Tips for In-Season Training

How to continue to build strength, speed, and power during your competitive season

All serious athletes are going to train hard in the off-season. Whether it’s a football player training speed in the Spring or a softball player building strength in the Fall, everyone who’s chasing high-level performance is doing something to get better off the field.

However, for various reasons, once the competitive season starts many athletes think they can no longer pursue that growth due to the demands of the sport. This isn’t true. Especially for young athletes.

If you aren’t training for strength, power, and speed in-season, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to grow as an athlete.

Take a freshman baseball player for example: In 2024, the UIL’s competitive baseball season begins on January 19th and regular season games will be played until April 25th. That is a 14-week season. 14 weeks over a 4-year high school career is 56 total weeks. That’s more than a year’s worth of opportunities that you’ll either take advantage of or miss out on. If you include postseason runs, you’re talking even more!

So if you want to use this time to gain an edge, what are some things to consider?

Think Small Doses

Coaches and athletes have a finite amount of time during the season and sometimes it feels like there isn’t enough time to get to the weight room consistently. Maybe you can’t carve out one hour, three days a week, but a couple 20 to 30-minute lifts, twice a week works just fine.

That doesn’t seem like much, but the math doesn’t lie. Just two, 20-minute sessions a week during the season equates to a little over 37 hours in the weight room during that same HS baseball player’s career.

You’ll also want to think small doses when it comes to what you do when you get in the weight room because not only might you have limited time, but a ton of training volume (total amount of sets/reps/etc.) isn’t what you’re looking for in-season. Athletes often think lighter loads with higher reps during the season, but don’t. Think of higher loads and lower reps.

Now you’ll have to be very selective about what you can fit into that small window, but my colleague Jeremiah Chapman wrote about that here and we’ll touch on it a little more below!

Be Consistent

Many athletes avoid the weight room during the season because they don’t want to be sore. That’s a valid concern. However, you can avoid that soreness and the feeling of being banged up by staying consistent.

If there are large gaps in your training, you’re going to be sore when you jump back in. If you are changing up exercises every week or every day, you’re going to get sore. But, if you stay consistent in your training and your exercise selection, you’ll be surprised at how good you feel on the field or court.

Fill Other Cups

Athletes have a limited capacity and if you think about them like cups, there’s only so much you can pour in until the cup overflows. At best, you’d be wasting your time and at worst you’d be doing more damage than good. So think about what they are already getting from their sport and fill other cups.

A volleyball player probably doesn’t need any more exposure to jumping and landing than she’s already getting during the season. Our baseball player probably doesn’t need to rotate a ton in the weight room at that point either. There’s no need to get too scientific about it. Just look at what cups are being filled consistently in practice or games and fill some other ones.

One thing that I believe you’ll also want to consider is training maximum velocity. If an athlete isn’t consistently being exposed to max-velocity sprinting during practice or games, it’s likely a good idea to try to work that into your training. Again, think of small doses, but it’s worth consideration.

If you’re serious about growing and developing into the best athlete possible, you need to be training strength throughout the year. The competitive season isn’t just a time for high school athletes to “maintain.”

There’s no reason you can’t continue to get stronger, more powerful, AND faster by just thinking about small doses, being consistent, and filling those cups that your sport isn’t touching.