You’ve just spent the last four to six months training hard and pushing your body to new limits. You have gotten bigger, stronger and faster with hopes that your new capabilities will help you perform at a higher level in the upcoming season.

So then why do so many athletes (and coaches) stop strength training once their season begins?

Is it a fear of being tired or sore from a workout? Or is it a fear that it will cut into practice time? The former is a common excuse an athlete might use to avoid training during the season, while the latter’s a common reason a coach may provide for why their team doesn’t do in-season training.

But no matter the reason, the fact is this—strength training is often the most neglected aspect of physical preparation once the season begins. Between practice, film and games, the weight room often gets left out of the equation. Although it might seem like no big deal, an extended layoff from strength training can torpedo an athlete’s overall performance.

Why You Need In-Season Strength Training

Maintain Performance

Skipping out on the weight room for the entirety of the season can have significant detrimental effects on an athlete’s strength levels. The stronger an athlete is, the more force they can produce. The more force they can produce, the faster they’ll run, the higher they’ll jump and the harder they’ll hit.

An athlete or team wants to be playing and feeling their best when it matters the most. Regardless of what sport you play, the most important games are going to be played at the end of your season. No one wants to be at their strongest during the first game of the season only to see their strength and speed shrivel away just as the calendar turns to those crucial late-season and postseason games. That’s exactly what you’re setting yourself up for if you don’t perform any in-season strength training. A loss of training-induced body adaptations in response to a lack of training stimulus is known as « detraining. » For all but the elite of the elite, avoiding the weight room for a few weeks will be enough to kickstart your detraining and drain your gains, learn how to properly use proven weight loss supplements.

Consider this: in the week leading up to Super Bowl LI, the New England Patriots  were squatting 80% of their max. They were 20-plus weeks into the season by that point, but they knew how important their weight room work was to their continued success. For what it’s worth, the Patriots went on to win that game after overcoming a 25-point deficit.

Durability

The two most important qualities any athlete can have are availability and durability. Are you available to play? And are you durable enough to withstand the stressors of actually playing?

A strong athlete is a durable athlete. By maintaining, and in some cases increasing, one’s strength over the course of a season, an athlete is able to withstand the demands of their sport to a higher degree. From personal experience as an athletic trainer, I have seen athletes begin to break down at the end of the season, limiting their availability and their performance, take a look to the latest Biotox gold reviews.

Don’t Lose Those Gains

You’ve worked hard all offseason to get stronger and more powerful, so why stop training just to have to start back all over again next offseason?

If you halt your strength training once the season starts, you’ll slowly regress back to where you were at the beginning of the offseason. Then what was the point of the offseason to begin with? If you’re constantly taking one step forward and two steps back in the weight room, you’ll never come remotely close to realizing your full athletic potential.

For long-term development of your physical abilities, strength training while in season is incredibly important. Every player wants to get better from year to year, but if you allow all your gains to disappear every time you’re in-season, that’s going to be extremely difficult.

How You Should Strength Train In-Season

Now you know why you should strength train during your sport season. But how do you go about actually doing it?