In-season training is crucial for all athletes but, every sport has their own unique set of circumstances to work around…

Sorry if I sound like a broken record sometimes but its important to get well planned training sessions in during the season.

This week we will be testing to get numbers on our athletes.  These numbers are the base for our in-season programming.  Please make sure that your athlete is in this week.

Obviously, Im really excited about all of our wrestlers and how they have trained all off-season.  I know that our wrestlers are more prepared than any in NJ.  Every one of them committed to to training hard and they should feel confident about their preparation!  Good luck to all!

Many parents and athletes get confused on the topic so i wrote this article and I pasted it below so hopefully clear up a few things.  Please read as it may clear up any confusion you may have on in-season training.  Also, please ask if you have any questions!

There is a lot of confusion amongst parents and athletes regarding “In-season” training so as fall sports close out and winter sports are about to begin I figured I’d send out an email to all the wrestling parents explaining the challenges and the huge benefits of training in-season.  Im going to try to keep this simple and just list out bullet points of the most important aspects of in-season training and biggest mistakes athletes make.

Rule #1-  Wrestling takes #1 priority in-season.  We don’t want any training sessions to negatively affect the outcome of a wrestling match.  We are training to be our best or “peaking” in late February and early March when matches matter the most not in December.

Rule #2- Training in-season helps prevent injuries by keeping the athletes body strong, powerful, and alert.

Rule #3-  The goal of in-season training is maintain strength and power.  This is especially true for wrestlers who are maintaining or cutting weight!!  With less mass the training has to be on point and very well planned to maintain strength.  Remember that strength is the baseline for all other athletic qualities.  Most athletes make the biggest mistake in that they either try to maintain an off-season training program during the season or they simply say “F It” and don’t do anything.  It takes very little volume to simply maintain strength and power.  However, doing nothing but wrestling and cutting will lead to a deterioration of strength and power very quickly sometimes in a few days.  A properly designed in-season training program will go a long way to finishing the season strong when it matters most.

Rule #4-  Be flexible.  There are many variables that come into play during the season.  With wrestlers the two biggest that we encounter are scheduling and weight cutting.  An athlete might only get 1 workout in so we like to be ready to adjust as needed.  Also, an athlete might have a nagging injury to work out around or they might just be extremely fatigued.  We don’t keep sets, reps, and loads “written in stone”  be able to adjust on the fly depending on the circumstances!

Rule #5-  We stay away from a lot of “eccentric loading”  especially heavy eccentric loading.  Eccentric loading is the scientific way of saying stretching the muscle or lowering the weight with a load.  For example in the bench press it would be the lowering of the bar.  This portion of the exercise is what breaks down the muscle tissue and it also causes soreness.  So during the season we place a greater emphasis on “concentric” muscle contractions.

Rule #6- Plan ahead!  “Failure to plan is planning to fail”.  Scheduling is a big concern in-season with wrestlers more so than other sports.  I tell all the athletes to look ahead at your schedule of matches, practices, and school work and plan accordingly.  Don’t be afraid to come in when your a little sore or tired because we can adjust the training accordingly its better than missing a few weeks!

***Rule #7***- This one isn’t for everybody but for those wrestlers that are amongst the top wrestlers in all of NJ the chances are that you won’t get many if any challenges on the mat through the course of the season.  Many of the top wrestlers in HS probably won’t even be challenged in practice every day unless there is another stud in a close weight class…  The fact that these athletes won’t get pushed to their limits creates a situation that has to be taken into consideration and yet another reason why these wrestlers need to train maybe even harder in-season to keep themselves physically strong and sharp.

As a side-note… every year when the wrestlers start to come back in March and April most of them say “I’m so weak”  or “I’m so out of shape”…  thats not a good thing as they should be peaking at the end of the season when it matters the most!   I hate to see guys enter the season as physical freaks and finish as a shell of themselves from the grind of the season, cutting weight, and not staying strong.

PS:

Don’t forget that we offer an in-season training package where athletes can drop down to a price of $100 per month and this allows them to come in 1-2x a week.  We used to offer this at a 1x a week option and I’ve decided to open it up to 2x a week for weeks when guys don’t have matches or feel like the wanna do an extra work out.  Also, 2x a week training is ideal for an in season wrestling athlete!  New this year… If you can’t make it here just see me and I will write a program for them to do at school after practice 1-2 days per week if needed.  We will send you the program and the athletes can message me videos of their top sets for feedback and coaching.