The Myth of In-Season “Maintenance”

Hopkins Field Lacrosse

-March 13th, 2012-

It’s widely known that Off-Season training is when you can make the most gains.

You can dedicate all your time and energy into training to improve for the coming season. You don’t have practices or games that interfere with your training schedule.

All lacrosse players at the highest levels spend countless hours improving their strength, power, speed, and stick skills in the Off-Season so that they are a much better player when the new season starts.

Once the season starts they then try to get in a workout or 2 during the week so that they can “maintain” all the gains they made during the Off-Season.

And some stop training altogether, which defies all logic in my eyes.

Why would you want to be at your best for the 1st game of the season and then gradually get weaker, less powerful, and slower as the games get more important?

Anyways, hopefully you can see that you do not want to lose all the hard work you put in prior to the season and at least try to “maintain” what you worked for.

However I propose an even better idea.

Why not only maintain what you worked for but actually build upon it so you are in even better shape for the playoffs than you were at the start of the year?

I know, crazy right?

But it’s possible!

The only difference between In-Season and Off-Season training is volume. In-Season training requires lower volume (generally meaning less sets or number of training sessions) because of the demands of practices and games.

But you can still have intense workouts in the gym to improve on your strength.

Strength Coach Ben Bruno wrote a blog on ‘The Myth of In-Season Maintenance‘ just last week and it’s a good read. He’s talking about a teenage hockey team but the take home point is the same.

Don’t get worse as the games get more important!

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