Optimize your training time

Resistance Train with a Purpose

A common theme that I will bring up with working with athletes is that your training time is valuable.  The goal of training should be achieving the maximal benefit while investing the least amount of time. An athlete, especially a student athlete, has their time and attention spread thin with various demands both related, and not related to their sport.  Along with other demands of training such as technical and tactical training, this limits time available for resistance training.  

How do you make the most of your training time for resistance training?

Specificity of training.

This refers to not only the selection of exercises, which will give the most benefit to the demands of the sport, but also to how the exercises are programmed with rep and set schemes to best achieve the goals for the training cycle. 

Beyond correct exercise selection, how can resistance training be programmed to meet the demands of your sport?

Based on the time of year, in reference to the sports season, different priorities are given to the different goals along the resistance training continuum.  One challenge that comes up, impairing younger athletes’ ability to properly prepare for upcoming seasons, is early specialization.  This includes playing on team(s) year round, potentially leading to overuse injuries.  When training cycles are organized correctly, an athlete is able to appropriately build a strong foundation to help them stay healthy and perform at high-levels throughout the season.

This is called periodization.

During the off-season (if it exists for the athlete), more focus can be placed on building hypertrophy and muscle endurance.  To prioritize hypertrophy and muscle endurance, you are going to have the athlete lift at a lower % of their 1RM with increased reps and sets resulting in a higher repetition volume. When  preseason arrives, you now have a strong foundation and can shift the focus to strength and power with the ability to be more sport-specific.  For this you’re going to increase your load and your rest periods between sets, while decreasing your total repetition volume.

When programmed and executed correctly, at the start of the season, the athlete has reached peak performance with a robust foundation to maintain throughout the season.