A few more in-season essentials
Round 1 is in the bank, and following on from our introductory article looking at in-season training last week, we are going to look over a few more key concepts to look to implement to your in-season approach to training – particularly your own extra training (strength sessions generally) that you are in control of.
Be flexible
Being flexible in your programming or implementation of your sessions is important at any stage of the year – even during the pre-season. It is all well and good to have a specific/detailed template that you have as your plan – where you are going to be ‘squatting for 5 at 80kg, 5 at 95kg, 5 at 110’ or any infinite potential set/rep/weight/tempo scheme, but the reality for us is that the body is not a machine. The body will not always respond in a uniform way, and will not always be as prepared as it is ‘on paper’ when the programming layout is done. Fatigue accumulates, eventually beginning to impact performance. This is less of an issue over the pre-season, as accumulating residual fatigue whilst continuing to train, isn’t necessarily a problem (generally speaking) particularly if you are an experienced trainer, who requires this accumulation to stimulate improvement.
“The intent of the maintenance phase is to stabilize performance, not create fatigue.”
Tudor Bompa
Periodization for Sports
However, once games begin, and obviously become the priority, we are looking to minimise the accumulation of fatigue. So if you have a reasonably intense strength session planned (say in terms of weight not volume), however early in the session it is quite clear that you aren’t in the peak physical condition that you were in your head when the plan was set, rather than ‘pushing through and getting it done’, you will be better served by backing off and modifying the original plan. Because by forcing through the session with the original plan, you will only be adding more fatigue and further putting off your recovery (making being properly recovered and ready for the next game even less likely.) This doesn’t mean pack up and head straight home – but rather a reduction in the intensity or the volume of the session (depending on what the plan was.) You are still better off performing the movements than doing nothing.
Christian Thibedau discusses this point in his short video here. Yes it is talked about more from a bodybuilding point of view, but the concepts discussed by this world-leading coach here still apply.
De-loading
Deloading ties in closely with the last point – as ensuring that you have planned ‘de-load’ weeks aims at reducing the fatigue you will accumulate, and hopefully minimising the number of planned sessions you have to back off. We have already covered de-load weeks elsewhere, so we will only cover a couple quick points as they relate here. De-load weeks basically are planned weeks of reductions in either volume or intensity – or both – of the work you are performing.
As we have covered, de-load weeks should be programmed at any stage of the year – including pre-season, however, they become even more important in-season, to not only reduce the fatigue accumulation effect, but also stimulate continual improvement (or super-compensation), because improvement (in terms of the physiological improvement itself) doesn’t actually occur during training, but rather during the recovery time in between.
De-load weeks are generally programmed every 3rd or 4th week. In other words: 2 weeks on/1 week off, or 3 weeks on/1 week off. For most players 3 on/1 off is ideal, however for some players (particularly more advanced trainers who are at the upper level with the type of strength work they are doing) 2 on/1 off is preferable. But it is up to you to experiment with this to find what works best for you.
Keep things simple
A common mistake in many programs is trying to do too many different things at the same time and ‘not leave anything out’ and as a result doing too much to see any real genuine improvement in anything. It is an understandable mistake to make – and not necessarily a bad quality as it shows commitment to want to do as much as possible to achieve a desired outcome. But it is unnecessary. A good program need not be a complex program – and this is especially the case in-season.
Keep it simple – simplicity is key – during the season use a handful of exercises to best maintain the physical levels attained during the pre-season. As always, you should be aiming for maximum bang for your buck, with minimum time or thought. This will mean sticking to a handful of compound exercises (squat, deadlift, pull up, pressing, rotation, etc) as well as adding in specifics that apply to you (be that rehab work, shoulder stability, core work, etc.)
A players in-season program should always look quite basic – in fact you should look at it and think that it looks like nothing special at all. It will involve pretty basic compound exercises, fairly simple sets and reps schemes (and almost a relative ‘cut and paste standard program’ that we have been so critical of at times.) However, of course what is most important here is the context. In other words, the in-season program must always be considered and planned in context with the pre-season performed. So for example an in-season program of ‘squats and deadlifts’ doesn’t mean much on its own – it must be put in context with what you performed with such exercises or similar movements over the pre-season, as well as combined with what your personal priorities and goals are.
So for example, taking a look at the screenshots taken from Functional Strength Training for Australian Rules Football, you will see how basic the exercises listed, and basic sets and reps are for the in-season portion of the ‘intro programming’ section. And this is absolutely the intention, as the aim is the minimal effective dose for the maximum benefit. Once again, of course this layout itself means nothing without the context and performance of the pre-season. It is hard to understand context simply by looking at something on paper or putting something on paper – and this is probably why many players try to do too many different things – as it never looks fancy enough on paper. However, reality – and especially reality during a footy season – looks quite different.
Variation in stimulus
You would have noticed that in the screenshots above, despite the fairly basic looking layout, there was still some variation in the in-season program layout. As we have discussed at various stages elsewhere, variation is vital to not only continue to stimulate improvement, but also to keep motivation higher and boredom/mental stagnation to a minimum. This last point about mental stagnation isn’t to be taken lightly – as the footy season is a long slog – particularly if you are playing in a side that is having a lean year. If you are adding a monotonous training program with no variation to this equation, you will only increase the likelihood of dropping off the strength sessions completely – which as we covered last time, will set you backwards from both a performance point of view, but also an increased likelihood of injury/niggles developing.
You may be thinking, ‘but hang on, didn’t we just say that it was best to keep it simple and not do too many different things?’ Yes we did – and this may initially appear conflicting, but its not. You are best served by sticking to a simple battery of key exercises in season. However, the variation in stimulus doesn’t mean changing a whole heap of exercises regularly. Rather it simply means changing the exercise variables (sets and reps usually) and the focus of those sets and reps. Most simply put, you can change the stimulus by switching between periods of volume and periods of strength (or what Charles Poliquin refers to as accumulation and intensification.) This means performing a training block (normally 4 weeks – including the de-load week) where you place more of a focus on volume and less on weight/intensity, alternated with a block where the focus is more on weight/intensity with less reps and more weight lifted or strength. This is a clear and simple illustration of the concept of ‘same but different.’
Referring to the screenshots from Functional Strength Training for Australian Rules Football you will also notice that certain exercises (not all of them) are alternated from week to week. This is merely to hit different portions and directions and also to give a different stimulus with certain ‘assistance’ exercises, as well as limit repetitiveness. This adjustment is also an extra option when it comes to changing the stimulus slightly – and more of a necessity for the more experienced trainers. And as Christian Thibedau discusses here, no particular exercise is sacred, but certain movements and movement qualities are. This is a potentially detailed discussion for another day, but it was worth a quick mention here.
Address what you aren’t doing at club/team training
This might seem obvious, but it is a point that often gets lost on players. The idea of doing your own training external to team training is to focus on areas or tasks or qualities that you don’t work on at club/team training. For example over the pre-season this also has relevance to the types of running based work you would be adding in outside of club training – such as having speed or agility focused sessions if club sessions all seem to be longer efforts, or drills aimed at ‘fitness’ – and this is something that we cover in detail in Agility Speed & Conditioning for Aussie Rules. But of course here we are mostly talking about strength and power work (as very few players are performing extra running sessions during the season unless they are injured and not playing.)
Very few local and junior clubs and teams have club-based strength sessions, and so the strength sessions you perform in your own time are an example of this. But even more specifically than this, the aim within these sessions should also be to look to focus or have a bias towards areas that are undertrained or neglected by the basic movements and patterns of club games as well as matches. The broadest simplification in this instance would be to say place a greater emphasis on the posterior chain. The posterior chain (the back half of the body) goes neglected at the best of times, with the mirror focus on chest and biceps and abs, and any occasional leg work being largely quadriceps focused – as once again – you can see them flexing in the mirror. But even in general movements in football and training, there will always be a bias towards the anterior chain – be it body-on-body contests, basic running patterns, or even the fact that push ups are usually the most common strength exercise thrown into club sessions.
Exercises targeting the posterior chain such as single-leg deadlifts and inverted row variations are important to counteract the already anterior-dominated bias that comes from football itself.
So to be clear, placing more emphasis on what you don’t get in matches or in training would mean more work for shoulder retractors (the pulling movement in direct opposite to the bench press movement), lower back, as well as the glutes and hamstrings. This doesn’t mean train these exclusively, but certainly have a slight bias towards them, and certainly don’t neglect them for the more glamorous anterior movements and areas, as this will only add to the imbalance that develops naturally with football/sport specific movements.
Stay tuned as we will begin to delve a little deeper into and get more specific with the sets and reps options in-season, as well as the programming and weekly layout options, depending on what works best for you.
We will also now begin to go over various ‘non-training areas’ – largely recovery related – in particular with the dietary and supplementary recovery.
If you would like more detailed and personalised direction, checkout our personalised online programming, or if you would prefer even more personalised and detailed in-person coaching (for those lucky enough to live in the beautiful city of Adelaide), check out our Athletic Development Coaching and Junior Athletic Development Coaching.
Until next time.
Strength Coach
