How do you train the athelete witn no off season?

[CC dad]

I was thinking about the athletes at my local high school the other day and this came to my mind. It is a small school in which the football players are basically all the athletes in the school. After football season the team kind of splits up and half of them will wrestle while the other half will play basketball. Then in the spring Half will play baseball while the other half run track. So what method is best for training kids like this who don't really have an off season?

[Kevin T.]

I'd venture to say higher intensity with low volume strength work, tailoring it to the season. With the game play, they get reactive work, so not as much need to train that. In season I go 3 x 3 with the basic big lifts then some smaller accessory stuff for my shoulders. I'll anxious to see what the others with more experience and knowledge say.

[dos]

The best way? use an alternating linear-style periodization plan across the entire school (all teams), this way everybody is in the same exact mesocycle at the same time...for example, a kid then goes from football to basketball who is in the same exact cycle. You can't (and don't need to) have a continuous 'in-season' high load/low volume cycle for the whole season....

[CC dad]

alternating linear-style periodization

Can you explain this a little bit or give me a link to help out? My big concern would be about fatigue. What would you do? Maybe structure it so that their work loads were less late in there seasons whatever sport that they are in?

[dos]

we are talking about 35-40 min. of their 24 hours day....MAYBE 3 times per week. I would never worry about fatigue etc. with sound weight training sessions. In fact, our volleyball girls lift immediately before heading upstairs to warm up for their games (80-90% 1RM oly lifts).

The alternating linear style allows for adaptation to each phase yet still cycles back and forth from hypertrophy to strength /power phases. (every 2-3 weeks). If the whole school is doing the same thing, you will never have a problem with a kid coming over from another sport.

[CC dad]

The alternating linear style allows for adaptation to each phase yet still cycles back and forth from hypertrophy to strength /power phases. (every 2-3 weeks). If the whole school is doing the same thing, you will never have a problem with a kid coming over from another sport.

So are you saying that each phase should last a week or 2-3 weeks. What would worry me is landing in a higher volume phase late in a season (week 8-10 in a football season or near tournament time in wrestling) when their bodies are pretty worn out any way and recovery becomes harder. I guess though that proper scheduling could take care of this problem along with rest periods.

[gobbla]

it sounds like there isn't really going to be massive changes in overall intensity from each 3 week cycle. if they're getting burned out you're doing too much. drop a set or a day. unless it's something freaky they should bounce back pretty darn fast.

check out Dos's link to a sample setup here

[MAXX]

I've been wondering about this myself as I coach softball at a small high school where our best players are 3 sport athletes.

The basketball girls are just finishing their season and have been lifting in the 8-10 rep range. What kind of training should I have them do once I get them for softball? As a side note, they aren't doing any olympic or power lifts, meanwhile, my softball girls are currently doing squats, deadlifts, power shrugs, and jerk press in the 3-5 rep range. I want to be able to maximize the power of the basketball girls since they are our best players, but I don't want to overdue it with them since they are just getting out of basketball.

Also, dos, what type of periodization do you recommend in-season? Take a look at this program that I have used with baseball players in the past. Is it appropriate when switching to an in-season program to go to high reps, low intensity even though we've just completed a low-rep, high intensity portion of the pre-season program?

http://www.maxxtraining.com/2001-02Inseasoncard.htm

[ninja]

Originally Posted by gobbla

it sounds like there isn't really going to be massive changes in overall intensity from each 3 week cycle. if they're getting burned out you're doing too much. drop a set or a day. unless it's something freaky they should bounce back pretty darn fast.

check out Dos's link to a sample setup here

dos, I have a question using that sample setup.

assuming you did a full body a and b workouts (8 exercises total). During the hypertrophy sessions; I would assume that everything would go from 8-12 reps. For a strength cycle, would you lower the reps for all exercises? Or just the unilateral or bilateral?

[dos]

Originally Posted by MAXX

I've been wondering about this myself as I coach softball at a small high school where our best players are 3 sport athletes.

The basketball girls are just finishing their season and have been lifting in the 8-10 rep range. What kind of training should I have them do once I get them for softball? As a side note, they aren't doing any olympic or power lifts, meanwhile, my softball girls are currently doing squats, deadlifts, power shrugs, and jerk press in the 3-5 rep range. I want to be able to maximize the power of the basketball girls since they are our best players, but I don't want to overdue it with them since they are just getting out of basketball.

Also, dos, what type of periodization do you recommend in-season? Take a look at this program that I have used with baseball players in the past. Is it appropriate when switching to an in-season program to go to high reps, low intensity even though we've just completed a low-rep, high intensity portion of the pre-season program?

http://www.maxxtraining.com/2001-02Inseasoncard.htm

This is the first problem for multi-sport athletes....totally different training philosophies from coach to coach. To put the bball girls on 3-5 reps of exercises that they haven't done would probably be counter-productive. I would break them in slowly with a little lighter loads and gradually build them to the appropriate loads for the volumes.

As far as your sample workout i would stay away from doing more than 5 reps on Oly lifts. Everything else looks cool...be careful about the upper body push to pull ratio you have going....it's over 3 to 1 right now in push favor (7 sets to 2 per week..I don't count the shrugs as a pull exercise). Remember, girls need to do pull-ups and LOTS of em.

[dos]

Originally Posted by ninja

dos, I have a question using that sample setup.

assuming you did a full body a and b workouts (8 exercises total). During the hypertrophy sessions; I would assume that everything would go from 8-12 reps. For a strength cycle, would you lower the reps for all exercises? Or just the unilateral or bilateral?

All exercises will go into one of 3 categories, 1. olympic 2.core lifts. If we are in hgiher volume cycles then my oly lifts are probably 4 x 5 or 4 x 3 if using combos and the core lifts are going to be something like 3 x 8 or 3 x 10. in my strength cycles the oly lifts will be in the 4-5 x 1-3 reps range and the core lifts in the 3-4 x 2-6 rep range. With our athletes we never do more than 5 exercises in a session (not counting core/torso work). I thin kyou're asking if i would drop my reps all the way down to 2-3 reps on things like pull-ups, good mornings etc. right? Sometimes I will but normally i will keep them around 4-5 reps while things like squats and bench etc. can go as low as 2's.

[MAXX]

Originally Posted by dos

This is the first problem for multi-sport athletes....totally different training philosophies from coach to coach. To put the bball girls on 3-5 reps of exercises that they haven't done would probably be counter-productive. I would break them in slowly with a little lighter loads and gradually build them to the appropriate loads for the volumes.

As far as your sample workout i would stay away from doing more than 5 reps on Oly lifts. Everything else looks cool...be careful about the upper body push to pull ratio you have going....it's over 3 to 1 right now in push favor (7 sets to 2 per week..I don't count the shrugs as a pull exercise). Remember, girls need to do pull-ups and LOTS of em.

Thanks dos. I am not currently using that program with my girls--that was a program I used 5 years ago with college baseball players. I just use that now as a sample for people who are looking to create their own program. I use a lot more diversity in the programs that I use with my girls. I will definitely look at the push/pull ratio in that program--thanks for noting that. Do you try to balance the ratio just weekly, or both daily and weekly?

I just want to make sure I understand where you stand on this--if we are doing 3-5 reps the week before our first game, and then we take a week off from lifting during the first week of games, when we resume lifting, is it best to continue at 3-5 reps, or start over on a new cycle around 10 reps?

Finally, I have been having the girls do pull-ups, but not many of them can do even one full pull-up. I have been having them stand on a box and do 1/2 pull-ups, and rest between each rep. Then I have them finish by holding themselves up at the bar and lowering themselves slowly. Any other tips to improve their pull-up numbers?

Thanks for the input coach!

[Funk]

I agree with dos on everything.

[Funk]

Originally Posted by MAXX

I just want to make sure I understand where you stand on this--if we are doing 3-5 reps the week before our first game, and then we take a week off from lifting during the first week of games, when we resume lifting, is it best to continue at 3-5 reps, or start over on a new cycle around 10 reps?

Finally, I have been having the girls do pull-ups, but not many of them can do even one full pull-up. I have been having them stand on a box and do 1/2 pull-ups, and rest between each rep. Then I have them finish by holding themselves up at the bar and lowering themselves slowly. Any other tips to improve their pull-up numbers?

Thanks for the input coach!

Regarding the lifting, I wouldn't take the week off to avoid any associated soreness during the second/third weeks of the season. You can taper down, but I wouldn't stop altogether- I wouldn't even change from your set periodization. Now, if you take time off immediately following the end of the season, you would be starting a new cycle, generally in the 10 rep range, but it also depends on which exercises we are talking about- oly, compound, etc- because they all differ.

Most of our girls use bands for assistance on their pull-ups (and pull up variations) like these:

http://www.performbetter.com/detail....tegoryID_E_358

They may have better success with chin-ups and alt. grip pull-ups which helps with their motivation because they have a fighting chance at doing full pulls without any assistance. You an also use have them spot eachother at the lats/back, but then you have the issue of how much help they are getting from the spotter.

-Dustin

[MAXX]

Regarding the lifting, I wouldn't take the week off to avoid any associated soreness during the second/third weeks of the season. You can taper down, but I wouldn't stop altogether- I wouldn't even change from your set periodization.

Funk thanks for the feedback, but can you clarify for me? What would you do to taper?

And you say you wouldn't change from the set periodization--do you mean you wouldn't change from the previous cycle (ie-continue with high weight low reps for the in-season cycle), or do you mean you wouldn't change from the periodization that is prescribed for the beginning of the in-season cycle (ie-a week of low weight high reps)? Thanks!

[Funk]

Taper down the weight and focus on form/explosiveness the week or two (but two would be pushing it) leading into your most important times to perform. You'll get an increase in performance, but it's only for a limited time before strength goes down because you aren't lifting hard anymore. Don't go to ridiculously low weights, but you can do lighter workouts before an important competition. As far as not changing from your periodization, we do an alternating linear periodization. No matter if you do alternating linear, linear, or undlating- your periodization should peak when you want peak performance. Some people like this to be during qualifying stages or playoffs, but in cases where you have a long season, you may want to stick to an undulating periodization or alternating linear. The type of periodization you use will determine your setxrep ranges. As far as the breaks in training, the only breaks the athletes get from lifting are between semesters, spring break, and immediately post-season, unless they jump right in with another team. One-sport athletes also get the session immediately following the season off, save for football.

[MAXX]

Thanks Funk, that all makes sense and answers my questions.