abduction (outer hip), hip flexion, leg extension, leg curl, hip extension, internal rotation of the hip, and external rotation of the hip. These movements can be performed using manual resistance or machines as well.

There will always be physical issues that arise throughout the season. Your creativity and proper planning can help to counteract these issues when they happen. I recommend having a plan for your most commonly seen injuries, such as a no-hand or no-foot routine that can be a great tool when one of your athletes can’t follow a traditional strength training workout. We have also developed upper body conditioning routines that will allow an athlete who is unable to run or bike to train the cardiovascular system. We have used a variety of equipment for our upper body conditioning routines including battling ropes, heavy bags, speed bags, upper body Ergometer, and various rope training devices. We are fortunate to have a great variety of equipment to choose from. However, if equipment options are minimal, use your creativity. Having a plan for these situations not only helps the athlete maintain a desired level of conditioning but it will also benefit the athlete psychologically if he is struggling to cope with being absent from practice and games.

Hopefully, all of your athletes will remain healthy enough to progress through a traditional strength program without too many alterations. With our “healthy” athletes, our core lifts will remain the same during our in-season training. We will place a heavy emphasis on multi-joint movements and attempt to make improvements and gains in every lift. One alteration that is necessary during the season will be the reduction of our overall volume each day in the weight room. When we are practicing and playing games on a weekly basis we must plan appropriately for the amount of work that our players are asked to perform. This is to accommodate the smaller time frames that we have for training and also to reduce the possibility of overtraining, which can be detrimental to an athlete’s performance.

While a typical off-season training session can consist of between 16-20 work sets, a standard in-season training session will consist of as little as 8-12. Player feedback and assessment becomes critical during the season. We routinely speak with the team leaders and veteran players to discuss how they feel physically. Tracking your players’ numbers and progress in the weight room also becomes a great tool to diagnose overtraining. We maintain an overall plan that we work within during the season. However, we will frequently alter our training sessions as needed to be sure we are accommodating for the recovery of our players.

During our in-season training we will reduce and eliminate certain plyometric exercises that were used during the off-season. This is to lessen the overall stress that we place on our athletes’ joints due to the demands of practice and games. One specific region where this is of high concern is the knee joint. We pay close attention to the surrounding musculature of the knee in order to help reduce the severity of knee discomfort for our players. Strengthening the quadriceps and hip musculature while also increasing ankle flexibility will be beneficial in reducing the occurrence of knee pain throughout the season.

While our core lifts are all multi-joint movements which work the greatest amount of musculature possible, we must also address several other key areas of the body that protect our players and contribute to playing football at a high level. Some of the areas that we isolate are the neck, hip, shoulder, groin, hamstring, and forearm. We will specifically prioritize the development of the musculature surrounding the head and neck throughout the entire training year; however, during the season this development becomes exponentially more important because of the physical nature of the sport. We place an emphasis on training the neck, traps, and upper back to create a stronger athlete who is more capable of displacing the force of contact from an opponent.

WORKOUT SCHEDULE

Our normal weekly schedule allows for our players to have three training days. Monday is our most important day of work in the weight room. This is the day when we will work the lower body the hardest and implement a number of recovery and regeneration practices. Monday is the best day to alleviate soreness that has accumulated from the game. This also allows our players approximately 48 hours to recover before our next practice which will be Wednesday. Monday’s training will begin with the player choosing a “joint friendly” piece of cardiovascular equipment such as an elliptical or upright bike. They will spend at least ten minutes warming up. Following this general warm up, we will perform hurdle work which helps to increase hip mobility and also allows our players to perform movement patterns that will begin to allow the game soreness to subside. Our inactive players along with our practice squad will complete one additional conditioning workout on Monday as well.

Our players then have the option to train either Tuesday or Wednesday. This training session will consist of our core upper body lifts. If a player chooses to train on Wednesday, they have the option to train in the morning before meetings and practice or immediately following practice. Our players enjoy having the option of training in the morning or afternoon and feel that it allows them to prepare physically around what is personally best for them. Thursday is our last mandatory training day and it will include auxiliary / functional work for the lower body and specific work for the shoulder capsule. Once again, like Wednesday, we allow the player to choose his training time for the day whether it is in the morning or after practice in the afternoon. Finally, Saturday is a non-training day for the active roster; however, our eight player practice squad will participate in a metabolic circuit which combines traditional strength training movements with metabolically demanding work such as tire flips and bike sprints.  The circuit is timed and the players will complete two rounds.

RECOVERY AND REGENERATION

We will employ a number of strategies during the season that will assist our players in recovering from the extreme trauma that comes from football. Each day throughout the week we encourage the use of self-myofascial release and stretching techniques to expedite the recovery process for our players. There are countless techniques that are worth mentioning and an entire article could be dedicated to such but I will cover this in a very broad manner.

Once again, Monday is the day that I would consider the most important when speaking on recovery and regeneration techniques. This is the day that we will use various foam rollers and trigger point tools the most.  I also recommend our players receive massage services at least once a week. We incorporate various stretching techniques with our players depending on their individual needs. We also use hot and cold contrast therapy with our pools in order to assist in the recovery process. With all of the equipment and techniques available, the most sound and easily found recovery practices remain quality sleep and nutritional habits. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Keep your in-season exercise programing simple and progressive. Be sure to include exercises that your athletes can perform with biomechanical efficiency. Track your athletes’ weight room progress to ensure that progressive overload is involved and that overtraining is not taking place. The goal is to gain strength. Include isolation exercises for areas of the body that are most susceptible to injury. The neck, shoulders, hips, groin, and hands are just a few of the areas where injuries may occur. Always have a plan which allows injured athletes to continue training. Find the balance between doing enough and doing too much. Overtraining can be detrimental to performance.

About the Author:  Ted Rath is now in his fourth season as a strength and conditioning coach for the Detroit Lions. He previously was the assistant strength and conditioning coach at his alma mater, the University of Toledo. Rath was a linebacker for the Rockets from 2003-2006.






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