“Spring Training…Time to Prioritize”
It seems as though more and more youth and high school athletes are specializing in one sport, choosing to train year round as opposed to participating in multiple athletic endeavors. While this does allow one to focus all time and efforts, it poses concern regarding repetitive bout syndrome and creating movement impairments and kinetic chain dysfunction. To help alleviate some of these issues, proper program design including a de-loading phase post competitive season, should be implemented, however this is for another post.
Today I would like to go over a few key points to keep in mind when preparing for your upcoming season. Many athletes, especially at the high school level, don’t have access to a structured and monitored strength and conditioning program. Even more alarming is while there may be a coach in the weight room during open hours, a large percentage of high school athletic programs don’t have an Athletic Trainer readily available except for the actual day of competition.
To assist in maximizing peak performance and minimizing, not preventing, the environment conducive for injury, it’s key to take a step back and utilize a more open view approach to training as it leads up to pre-season and in-season. As the pre-season approaches, keep in mind that practices and training sessions involving sport specific movements will begin. As the frequency and intensity of these training sessions increase, it is important to proportionately decrease the frequency and intensity of your personal training programs.
An example can be seen in pre-season baseball workouts. After the your schools tryout period has ended and team workouts begin, you will “get back in the swing of things” with base running drills and long distance running like poles and perimeter runs (although not the most preferred for baseball competition) Regularly scheduled cage and throwing sessions will also take up time during the training week. With the increase in rotational demands, both acceleration and deceleration, and throwing, strength training programs must be reduced.
Medicine ball and plyometrics training techniques have become very popular and are valuable tools in any conditioning program, when prescribed correctly. With the increased demands from running and agility drills (lateral shuffles for infielders and drop step tracking drills for outfielders where demands on multiplanar, dynamic stability and hip mobility to name a few become very important) keep a keen eye on the amount of ground contact drills like box jumps and broad jumps within your own training program.
In my opinion, the main focus for anything sport oriented Strength and Conditioning program should be to bring the body to a balanced, stable condition, followed by improving on power and strength (which is dependant on sport and more specifically position and the individual needs), then to prepare the body for a transition into the competition season and finally peaking in athletic performance while maintaining 80% of the gains made during the offseason.
For an athlete of any level to attempt constant frequency, volume, and load of training in-season equivalent to that of the off-season will not only hinder the chances for prolonged, peak performance (as any athletic season will inevitably bring about fatigue no matter how conditioned) but will also put that athlete in an environment susceptible to overuse and non-contact related injuries, that may have other wise been avoided or more easily rectified.
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