Training Camp Keys to Maintaining Strength

Training camp is right around the corner, and that means the accumulation of all the offseason work you or your athletes have put in over the past 7 months will finally pay its dividends on the field. The work that you put in to building your strength in the offseason shouldn’t stop now that the pads are back on, and all that strength you built can wither away in a matter of weeks without proper maintenance. So, we’re going to give you 3 keys to implement into your in-season training to ensure you maintain your current level of strength and power throughout training camp and the rest of the season.

Don’t Try To Do Too Much

While this key might seem counterintuitive, You have to keep in perspective training camp exposes both the body and mind to much more stress than it was exposed to during summer workouts. With the physical stress of practice and the mental stress of meetings, going gun-ho into every workout and spending multiple hours in the weight room can do much more harm than good. High volume workouts should not be a priority during the season. Keeping the intensity moderate to high with the reps and number of sets relatively low is the best bang for your buck when it comes to maintaining strength.

Prioritize Compound Movements

After covering the topic above, we now need to understand how to make the most out of our workouts without breaking the body down. One of the best ways to get the most out of your training in the least amount of movements is by centering your training around compound movements. Variations of squats, deadlifts, upper body presses and upper body pulls are all great compound movements that recruit more muscle fibers and yield a greater hormonal response than their single joint isolation counterparts. Building your workouts around compound movements will help lower the training volume of your lifts so you can get in what you need without dragging on through long workouts.

Sled Work For Accessory Movements

A great way to include accessory work during the season is to take out the eccentric portion of the movements with sled work. Using sleds can help build resilience in muscle groups that play key roles in injury prevention such as the shoulders and VMOs. Using sleds for these movements is a great idea because there is still a strong CNS demand, but the lack of eccentric force applied on the muscles avoids excess breakdown of muscle fibers. Adding one or two sled movements at the end of a workout is a great way to ensure your body stays strong and healthy during training camp.